Sleeping Tigers

by Robinson, Holly

  I flicked my brother’s wrist with two fingers hard enough to sting. “You’re never going to forgive Dad for being human, are you, Cam? Even if he’s the guy who always found a way to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads? Even if he’s the one who taught you how to ride a bike and throw a ball? He drank and he made mistakes. He wants to apologize to you for that, if you’d ever let him.”

  Cam snorted. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really! He keeps telling me so. And maybe you don’t want that, but Cam, if you hang onto this kind of anger, you’ll die with it eating a hole in your heart.”

  Cam poked a finger into his own chest. “What’s that you say? A hole in my heart? And here I thought it was from a bullet!” He grimaced, mimed writhing and dying, then said, “Sorry, but the old man’s going to have to go to his grave without me making it easier for him to pass through the pearly gates. I’ve never been the saint in the family. That position was already filled when I was born.” He pointed at me.

  We finished our coffee in silence, then sat with Cam’s roommates and ate eggs, potatoes, toast, bacon, and coffee cake in the greenhouse on a rickety picnic table painted white and stenciled with moons and stars. Whoever did the artwork around here had a thing for night skies. The stars were sloppy; they looked more like a child’s hand prints. Vegan Val and the other woman, Melody, sat on either side of me, across from Jon, Cam, and Domingo, the third man. Val, of course, nibbled on a separate breakfast of fruit and nuts.

  “You grew all of these orchids? They’re amazing,” I said to Shepherd Jon, staring at the plants hanging above us and stacked in clay pots on metal shelving. We were seated in a forest of flowers, the scent of so many orchids overpowering, cloying.

  “My father started the collection. I’ve just kept it going,” Jon answered. “He was a botany professor at Berkeley. Took I don’t know how many trips to the Amazon. Even had a couple of flowers named after him. When he died a few years ago, I decided to keep things going as a tribute to him. I’ve been collecting orchids in Nepal, working with a conservation group there as a volunteer.”

  “Doing what?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. Last time I was there, I was mostly helping them train the customs officials to spot orchids being smuggled out of the country. There’s one in particular, Panch Aunlle—means ‘five-fingered’– that’s very valuable because people believe it can give you more energy.”

  I looked around the greenhouse. “It must take a huge effort to keep so many plants alive.”

  “Not really. Orchids are a common vascular plant, and they’re hardier than you’d think. Just give ‘em humidity and they’re happy campers.”

  I craned my neck to see the plants hanging at the far end of the greenhouse. We were surrounded by blooms of every color and size; many had leathery leaves that looked like dry green tongues. “I never knew there were so many different kinds.”

  “Sure. They’re one of the most adaptive plants on earth, so orchids are pretty good at carving out special niches where they won’t have to compete so hard for food and light.” Shepherd Jon tossed his blonde ponytail over one shoulder and gestured at various plants. “Some smell like rotting meat to attract certain flies. Others are designed to attract mating beetles by emitting the scent of a female beetle. Then there’s that one in the far corner. See it? Looks so much like a female wasp that male wasps actually mate with it.”

  The others at the table were watching Jon silently, their upturned faces almost reverent. Next to me, Melody’s sarong had ridden high and she kept shifting her pale, fleshy haunches on the bench. I suddenly realized that she was trying to reach Jon’s feet under the table with her own. He kept talking, either oblivious to her seductive efforts or determined to ignore them.

  “Are orchids edible?” I asked.

  “Yep. You’re eating one right now.” Jon pointed at the slice of vanilla-frosted coffee cake on my plate. “Vanilla beans are the pods of an orchid plant.”

  We all contemplated my cake until I felt obligated to take a bite. Jon smiled slightly, watching me chew, then said, “What’s really cool is that orchids are so sexual looking. It’s a real turn-on, sitting here among all of these sweet little vaginas.” He reached up and stroked a petal between two fingers. “My beauty girls,” he crooned.

  The chunk of cake seemed to expand in my throat. I gulped a glass of juice to get it down. Val giggled. She still wore her sunglasses.

  “What do you do when you’re not growing orchids?” I asked.

  “A little of this. And even less of that.” Shepherd Jon studied me with his eyes half shut.

  “Where do you work?”

  Jon tapped his temple with one forefinger. “Right in here.”

  What a pompous jerk. What was so difficult about answering a simple question? Talking about your job was standard, getting-to-know-you brunch fare. In this company, though, it appeared to be an invasion of privacy. Too bad. I pressed on. “And just what do you do in your home temple?”

  “Try to make peace with myself and the world. The world has enough type A’s,” Jon said. “Why add to the world’s woes? I had a job on the outside once upon a time. A job with an office, health benefits, a retirement plan.”

  “He was the marketing manager for a pharmaceutical company,” Melody said, shaking her head as if this tragedy had taken all of Jon’s courage to overcome. “They even gave him a company car.”

  “That’s right,” Jon nodded. “But I dropped out after 9/11. Saw where I’d been and where I was going, decided to eject myself from my own life. I’d rather inflict no harm on this cesspool of a planet and simply enjoy what little beauty is left.” He caressed the orchid above his head.

  “Nice work if you can get it,” I said. “Especially if you have a house handed to you on a silver platter. But what are you accomplishing?”

  Jon leaned forward, his ponytail spilling down one shoulder, his green eyes unblinking. “Whether I accomplish anything hardly matters, since the world’s likely to go up in a ball of flames. So I laid to rest Jon Clemmons, Marketing Director of Salient Pharmaceuticals, and became Shepherd Jon, traveler and thinker. Someone who knows that one life is all we have to live.”

  The table burst into applause. I felt like I was at an amateur dinner theater, trapped between soggy appetizer and bland entree before the tired opening number. I laughed. “That was your big deal epiphany? That we have but one life to live? I hate to break this to you, Shepherd, but a few other people have been there, done that. There’s even a soap opera by that name.”

  Jon straightened in his chair. “The difference between my decision and the cliche,” he said, “is that others talk the talk, but I walk the walk. I quit my job. Scissored my suits. Shredded my credit cards. Now I use every moment to inhale life’s sweetness, to live in the present without contributing to humanity’s demise, and to volunteer my services to people and countries in need where possible. It’s an example that I hope others will follow.” He looked meaningfully around the table.

  “Amen,” Val breathed.

  “You go, Bro,” Cam said solemnly.

  “And what happens if everyone does follow you, like sheep?” I asked. “What then? We all go back to living off the land? Is that your grand scheme?”

  “In fact, yes. I’ve already got my urban garden out back, if you’d care to look, and I spin my own wool. I’ve converted the van to using biodiesel fuel and I heat the house with wood. And, when I’m not here, I’m trying to help save the world’s remaining species of plants.” Jon clasped his hands around his coffee mug. “You have a better idea for changing the world?”

  “Maybe I like the world the way it is.”

  He looked smug. “Oh, yes? What is it you like about our world, Jordan? The nuclear tests in remote villages in India? The terrorists who strap explosives to their own bodies? The mothers right here in Berkeley who sell their bodies and souls for another pipe?”

  I had to struggle to put my thoughts into words
; hadn’t I, in fact, just kicked aside the scaffolding of my own life, with the possible exception of knowing that I loved children and teaching? Didn’t I volunteer, too, even if it was only on projects within a ten-mile radius of my home in Massachusetts? Soup kitchens, beach cleanups, recycling drives: okay, I hadn’t traveled to Nepal to save rare tigers and orchids, but I’d always made a point of giving back to my community. Were Jon and I so different, really? Why was I even bothering to argue?

  “Those things you’re talking about aren’t the whole world,” I said, my face hot with the frustration of trying to explain my thoughts before I’d had time to fully mull them over. “Just pieces of it gone wrong. Who are you helping by dropping out, besides yourselves?”

  There was an uneasy titter from Melody, a warning look from Cam. I ignored them and focused my attention on Domingo, whose head was drooping over his plate. I leaned forward and tapped him on the back of his hand. He jerked awake. “What about you, huh? Are you in the world, or out of it?” I demanded.

  Domingo showed me the whites of his eyes. “Me?”

  “Yes, you! What do you do, when you’re not busy taking sand naps or eating?”

  Cam nudged my foot under the table. “Ease up, Jordan.” He nodded at the rest of the table. “My sister’s always been the motivated one in the family. The big success story. Master’s degree, teaching job, the works. She’s our Go Getter Gal. Jordan hasn’t ever had time to understand the world’s essential truth.”

  I fixed him in my sights. “Which is?”

  Cam grinned. “Which is that it can take a whole lot of time to drink a cup of coffee.”

  The others laughed, and even I had to smile. I wasn’t going to change these people, and that was okay. I was only here because I wanted to be part of my brother’s life again. No point in alienating Cam. I could let the conversation slide for now, and Cam and I would have another chance to talk alone later. I’d see to that.

  Jon lit a joint and it went around the table, slowing the talk as Cam’s roommates, sated and stoned, pushed back their chairs. I declined the joint and told them a bit about my teaching, then asked about their lives, keeping myself on a short leash.

  This group made the Vienna Boys’ Choir look rowdy. Domingo consulted on occasional software jobs. Melody had a rubber stamp business, designing stamps to order. Val catered vegan meals at private Berkeley parties.

  “What we mainly like to do is get high and night skate,” Cam said. “That’s how I met this crew.”

  “Night skate?”

  “Yeah, there’s a whole gang of us. The Holy Rollers. Everybody here, and maybe another dozen across the Bay. We meet in Golden Gate Park on Tuesday nights and skateboard or bike the hills around Pacific Heights. Fun as hell.”

  Domingo was grinning, nodding so hard that his dark hair bounced around his shoulders. “Yeah, suicide is a definite possibility if you don’t count right between lights.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You take your skateboards and bikes into the city at night? On streets with traffic?”

  “Not much traffic at night,” Cam pointed out. “And this city’s like one big skate park. We’ve done every hill, ramp, tunnel, you name it. Even Twin Peaks. Man! What a rush. Fifteen of us zooming down that sucker, barely making the corners.”

  “Fifteen of you with a suicide wish,” I pointed out.

  “It’s a bitchin’ good time,” Cam said. “Funner than fun.”

  Fun. Fun was the point. Cam and his housemates were like those fourth grade kids who refused to wear jackets at recess, even if it meant flying headfirst into walls because they were so cold that they’d pulled their arms inside the sleeves of their t-shirts, as if they were wearing straitjackets. I was torn between wanting to scold Cam for playing Peter Pan and envying his freedom.

  Just then Melody, who had carried a stack of dirty plates into the kitchen, returned to the greenhouse and said, “Cam? She’s here again.”

  Melody stood between me and the greenhouse windows on the street side, blocking my view of the driveway. Her back was stiff with tension. Cam immediately disappeared from the room, his bare feet surprisingly soundless on the stairs.

  A moment later, the front doorbell rang. Shepherd Jon excused himself to answer it.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, trying without success to see out the windows.

  Val leaned close to me. She had removed her sunglasses; the whites of her eyes were shot with red around the blue irises. “Cam has a stalker,” she whispered.

  “Oh, lighten up, Val,” snapped Melody. She began collecting more plates from the table.

  I followed Melody into the kitchen. “Lighten up about what?” I demanded. “Who’s at the door?”

  She sighed and started rinsing dishes. “Just this insane girl who’s got some screwed up idea that Cam still wants anything to do with her. She comes around every now and then, makes a scene, and Jon has to scare her off.”

  “Oh.” I automatically started lining up the rinsed plates in the dishwasher, conscious that Cam had somehow gotten out of kitchen duty while here I was, ever my mother’s dutiful daughter. “Is it a woman Cam was involved with for a long time?”

  “I don’t know. What’s a long time?” With her hands still submerged in bubbles, Melody wiped her forehead with one arm, a gesture I remembered my own mother making at the kitchen sink. She didn’t wait for me to answer her question. “Long enough, I guess,” she said. “But believe me, this girl is nobody for you to feel sorry for. She’s an operator.”

  “Why? What does she do?”

  Melody rotated her shoulders. Standing this close to her, I could see the fine lines in her skin. She was an attractive woman; I wondered how long she had been pursuing Jon and whether her feelings had ever been reciprocated. For a moment, I felt a kinship. Why did she stay? What was a long time for her to be in a relationship? For any of us? Our lives were going by, one sink full of dishes at a time, and yet we didn’t see the moments, the days, passing.

  “The thing is,” Domingo said from the doorway behind us, “there’s a kid involved.”

  I whirled around. “What?”

  “Stay out of it,” Melody warned, turning to face Domingo and scattering droplets of water at him with her damp hands. “This thing is nobody’s business but Cam’s.”

  “And mine,” I added. “If there’s a kid, that makes me an aunt.”

  I shot out of the kitchen and into the greenhouse again, where Val now sat cross-legged in a square of sunshine at the far end, meditating with palms upturned on her knees. I peered out every window between the plants, but the street was deserted.

  I crossed back through the kitchen, this time searching for the stairs leading to Cam’s room. Shepherd Jon was returning from the front door, his footfalls echoing on the wooden floor as decisively as a soldier’s marching to a snare drum. He blocked my path, draped an arm around my waist, and spun me like a dancer away from the door.

  “Problem solved,” he said. “Let’s finish our discussion. I was enjoying myself.”

  I shook him off. “Where did the girl go?”

  “Back where she belongs. People’s Park.”

  “What’s that?” I remembered Cam saying he would be living there if not for Jon.

  “A place near the University where the homeless camp out.”

  “Is this woman homeless?”

  “Let’s just say that she’s choosing the street for now.”

  “Where’s my brother?”

  He sighed heavily. “Don’t blame Cam. None of this is his fault.”

  I glared at Jon, barely resisting the urge to grab his beard and give it a good tug. “If Cam’s in trouble, I’d rather hear it from him.”

  “Suit yourself. Top of the stairs, turn right. Last room on your left. But don’t expect him to be coherent.”

  “Cam doesn’t have to be coherent. He’s my brother.”

  “Lucky him,” Jon said.

  Chapter five

&nbs
p; Upstairs, away from the heady scent of the orchids, Jon’s house smelled like every other college house I’d ever been in, of damp towels and rotting food and cranky radiators. The wallpaper was an old woman’s choice, bouquets of roses tied in pink ribbons. The floral carpeting on the stairs had faded to pale blooms.

  Clearly, this part of the house hadn’t been touched since Jon’s parents died. I had a brief image of Jon as a boy, towheaded and energetic, running up these stairs ahead of me, his green eyes snapping a challenge: catch me if you can!

  All of the bedroom doors were open but one, and nobody had bothered to make a bed. Untamed plants hung in the windows, some with dead brown tendrils mixed among the green. Several of the bedrooms had clothes scattered over the pine floors, arms and legs spiraled outward.

  Two of the bedrooms were further crowded by bicycles standing like horses in dim stalls. The upstairs bathroom was painted a garish purple; it had a claw-foot tub with a clear shower curtain gone green with mold around the edges.

  I knocked on the only closed bedroom door. “Hey. Can I come in?”

  Cam didn’t answer.

  “Open up! Come on, Cam. I’m not going away until you do.”

  Still nothing. I nudged the door open with my foot.

  My brother was sprawled on his back across the double bed, staring at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he said, but his voice was toneless, drained of energy.

  “Too late.”

  Cam covered his face with both hands. I surveyed the room from the doorway. One side of the ceiling slanted down above a desk heaped with books and papers. The headboard of the bed was pine and an old pine bureau stood in one corner. Both pieces of furniture were heavily scarred, as if they’d not only been dragged upstairs, but across town, too.

  I couldn’t help myself. “Palatial abode you’ve got here.”

  “I’ve always lived in shit holes. What makes you think now would be any different?”

  Truthfully, I had expected just what I saw here, knowing my brother as well as I did. There was nothing on the walls to liven up the peeling yellow paint. My brother’s dirty laundry was heaped in a plastic hamper with a cracked rim.