Tiger, Tiger: A Short Story Read online

Tiger, Tiger.

  By Rebecca K. O’Connor

  Copyright 2011 by Rebecca K. O’Connor

  Cover design by Rebecca K. O’Connor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright owner except for brief quotations used in critical articles or review

  ~

  Tiger, Tiger.

  “Jesus. Get him off. Get him off stage,” Sabrina says as she drags me toward the wing and I think she’s screaming, but I’m trying to hear Koenraad over the yells and stomping of the audience, mobilized and heading for the exits. Koenraad howls, “The cat. Where the fuck is the cat? Someone tell me Rajah’s locked up back there! Answer me!”

  I don’t hear an answer, but I can hear the deep rumbles of the tigers in the back, pacing and agitated. Their booming calls from the holding area sound like feeding time. I think Rajah must be back there with them, locked up and smelling like my blood. He was leaping away in that direction when my neck shook free from his teeth.

  “Shit. Shit. I have to stop this. I’m going to have put pressure on your throat, Pieter.” Sabrina is leaning into my neck, the weight from her small hands making it even harder to breathe. “I’m sorry, Pieter. God, you can’t lose any more blood. Keep lookin’ at me. Come on, don’t close your eyes.”

  I’m staring up, trying to focus when Koenraad comes back. “I told you Pieter. Godverdomme! I told you that cat had it out for you. He was watching you, waiting for you to make a mistake.”

  “No, Pieter. Don’t close your eyes. Stay with us. Think of somethin’ nice. Remember somethin’ nice. The paramedics are coming.” Sabrina’s voice is calm, but I can make out the sharpness of her fear. She’ll never become a master tiger trainer if she doesn’t learn to control that.

  ~

  “We’re going to get all the babes we want now,” Koenraad said. He stretched his arms out, squeezing an orange in each hand to punctuate the possibilities.

  “Babes? You’ve been watching too much American movies,” I said. “Is that all you can think about, Koenraad? De koffer induiken? We could get killed.”

  “We could get killed bringing down the tent.” Koenraad shrugged and dug a thumbnail into one of the oranges. “Like Jan Van Djick, remember?”

  “I can outrun a tent pole, but not a tiger. No girl is gonna look at a scrawny 15 year old Johny anyway.”

  “It’s better than being a roustabout,” Koenraad retorted.

  I sighed and slipped another orange wedge into my mouth, sucking the juice and swallowing without chewing. I had already eaten halfway through my third orange. Koenraad was working on his fourth. They were our Christmas oranges; we still had three more to share between us and would wish there were more when we finished. Once the sweet tang of the fruit had been licked from even the corners of our lips, the Netherlands winter would creep back in through our nose and mouths, owning us again. We knew this, but it didn’t slow us down.

  “Do you ever think we shouldn’t have run off?” Koenraad asked as he kept chewing. I could tell he was already missing the taste of citrus. “Do you think we would be having bitterballen, roast goose and asparagus today? Maybe we would be eating sneeuwballen and hot chocolate instead of oranges.”

  “Nah. We would be digging through the cupboards for something in a can. Your mother would have been too drunk this week to remember to buy the goose. She’d be passed out by the fire right now. My aunt and uncle would have left me to go to my cousins’ in France. We’re lucky to have oranges.”

  “You’re right. Nobody misses us, really,” Koenraad said and shook his head disagreeing with himself. “My mom will, though. She’ll see me someday when the Renz Circus comes through Middelburg and find me after the show. I’ll look her in the face and ask if I know her.”

  “The circus doesn’t go through Middelburg,” I retorted.

  “Maybe she’ll read a newspaper article.”

  “She doesn’t read the newspaper, they cost money and she needs all the money she can get to buy—”

  “Well maybe she’ll stop drinking,” Koenraad’s snapped. His dark eyes were narrowed into smoldering slits.

  “Maybe.” I knew better and knew Koenraad did too. For the moment I was glad that both my parents were dead.

  We finished the last few slices of orange in silence and separation, hating that we needed our friendship. We licked our fingers until there was nothing to taste but the salt of our skin and Koenraad said, “Let’s go inside Piet, I’m cold.”

  ~

 

  Hans Weider was the number one tiger trainer, not just for the Herman Renz Circus, but everywhere. He could have worked for Ringling Brothers in the United States. I heard he got offers from them all the time. I don’t know why he wouldn’t leave. I just know that one day he was watching Koenraad and me breaking down the meal tent and the next day we were brushing tiger cubs with boar bristle brushes, feeling their rumbling content beneath our fingers.

  “It helps to bond with them when they’re young,” Hans nodded. “When they get a little older, then you show them who’s in charge.” I was wondering why this was a good idea, but Koenraad’s eyes were cloudy with the future and the soft happy set of his mouth kept my own shut.

  Koenraad and I no longer had to travel ahead and behind the circus, building and breaking down. We followed the tigers, cleaning the holdings each morning, scrutinizing Hans’ every motion in the ring, feeding the cats after the show, snapping each other with the whips when the other had his back turned. We were journeymen again in a trade worth learning, but I didn’t like the way the tigers looked at me and I didn’t like the way Hans looked at me either.

  “Koen, you’re doing a fine job working with that cub. Keep it up. Piet, come with me. I need to talk to you,” Hans said.

  Hans led me back to his trailer, settled me onto a cushioned bench and lit a cigar. “Let’s be realistic here, Piet. Koen doesn’t have your talent, but I know you two are inseparable.”

  “No. You’re wrong, sir,” I stammered. “I mean yes, Koen and I are like brothers, but I’m not as good with the tigers. They make me nervous. Koenraad loves them.”

  “But the tigers love you.” Hans set down his cigar. “Would you like a drink, Pieter?” He dug a bottle of rum out of his cupboard along with a couple of glasses.

  “Okay.” I didn’t think I did want a drink, but was terrified that I would offend him.

  “I don’t think Koenraad is going to work out as a trainer.” Hans found some ice and poured us both generous glasses.

  “It’s both of us or neither of us, sir.” I pulled my arms across my chest, trying to look resolute.

  “I see,” Hans said. “Then you understand that you need to truly make this worth my while.” He sat down nearly on top of me, handing me my drink and leaning back in his seat so he wouldn’t seem so close. I took a sip, sucking in my cheeks so I wouldn’t grimace or cough and met his gaze. He was a striking man, not so much handsome as impossible not to stare at from a distance. I had heard that he took a different woman back to this trailer after every performance. I wondered if he offered them a drink as well and examined them with the same intense pale of his blue eyes, hair falling messily to his shoulders, accentuating the lines that led to the muscles in his arms. I drained half my glass in an effort to relieve his stare.

  “Good lad,” Hans purred. He squeezed my knee and took a sip of his own glass. “You’re going to be spectacular, when you grow to fill in the costume. The tigers will never be able to resist your charm. Neither will anyone else.” He lifted my chin with his fingers, smiling. “I always wanted eyes your sort of dark blue. Mine
disappear on the stage.”

  “Thank you, sir.” We both took another sip from our glass. I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

  “I think you can make this worth my efforts, Pieter. I hope you’re willing.” His hand slid up my thigh and settled on my crotch. He stroked me with gentle fingers and smiled into his glass. I felt my dick swell and ache confined beneath my jeans and knew I was blushing. I thought to myself, “I don’t want this.” But Hans put down his glass and brushed my jaw line with his other hand.

  “You will have everything if you listen to me. You are talented and handsome and are already making me proud. You are exactly what I want for an apprentice.” He squeezed my dick and I gasped, setting down my rum. “No. No. Finish it.” And he began to unbutton my jeans.

  “What would you do if one of the tigers killed me?”

  “Ah man, rot toch op,” I cursed and I took another drink of my beer. One of the young tigers had smacked him twice across the chin, forgetting to keep in his claws. Koenraad had a perfect bloody x where a cleft might be.

  “I’ll tell you what I would do. I would shoot the moederneuker. That cat would never touch anyone again,” Koen said.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I slammed my beer down, leaving it foaming over the mouth. “If I got killed by a cat it would be my fault.”

  “And the cat would try it again with someone else.”

  “It would still be my fault.” I rubbed my forehead with the heels of my palms. “Look, Hans doesn’t know everything. He’s too rough with the cats sometimes. If you’re going to fight to be ‘king of the hill’ the second you’re open, you’re going to get knocked down. That’s not the tiger’s fault.”

  “You’re my brother, Pieter, as close to one as I have, anyway. I would kill that cat. I would shoot it in its cage with my shotgun and no one would say a word.” His dark eyes were milky with his sincerity. I reached out and grabbed his arm gently.

  “No, Koenraad, promise me. You will never kill a cat because of me,” I pleaded. He shook his head and I squeezed his arm hard. “Promise.”

  “Okay,” Koenraad agreed. He yanked away from me and threw up his arms. “Okay.” He took another sip of his beer. “I’ll build the tiger a palace and feed it small children to satiate its taste for human blood.”

  I laughed and picked my beer back up. “Fine, Koen, as long as you don’t kill it.”

  Hans was right. After two years of tiger training, Koenraad and I both had the ropey muscles and broad shoulders built on taming tigers and shoveling their shit. Koen though, stood ten centimeters taller than me and his lashes had become so thick that he only had to blink and smile to convince a girl to follow him back to our trailer for a drink. He didn’t think twice about doing this on a regular basis, because he knew I spent so many late nights “talking tigers” with Hans. Hans didn’t bother with women as much anymore. I wished he would, but at least Koen never questioned my long hours with Hans. He believed what I said about not being a “natural” trainer like him and needing more mentorship, about not wanting to ruin the good life we were making for ourselves as a team. We were going to be The Dutch Brothers, the most famous tiger trainers in the world, but for now, Hans was taking good care of us.

  At last we were working the big cats onstage, not just hustling props and holding out cubs sedated with cough syrup for little girls to pet after the show. This meant hours of training in the afternoons. Hans insisted that the cats be cowed and exhausted before the night’s performance.

 

  “Kut! Did you not see that, Pieter?” Hans roared. He cuffed my ear with a growl that set the tigers on edge and lunged at the big male I was working. Shooting a blank from his pistol he charged, the whip snapped and advanced with him. The cat cowered but his anger reverberated through the room. He was coiling up, going to spring, his fear barely containing his rage. Hans kept pushing, bullying with the whip and his yelling. Then the tiger bowed and leapt, his claws extended, head dodging the whip. The tiger sliced a clean line down the front of Hans. As Hans dropped the whip and reached for the metal pipe on his belt, the neat rip in his shirt bloomed into an uncontainable red stain that colored his chest and filled the room with its instinct-churning smell. Koenraad and I shared a frightened glance and then quickly demanded the other cats back to their holding.

  When we returned Hans was still pounding on the tiger’s skull with the metal pipe. The ring of the metal and cursing which we could hear from the holding had ebbed into sick thuds, moans and growls. The tiger was bleeding in several torn spots on its skull. Its mouth opening to snarl, we saw where the pipe had snapped a canine and shattered the teeth surrounding it. The cat tried to stand and wobbled, wailing its surrender. I grabbed Hans by his arm, yelled at Koenraad to get the cat out. The tiger could barely follow Koen, but he forced it as best he could to move faster and get out of there. The cat left blood spray from his shaking head and a spreading puddle of piss in his wake. I let go of Hans’ arm, tried to refill my lungs and not breathe in the smell of a lost battle.

  “The cat challenged you and you backed down,” Hans hissed.

  “No. It wasn’t a challenge,” I said.

  “And because I had to fight your battle for you, I got raked!” Hans motioned to his seeping chest and lifted the pipe back into the air. As it came hurtling toward my head, I raised my arm and thought, “I know now what the tigers know.” Then I felt the crunch of my arm bone in a shockwave through my skeleton and thought about nothing but the pain.

  “Oh God, what have I done?” Hans cried. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to me. “I’m sorry, Pieter. Oh sweet sweet boy, I am so sorry.”

  He pressed against me, his breath in short bursts on my face like a feline chuffing for forgiveness. He pulled my hand away from my damaged arm and wailed at the unnatural angle. “What have I done?”

  I wanted to push him away with the soles of feet or bite down on his cheek and taste his blood, but I could only think past the pain in bursts. He had my head in his arms and was kissing my forehead, each eye, the length of my jaw, begging for forgiveness and cursing my stupidity.

  Then I saw Koenraad standing a few feet away his face paled, eyes rounded with fright, and his mouth hardened into understanding and disgust. We locked eyes and stared at one another unblinking until Hans noticed my body and face were rigid and turned to look as well.

  “Get the doctor, Koenraad. He’s broken his arm. Hurry!” Hans commanded.

  Koenraad looked back and forth between us for a moment until my eyes dropped to my damaged arm, then he left.

  ~

  I scratched at the spongy skin beneath the plaster on my arm with a piece of wire and sighed. The cast was coming off in two days and I wondered if Koenraad was sorry about that.

  “Look at this. Who wouldn’t want me?” Koenraad said. He shoved the newspaper clipping under my nose too close to read and I snatched it from him, knowing I had no choice but to examine it and comment.

  “Since when has anyone ever said no, Koen?” I sighed. He did look amazing, standing tall and as untamable as the tigers behind him. In black and white his dark features were even sharper against his pale skin.

  “It says I will likely be the next generation, apprentice to Hans Weider’s tiger regime. It says I have the potential to be the best ever and that the ladies love me.” He nudged me in the ribs, yanking the article back and strode away chuckling. “Prince of the Tiger Regime.”

  “Yeah, but the queen’s not coming for you,” I whispered.

  That night I watched him work on stage with three tigers, Mina, Kaatje, and Luytje. He drew the audience in with his grin and rough yells to the tigers who behaved like perfect ladies. He looked impossibly male, all muscle in his form-fitting silver and black costume. Then I caught Hans looking into the ring with a tiny smile and far away eyes. I shivered and I knew I needed to get back out there. Then I needed to find a way to get Koenraad and me anywhere but the Herman Renz.
/>   ~

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said.

  “What?” Koenraad looked up from his Heineken suspiciously, but not without interest. I had been watching him scan the approaching audience every night after the show. He usually found a pretty to girl to interest him, but always seemed disappointed. I kept my mouth closed like I didn’t notice, but tonight he seemed especially depressed. He hadn’t even picked out a griet for the night and I thought this was the moment to spring my idea on him.

  “What would you think about going to South Africa?” I asked.

  “South Africa?” he replied suspiciously.

  “There’s a new casino. Wouter told me about it, gave me a flyer and said they were looking for shows. So I called them. They want a tiger show. It’s not much money to start, but they said they would finance the facility and the cats. If the show does well then we do too. We just have to get there.”

  “Why did Wouter tell you about this?” Koen asked. He was rocking his feet and watching the little puffs of dust rising from beneath his arches.

  “I have been looking,” I said. I considered his sadness for a moment. “You know gambling is huge there, people coming from all over the world to throw away money and be entertained. If we do well everyone will know about us.”

  He stopped rocking and I continued. “We’d have to be careful. You never know who might show up looking for us after we’re famous.”

  “You think?” Koen asked brightly. He raised his head, considering. Then he stood up and stretched his arms out, “Everyone will know and love the fabulous tiger training Dutch Brothers!”

  “What’s this about?” Hans growled as he ground out a cigarette and glowered at us. We glanced at each other, wondering how long he had been standing there.

  “We’re leaving the Renz.” Koen replied. He chugged the last of his beer, tossing the bottle against the bricks and shattering it in broken glass revelry. “We’re gone.”