Rob nodded. “Here’s your dress.” He handed her the bag.
Sistine took it and then tilted her head to look up at the sky. Rob looked up, too. The clouds had shifted, and there were clear patches where the stars shone through.
“I can see the Big Dipper,” Sistine said. “I like looking up at things. So do my mom and dad. That’s how they met. They were both looking up at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel and they weren’t watching where they were going and they bumped into each other. That’s why I’m named Sistine.”
“I like your name,” said Rob shyly.
“I’ve seen the Sistine ceiling, too,” she said. “They took me last year. Before Bridgette. When they were still in love.”
“Does it look like the pictures?” Rob asked.
“Better,” said Sistine. “It’s like — I don’t know — it’s like looking at fireworks, kind of.”
“Oh,” said Rob.
“Maybe we could go to Italy sometime. And I could show you.”
“That would be all right,” said Rob. He smiled into the darkness.
“That tiger can’t look up at the stars,” said Sistine, her voice getting hard. “He’s got that piece of wood over his head. He can’t look up at all. We’ve got to let him go.”
Rob was silent. He was hoping that if he didn’t answer her, she might go back to talking about the Sistine ceiling.
“How did your mother die?” she asked suddenly.
Rob sighed. He knew there was no point in trying not to answer. “Cancer,” he said.
“What was her name?”
“I ain’t supposed to talk about her,” said Rob, closing his eyes to the stars and concentrating instead on his suitcase, working to keep it closed.
“Why not?” asked Sistine.
“Because. My dad says it don’t do no good to talk about it. He says she’s gone and she ain’t coming back. That’s why we moved here from Jacksonville. Because everybody always wanted to talk about her. We moved down here to get on with things.”
There was the crunch of gravel. Rob opened his eyes in time to see the headlights of a car sweep over them.
“That’s my mother,” said Sistine. She stood up. “Quick,” she said. “Tell me your mother’s name.”
Rob shook his head.
“Say it,” she demanded.
“Caroline,” Rob said softly, cracking his suitcase open and letting the word slip out.
Sistine gave him another businesslike nod of her head. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow. And we’ll make our plans for letting the tiger go.”
“Sissy?” called a voice. “Baby, what in the world? What in the world are you doing out here?”
Sistine’s mother got out of the car and came walking toward them. She had on high heels, and she wobbled as she walked in the gravel parking lot of the Kentucky Star. Her hair was a lighter shade of yellow than Sistine’s and piled up high. When she turned her head, Rob recognized Sistine’s profile, her sharp chin and pointed nose, but the mouth was different, tighter.
“Good lord,” said Mrs. Bailey to Sistine. “What have you got on?”
“Clothes,” said Sistine.
“Sissy, you look like a hobo. Get in the car.” She tapped her high-heeled foot on the gravel.
Sistine didn’t move. She stood beside Rob.
“Well,” said her mother when Sistine didn’t move, “you must be Rob. What’s your last name, Rob?”
“Horton,” said Rob.
“Horton,” said Mrs. Bailey. “Horton. Are you related to Seldon Horton, the congressman?”
“No, ma’am,” said Rob. “I don’t think so.”
Mrs. Bailey’s eyes flicked away from him and back to Sistine. “Baby,” said Mrs. Bailey, “please get in the car.”
When Sistine still didn’t move, Mrs. Bailey sighed and looked back at Rob again. “She won’t listen to a word I say,” Mrs. Bailey told him. “Her father is the only one she’ll listen to.” And then under her breath she muttered, “Her father, the liar.”
Sistine growled somewhere deep in her throat and stalked to the car and got in and slammed the door. “You’re the liar!” she shouted from the back seat of the car. “You’re the one who lies!”
“Jesus,” said Mrs. Bailey. She shook her head and turned and walked back to the car without saying anything else to Rob.
Rob watched them pull away. He could see Sistine sitting in the back seat. Her shoulders were slumped.
A motel room door slammed. Somebody laughed. A dog barked once, short and high, and then stopped. And then there was silence.
“Caroline,” Rob whispered into the darkness. “Caroline. Caroline. Caroline.” The word was as sweet as forbidden candy on his tongue.
The next morning, Rob was helping Willie May in the laundry room. They were folding sheets and chewing Eight Ball gum.
All night, he had tossed and turned, scratching his legs and thinking about the tiger and what Sistine said, that he had to be set free. He had finally decided to get Willie May’s opinion.
“You ever been to a zoo?” Rob asked her.
“One time,” said Willie May. She cracked her gum. “Went to that zoo over in Sorley. Place stunk.”
“Do you think them animals minded it? Being locked up?”
“Wasn’t nobody asking them did they mind.” Willie May pulled another sheet out of the dryer and snapped it open.
Rob tried again. “Do you think it’s bad to keep animals locked up?”
Willie May looked at him over the top of her glasses. She stared at him hard.
Rob looked down at his feet.
“When I wasn’t but little,” said Willie May, “my daddy brought me a bird in a cage. It was a green parakeet bird. That bird was so small, I could hold it right in the palm of my hand.” She draped the sheet over one shoulder and held out a cupped hand to show Rob. It looked, to him, like a hand big enough to hold the entire world.
“Held him in my hand. Could feel his little heart beating. He would look at me, cock his head this way and that. Called him Cricket, on account of him all the time singing.”
“What happened to him?” Rob asked.
Willie May bent and took a pillowcase out of the dryer.
“Let him go,” she said.
“You let him go?” Rob repeated, his heart sinking inside him like a stone.
“Couldn’t stand seeing him locked up, so I let him go.” She folded the pillowcase carefully.
“And then what happened?”
“I got beat by my daddy. He said I didn’t do that bird no favor. Said all I did was give some snake its supper.”
“So you never saw him again?” Rob asked.
“Nuh-uh,” said Willie May. “But sometimes, he comes flying through my dreams, flitting about and singing.” She shook her head and reached for the sheet on her shoulder. “Here,” she said. “Go on and grab ahold of the other end. Help me fold this up.”
Rob took hold of the sheet, and as it billowed out between them, a memory rose up before him: his father standing out in the yard, holding his gun up to the sky, taking aim at a bird.
“You think I can hit it?” his father said. “You think I can hit that itty-bitty bird?”
“Robert,” his mother said, “what do you want to shoot that bird for?”
“To prove I can,” said his father.
There was a single crack and the bird was suspended in midair, pinned for a moment to the sky with his father’s bullet. Then it fell.
“Oh, Robert,” his mother said.
It hurt the back of Rob’s throat to think about that now, to think about the gun and his mother and the small thud the bird made when it hit the ground.
“I know something that’s in a cage,” said Rob, pushing the words past the tightness in his throat.
Willie May nodded her head, but she wasn’t listening. She was looking past Rob, past the white sheet, past the laundry room, past the Kentucky Star.
“Who don’t
?” she said finally. “Who don’t know something in a cage?”
After that, they folded the sheets in silence. Rob thought about the bird and how when he had finally found its small still-warm body, he had started to cry.
His father told him not to.
“It ain’t nothing to cry over,” he’d said. “It’s just a bird.”
Rob was sweeping the cement walkway in front of the Kentucky Star rooms when Beauchamp pulled up in his red jeep and honked the horn.
“Hey there,” he hollered. Beauchamp was a large man with orange hair and an orange beard and a permanent toothpick in the side of his mouth. The toothpick waggled as he talked, as if it was trying to make a point of its own. “We got you on the payroll now, too?” Beauchamp shouted.
“No, sir,” said Rob.
“All right,” hooted Beauchamp. He hopped out of the jeep. “Got you working for free. That’s what I like to hear.”
“Yes, sir,” said Rob.
“Ain’t you supposed to be in school? Or you done graduated already?” The gold chains buried deep in Beauchamp’s orange chest-hair winked at Rob.
“I’m sick,” said Rob.
“Sick and tired of school, right?” He slapped Rob on the back. “Don’t got a mama putting down the rules for you, do you? Get to make your own rules. Not me,” said Beauchamp. He jerked his head in the direction of the motel office, where his mother, Ida Belle, worked the front desk.
He winked at Rob and then looked to the left, then right. “Look here,” he said in a quieter voice. “I’ve got me a number of deals going on right now, a few more than I can properly handle. I wonder if a smart boy like yourself wouldn’t be looking for a way to pick up some extra spending money.”
He didn’t wait for Rob to answer.
“Let me tell you what I got cooking. You like animals?”
Rob nodded.
“Course you do,” said Beauchamp, nodding with him. “What boy don’t? You like wild animals?”
Rob’s heart skipped. He suddenly knew where Beauchamp was headed.
“I got me a wild animal,” said Beauchamp. “I got me a wild animal like you would not believe. Right here on my own property. And I got some plans for him. Big plans. But in the meantime, he needs some taking care of, some daily maintenance. You following me, son?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rob.
“All right,” said Beauchamp. He slapped Rob on the shoulder again. “Why don’t you climb on into this jeep and let me take you for a ride, show you what I’m talking about.”
“I’m supposed to be sweeping,” said Rob. He held up the broom.
“Says who?” said Beauchamp, suddenly angry. “Your daddy? He ain’t the boss. I’m the boss. And if I say ‘Let’s go,’ you say ‘All right.’”
“All right,” said Rob. He looked over his shoulder, wishing fervently that Willie May or his father would appear to save him from Beauchamp, knowing at the same time that he could not be saved, that he was on his own.
“Good,” said Beauchamp. “Climb on up.”
Rob climbed into the passenger seat. There was a big brown grocery bag at his feet.
“Go on and put that in the back,” said Beauchamp as he swung into the driver’s seat.
The bag was heavy and it stunk. Rob carefully put it on the floor in the back and then noticed his hands. There was blood on his fingers.
“That’s just from the meat,” said Beauchamp. “It won’t hurt you none.” He cranked the engine. It roared to life, and they went tearing around behind the Kentucky Star and into the woods. Beauchamp drove like he was crazy. He gunned for trees and then swerved away from them at the last minute, whooping and hollering the whole time.
“You ain’t going to believe what I got to show you,” Beauchamp hollered at him.
“No, sir,” said Rob weakly.
“What?” Beauchamp shouted.
“No, sir,” Rob shouted back. “I ain’t going to believe it.”
But he did believe it. He believed it with all his heart.
Beauchamp hit the brakes.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “You got to close your eyes so it’s a surprise.”
Rob closed his eyes and the jeep went forward slowly. “Don’t cheat now,” Beauchamp said. “Keep them eyes closed.”
“Yes, sir,” Rob said.
“All right,” Beauchamp said finally. “Go on and open them up.”
He had pulled the jeep up as close to the tiger cage as possible without driving right into it. “Tell me what you see,” he crowed. “Tell me what is before your very eyes.”
“A tiger,” said Rob. He let his mouth drop open. He tried to look excited and amazed.
“Damn straight,” said Beauchamp. “King of the jungle. And he’s all mine.”
“Wow,” said Rob. “You own him?”
“That’s right,” said Beauchamp. “Fellow I know owed me some money. Paid me with a tiger. That’s the way real men do business. In tigers. He come complete with the cage.” The toothpick in the side of his mouth danced up and down; Beauchamp put a finger up to steady it into silence.
“What are you going to do with him?” Rob asked.
“I’m studying my options. I figure I could set him up out front of the Kentucky Star, have him draw me some more business into the motel.”
The tiger stood and stared at Beauchamp. Beauchamp looked away from him. He tapped his thick fingers on the steering wheel.
“I also might just kill him,” Beauchamp said, “and skin him and make me a tiger coat. I ain’t made up my mind. He’s a lot of work, I’ll tell you that. He needs meat twice a day. That’s where you come in. I need you to come out here and feed him. Two bucks every time you do it. How’s that sound?”
Rob swallowed hard. “How do I get the meat in the cage?” he asked.
Beauchamp dug in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “With these,” he said. He shook the keys and they gave a sad jingle. “Don’t pay no attention to the big keys. They’re for the locks on the door. Open them up and that tiger will get out and eat you for sure. You understand? I ought not to give you this whole set, but I know you won’t open up that door. Right? You ain’t no fool, right?”
Rob, terrified that keys to the cage existed and that they were about to be handed to him, nodded.
“See this tiny key?” Beauchamp said.
Rob nodded again.
“That’s for the food door, right there.” Beauchamp pointed at a small door at the bottom of the cage. “You just open that up and toss the meat in a piece at a time. Like this.”
Beauchamp swung himself out of the jeep with a grunt. He reached in the back seat for the grocery bag, took out a piece of meat, bent over and unlocked the tiny door, opened it, and threw the meat in. The tiger leaped forward, and Beauchamp took a quick step backward, stumbling.
“That’s all there is to it,” he said, straightening up. His forehead was shiny with sweat, and his hands were trembling.
“What’s the tiger’s name?” Rob asked.
“Name?” said Beauchamp. “He ain’t got a name. You got to name something before you toss it a piece of meat?”
Rob shrugged and blushed. He bent over to scratch his legs so that he wouldn’t have to look at Beauchamp’s sweaty, angry face.
“You want to get introduced proper?” said Beauchamp in a mocking voice. “Well then, get on out of the jeep.”
Rob climbed down.
Beauchamp grabbed hold of the fence and shook it. The tiger looked up from his meat. His muzzle was red with blood; he stared at Beauchamp with a fierce look in his eyes that was familiar to Rob.
“Hey!” Beauchamp shouted. “You see this boy here?” He pointed at Rob. “He’s your meal ticket. Not me. It’s this boy. He’s got the keys now. Understand? I don’t got them no more. This boy’s got them. He’s your boy.”
The tiger stared at Beauchamp a minute more, and then he slowly lowered his head and started back to work on the meat.
&nbs
p; “Now you two know each other,” said Beauchamp. He pulled a tattered bandanna from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
On the hair-raising ride back to the Kentucky Star, Rob realized who the tiger’s stare reminded him of. It was Sistine. He knew that when he told her he had the keys to the cage, her eyes would glow with the same fierce light. He knew that she would insist that now they had to let the tiger go.
The last thing Beauchamp said to him was, “Don’t forget, now, this is our business deal. It don’t concern nobody else. You take that bag of meat and hide it somewhere, and I’ll bring you more meat tomorrow. In the meantime, you keep your mouth shut.”
At three o’clock, the school bus pulled up, belching and gasping and sighing. Norton and Billy Threemonger started pelting Rob with date palms before the bus even came to a complete stop. The bus door opened and Sistine came running toward him, dodging the dates, looking as serious as a soldier on a battlefield.
“Let’s go see the tiger,” she shouted to him.
Rob was dismayed to see that she was still wearing his shirt and jeans.
“Where’s your dress?” he blurted.
“In here,” she said. She held up the same grocery bag he had given her the night before. “I changed as soon as I got out of the house. My mother doesn’t know. I found a book in the library today and read about big cats. Do you know that panthers live in the woods here? We could set the tiger free, and he could live with them. Come on,” she said. She started to run.
Rob ran, too. But the keys to the cage felt heavy in his pocket, and they bumped up against his leg and slowed him down so that Sistine beat him there. When he arrived, she was standing pressed up against the fence, her fingers wrapped in the chainlink.
“Tigers are an endangered species, you know,” she said. “It’s up to us to save him.”
“Watch out he don’t attack you,” Rob said.
“He won’t. Tigers only attack people if they’re desperately hungry.”
“Well, this one ain’t hungry.”
“How do you know?” Sistine asked, turning around and looking at him.
“Well,” said Rob, “he ain’t skinny, is he? He don’t look starved.”