by John Warner
There are no exceptions, ever.
After he finishes reading the memo, Walter initials the bottom, indicating that he has understood and does not need or want further clarification, and will comply with its wishes.
Jane loves Walter in a deep and abiding way. Walter is also deeply in love with Jane, but neither of them knows this about the other, thinking (for different reasons) that the other could never possibly be interested in them, which is a shame, but not uncommon in today’s world.
Digging fingers into the thin office shag, the Visiting Dignitary yelps, and tries to climb farther under his chair as the flaps on the 8:23 thud into landing position. The Zoo Director shouts something, perhaps helpful, at the Visiting Dignitary, but cannot be heard above the din. From the office floor, the Visiting Dignitary looks up at Zoo Director Watkins with the moist and pleading eyes of someone who is certain that a jet airplane is about to land on top of him.
Walter reads the second memo from Marketing:
We have given the aforementioned “lemur” glut some further thought and we are very pleased with ourselves. Very pleased indeed.
Henceforth, the “lemur” balloon will now be renamed and sold not as a “lemur,” but as a mutant “monkey-fox” created through genetic mutation triggered by high doses of radiation. Upon inflation, all “monkey-fox” balloons should now be decorated with the attached “lightning bolt” stickers.
Sighing, Walter initials the bottom.
The impossible shriek of moving parts working hard, working fast to keep a heavy object aloft, reaches its peak as the 8:23 passes over the Zoo Director’s office. Zoo Director Watkins comes around the desk, kneels beside the Visiting Dignitary, puts an arm around his shoulders, and shouts into his ear: Do not be alarmed! From this close, they all sound like they’re going to crash! But they never do! At least not yet! Maybe someday, though!
The Visiting Dignitary nods. He touches his ear where the Zoo Director’s warm breath has landed. He tries his hardest to believe.
Walter reads the day’s last memo from marketing:
On Tuesdays, until notified further, all balloons will be inflated to 15PSI, which, it should be noted, is 3PSI higher than the normally recommended 12PSI.
There are no exceptions, ever.
As Walter initials the bottom, he thinks about Dr. Thornwood, Jane, and of course the talented penguin and that evening’s plan that he and Jane have made together.
The plane passes over in a final, thundering whoosh, and in the relative silence of its wake, the Zoo Director’s phone rings. Zoo Director Watkins nods and listens for a moment before holding the receiver out to the Visiting Dignitary as though he wishes to be strangled with the cord.
To the Visiting Dignitary the perturbed voice says: Get off the floor. Now! You know why. Get a hold of yourself. Do you have your scissors?
Rolling on the floor, the Visiting Dignitary pats his suit pockets, searching frantically for his scissors.
This is how the day begins at the bad zoo.
In nature, the ibex (a kind of wild goat with transversely ridged, re-curved horns that populates the high mountains of Asia Minor) is not known to cough. In fact, as they live in the wild as members of the ibex pack—scrambling across cragged peaks to forage for meals of moss or lichen—the ibex has never been observed coughing, but as the bad zoo’s ibex stands perched at the apex of its artificially constructed mountain, it watches the 11:34 circle into alignment for approach and landing and begins to chuffle, just a little, under its breath.
Walter gingerly hands the 15PSI cheetah to a fat-faced boy, who in turn gives Walter a sticky penny. The boy’s mother sits nearby, slumped on a bench, tilted slightly sideways. The cheetah, bulging and bloated, stares over the boy’s shoulder at Walter as the boy weaves back to his weary mother, both hands clutched around the balloon’s string.
All sales are final! Walter calls after the boy, cupping his hand to his mouth to be better heard over the plane. No warranties or guarantees!
Hearing the words just vaguely, the boy turns back to Walter, and in so doing, trips…
In her lab, Jane, nearly disappeared inside a storage closet, digs underneath bags of wet and moldy wood shavings until she finds the bolt cutters.
As the 11:34 pulls closer, the ibex coughs even harder, then ducks its head to its shoulder, coughing still, and begins to tremble.
The boy falls, and the balloon pops. The boy cries from the startle of the balloon bursting as he rubs his slightly hurt knee.
In the office, the Visiting Dignitary squeezes his finally found scissors and cowers now from the passing 11:34. Zoo Director Watkins closes his eyes, tilts back in his chair, and remembers the warm crackle on the line during his transatlantic call and the gruff and foreign voice on the other end giving affirmative answers to questions spoken in careful code. Pictures of swarthy men packing Stinger missiles in straw-filled crates, fashioned from unfinished wood, run through his head.
Landing gear grinding into locked position, the 11:34 passes overhead. An easy shot, he thinks. The Zoo Director smiles at the Visiting Dignitary, who asks: Is it not time?
Zoo Director Watkins nods. Soon, soon, he thinks.
The ibex’s tremble progresses to a shake, and soon, spasms.
Dr. Thornwood, Jane, folds a fresh blanket and places it next to the bolt cutters as she haphazardly dictates her postmortem report for the most recently deceased lynx:
Sectioning and sample analysis of the major organs and tissues indicate that the subject suffered from near saturation of the petrochemical alkaloids, chlorides, and petroalkachlorides, causing total system shutdown. It is difficult to determine the origin for the subsequent organ failure, but circulation analysis indicates that most likely, the heart was the last to go.
You see, ma’am… Walter says to the fat-faced child’s mother as she fans a small wad of limp bills before him. I’d have to charge you $45 for the second balloon, that’s just as clear as day in the memo—no guarantees and no warranties—but what I’m going to do here in a moment is take a lunch break where I’ll sit elsewhere, well away from the tank and the balloons, which due to my inexplicable oversight, will stay here, unguarded. Do you see what I’m saying?
The woman shrugs and shakes her head and points to the sky. The plane, it is too loud.
The 11:34 honks out a final belch of exhaust as it passes over Ibex Mountain. The ibex turns its head skyward and flares its nostrils at the tangy scent of wasted jet fuel and coughs even harder, from deeper in the lungs.
Trying a different approach, Walter gestures at the woman. He points at his watch, then holds his fingers very slightly apart before jerking a thumb over his shoulder, which he follows with exaggerated chewing motions. Walter then slaps the helium tank and shakes the balloon and points points points at the ground with both hands.
Yes! the woman shouts. She holds the sniveling child’s hand and jumps in place.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
It’s time now, Zoo Director Watkins says to the Visiting Dignitary, who rises, clicks his scissors, open then shut, and checks his suit buttons for the hundredth time.
The ibex takes one final, wracked breath, and in a clatter of horns and hooves tumbles down the artificial escarpment.
Zoo Director Watkins prepares to deliver his speech, wingmanned by the Visiting Dignitary, who holds his scissors poised over the red ribbon, waiting for the signal. The Visiting Dignitary concentrates on keeping his hand steady and his attention firmly on the Zoo Director’s words so he may fulfill his obligation when he is called upon to do so.
Responding to some unknown cue, the group of thirty or so penguins leap from their white-painted concrete ledge into the water and swirl around the plexiglas tank for a few minutes before zipping from the water, back to the ledge, shaking feathers dry, and massing for a good stare at the arctic scene painted on the rear wall.
One of the penguins, the talented one, remains behind in the water, and is watched by Walter and Jane
as they discuss that evening’s plan.
You have everything? Walter asks.
Yes.
Are the cutters sharp? Is the blanket big enough?
Yes, Jane says. Yes.
Walter blushes as Jane softly brushes his hand.
The woman first fills a dozen or so cheetah balloons and ties them around the child’s wrist, then turns to the panda balloons, another dozen or so, and ties this bunch to the child’s other wrist, after which she stands, hands on hips, and surveys her boy.
Zoo Director Watkins has mostly forgotten what he was supposed to say, but says something anyway: Here, in our zoo, today, ummm… this afternoon, we are so very, so pleased to announce the opening and dedication of our new habitat, uhhh, our new habitat in which we will have prairie dogs, I mean… our new prairie dog habitat.
Zoo Director Watkins looks out and tries a weak smile before mustering the resolve to continue. We have taken pains…
The mother thumbs a smudge from the child’s cheek. The animal balloons tied to his wrists bobble in the breeze as the woman bends and hefts her child. Light as a feather, she thinks.
The talented penguin arcs through the water, performing twisting loops, spirals, and rolls that make Walter and Jane look at each other and laugh.
Walter sits forward on the bench and presses his hand to the glass. He’s good, isn’t he?
Very.
What will we do afterwards?
We haven’t thought that far, have we?
Should we?
No.
It won’t stop us.
Right.
Right.
Walter turns to Jane and puts his hand on her knee. I just did something, for someone, he says. She moves closer and listens.
The woman ties the last of the animal balloons to the child’s belt loops before taking out a lipstick and drawing two magenta arcs under each of his eyes and a downward-pointing triangle on the boy’s brow. She angles the lightning bolt stickers down his cheeks and teases the child’s hair until it stands straight, as though he’s been shocked. Gripping the boy by the shoulders, the mother says what she said not so long ago as she watched in wonder while the child hauled himself up on the corner of the old, chipped end table (you know the one) and charged toward her with his great stamping feet and windmilling wild arms, his mouth open at the sheer surprise, at the audacity and daring of this act… this walking, and the mother clapped and shouted until finally, swallowing her child in her arms she said: Look at my beautiful boy! My beautiful, beautiful world-beater boy!
He’s wonderful, Jane says.
Do you think he does it for us?
Yes. That is why we do things for others, to be noticed.
I am noticing you, Walter says.
Sweating heavily, tortured by the crowd that looks at him strangely, Zoo Director Watkins wipes his brow with his sleeve and has still another go: What I’m telling you is that in a couple minutes, when that truck over there backs up and drops its tailgate and unleashes those prairie dogs, those doggies are going to find not only the finest replicated mid-western prairie soil that science can give us and money can buy, but some really amazing tunnels, half a mile of tunnels, twisty ones, just like the prairie dogs like. We’ve taken real pains here, I mean, I’ve seen maps…
There is a disturbance, and the crowd turns away from the Zoo Director.
The Visiting Dignitary shades his eyes with his hand and squints at the small figure that floats toward them.
The mother watches her child drift and claps and shouts over and over: My boy! my boy! my boy!
People point and murmur as the boy passes just overhead. Some jump and try to grab his feet. They fail. The Visiting Dignitary grips his scissors like a dagger and gauges the figure’s approach, evaluates the potential threat. Zoo Director Watkins looks from the boy to the Visiting Dignitary clutching the scissors and simultaneously ducks (successfully) and tries (in vain) to grab the Visiting Dignitary’s arm.
All the while the talented penguin swims and swims, and finally zooms toward the glass and touches where Walter and Jane press their hands. The talented penguin then jumps from the water, dances a quick jig from foot to foot, and extends a wing toward Walter and Jane, bowing its head just a bit.
Walter and Jane applaud until their hands hurt while behind them, the Zoo Custodian whistles to himself in low tones as he wheels the ibex by on a handcart, one hoof poking out from beneath a canvas shroud.
This is how the day ends at the bad zoo.
In his small apartment, the Visiting Dignitary stares at the gravy from his TV turkey dinner as it sloshes over into the applesauce compartment. The phone is unplugged; his suit sits balled in the corner.
Zoo Director Watkins rolls his head around his shoulders, shaking off this particular awful day, from a string of awful days; then, locked and loaded, but with safety on, he begins to climb Ibex Mountain.
Wielding the bolt cutters, Walter chews through the chain-link fence at the penguin compound. Jane carries the blanket stuffed beneath her jacket. Nearby, the custodian wheels his trash bin down the path, pausing to turn up the soft strains of mariachi music coming from his transistor radio. Jane leans over to check Walter’s progress, causing her hair to fall across her shoulders and into Walter’s face.
Unable to stem the gravy tide with his fork, the Visiting Dignitary eats the applesauce out of order and quickly, before it is ruined completely.
Oh, sorry, Jane says, fingering the hair back behind an ear. I’m cursed with this fine hair, just like my mother and her mother before that. If they live long enough, the women in our family wind up practically bald. I remember this one aunt who couldn’t go out in the summer without a hat on for fear of burning…
It’s OK, Walter says. I’m nervous too.
Arm splinted to his chest, soothed by the narcotics, the boy sleeps in his hospital room, mouth open and snoring. In a chair beside the bed, the boy’s mother sleeps as well. Her hand rests across the child’s middle. The television shows a program where a man takes pies in the face over and over again.
I was fired, Walter says as he holds the clipped fencing back for Jane.
Don’t worry, I make a good wage, Jane says softly in return, slipping carefully through the opening.
The Visiting Dignitary brings the TV dinner tray to his face and licks each compartment—turkey with gravy, lima beans mixed with corn, applesauce, and finally peach brown betty—clean, and mutters to himself over and over: These are the fruits of our labor, these are the fruits of our labor. I shall not want. These are the fruits of our labor.
Out of breath, the Zoo Director straddles the peak of Ibex Mountain and swings the shoulder-mounted launcher into place. The night sky has been wiped free of stars by the bright city lights, and as he flips the scope down, he has little difficulty sighting the red and green blinkers of the 10:21. Late as usual, he thinks. The plane nearly fills the crosshairs as the Zoo Director tries to control his breathing.
As a boy, the Zoo Director had a slingshot, a good one given him by a young uncle who admonished his nephew not to tell his mother as he slipped it into the back pocket of the boy’s jeans. For weeks, the Zoo Director sneaked from the house to plunk bottles and cans from stumps and ledges with whizzing shots of carefully chosen pebbles. His aim was very good. Deadeye, he called himself.
The talented penguin is waiting for them as Walter cuts the cage lock and Jane swings the door open. Jane bends down and holds the blanket wide, and the talented penguin hops into her arms.
Walter smiles broadly as he wipes the bolt cutters clean of prints and drops them to the floor. OK then, he says.
With a broom for his partner, the custodian clicks his heels in time to the mariachi music and dances as he sweeps into a small mound rubber shards that once were animal balloons.
Heads swiveling, senses alert, Walter and Jane hustle from the grounds. The penguin is swaddled in the blanket, clutched to Jane’s chest.
Jane says, He’
s so warm—feel.
She stops, and Walter touches the bundle.
Whoa! he says, pulling his hand back and then touching again.
Yes. We must go. But where must we go? Walter asks. Jane hands the bundled penguin to Walter.
Follow.
When the Zoo Director was a boy, a large crow lived atop a bowed phone wire in the alley behind his home. The crow terrified the young Zoo Director, shrieking and beating its wings every time he would pass the garbage cans that served as the crow’s well-stocked cupboard. Daily, as the Zoo Director tried a shortcut through the alley on the way to school, or the ball field, or to chase the chime of the ice cream wagon, the crow would swoop down, forcing the Zoo Director to turn back and take the long way around, causing him to be late, to miss important things.
Walter, Jane, and the penguin sit in the diner, cupping warm mugs of cocoa in their hands or flippers. The penguin looks from Walter to Jane and back again with his dark, unblinking eyes.
Where shall we start? Walter wonders.
Jane looks at the penguin and says: Always stick to the crosswalks and look both ways first, and when the light’s yellow, you must hurry to the other side. Green means go; red means stop. After preparing uncooked chicken, wipe down surfaces thoroughly, and do not reuse utensils without first washing. For meat, use a good thermometer to check for doneness. In a close game, with a runner on third and less than two outs, you must bring the infield in.
The penguin keeps its eyes on Jane as it dips its beak to the cocoa.
The crow took tiny, mincing steps across the phone wire and weaved its head as the Zoo Director, one eye shut, took his aim. He had selected a largish stone with one rounded and one jagged edge. It looked lethal to him. He fitted the stone in the slingshot’s pouch, pulled his arm back, and released in a single motion, and just like that, the crow fell from the wire and spiraled to the ground.