The Dragon And The Tiger-Bob Gets His W.I.S.H.
Lawrence Peters

 

She had wanted the washer-dryer. She had said it in the car on the way to the gameshow. She said it ten times the number the national deficit is, and Bob had pulled over at the Howard Hughes Memorial rest area to stuff in his airport-grade field-tested earplugs before he continued on. She'd had it up to almost two thousand something by then and boy'd they'd had a ways to go. Ask the Question. Go ahead, I know you want to. What had prompted Bob to defy a lifetime of living a life with the Dragon? A satori. A special moment of spiritual clarity; a clearing of vision. He saw his chance and knew it was the last time he'd get a chance. As the Dragon repeated her own mantra he was in bliss now, and nothing could stop the song that sang in his heart.
In their thirty years (centuries? Einstein was right) together, for once, he was getting what he wanted, damn the Dragon, damn the washer-dryer, he was getting what he wanted. He'd stood on a soundstage with people screaming around him, host pumping his hand. He'd picked right. He'd picked eeny, not miney or moe. And he shocked them all into silence when he said, "I don't want it." A wail was heard from the Dragon. But the host, startled, asked him what he wanted. "That." He pointed. It was the joke prize, the kind of big baby-man on a donkey thing from "Let's Make a Deal." It was a fat lady with a tiger cub. Shocked silence as this was contemplated. The mentality was predictably low. It shocked them back into laughter. "Not her. The Baby." Realizing where this was going, they rolled the credits. They hustled him offstage, the host undoing his tie, muttering "a nut" and the crowd still screaming, then dying away as they realized the cameras were off. He took his chance. He'd made his choice. He pointed to his contract and to the TV camera. They blinked. He blinked. They blinked back. He did not blink back.
They gave him what he wanted.
Bob got his wish.

Favorite chair set out on the expanse of lawn, semi-often mowed, six pack o' beer at his feet chilling, Bob waited for the plume that would tell him that it was coming. He had the who and what but the when was waiting. He waited also for the magic time that the Dragon would shut up. Thoughts of the Dragon made him grab another beer out.

"I married a girl once. She was sweet and quiet and peaceful, life was sweet, quiet and peaceful... then I wake up one morning, I'd married a baby Dragon. All the time we dated, she never minded anything, not much to say... then one morning she's sixty feet tall with big leathery wings and brimstone breath... and it wants a living room-dinette- washer-dryer... to chew on?"

As he sat contemplating a fate far worse than death, Bob waited for the plume to appear. The county road to his place sat in the hot sun and turned into a desert no matter what time of year. So he had, like the Indians before him, a signal to tell him of what was heading his way. He wished the Dragon gave him as much notice.

The Plume came, a delivery truck. That almost had had a washer-dryer in its inside, a fact his wife flew in every day to peck at his liver for. The Plume, whose name was Harris, handed him some papers which he signed and he left, leaving just the crate. The Plume had been kind of scared and bewildered so he'd gave it a beer and was handed back the empty can. He stood tapping the crowbar in his hand as the Plume departed, eyes leveling from crate to house, ears set to hear the low murmur of dragon breath. A movement inside the crate and he started. The sun was hot and his future awaited.

He had not chosen the washer-dryer. He had chosen, with a month's supply of food, a baby Bengal tiger.
His name was Zara, and from the first time he'd seen "The Jungle Book" to the times his Gramps had taken him to the Zoo in Prospect Park, Bob'd wanted a tiger to have and to hold. He'd always known he'd be an ideal parent. From inside the crate came a mewling sound, and with a final twist of his prybar he let it out.

Blinking his way into the sunshine, Zara got his first glimpse of America. He'd hardly had time to get used to this world before he'd been whisked off to spend his life in another part of it. His mom was dead, and he was scared. But all of a sudden he was in the arms of a new mom, who held a bottle of milk in his hands and a warm, shining smile. Zara very much appreciated the closeness, the petting from an old hand that felt like his mom's tongue, and the cool milk from the beer cooler. He promptly sucked down the bottle and fell asleep.

And so began the start of the spring ritual, begun by Bob and Zara, and ignored by the Dragon. Mom/Bob would have a bottle for Zara, and a bottle for Bob. Zara soon started to beat Bob to draining the bottle and they worked their way up from there. Steaks and more bottles and sometimes Bob would share his. Bob was in a state of rapture -he was living his dream- Zara was healthy and getting bigger and bigger. They spent their time together and if the food bills were astronomical, what the hell?

Nobody complained...until one day in June.

Bob was on his way to the lawyer to clear up somesuch paperwork and Zara was alone at the house, rolling around in the mud and the hay and the sun. He caught a whiff of something and decided to stalk it, with whatever basic instinct he'd remembered that sunny morning. The Dragon, without her washer-dryer, was hanging clothes on a line.

In the entire county there was never heard such screaming, yelling, noise or violence than came from Bob's place that day. Zara tried his patented hug, the Dragon her famous bellow, soon the neighbors came and the plume that was Bob showed up. The Dragon, unhurt but now in a hot slather, turned her scorching breath upon him. She fried him to a crisp. Thirty years worth. And at the end she made Bob get his circa-WWII rifle out of the closet and told him to kill his one, his only, and his best, friend.

With the heaviest heart a human ever had to carry he walked off to find Zara. But he couldn't find him. All the ruckus had scared the poor cat, but as Zara scented Bob that was it. He came running, Bob saw him, dropped the gun, which being WWII vintage and loaded, went off and with a shout and a leap best friends hugged and rolled and generally basked in the warmth of each other's company. After a while Bob tried to decide what to do. Either alternative was unthinkable. So he figured he would stall. Off to the house he went, shooing Zara off with a steak that was for dinner. Time to face the Dragon.

He was greeted with a "For once you did what I told you" look and stony silence. Bob realized that she thought, with the gun going off and all, that he'd killed Zara. Time for a beer, or ten, Bob thought.

Days passed and Bob tried his hardest to maintain a facade of extreme sorrow and extreme elation. He had to be careful not to be too happy around the Dragon. Keeping Zara away from her was hard, because Zara thought he had someone new and fun to play with. He'd enjoyed her loud yelling and the fun of chasing her around. So he was on the lookout for some more of what they'd had before.

The Dragon, one fine summer's day, had a little get together for the neighborhood ladies club. She was serving her famous potato salad, finger sandwiches and fresh baked ham. Bob, never one to hang around a henfest, lest he get picked apart, went to town to resupply his beer and steak stock. The smell of the ham wafted out across the lawn and into the sleeping Zara's nostrils. In his dreams, it became the Dragon, running away from him but always just within a paw's reach. As dreams crossed into reality, he woke and followed the scent. Stalking, stalking, he came from behind a bush and there she was! "Dragon Ham!", his brain screamed and as he looked before he leaped there were other blue-haired Dragon Hams all around him. They ran screaming in every direction and Zara roared his first real roar and they screamed some more and he roared some more, and he began the game of hide and seek bred into his genes and purred with pleasure at each find, chase and taste.

Bob was sitting on his favorite lawn-chair, kicked back, cool autumn breeze stirring the high savanna grass around him, and almost dozing. Every once in a while Zara would roll over on his back and nudge his legs in passing. Bob reached down to pick up a beer from the case that lay at his side. He popped Zara the top. The house was quiet and he was content.

 

 

Copyright © 1997 Lawrence Peters
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"