Penguins Revised

It was around noon, as Jeffers welcomed the harsh grind and first drag of the day, when he and Mike decided to hide out at the zoo. Jeffers smelled the ripe elephant shit carrying over the zoo walls in the heavy humid air, and he flicked the finished cigarette out the window of his mother’s 1982 Oldsmobile as he stopped next to a meter.
“You got fifty cents, man?” Jeffers asked, digging into the left pocket of his jeans for any quarters among the seven bottle caps from the night before and a day-old tissue.
“Dude, they never check this shit,” Mike said, his hand on the door handle. Just too cheap to pitch in, Jeffers thought as he turned his search efforts to the ashtray full of pennies.
“I would just feel better if I didn’t have to worry about it, you know? I mean, I know they probably won’t check it, but they could, so I would rather just pay it and not have to care, you know?”
Mike rolled his eyes and got out of the car, shaking his head. Slamming the ashtray shut, Jeffers thought, asshole.
He put the only quarter he found into the meter and turned the warm metal knob.
“45 minutes, plenty of time to see the penguins and the hippos or something.” Jeffers pushed the button on his key chain and his mother’s car beeped twice. It didn’t actually have a security system, but Jeffers had found this 20-dollar speaker thing that made it sound like it did, so he bought it for his mother’s birthday.
She didn’t really get it. Still wearing the oversized Tweety Bird shirt she had slept in the night before, she inspected the Viper-con v.3.0 in her slightly fattening hands and tried to sound like she liked it, but Jeffers knew better. He still feels a slight sting of embarrassment every time his mother wears that shirt.
Mike hopped, like some kind of gymnast, over the bar that turns to count every person that enters the zoo and landed on the inside facing Jeffers, who just pushed the bar with his hands to let it count him. He shook his head at Mike, who was waiting for some sign of approval.
“Why are you so lame today, man?” Jeffers just glared into Mike’s eyes as a response and reached into his pocket for the half-smashed pack of Camels.
“Whatever, man,” Mike said.
Half his cigarette was done and a fishy tin smell grew as Jeffers and Mike approached the penguin exhibit. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors. His father stood next to him, talking to a little girl who was holding his pinky finger in the palm of her hand. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said, leaning so he could speak straight into Mike’s ear as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family, the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
A large woman in a wheelchair rolled by, heading towards the monkey house, a man with a fanny pack pushing her.
“You can’t pay for that tire, can you?” Mike asked, leaning with his forearm resting on the railing.
“Of course not, man, of course not.” A spot of bird shit on the black asphalt beneath Jeffers’ feet looked like a raindrop running slowly down a window, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman in a khaki, button-down shirt began, and Jeffers lowered himself from the rail.
The simulated Antarctic air behind the glass doors pinched Jeffers’ bare arms as he stepped onto the gray stone ground inside.
A hollow echo of squeaking shoes, voices and the deep hum of the air conditioner droned under the black rafter sky and between the smooth stone walls.
A small penguin stooped on one of the stones poking out above the line of people moving through, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its mouth. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing Mike in the ribs, Jeffers said, “Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the king penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecs, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was only about three inches below the glass, so the stench of penguin went straight into the back of Jeffers’ nostrils. He tightened the muscles in his face for a few seconds as he adjusted to the smell — a mixture of cold salmon and morning breath. Ten or so penguins huddled on the flat rock landing on the other shore of the pool. The larger ones stood in the middle and didn’t move at all. They didn’t seem to need to. Others waddled slowly around the circle, going nowhere in particular.
Jeffers heard a splash and Mike smacked him in the arm and pointed.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this other one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he bent backwards, and Jeffers realized that he was kind of a lanky guy.
“No, dammit. I missed it. Oh shit, look at this one. It’s so close.” A penguin on the surface of the water kept perfectly still as it drifted next to the glass. Not a single ripple left its pitch-black body.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said, looking Jeffers straight in the eye.
And Jeffers did.
He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s skin. The tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and slimy water gathered on his fingertips as the penguin flowed under his touch as though he were not even there.