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Living the Life of Holly
By Holly Winter
© 2004
A Tiger Cures Fearlessness

Cool-guy’s mom held her hand up to the outside of the cage in a friendly ‘Hello’ motion. Tiger leaned in to her hand, burrowing her nose as close as was tigerly possible and inhaled a belly full of air.

Tiger-lady’s voice rose an octave. “She can smell your dog. She’s not being friendly. She’s smelling your dog.”

“Oh.” His mom said as she yanked her hand back and rubbed it against her leg.

“Good one, mom.” Cool-guy laughed. “Now your leg will smell like the dog, in case the tiger gets out and wants something to eat… now she can go for your leg.”

We laughed as his mom backed away from the cage.

Cool-guy bent down and put his head up to the fence. “Hello, Pretty-tiger-girl.” He cooed. “I’m not afraid. Can I come inside to play? Want some company?”

Tiger narrowed her eyes and flicked her tail back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. She was four times his size, and they both knew it. She slowly sauntered to the far side of her habitat where she could better ignore us all.

Cool-guy called to her in baby talk. “Come on, Pretty-tiger-girl. Come over and say hello. You sure are pretty.”

Tiger walked nonchalantly to the front of the cage, and sniffed the ground in front of him. She slowly lifted her head, narrowed her eyes, and fixed him with a piercing stare.

“You have pretty eyes.” He purred.

She casually walked to the back of her cage and paced.

“The wind has made her kind of antsy.” Tiger-lady said. “I don’t know why. But. My tiger doesn’t like the wind.”

“I don't blame her.” Cool-guy called softly, pushing his face as far into the fence as he could. “I don’t like the wind, either.”

I kept my distance, just in case. This tiger was no cartoon character to toy with. This was five hundred pounds of striped wild and I wasn’t at all interested in becoming the focal point of those intense eyes. So what if she had been de-clawed as a baby? Her open paws were roughly the size of my head, which would make my head the perfect bouncy ball for HER to toy with. I wondered what this tiger did for fun. I backed away from the fence.

“I got her as a baby.” Tiger-lady said. “We found this add in the newspaper. ‘Tiger cubs, three hundred dollars.’ My ex-husband and I decided to go and check them out. We fell in love with her.”

“Is it legal to have a tiger living in your back yard?” I asked. I’d never seen Wild Kingdom outside a zoo or a game preserve and here she was living in Cool-guy’s mother’s neighborhood in North Carolina. Tiger was caged several feet from Tiger-lady’s front door. The only thing keeping the huge animal home was a double thick chain link fence. Um. Could that be enough?

“It’s legal for me to have her, as long as I don’t breed her. If I decided to breed her, I’d have to let the authorities regulate us. Believe me. That wouldn’t be worth it.”

“Do you take her for walks?” Cool-guy asked. “Could we take her now? I’ve always wanted to take a tiger for a walk.”

“Good, God, no.” Tiger-lady said. “She’s much too big to let out of the cage. The last time we let her out she was eleven months old. She pinned my ex-husband down, in play, then dragged him down to the river for a drink. My ex was a big man. We knew then we couldn’t take her out ever again.”

Um. I wonder what REALLY happened to her ex. She had this story about him returning to Alabama to file for divorce and live with his sister. But. You never know. I looked around the cage for signs of a struggle and wondered if the tiger ate on command. I noted the lock on the door of the cage.

“So Tiger has to live in there, alone?” His mom worried.

“Oh. I go in with her. We get along great. I go in to groom her and feed her. She eats up to twenty-five pounds of raw chicken and five pounds of raw hamburger meat every day.”

“So does Holly.” Cool-guy said.

I laughed. “But. I don't get it. Why a pet tiger when you could have pet sea horses. Wouldn’t they be easier?

Tiger-lady laughed. “It’s one of those things that just happened. I didn’t plan on it. I never wanted a tiger. But. Now that I have her, she’s my baby. And I’d never give her up.”

“Yeah.” Cool-guy said. “That’s how it is with me and Holly, too.”

I pinched him as we moved to the far side of Tiger Land.

Cool-guy pressed his body against the cage where green siding was tacked up for a wind block. He cupped his hands together, peered over the top of the block and called, “Where are you Pretty-tiger-girl? Why are you hiding?”

Tiger jumped up on her hind legs inside the fence just inches from where Cool-guy was standing, outside the fence. She leaned her full body into the links, pressing her front paws into the fence as she stared down into my boyfriend’s eyes from a whole foot above him. He stood transfixed by the roaring silence of the predator’s stare. If the links weren’t separating them, Tiger’s paws would be on his chest.

Neither moved. What were they waiting for? When tiger’s tenacious mood passed, she jumped down and slowly walked to the back of the cage.

Cool-guy clutched his chest and he stumbled backwards. “OHMYGOD.” He backed up some more. “That’s the scariest thing that has EVER happened to me.” He tried to shake it off. “Did you see that? She stared RIGHT INTO MY EYES! From OVER MY HEAD.”

I laughed hysterically. “Teach you to call a woman, ‘pretty-tiger-girl.’ You’d think men would learn. But. No.”

Cool-guy grabbed my shoulders and positioned me next to the fence. “You’ve got to experience this, Holly. There’s nothing like it. NOTHING.”

I stiffened, waiting. Nothing happened.

“Call her.”

I whispered, “Here tiger, tiger.” in my normal voice. I wasn’t in the mood to experience a tiger jump.

“No. You have to say, Here Pretty-tiger-girl.”

Yeah. No. I wormed my way out of his grasp.

When Cool-guy was least expecting it, the tiger once again jumped up onto her hind legs, pressed her enormous body against the inside of the fence, and stared down on him. He became paralyzed as her eyes slowly burned away what remained of his proclaimed fearlessness. This time she licked her chops with two quick swipes before she jumped down and walked away.

Cool-guy stepped back and shook his head slowly. “That’s the best adrenalin rush on earth.” He mumbled to his feet.

“Funny.” I laughed. “It looked more like fear. YOU were scared.”

His head flew up. “Scared? She wanted to play.”

“Um. No.” I said. She was licking her chops. She wanted to EAT.”

“I’m safe there.” He lifted his shirt to expose his thin body. “I’m too skinny to be tiger food.” He reached over and patted my bottom. “She’d rather eat something….. fleshier.”

“Don’t fool yourself.” His mom laughed, crossing her arms. “You’d be an ideal meal, Mr. Gourmet Chef. You’re filled with all the finest ingredients.”

“Nope. I’m all bones.”

Tiger lady smiled. “Tiger eats twenty-five pounds of chicken bones every day. You’d be the dream dinner.”

Cool-guy looked back at Tiger who licked her chops again. He took a deep breath and drew out a long, “Oh shit.”

Wanna try another column? How about #116 Diplomat for Foreign Students which is about introducing Peach-girl to Colorado.

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