Lion

   

The circus had always been in town so it was sad when they told us they were going away.

Lion lived in a golden cage with an old wooden paint-peeling picture of Lion on top. In the picture Lion was roaring, standing up on his back legs with his mouth open wide and with his long sharp dripping teeth. But Lion never roared. He lay in the straw with his head on his paws and his eyes looking out sad into the world. He looked at Eddie and Eddie looked at Lion, both sad. They were both sad even before the circus said it was going away.

Eddie was the saddest of all, of all the people in the city. He had visited Lion every evening of our summer vacation with his Aunt Susan and his sister Beth-Ann. Beth-Ann didn't like Lion but she went anyway because Eddie was not allowed to go anywhere without Aunt Sue and Aunt Sue could not leave Beth-Ann alone so Beth-Ann had to go.  "Whether you like it or not." 

"It's not fair!" Beth-Ann screamed with her face all red and sticking out like always or most of the time. The screaming and the big red face sticking out was the reason why nobody liked Beth-Ann.

"Not it's not a fair.  It's a circus, Silly!" Aunt Sue didn't like Beth-Ann either. She told us that Beth-Ann was the reason Eddie's mother was in the hospital.

***

Lion had a job in the circus. In the Lion show a monkey in a clown suit rode on the back of Lion and chased a dog round and round a circle of fire while a man in tight clothes like a birthday present snapped a whip and shouted orders at Lion but Lion didn't listen, he looked like he didn't care so soon the dog was chasing Lion and all the people were laughing.  Lion didn't care if he was the chaser or the one being chased. He didn't care about the people laughtng. He went round the circle the same, just doing his work.

When Lion was not working he lay in his straw and he yawned a lot. When he yawned he looked like Lion in the picture with the big and sharp teeth and it always made Beth-Ann scream even though she'd seen Lion yawn a hundred times and knew that he was just yawning because he was sleepy. She knew he was not opening his mouth to bite off her head. She knew. She knew.

So when the circus said they were going away Beth-Ann was happy about it.  "Free at last!" she said, teasing Eddie, laughing at his sadness. She was a mean sister for Eddie.

***


While the circus was getting ready to move, Eddie and I helped by doing little things around the cage like picking up candy wrappers and cigarettes and putting them into the garbage. While Eddie talked to Lion, he looked right into Eddie's eyes like he knew what Eddie was saying.

"Poor unhappy Lion.  Do you want us to let you out of the cage?"

When Eddie said that Lion picked up his head and fast fast fast stood up and in one big step had his nose at the bars of the cage.

"We will get you out," Eddie whispered to him. That made me afraid.

***

So I asked my father.

"Lions eat only when they're hungry," he said, "And then they go out and kill something. An antelope or maybe if he is famished and has some friends along maybe a giraffe. Lions all line up and munch on the giraffe's neck like people at a picnic table. It is a great social event for Lions. Or if the lion is just a bit peckish or he doesn't feel like a picnic party, he'll gulp down a jackrabbit. But jackrabbits are very hard to catch and so by the time he catches a jackrabbit? A  jackrabbit is just enough to whet his ferocious appetite and he must go out on the hunt again. "

"But do Lions eat people?" I asked him.

"Lions do not like to eat people. They find people grotesque and disgusting. For a lion, eating a human is like a human eating a big, ugly, blue-bottle fly, buzzing out of a tuna fish can in last week's garbage, with putrid goo on his feet and fuzzy blue mold on his wings.  The only people that lion like to eat are little girls because little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice."

"Like Beth-Ann?"

"Beth-Ann? No. A Lion would kill Beth-Ann to make her be quiet, but he wouldn't eat her. Too sour, and the bitter little seeds would get caught in his teeth." Eddie's mother though I'm sure would make a great meal for a Lion. She is sweet and kind so she would make a good dessert."

"She's a mean sister for Eddie, but it is not his fault she is unhappy."

"Sisters are often mean to their brothers but a Lion will still find them sweet. 

"But Lions will kill men. For revenge. This is because some men kill lions for fun, for no other reason but for fun. Not for food. Not for their skin to make coats with, or to make tents with, not even for their enormous and sharp teeth to make necklaces with but just for the fun of killing a Lion. So for this Lions will kill men back. Lion will kill any man because although not all men kill Lions Lion blames all men because Lion is a stupid beast who is content to do nothing but eat and sleep and fornicate. Lion is not in the slightest interested in intellectual improvement or any form of reflection.

"But still, Lion will not eat the man he kills. Even if Lion is hungry he will spit out the bits he bites out because the flesh of a man has such a hideous flavor. Men are too often sour or bitter and the few that are sweet are not trustworthy. But mind you now Lions do eat eat men who drink whisky because the whisky takes away the bitterness of the man and leaves the man as sweet as a girl. Well... sometimes this is true. "

"Then why do you drink whisky? Isn't it dangerous to drink whisky  if it makes  you delicious for Lions."

"If I was in Africa where Lions are I would not drink whisky. I would drink gin. I would drink gin with sour vermouth and pickled onions because Lions hate pickled onions and vermouth and find juniper most foul. Lions do not like juniper at all or onions of any kind, or garlic either.  Lions do not like onions or garlic or any of the pungent roots, or any of the tiny spicy berries like juniper and capers"

***

My talk with my father did not settle my fears but I put my fear aside to be with Eddie that night. I snuck out my bedroom window and climbed down the tree beside the roof. Eddie had a tree outside his window too and so we used to sneak out a lot like that. It was fun to be up together in the middle of the night when the city is empty. Nobody I know now has trees outside their window so I don't sneak out anymore.


I knew Eddie was angry before I could see his eyes.

"Beth-Ann wouldn't go to sleep," he said, "She knows that tonight is important so she deliberately -- deliberately -- mark my words -- she deliberately seeks to obstruct our project. Damn her. I could just ..."

He always had to wait until he heard Beth-Ann snoring because once when we sneaked out she heard him and told his Mother. He was in trouble for two weeks after that. We both decided we would hate Beth-Ann forever.

We both decided we would hate Beth-Ann forever.

Lion was sleeping when we got there so Eddie made us be quiet while he watched Lion sleep then Lion woke up and looked at us and he stood up and put his nose through the cage bars so that Eddie could pat him. "We've come for you," Eddie said, and Lion was very glad.

"You stand guard," Eddie told me, "And I'll open the
door."

So I turned away from the cage and looked into the night at all the places and things in the circus. There was nobody anywhere except in one of the house wagons not
far away where there was a light behind red curtains and smoke was coming out of the chimney. A woman laughed in there then a man in there laughed then they laughed in there together and I knew they wouldn't come out to check on Lion and then Eddie came up beside me and he had Lion with him.

Lion looked bigger outside the cage but he had happy eyes and so I wasn't afraid, even though my head was lower than his chin and his breath was so strong I had to close my eyes.

Eddie was breathing fast and kept reaching up to hug Lion's neck and nuzzle into Lion's shoulder.

"Come on,Lion," he said, "Come to my house."

"We will keep him in the garden shed," Eddie said. At the back of Eddie's garden was an old shed made of bricks. It  has a big heavy door and here was nothing in there but newspapers, tires and some other old junk like a lawnmower that didn't work anymore.

"What if your Mother finds him?" I knew that Eddie would be in trouble if his Mother knew about Lion.

"It was Daddy's shed," Eddie said, "She never goes in there. And even if Lion roars she will not hear him because it is too far away from the house and the walls are very thick."

When we went out through the gates of the circus, Lion stopped and looked back at the Big Tent and at all the little tents and the carts, and at the Ferris wheel, and the Carousel, at the many stalls in their darkness, and he took a deep breath, He had a sad look but then he gazed down at Eddie and then turned to look out at the city spread below and twinkling.

He was very still as he looked at the city, his eyes moved slowly and far away. "Come on, Lion," said Eddie. He patted Lion's ribs very softly and spoke in a gentle voice. Lion made a rumbling sound, a deep shaky rumbling sound that shook the ground. It was the first sound that we had ever heard from Lion and he frightened me.


But Eddie wasn't afraid, he hugged Lion's neck and said, "Happy Lion."

Lion made the sound again and this time I knew it was a happy sound, too.

"Come on, Happy Lion," Eddie said, "We must be quick. We must move before the dawn. We don't want anybody to see you."

As we went through the park there was a dog barking and Lion stopped to listen to it.

From deep inside him came the rumbling sound again, but it was louder and more
scary than the other time. And the shaking of the ground was like when a big truck goes by.

"I hope he doesn't eat somebody's dog," I said.

"I hate dogs," Eddie said.

We put Lion in the garden shed. Eddie him a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

On Lion's tongue the sandwich was the size of a lozenge. Lion swallowed it then he nuzzled  Eddie's tummy and Eddie said, "Go to sleep now, Lion." He closed the door and I slid the bolt across.

***

"How much does a Lion eat in a day?" I asked  my  father.

"Let's see," he said, "You and I could share a jackrabbit for dinner and still have leftovers for jack-rabbit sandwiches the next day. And a whole jackrabbit is just a snack for a Lion. So let's say a baboon for breakfast, a jackrabbit at mid-morning, share an antelope with pals at lunch. Then maybe for an after-school nibble he'll munch up a pheasant or a peacock. Now for supper the whole gang gobbles down an elephant, a rhinoceros -- some large animal like that, or a perhaps just a few zebras or a pack of hyenas. Of course if he doesn't feel like a party he'll eat an anteater all by himself. So a Lion's day is full when times are good. Now when times are bad, your average Lion will find a job with a circus. but he will never be happy in a circus, eating kibble." 

"Raw? He eats the animals raw?" 

"Oh yes, definitely raw. A lion likes to eat fresh kill, the fresher the better. He likes to take his first bites from the thing still wriggling and screaming -- if it is a screaming animal. something just before he eats it so that he can feel it wriggle and see the blood spurt. Lions do not like to eat things from the supermarket. He is not a happy consumer of previously prepared or delivered goods or anything that something else has killed or anything that does not have blood spurting from it." 

When I went to tell Eddie what my father had said, Eddie was sitting on the ground stroking the great Lion's head and Lion was lying on the ground with his great head  on his paws. "Lion is a hunter," I said, "He is not a consumer of delivered goods." Lion turned his eyes to me and looked at me as if I was far far away.

"Easy!" Eddie said, "We could put him in the basement while my Mother is at work and Beth-Ann is at school. Lion can eat all the mice."

Lion kept looking at me as if he was waiting for more. "One  mouse would  be like one peanut," I said, "He will have to kill a hundred mice just for breakfast." 

"How many cats?" Eddie said. 

"A houseful of cats would be just a snack." I said. 

"He'll never get enough to eat," Eddie said.  He stroked Lion's nose and kissed him on the forehead, "Poor Lion," he said, "You want to kill something?"

Lion stood up and stepped to the door. He  pushed it with his nose and it swung open. He peered out, sniffed at the air, and then looked round at Eddie and me, waiting for us to follow him. "Wait, Eddie," I said, "He can't just go out and kill something. This isn't Africa, there's just cats and dogs and  birds -- and people."

"Who cares about cats and dogs and birds and your Father said Lions don't eat people."

Eddie had a long heavy chain that he looped around the neck of Lion but Lion was so much bigger than Eddie.

It was a quiet night without any breeze or rain. There were sirens far away and the hum that my father says is the sound of the world going round, a door closed, a car drove slowly drove by but there were no other sounds in the night because the garden shed was far away from the sounds of the city and so the sounds of the garden shed would be far away from the city so it was a good place to keep Lion, and the walls were thick and the door was strong because Eddie's father had built it for protection against the war but then they said the war would not come so the shed became a garden shed instead and then Eddie's father died and the garden shed was left to be old and for the plants to explore. 

"Come on, Lion," Eddie said, "Come on, Bobby," as he walked away from the shed and across the lawn.

I followed along, walking behind, worrying, "What are you thinking?" I said.

"Dogs," Eddie said, "We can let him eat dogs.  He  could kill dogs easily. And dogs are stupid, too. I hate dogs. They bark and bark and bark at every tiny little thing that moves and they bite people just for walking on the sidewalk. I hate dogs." 

It was like it made Eddie happy to think about Lion killing dogs. "I don't think that's a good idea," I said. 

"What's wrong with it?" Eddie said. 

"For some boys their Dog is their very best friend. Think about Lion eating your very best friend." 

Eddie didn't say anything. He stopped walking to look around at the street, thinking, then he said,  "Lions have to kill things. Even people have to kill things. If we don't kill things we get hungry and die. Even for peanut butter we have to kill the peanuts and then we roast them alive.  The only way to stop the killing is to kill the killers. If we stop Lion from killing things we will be killing Lion. It will be the same as killing him."

"But this is not Africa," I said, "This is not a jungle, this is a city. There are houses and stores.  And the dogs are not just dogs they are people's dogs, and that makes it different. Killing a people's dog is not the same as killing a peanut. Eddie." 

"We will go to the park where we heard the dog yesterday," Eddie was talking to Lion Eddie kept telling Lion about the dog, and every time Eddie said 'dog' Lion rumbled and he walked faster, so fast that Eddie had to pull the chain hard and shout at Lion. Lion always slowed down when Eddie did that. Once he even stopped so we could rest from running.  His tongue was hanging out and he had a happy look. 

The park was deserted when we got there. Even the ducks were not there and as we walked into the trees the moon slipped out of sight behind a cloud. It was quiet, more quiet than it ever was. We sat and waited for the dog to bark. "We must get Lion into some wind," Eddie said, "If the dog smells Lion he will bark and then Lion will find the dog and eat him. Stupid dog."

But there wasn't any wind so we walked Lion round the edge of the park where the houses were so that the dog would maybe see Lion. There was a fence all around the park and on the other side of the fence were the back porches of houses and in some of the porches were lights but there were no dogs anywhere until we passed by the fountain at the gate and there we saw a dog, a big mustard-colored dog.

Lion rumbled and the dog turned round and started barking. There was a man with the dog. "Hey," the man shouted, "What are you boys doing?" Then he saw Lion. The dog kept barking and barking and barking while the man ran away and tried to climb the fence but it was too high and slippery for him. He was yelling things at me and Eddie like it was our fault about Lion. The dog was trying to scare Lion by barking at him, but Lion was not scared a bit.

When Eddie let go of the chain, Lion walked over to the dog and killed it in one bite. The man screamed at Eddie. He ran towards Lion for a second and then he ran back to the fence, but he still couldn't climb it.

"He won't eat people," I shouted at the man, but even while I was saying it Lion was leaping on the man and before the man could scream Lion was eating his stomach and blood was spurting and Eddie was jumping and jumping and clapping, "Lion! Lion!" he was calling like he was happy. I didn't want to watch that so I walked away into the trees where I couldn't hear the eating sounds and I could rest my eyes on the darkness floating on the duck pond.

How had my father been wrong? How could he be so wrong about Lion eating people? Why was Eddie so happy about Lion eating the man and his dog?

When Lion and Eddie came through the trees to find me, Eddie was riding on the shoulders of Lion and Lion was bouncing when he walked. "He ate the man!" Eddie said. He said it slowly and quietly like he was announcing it. His eyes were bright and wide awake like Lion's. Together their eyes glistened brighter than anything in the park.

"Is he hungry again?" I asked Eddie.

"There is not much to eat on a dog," Eddie said, "And the man was very thin."

"Weren't you scared?" I asked him.

"Lion will not eat us," he said, "We are his friends."

"Even though there is not much meat on a human being, there is more than on a dog or any other animal in the city. That is why he eats people now. He has to build up his strength and become a real Lion again. When he is a real Lion he will be happy." Already Lion looked happy to me. When he walked--even with Eddie and me on his back--he would sometimes have only one foot on the ground so that we were almost flying.

We were high from the ground and we were moving fast and Lion was hot and strong between our legs so sometimes I would forget about the man and the dog being eaten and I would just  feel how good it could feel to be riding on the back of Lion. But then I would remember the dog and the man and I felt bad about feeling good on the back of Lion. So I tried to remember about the dog and the man. It was hard to remember though because it felt so good to fly on the back of Lion.

We flew for a long time so Lion got tired and sat down under the Bridge to watch the River going along. Eddie sat beside him and talked about how good it was that my father had lied and that Lion could eat people after all. "There are so many people," he said, "and a lot of them are unhappy and mean." Lion was warm and happy from his running so it felt good to sit beside him and watch the river going along. But it was not as good as flying so soon I was remembering the man and his dog again.

It scared me to think of it so I said to Eddie, "Perhaps we could take him into the country where there are cows to eat. There is more to eat on a cow than on a man and it is not so wrong to eat cows."

"Who says?" Eddie said, "The cows are not cruel. The cows just eat grass and think about things. No it is best that Lion eat all the people who are unhappy and cruel. Then all the world will be happy and kind."

"Perhaps it is not the best that the whole world be happy," I said, "Perhaps it's best the world just goes along."

"Sure," said Eddie. "And the way the world goes along is for Lion to eat what is near. Now come along, Lion." he said, tightening the chain around Lion's neck, "We're going home."

So they went and I followed because there was nothing else I could do and still be friends with Eddie. When we got to the garden shed, Lion was hungry again so he strained against the door when he heard the dog barking far away. Eddie talked to him in whispers and stroked his nose. Lion made happy grunts and looked at me over his shoulder. After a while Eddie said to me, "Wouldn't it be fun to scare Beth-Ann?"

His eyes were shiny in the dark and his voice was fast and full of breath. "We could trick her into thinking we were doing something bad in here and then when she came to catch us she would see Lion. She would be so scared. She would scream and scream and scream. It would be a funny trick to play on her."

"It is dangerous." I said, "Lion might eat her."

Eddie laughed. "If that is how the world goes along then that is fine. she is so stupid and mean for telling on us all those times. It would be good to play a trick on her."

And I saw that he was too small and eager to ever know he was wrong. Even in the dark I could see that. So I said, "You should stay with Lion because he loves you the best and I will go for Beth-Ann. I'll sneak up the tree and into your room and make a noise like you're being bad. Then she will follow me here. She will think she is getting us in trouble. She will be happy thinking she is getting us in trouble."

 "A good trick." Eddie said and made a little laugh, the kind of quiet laugh he used to make as we ran off together from the bottom of his bedroom window tree and into the night. I went out of the garden shed, said "Goodbye, Eddie." and closed the door. Then I slid the bolt across.

I did that even though I loved Eddie and even though I hated Beth-Ann. It was a long time before they looked in the garden shed and when they did they found Lion and Eddie lying down together. Both of them were dead. Perhaps Eddie had died before Lion was hungry enough to kill him and then Lion did not want to go back to eating what he had not killed, did not want to go back to being a caged Lion. Or perhaps he loved Eddie more than he loved being happy, more than he loved being a Lion.

 "Did you know about Eddie and the lion?" my father asked me. 

 "No." I said. 

 "I find that hard to believe," he said, "You were such good friends. And you had so many questions about Lions." He looked at me for a long time but I did not change my face and then he said, "You are a good boy. I know that, and perhaps that's all that matters."

Everyone was sad about Eddie. Even Beth-Ann was sad. She cried and she came to me to cry with me but I did not cry because I know about the sadness, how it is everywhere and in everything.

 "I was so mean to him," she said.

 "Yes you were very mean and you made him very mad, Beth-Ann."

"But I loved him so much. I loved the crazy little guy. I just liked to tease him that's all. Did he just hate me? Did he love me even a little bit?" Her crying was making me mad so I lied and told her that Eddie had loved her but that made her cry harder so I put my arm around her shoulder and her crying went quieter as she cried into my neck, but I did not think much about my sadness for Eddie, I just went to school and did  my work.