The Tiger Rising

Chapter 9

His father woke him up at five-thirty the next morning.

“Come on, son,” he said, shaking Rob’s shoulder. “Come on; you’re a working man now. You got to get up.” He took his hand away and stood over Rob for a minute more, and then he left.

Rob heard the door to the motel room squeak open. He opened his eyes. The world was dark. The only light came from the falling Kentucky Star. Rob turned over in bed and pulled back the curtain and looked out the window at the sign. It was like having his own personal shooting star, but he didn’t ever make a wish on it. He was afraid that if he started wishing, he might not be able to stop. In his suitcase of not-thoughts, there were also not-wishes. He kept the lid closed on them, too.

Rob leaned on his elbow and stared at the star and listened to the rain gently drumming its fingers on the roof. There was a warm glowing kind of feeling in his stomach, a feeling that he wasn’t used to. It took him a minute to name it. The tiger. The tiger was out there. He got out of bed and put on shorts and a T-shirt.

“Still hot,” his father said, when Rob stepped out the door. “And still raining.”

“Uh-huh,” said Rob, rubbing his eyes, “yes, sir.”

“If it don’t stop soon, the whole state ain’t going to be nothing but one big swamp.”

“The rain don’t bother me,” Rob muttered.

On the day of his mother’s funeral, it had been so sunshiny that it hurt his eyes. And after the funeral, he and his father had to stand outside in the hot, bright light and shake everybody’s hand. Some of the ladies hugged Rob, pulling him to them in jerky, desperate movements, smashing his head into their pillowy chests.

“If you don’t look just like her,” they told him, rocking him back and forth and holding on to him tight.

Or they said, “You got your mama’s hair — that cobwebby blond,” and they ran their fingers through his hair and patted his head like he was a dog.

And every time Rob’s father extended his hand to somebody else, Rob saw the ripped place in his suit, where it had split open when he slapped Rob to make him stop crying. And it reminded Rob again: Do not cry. Do not cry.

That was what the sun made him think of. The funeral. And so he didn’t care if he ever saw the sun again. He didn’t care if the whole state did turn into a swamp.

His father stood up and went back into the motel room and got himself a cup of coffee and brought it back outside. The steam rose off of it and curled into the air.

“Now that I’m a working man,” Rob said shyly, “could I drink some coffee?”

His father smiled at him. “Well,” he said, “I guess that’d be all right.”

Rob went inside and poured himself a mug of coffee and brought it back outside and sat down next to his father and sipped it slowly. It tasted hot and dark and bitter. He liked it.

“All right,” his father said after about ten minutes, “it’s time to get to work.” He stood up. It wasn’t even six o’clock.

As they walked together alongside the back of the motel to the maintenance shed, his father started to whistle “Mining for Gold.” It was a sad song he used to sing with Rob’s mother. Her high sweet voice had gone swooping over his father’s deep one, like a small bird flying over the solid world.

His father must have remembered, too, because he stopped halfway through the song and shook his head and cursed softly under his breath.

Rob let his father walk ahead of him. He slowed down and stared into the woods, wanting to see some small part of the tiger, a flick of his tail or the glow from his eyes. But there was nothing to see except for rain and darkness.

“Come on, son,” his father said, his voice hard. And Rob hurried to catch up.