Mr. Davis seemed to be a good trainer, but there were a couple of times that I noticed the tiger could have taken advantage of him – but didn’t. Once, Mr. Davis’s face was very close to the tiger’s extended claws, and it would have been very easy for the tiger to take a swipe, but instead, he moved his paw out of the way. Another time, I could have sworn Mr. Davis had stepped on his tail, but again, he just growled softly and moved his tail aside. It was very strange, and I found myself even more fascinated by the beautiful animal, wondering what it would feel like to touch him.
Mr. Davis was sweating in the stuffy barn. He encouraged the tiger to return to the stool, and then placed three other stools nearby and had him practice jumping from one to the other. Finishing up, he led the cat back to its cage, gave him a special jerky treat, and motioned for me to come down.
‘Kelsey, you’d better head on over to the main building and help Matt get ready for the show. We have a bunch of senior citizens coming in today from a local center.’
I climbed down the ladder. ‘Would it be okay if I bring my journal in here to write sometimes? I want to draw the tiger’s picture in it.’
He said, ‘That’s fine. Just don’t get too close.’
I hurried out the building, waved at him, and shouted, ‘Thanks for letting me watch you. It was really exciting!’
I rushed back to help Matt just as the first bus pulled into the parking lot. It was completely the opposite from the day before. First, the woman in charge bought all the tickets at once, which made my job much easier, and then all the patrons shuffled slowly into the ring, found their seats, and promptly fell asleep.
How could they sleep through all the noise? When intermission came, there wasn’t much to do. Half of the attendees were still asleep, and the other half were in line for the restroom. Nobody really bought anything.
After the show, Matt and I cleaned up quickly, which gave me a few hours for myself. I ran back to my cot, pulled out my journal, a pen and pencil, and my quilt and walked over to the barn. I pulled open the heavy door and turned on the lights.
Strolling toward the tiger’s cage, I found him resting comfortably with his head on his paws. Two bales of hay made a perfect chair with a backrest; my quilt spread over my lap warmed me as opened my journal. After writing a couple of paragraphs, I began to sketch.
I’d taken a couple of art classes in high school and was fairly decent at drawing when I had a model to look at. I picked up my pencil and looked at my subject. He was looking right at me – not like he wanted to eat me, it was more like . . . he was trying to tell me something.
‘Hey, Mister. What are you looking at?’ I grinned.
I started my drawing. The tiger’s round eyes were wide-set and a brilliant blue. He had long, black eyelashes and a pink nose. His fur was a soft, creamy white with black stripes radiating away from his fore-head and cheeks, all the way down to the tail. The short, furry ears were tilted toward me, and his head was resting lazily on his paws. As he watched me, his tail flicked back and forth leisurely.
I spent a lot of time trying to get the pattern of stripes right because Mr. Davis had told me that no two tigers had the same stripes. He said that their stripes were as distinctive as human fingerprints.
I continued to speak to him while drawing. ‘What’s your name again? Ah, Dhiren. Well, I’ll just call you Ren. Hope that’s alright with you. So how’s your day been? Did you enjoy your breakfast? You know, you have a very handsome face, for something that could eat me.’
After a quiet pause with the only sounds being the scratch of my pencil and the deep rhythmic breathing of the large animal, I asked, ‘Do you like being a circus tiger? I can’t imagine it’s a very exciting life for you, being stuck in that cage all the time. I know I wouldn’t like it very much.’
I fell quiet for a while and bit my lip as I shaded in the stripes of his face. ‘Do you like poetry? I’ll bring in my book of poems and read to you sometime. I think I have one about cats you might like.’
I looked up from my drawing and was startled to see that the tiger had moved. He was sitting up, his head bent down toward me, and he was staring at me steadily. I started to feel a little bit nervous. A large cat staring at you with great intensity can’t be a good thing.
Right then, Matt’s dad strolled into the building. The tiger slumped down onto its side, but kept his face turned toward me, watching me with those deep blue eyes.
‘Hey, kid, how’re you doing?
‘Umm, I’m fine. Hey, I have a question. Doesn’t he ever get lonely by himself? Haven’t you tried to, you know, find him a girl tiger?’
He laughed. ‘Not for him. This one likes to be alone. The other circus said they tried to produce offspring by breeding him with a white female in heat at the zoo, but he wouldn’t have it. He stopped eating, so they pulled him out of there. I guess he prefers bachelorhood.’
‘Oh. Well, I’d better get back to Matt and help him out with the dinner preparations.’ I closed my journal and gathered my things.
As I strolled back to the main building, my thoughts were drawn to the tiger. Poor thing. All alone with no girl tiger and no tiger cubs. No deer to hunt and stuck in captivity. I felt sorry for him.
After dinner, I helped Matt’s dad walk the dogs again and got settled in for the night. I put my hands under my head and stared at the tent ceiling, thinking some more about the tiger. After tossing and turning for about twenty minutes, I decided to go visit the barn again. I kept all the lights off in the building except the one near the cage and went back to my hay bale with my quilt.
Because I was feeling sentimental, I had brought a paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet.
‘Hey, Ren. Would you like me to read to you for a while? Now Romeo and Juliet don’t have any tigers in their story, but Romeo does climb a balcony, so you just picture yourself climbing a tree, okay? Wait a second. Let me create the proper setting.’
The moon was full so I turned off the light and decided the moonlight coming through the two high windows brightened the barn sufficiently to read by.
The tiger’s tail thumped the wooden base of the wagon. I turned on my side, made a pillow of sorts from the hay, and started reading aloud. I could just make out his profile and see his eyes shining in the shadowy light. I started getting tired and sighed.
‘Ah. They don’t make men like Romeo anymore. Maybe there never has been such a man. Present company excluded, of course. I’m sure you’re a very romantic tiger. Shakespeare sure wrote about dreamy men, didn’t he?’
I closed my eyes to rest them a little and didn’t wake up until the next morning.
From that moment on, I spent all my free time in the barn with Ren, the tiger. He seemed to like me being there and always perked his ears up when I started reading to him. I bugged Matt’s dad with question after question about tigers until I was sure he felt like avoiding me. He appreciated the work I did though.
Every day, I got up early to take care of the tiger and the dogs, and every afternoon I wandered in to sit near Ren’s cage and write in my journal. In the evenings, I would bring my quilt and a book to read. Sometimes, I’d pick out a poem and read it out loud. Other times, I just talked to him.
About a week after I had started working there, Matt and I were watching one of the shows as usual. When it was time for Ren to perform, he seemed to act differently. After trotting down the tunnel and entering the cage, he ran around in circles and paced back and forth several times. He kept looking out at the audience as if he was searching for something.
Finally, he froze as still as a statue, and stared right at me. His tiger eyes locked with mine, and I couldn’t turn my head away. I heard the whip crack several times, but the tiger stayed focused on me. Matt elbowed me, and I broke eye contact.
‘That’s really strange,’ Matt said.
I asked him, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on? Why is he looking at us?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s never happened before. I don’t know.’
Ren finally turned away from us and began his normal routine.
After the show was over and I had finished cleaning up, I went to visit Ren, who was pacing in his cage. When he saw me, he sat down, settled himself, and placed his head on his paws. I walked up to the cage.