I'm Fine, but You Appear to Be Sinking

by Leyna Krow

  But I figure I can at least put the conversation off for a while.

  I call Derek, a friend from journalism school who works in Bloomington, to see if he wants to meet up somewhere for drinks after he gets off work. I tell him I’m more than happy to come in to the city. He reminds me that another former classmate, Ethan, recently moved nearby—less than ten miles from me and Jenny, in fact. I feel guilty for having forgotten, for not having sought him out sooner.

  The three of us make plans to meet. I send Jenny a text message: “Going out with the guys, be home late.” Though this must come as a surprise to her, she replies, “Okay! Have fun!”

  And in spite of myself, I do. We talk about movies we’ve seen and IU’s basketball prospects. We reminisce just enough about the people we went to school with, the late nights we spent in the university’s dreary basement news lab, and the Cinco de Mayo party where Jenny and I first met. Derek tells the story of a colleague of his who got caught with a cache of porn on his office computer and Ethan gives me a list of albums he thinks I might enjoy. No one mentions big cats, or any other kind of wild animal for that matter.

  At one point, Derek does say, “I was sorry to hear about the baby and everything.” I thank him for his concern and realize just how long it’s been since I’ve seen these guys. At least a year.

  When I come in, Jenny is already asleep, curled on her side with my pillow clutched between her arms. She is by nature a cuddler, a seeker of warm spaces. I take off my clothes and slide under the blankets beside her, gently wresting the pillow from her grasp. She reaches an arm around my chest to take its place.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” she murmurs, kissing my neck.

  This is the way it would be with our children, too, were we to have any. Jenny would hold them close. A safe corner of the world for her family, a brood of loved ones to draw near—these are Jenny’s highest aspirations. And I keep her from them.

  Jenny wants a kid. Jenny wants multiple kids. Jenny wants a minivan full of kids. And I thought I did, too, until Jenny got pregnant. Or rather, until Jenny stopped being pregnant. We say miscarriage, but by seven months along that’s not really what it is. At seven months, it’s a death. It’s the loss of someone we’d given a name and begun assigning attributes to. We’d say things like, “I hope she gets my eyes and your pleasant disposition,” or whathaveyou.

  This was hard for both of us. But Jenny is an optimistic person. A stick-with-it person. A when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-get-going person. I admire this about my wife. I am certain these are the qualities that would make her a good parent. These are not qualities I see in myself. This knowledge has made me reconsider our plans.

  Jenny thinks I, like her, am still grieving, and when I’m done grieving, we’ll pick up with the baby-making where we left off. She’s right about the grief part.

  For breakfast, Jenny makes buttermilk pancakes and asks how things are with Derek and Ethan. I give her the updates plus the latest gossip on others from the old group. Callen is teaching English in South Korea, Sophie is trying to sell a screenplay, Jack is engaged to a woman no one likes, and that thing in the cage is a tiger.

  “A tiger?”

  “It looks that way,” I say. I tell her about the day before with Tom and Darcy.

  “So you saw it, then?” she asks. “You actually saw a living, breathing tiger?”

  “I saw something,” I say. Suddenly though, I am not sure just what exactly it is that I saw. In my mind’s eye, the tiger-like form shifts. It’s a mangy dog. It’s a pile of gunnysacks. It’s an inflatable pool toy. I find it impossible to speak with clarity on the subject. This comes as a relief. I am an unreliable witness, unfit for further questioning.

  “I can’t be certain though,” I say.

  “You said a tiger.”

  “Tom said a tiger. I think I was influenced by his power of suggestion. You know, like, the idea of a tiger was in my head so I saw one.”

  “And now you’re not so sure.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you did see something?”

  “Yes,” I agree. I did see something.

  “Mark, this is ridiculous,” she says. “Tiger or no tiger, we have a right to feel safe in our own neighborhood, in our own home.”

  Again, I offer to just go over and ask Chet about his alleged tiger if it will make her feel better. This time she doesn’t say no. This time she says, “Yes, it would make me feel better.”

  We are slow to finish breakfast. Once the dishes are done, we drive into town together to return library books and browse at the nursery. Back home, I help Jenny in the garden. I change a dead light bulb in the basement and mow the front lawn.

  After every activity, I ask myself, “Is this the appropriate moment to go confront our likely drugged-out and potentially hostile neighbor about the creature he may or may not be harboring in his backyard?”

  Each time the answer comes back “no.” So I don’t. I lie on the couch with Jenny and the cats, reading and doing crossword puzzles. We cook another meal and eat on the porch so we can watch the sunset. As I clear the dishes, a howl snakes through the neighborhood, feral and mean. I expect Jenny to say something, but she doesn’t.

  All the next day, I don’t go talk to Chet. Nor do I talk to him the day after that. But then on Tuesday, fate, or just stupid coincidence, puts Chet and me in the same place at the same time and I’ve got no excuse not to say something.

  With Jenny at work during the weekdays, I am the default runner of errands, doer of chores. I don’t mind. It gives me something to occupy the time I should spend writing. It’s at the grocery store that I find Chet.

  As soon as I get out of my car, I see him skulking across the parking lot, two bulging plastic bags in each hand and the boy five paces behind him, his double in miniature. For a second, I consider getting back in the car and driving away before he sees me. But then I remember that Chet isn’t looking for me, couldn’t give a fuck if I’m in the parking lot or not. It’s me who’s looking for him.

  I wait until they’ve reached their truck before I approach. He’s loading his groceries into the cab, his son already installed in the passenger seat.

  “Hey, Chet,” I say, nice and casual, like maybe I’m just passing by on my way into the store, which I am.

  He turns and gives me a neighborly head nod. We are neighbors after all, even if we never speak and my wife and I sometimes spy on him through the slats of his fence after Sunday lunch.

  “Hey, Chet,” I say again, but with a different inflection. More purposeful.

  He stops. He turns his whole body around and looks a lot less neighborly.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Quick question, Chet.”

  “Yeah?”

  I don’t know how to proceed. The boy, perhaps sensing something in his father’s tone he wants no part of, slips out the passenger side door and walks past us.

  “Jake,” Chet calls to him. “Don’t go far. We’re leaving.”

  The boy nods.

  Chet turns to me again. “Yeah?” he asks once more.

  “Are you keeping a wild animal on your property?”

  Chet looks at me for a long time, his eyes squinty under the brim of his ball cap. “Come again?” he asks. Then he spits. He literally spits. The loogie lands not on my feet, but very near to them as if we were characters in an old Western movie, squaring off for a showdown.

  “Look man, someone’s going to call the cops. I’m surprised they haven’t already,” I say, although this is actually a lie. I am not surprised at all.

  “I’ve got a permit for it,” Chet says.

  “You can’t get a permit for something like that. It’s not like a grain elevator. It’s a living creature.”

  “Man, you don’t even know what you don’t know,” Chet says. “You can get a permit for a fucking Burmese python in this state if you want. Orangutans, crocodiles, whatever.”

  “Is it a tiger?” I ask.

&n
bsp; Chet shakes his head like he can’t even believe I’m wasting his time with this line of questioning.

  “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, neighbor,” Chet says. Then he calls to his son who has wandered back toward the store entrance to fiddle with the vending machines.

  Standing next to Chet in the parking lot, I am struck by how similar we must appear to anyone passing by. We are around the same age, gaunt and lanky. Three days stubble, Carharts and boots. Unemployed and roaming the streets of town mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. Chet, with his son in tow, at least has the marker of adulthood: of having sired and raised a child. The boy is proof of some minimal success on the man’s part.

  At night, in bed, I raise the question with Jenny.

  “Do you think Chet Rolson is more of a man than me?” I ask.

  “Why? Because he owns a tiger?”

  “An alleged tiger,” I say.

  “Regardless. I don’t consider animal cruelty a sign of masculinity, no.”

  “But what if you just saw him walking on the street and you didn’t even know about the tiger or whatever? What would you think of him?”

  “What’s this about?” she asks, always able to see right to the very center of me.

  “Chet’s boy looks an awful lot like him,” I say.

  “Mark, I told you I’m ready to try again whenever you are. Is this you saying you’re ready?”

  I lie back and look up at the ceiling. Down the road the alleged tiger screams and everything seems so fragile I expect the sound to shatter our windows, crack our wine glasses, and break our wedding china.

  “No,” I say. “I guess not.”

  Under the blankets, Jenny wraps herself around me.

  “Okay,” she says. “That’s okay, Mark.”

  We fall asleep curled together like kittens.

  Three days later, the cries stop entirely. A nervous quiet enshrouds the neighborhood. Or maybe it’s just the same old quiet as before and I’m the one who’s nervous.

  Jenny is nervous, too. Have they killed it? Have they injured it so badly it is incapable of making noise? Have they allowed it to escape? Each of these prospects seems equally horrifying.

  I tell her I read about a big cat sanctuary outside of Terre Haute. They have all sorts of lions, tigers, cougars, and jaguars that were once pets, but were turned over when their original owners realized they were in over their heads. Maybe Rolson took the tiger there and now it’s living happily and well fed in the company of its brethren. Jenny says she’d like very much to believe that. But when we share this theory with the Wengers, Darcy insists that in her near-constant vigilance of the Rolson Meth Lab, no one has come to the house with a large van or truck or anything that might be used to transport a tiger. The cage is still in its original place, half covered by the tarp, its door shut and latched.

  We check the paper each morning—the crime blotter, the local news, and a section called “Weird and Wild”—for reports of a tiger sighting, or better yet, capture by local authorities. Nothing.

  “It’s almost like it was never even there to begin with,” I say to Jenny.

  “No, it’s not,” she corrects me. “It’s not like that at all. I can’t shake it so easily.”

  “Me neither,” I confess. “I guess I just wish that’s how I felt.”

  “Are we still talking about the tiger here?” she asks.

  I shrug. Jenny reaches across the breakfast table and puts her hand on mine. We have been so gentle with each other for so long—light touches, soft words. Even when we argue, it’s in whispers. So it’s a relief when, instead of letting go of my hand, Jenny squeezes hard. She pulls me out of my chair and into the bedroom, onto the bed. We push and tug at each other in the slatted morning light behind our half-drawn shades. This doesn’t last long. Jenny comes with an almost primal growl I want to mimic, but I get distracted by my own orgasm and double over, my face to her chest, in silence.

  That morning, for the first time in a long time, I write. My book, as I envision it, will be collection of essays about the six months I spent in Belize and southern Mexico between college and grad school. This was before I met Jenny. My girlfriend at the time had a little money and we lived in a hut on a beach, and then in a different hut on a different beach. It was her idea and then, just like now, I was supposed to be writing. The whole trip, a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to write. It wasn’t as romantic as it sounds (petty arguments, Montezuma’s revenge, my passport stolen) and the desire to be honest pitted against the desire not to look like a tool who squandered six months in paradise has made my progress choppy at best.

  Today, I am honest. And it’s good. I write about the day my girlfriend begged me to go cliff jumping. She knew a place where the locals did it. By sunset, we’d jump off a waterfall, together, and it would reinvigorate us, she said. I was hesitant, which is a nice way of saying I was afraid. On the way, we drank American beer in the back of a pick-up truck, me feeling queasy the whole time. In the end, my girlfriend jumped off the waterfall by herself while I stood at the bottom, holding our empty bottles, worrying about what I’d say to her parents if she drowned. It’s not my proudest moment, but it feels like progress to write it down. Maybe the most progress I’ve made in the last year.

  I am thinking about my next essay when Jenny comes into the office, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

  “Mark, I can’t find Boomer,” she says. “I think he must have gotten out.”

  “Okay,” I say, rising slowly from my chair like I don’t think there’s any cause in the world for concern about a missing cat. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Together, we visit each of Boomer’s favorite spots in the house, even though I’m certain Jenny has done this at least twice by herself already. He’s not in his cat bed. He’s not in the bedroom closet. He’s not pressed up against the sliding glass door where the sunlight gathers this time of the day. Behind the couch, there is a visible cluster of fur, but no Boomer.

  “We never vacuum back here,” I say.

  “When do we ever look behind the couch except when we’re looking for a cat?” Jenny asks.

  Travis follows us from room to room, meowing. He’d do this no matter what we were searching for, but in the absence of one cat, the presence of the other seems somehow significant. Like he knows something about it.

  “I think you’re right,” I say to Jenny. “I think he got out.”

  In the yard, we call Boomer’s name and rustle the low bushes that fringe our property. Jenny is crying a little again.

  “Don’t think like that,” I say. “Hey, Jenny, he’s around somewhere, okay?”

  Jenny shakes her head. “He doesn’t even have his claws anymore to protect himself.”

  There are many things that might happen to a cat in this neighborhood. Animal control could have picked him up. He could have wandered out to the highway and been hit by a car. The Rolson boy could be torturing him in the basement of his father’s house while daddy cooks up a batch of drugs in the bathtub. Fuck, we really should have called someone a long time ago.

  “He probably just got himself stuck under the Johnsons’ porch,” I say.

  I point to the long driveway directly across the street from ours. It belongs to another set of neighbors we nod politely to in passing and make small talk with only if absolutely unavoidable. We walk in the direction I’ve just pointed.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever feel like it’s safe for the cats to be outside again,” Jenny says.

  “It’s a good thing we don’t have little kids running around to worry about,” I say, and then immediately wish I could take it back. I look into my wife’s eyes. I can see her anxiety turn to anger, her anger to pity, her pity to resignation, and her resignation to regret, all right in front of me in the middle of Derring Street while I call for our stupid cat.

  “Shit,” I say. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “No, Mark. That is what you mean. That is exactly what you god-damn mean.
”

  She is one hundred percent correct and I’m at a loss for how to respond.

  “I’m going to check the house one more time,” Jenny says, coolly, turning her back to me and walking across the street. I watch her skinny shoulders, the sun-kissed pink of her neck peeking out from behind her ponytail. I should go after her, hug her from behind and apologize not just for being insensitive, but for not being able to give her what she wants, for not being as strong as she is.

  Instead I walk up to the Johnson family’s house and knock on the door. No one is home so I duck down and look under their front porch, calling Boomer’s name and whistling even though neither of the cats respond when I do this at home.

  There is nothing beneath the porch except a coiled garden hose. I stand and cross the Johnsons’ yard. At their property line, I whistle for the cat again. The family next door to the Johnsons are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They keep their three children from school, educating them at home instead. I don’t know if these two facts are related. When I knock on the door, it’s one of the kids who answers. I feel like a child myself, explaining to an adolescent girl that I’ve lost my cat.

  “He’s gray except he’s got white markings on his face and his tummy,” I say. “Have you seen him at all?”

  The girl shakes her head and offers a small, “I’m sorry.” I wonder what she thinks of the things that happen outside her window as she’s trying to study each day. The comings and goings of secular life, the Rolson boy, just about her age, tearing around on his bike.

  Back on our own side of the street, Darcy Wenger says she hasn’t seen Boomer either.

  “You don’t think maybe...”

  “I’m sure he just wandered away,” I say, cutting her off.

  After that, I don’t even consider whether to go to the next house down or not. I just do. I am not really myself in this moment. Or, rather, I am some approximation of myself. I am the diligent husband helping his wife find her beloved cat. I am knocking on my neighbors’ doors, none of whom I seek to avoid, because I am a grown man and why should I be afraid of the people with whom I share a street? This is the man who walks to Chet Rolson’s door and rings the bell and waits.