Woodrow Wilson Nickel
In the year 2025, Woodrow Wilson Nickel attained the ripe old age of 105. He will not live to see 2026 or his next birthday. Upon his demise inside his final resting place in the mortal world, a VA hospital, a treasure trove of handwritten notebooks by “Woody” is discovered which details his youthful adventure driving two giraffes across the country to the San Diego Zoo.
The basic fact of this story is historical fact. Woody Nickel is the fictional narrator through whose eyes the cross-country has been recreated. Woody has always stoically maintained that the story wasn’t worth writing down because it didn’t really matter. His change of mind and decision to begin committing his memory to paper is stimulated by three things: his age, hearing a man on TV say that giraffes will soon become extinct and that looking into the face of a giraffe is like seeing the face of God.
Woody’s memories become the narrative putting flesh and blood on the bare bones of the historical headline. Woody’s version is a coming-of-age tale for himself, a travelogue of America on the verge of finally emerging from the relentless misery of the Great Depression, and a portrait of how weird little stories managed to viral across the world long before the invention of social media.
Riley Jones
Riley Jones is generally referred to by Woody as the Old Man. Woody’s introduction of Riley is one of the more memorably composed in recent years as he describes him as a “leathery old man with a face like a mule.” The Old Man is actually the zookeeper who has been dispatched from San Diego to be officially in charge of the considerable task of getting two giraffes from New York City’s harbor all across the entire expanse of America and to their new home.
The real trick in carrying out this job is not getting the giraffes to San Diego, of course. Almost anyone could do that. What makes the job seems impossible is that Riley is expected to get the animals there safely, not just alive, but healthy. Considering he must do this in a ramshackle truck slapped together to contain them twenty years before construction of the Eisenhower Interstate System even begins, little wonder that he is initially skeptical about handing over the driving responsibilities to a 17-year-old kid. Woody has been stalking the giraffe transport from behind, but when the original driver Riley hires gets bitten and takes a powder, Woody sees his opportunity and takes his chance.
For the most part, the two work together toward the common purpose of getting the giraffes safely to San Diego, but conflict inevitably arises over economics. The Old Man cares only about the future of the animals, but as a dirt-poor teenager whose only memories are living through the Depression, Woody’s inability to turn down the temptation of making a quick buck by sacrificing the giraffes to a corrupt circus owner strains the father/son bond and threatens to end not just their relationship but the job the whole world expects them to complete.
Mrs. Augusta Red and Mr. Big Reporter
Variously referred to as Augusta Red, Augusta, or just plain Red, she claims to be a photographer assigned by Life Magazine to follow the giraffes on their trek across the country. It is entirely possible, however, that she is just a freelance professional photographer who is following the giraffes on their trek across the country claiming to be on assignment for Life Magazine. It may just be entirely possible that Augusta or Red or whatever her name is nothing more than an amateur photographer looking to make a name for herself with Life Magazine by following the giraffes on their trek across the country.
Woody is instantly besotted with her and willing to do just about any stupid thing imaginable to impress her. The Old Man is suspicious of Red and anxious about just how stupid Woody is capable of being in his desperate attempt to come between Red and Lionel Abraham Lowe aka Mr. Big Reporter aka Red’s husband.
Red is not just captivating to Woody due to her fiery mane, but also because she is the first woman he’s ever seen wearing trousers. The pants are symbolic; Red is a portrait of the coming emancipation of women from the kitchen and into the workplace. Still, she is married and, what’s more, discovers she is pregnant. And, truth be told, Woody actually has good reason to fantasize about stealing her affection from her husband. Years later, as a soldier returned home from the war, Woody will discover that every once in a while jerkiness is sometimes just a manifestation of unimagined complexity.
Wild Boy and Wild Girl
The two giraffes being conveyed across the entirety of the United States have had a rough trip from Africa so far. They just barely managed to survive being shipped aboard a ship that sailed straight into a hurricane. And then when they finally reached New York, they must face the daunting task of somehow surviving the cross-country trip in a vehicle designed by amateurs, being driven by amateurs, and with no access to any aspect of life within the normal life experience of their species.
