The tiger among us
Walter Sherris—successful, happy, good husband and father—made just one mistake: he took a walk along a dark road one night. Without warning, a car raced toward him and screeched to a stop; out piled five young men intent on violence. To the accompaniment of wild, brainless laughter, Walter Sherris was beaten to the ground.
He awoke in hospital nine days later. And from that moment his pleasant life became a nightmare, more horrible than those he had wrestled with in those nine days of unconsciousness.
Walter Sherris wanted revenge: for the broken leg and the pain; for the doubts he now had about his pretty, gay wife; and for the countless and nameless others who had been mauled by the thrill seekers, the sadists, the compulsive slayers.
The police were evasive, almost disinterested. There were no witnesses. So Walter Sherris set out—alone—to trap the tiger. to trap the tiger.
Copyright © 1957 by Leigh Brackett Hamilton
All Rights Reserved
Printed in The United States of America
First Edition
1
IN several places I have used the word "tiger" in connection with Chuck and his pals. It might seem that that was merely an attempt to be dramatic, and maybe it was when I wrote it, but it is also, I think, a symbolic truth.
These were "boys" only by an arbitrary definition, and they were "juvenile delinquents" only by accident. Their urges had nothing to do with overcrowded slums, or broken homes, or submerged minorities. Those are social problems, but the thing that drove these boys is older than society, as old and as deep as the roots of the human race. Theirs was the problem of the tiger that is always among us, the immemorial tiger whose first given name was Cain.
That tiger is always young. His crimes are the crimes of youth, and they seem to be multiplying these days. Perhaps this is partly because of our laissez-faire attitude toward the young. Or perhaps it is only because the population is bigger and so there are numerically more of these violent children who grow up to be violent men. Young men, eighteen, twenty, twenty-five years old. By that time they are nearly always caught. There are few old men in the ranks of the thrill seekers, the sadists, and the compulsive slayers.
But before they're caught, a lot of innocent people have suffered. Pick up any newspaper, any day, anywhere, and you're likely to find at least one account of the sort of crime I'm talking about. Unless it's an unusually spectacular one, it is customarily dealt with in half a dozen lines or so. The article gives the name of the victim and his address and whether he lived or died, and that's all, and unless you happen to know him personally you shake your head briefly over the wickedness of the world and turn to the baseball scores.
For the victim and the victim's family, it's not that easy. The tiger has mauled and marked them for all time.
I can give you a firsthand account of that because I was a six-line item on Page One. I was a victim.
My name is Walter Sherris. I live in Mall's Ford, Ohio, a steel town close to the Pennsylvania line.
Eighteen months ago I was thirty-one years old. I was healthy. I had a solid job with a future. I had a nice home in the suburbs with no more mortgage than most people have, and a practically new hard-top almost half paid for. I have the prettiest brightest wife in the county, a three-year-old daughter that was the image of her, and a little boy just past his first birthday. I was all set.
Then one spring night I took a walk.
My job was in the credit department of Valley Steel Fabricators, Inc. I worked late that night getting the accounts in shape for the semi-annual audit. It was warm and lonesome, and about ten-thirty I decided I needed a break.
Old Schmitz let me out of the front door. I told him I was going for coffee and to look for me back in about fifteen minutes. My car was on the lot beside the building, but I left it there. The twenty-four-hour truck stop on the corner of Route 18 was only two blocks away, and I wanted the walk more than I did the coffee.
Valley Steel is on a curving by-pass called Williams Avenue, some little way out from the centre of town. I began to walk north. The air smelled moist and green with the fresh rankness of weeds growing in the open spaces. From up ahead I could hear the rumble of the big semis going through on the highway. There was no traffic on Williams. It serves the plants that are on it, and few people use it except during the morning and evening rush. There was a cluster of lights far behind me marking an overpass, and there were lights two blocks ahead at the corner, but in between there was only night, with no moon showing.
In a minute or two I heard a car coming up Williams from the direction of town. I could hear it coming a long way off, because it was making that rushing, snarling, singing noise that means something special in the way of speed. Kids, I thought, and hoped they would be able to make their stop at the corner. The beam of their headlights picked me up, and I saw my shadow racing round clockwise over the pavement, over the weeds, into darkness again. Then all of a sudden the brakes went on. Tires slewed on the asphalt with a long screeching moan. The car went lurching and skidding past me, and I realized that the driver had cut his lights. Then it pulled in sharp ahead of me and stopped, with one front wheel cocked up on the curb.
It was a convertible, some lightish color that might have been gray, blue, or green, with a dark top, a souped-up job with two shiny tail pipes. The motor was still running. I could hear laughter from inside, the kind of wild brainless laughter kids will get off sometimes when they're worked up to a pitch of excitement. There was a fast gabble of talk, and then some pushing and jostling, and five boys piled out of the convertible and stood around me.
Just boys. Kids. Youngsters. It sounds so helpless and appealing that way. But only one of them was shorter than I, a broad chunky type. Two of them were fully my size. Another was tall and skinny, and the fifth topped me by four inches and must have outweighed me by at least twenty pounds. I couldn't see any of their faces. They were only five dim shapes hemming me in. And now I was beginning to be just a little bit scared.
"Well," I said, "what do you want?"
The big one stood directly in front of me, so that I had to stop or run into him.
"I want to know where you're going," he said, and the others all laughed as though he had said something quite clever. "Where are you going, tramp?"
"Look," I said. "You boys have no quarrel with me."
"That's for us to say, tramp," said the big one. He put his hand quickly on my chest and shoved. I gave back a step and one of the others pushed me from behind, and then they all had a shove, scuffling their feet on the pavement, laughing. I kept my hands at my sides.
"I asked you," said the big one. "Where you going, tramp?"
"I don't know when that got to be any of your business," I said, "but I'm going for a cup of coffee. Does that satisfy you?"
"A cup of coffee," said one of the others, mimicking. They all laughed. Then the tall skinny one said a little doubtfully, "I thought you said he had to be a tramp, Chuck. He don't sound like one to me."
"What else would he be?" said the big one. "Unless he's a crook. Are you a crook, crook?"
The stocky boy laughed a loud silly laugh.
"Listen," I said, keeping my hands down, keeping my voice quiet and reasonable. "I'm not a tramp and I'm not a crook. I'm just a guy trying to make a living. I'm not doing you any harm. Now why don't you go on and find something better to do?"
"Shut up," said Chuck. Suddenly he seemed to have gone into a rage. "I'm sick of people telling me what to do. All night they've been telling me, go here, go there, get out. The hell with you. Shut up! "
The others shuffled their feet but they did not laugh now, except for the stocky boy, and even he had changed his tone.
Chuck said to me softly, stepping close, "I'm bigger than you are."
"Physically, yes. So what?"
"So I don't have to do anything you tell me."
Now I laughed. This was perhaps not a smart thing to do, but it looked like the only chance I had. "If you're such a giant, why do you have to have four other guys to back you up against one?" I turned to the others. "What do you want to let him get you into trouble for? Use your heads. This isn't——"
"Shut up," said Chuck, with a peculiarly nasty quietness. "I told you."
He hit me. He was as strong as a horse. I stumbled back into the others, and they began to bounce me around. Have you any idea what it feels like to be in that particular spot? You're a grown man and these are boys. You feel degraded to be afraid of them but you are afraid. You feel outraged because they have laid hands on you for no reason except that they just felt like it. You feel that they're protected by all sorts of laws and customs and that it is somehow not right to fight them, even in self-defense, as you would fight grown men. And yet there they are, grown men in everything but mind, able to wound, able to destroy.
You want to kill them. This is a feeling you do not ask for or plan on having. It just comes.
Several people have said that what happened then was my fault.
I began to hit back. I yelled as loud as I could, hoping Schmitz or somebody might hear me. He didn't hear me. No one did. Shut him up, Chuck said, and they shut me up. In a few seconds I was down on the ground with all five of them on top of me, and my mouth was full of blood.
Keep him there, said Chuck's voice. Who does he think he is?
He isn't any tramp.
Who cares?
Hey. Hey, Chuck, could he be a cop?
Cop? No, why should he be a cop? I told you, he's nobody.
Let's look at his wallet, anyway.
All right, all right, chicken. Give it to me.
I rolled over on my face and got my knees under me.
Stay down, you. Didn't you hear what we said?
The world turned over again. Laughter. Hey, look, I should of worn my football shoes, these rubber soles just bounce. More laughter.
Chuck's voice talking. Hold the match so I can see. Walter Sherris, 202 Laurel Terrace—told you hold the match, Bill, what's the matter?
Another voice. I got to go, Chuck. I got to go.
What's the matter, gutless, you know him or something?
Let me go, Chuck. I got to go!
It became important to see who Bill was. Tremendously important. I wasn't sure why. I squirmed around. The night was very dark. Shapes moved in it. Fear moved in it. Pain moved in it. I saw a tall skinny shadow run to the convertible and jump in.
Now there were only four.
I took a deep breath.
Has he got any money?
The hell with his money. Who needs it?
The wallet slapped me sharply across the face.
There you are, Mr. Sherris. Laurel Terrace Drive. Well, well. No cop. No tramp, no crook. Just a real nice clean whitecollar type. Yes, sir, no, sir, and cut the lawn every Sunday Look at him, fellas, that's what your mammas want you to grow up to be. Hey, goof, let's see that cigarette lighter.
A tiny star burned, high above my head.
Chuck had taken a picture out of my wallet. I knew what it was. That was easy, because I only carried one. It was a picture of Tracey and the children, taken last summer on our lawn.
They liked the picture of Tracey. They whistled.
Some dish.
You can have her. She's a type. Bet you do everything she tells you, don't you, Mr. Sherris? Every little damn thing. Dump the garbage, walk the dog, mow the lawn——
Chuck's voice had got high and sharp, mocking somebody I didn't know.
I tackled him.
It was like tackling a stone wall. He wasn't fat, or soft, or slow. He was just plain big, and muscled like a football player. Even so I think I hurt him, because he yelped and called me a dirty name in a tone of outraged surprise. Then all four of them were on me, beating me down, laughing, grunting, cursing.
Well, he means it, doesn't he?
Look out, damn you, that hurt.
Hey, goof, watch out who you're kicking, that was me.
We were off the pavement now, rolling and stomping in the cool wet weeds. There was a wheel close to my face. It had a white side-wall tire on it and a shiny hubcap. There was an emblem on the hubcap, but I couldn't see what it was. Please quit, I said. Please let me alone. My voice sounded very small. I don't think they heard it.
The hubcap and the white side-wall turned into a bumper and grille, seen foreshortened and stubby from underneath. Somebody was jumping, with both hands on the front of the car to help him. He was breathing hard. I could hear him breathing. He was jumping on me.
You know who this is? This is that crummy bartender.
Give him one for me.
No, I'll tell you who it is, it's that so-and-so outside on the corner, the one with the pink shirt.
Think they can push us around, do they? Chuck didn't say who I was. But he knew. I was somebody he hated worse than the bartender, worse than the so-and-so with the pink shirt.
Voices, far, far away. After a while I knew they were not talking any more. They were making noises, like the noises dogs make when they have something cornered.
I lost track. I don't know when they decided to quit and go home.
2
TRACEY was telling me to cut the lawn. It's the worst-looking one in the neighborhood, dear, and the dandelions are really a disgrace. You must do something about it.
I ran the mover back and forth over the long grass. A green shower fell around it and the lawn lay short and smooth in a neat stripe under the spinning blades. Tracey watched me, smiling. She was wearing that orange sunsuit that made her look so cute and sexy I couldn't keep my mind on the grass, and her hair was bright gold, all curly around her head. Pudge was in his playpen. He was bouncing something up and down like a ball.
Tracey held up a silver lobster pick as big as a hand hoe. I've been working all afternoon in the flower beds, she said. Her nails were long, very long, very brilliantly red. Weeding is hard work, she said, and I said, it would be easier if you'd cut your nails short. She pouted at me with her pretty red mouth. Honey, she said, you don't want me to turn into a perfect frump, do you?
Pudge laughed a loud silly laugh. He was racing around the playpen bouncing this thing. It was not a ball at all. It was a man's head. The head had a big nose and long hair that floated up and down every time it bounced. He found it somewhere, said Tracey. Isn't he cute?
I ran the mower back and forth. It had white side-wall tires and a shiny grille, with headlights on the front. And that's ridiculous, I said, because who cuts the lawn on a Sunday night?
I'm going in, Tracey said. It's getting cold. Where's Bets? Bets! Come to mommy, dear, it's time to go inside.
Bets came running across the lawn. The lawn was a mile wide and it was getting dark and her little legs ran and ran. She was crying. There was blood running down her face, all down her front and splashing on her bare feet. Bad boys, she cried. The bad boys did it. I started toward her but it was very dark now and I couldn't see her any more. Pudge laughed his loud silly laugh. Where do you think you're going, tramp? he said, and I said, That's no way to talk to your father. Shut up, said Pudge. He was standing in front of me now. Shut up. He was huge in the night. He shoved me, and it wasn't Pudge at all, it was——
I yelled. A woman's voice spoke to me. I thought perhaps it was Tracey. The voice said everything was all right, and sure enough when I looked again everybody was gone and Tracey had taken the children into the house. It was dark and quiet. I felt sleepy. I slept.
There were other dreams. There were other moments of rising almost to the surface of the black pool I was sunk in, close enough for a dim glance at a room I didn't think was mine, for a dim feeling that things were somehow not good
with me. Then one time I came all the way to the top and stayed there.
I was in the Southside unit of City Hospital. I had a fine view of the steel mills out the window. My left leg was in traction, I hurt all over, and somewhere at the back of my consciousness was that cold shivery feeling as of having walked too close to a precipice in the dark. I wanted Tracey. I wanted her awfully bad.
I did not get Tracey. I got my sister Mae, so genuinely glad to see me and so obviously relieved that I got even more scared.
"How long was I out?" I asked her.
"Oh, a couple of days." She hurried over that. "How do you feel?"
"Terrible." I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth. The cuts were all healed and my lips weren't swollen. That was funny, but I was too tired to worry about it. "Where's Tracey?"
"Now, you don't have a doggone single thing to worry about, Walt." Mae leaned over and kissed me, brushing her soft brown hair over my cheek. "Tracey is fine, and so are the children."
"Sure," I said. "Why wouldn't they be fine? But where is Tracey? I want her."
"Walt," said Mae, looking down at me with her eyes full of suppressed fury, "who did this to you?"
"A bunch of kids."
Now her eyes came wide open in astonishment. "Kids!"
"Mae, where's Tracey? Why isn't she here?"
"What do you mean, Walt, a bunch of kids? Young fellows from around the plant, somebody with a grudge against you?"
"Just kids. I don't know who they were."
"You mean," she said slowly, "they were strangers, and they stopped and beat you up. Just like that."
"Mae——"
"But what reason did they have?"
"I don't know. It wasn't personal. Listen, give me a straight answer, will you? Where is Tracey?"
I watched a curtain come down over her face, leaving it closed and doubtful. She was thinking about something. This lasted only a second, and I wouldn't have caught it at all if it hadn't been that Mae's thought processes were perfectly transparent, and I've known every one of them since she was born.
The Tiger Among Us Page 1