Pride

by William Wharton

  Jimmy stands transfixed. He holds on to the goad, tries to pull it up from over the edge of the pit to defend himself, but Tuffy is too quick.

  He bounds the few yards to where Jimmy is standing, shocked, defenseless. He swings his mighty left paw at Jimmy’s haunch, knocking him against the Wall of Death and probably breaking his spine with that first blow.

  Then Tuffy is on top of Jimmy. The lion takes his victim’s head into his mouth and bites down, virtually decapitating him but smothering him at the same time, stilling whatever life is left in Jimmy’s now inert body.

  Then, carefully, without hesitating, and also without haste, operating on latent instincts, Tuffy rips off Jimmy’s clothes and disembowels him. He begins feeding cautiously, nuzzling gently at first, then more and more furiously. Tuffy eats between hurry and leisure, hunched over his victim, preying on his unnatural prey.

  He empties the greater part of the thoracic cavity, and nudging, turning the body over in his ferocity, gnawing, worrying, rips large hunks from the haunches.

  After the first ten minutes Tuffy subsides and almost gently strips off the large femoral triceps, revealing the glistening bone of the great trochanter of femur. Then, using his side teeth, he scissor-cuts one of Jimmy’s muscular arms off at the shoulder. He holds this dripping in his mouth. When he does stand up, he’s so bloated with food he can scarcely move. As with any lion, after gorging, he’s interested in only one thing, sleep.

  He slowly, awkwardly, walks across the common rafters of the Wall of Death and a curio shop beside it, on the opposite side from Sammy’s platform. He slinks off into the darkness, into the attic of the shop, and settles his weight onto the floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes filled with trinkets and souvenirs sold in the shop below.

  Sometime later, Sally and Cap arrive. Cap managed to intercept her before she got to the police. Sally is riding on the back of the motorcycle. Cap is anxious about Tuffy, concerned that the whole escapade might have changed their relationship. He stops to let Sally off, then goes over to park his motorcycle beside Jimmy’s. Sammy leans down from his platform.

  Sally looks up.

  “How are you, Sammy? Did Tuffy hurt you?”

  “Nothing but my feelings. I think I lost about two years’ growth, too. But no hard feelings. He was probably only playing, but I couldn’t tell the difference. After all, a cat does like to fish.”

  He laughs, slides himself closer to the edge.

  “Where’s Tuffy now? I heard some growling and rustling around over there just after you left but it’s been quiet ever since.”

  Cap comes up beside Sally.

  “Tuffy’s in the pit. Jimmy was supposed to feed him, that’s probably what you heard. You haven’t seen Jimmy, have you?”

  Sally looks around.

  “He wouldn’t be in the pit with Tuffy. He most likely took a walk or something. I imagine he wants some time to pull himself together after what’s happened. I can’t blame him.”

  Cap looks at Sally. He’s wondering how she’ll take it when she knows Jimmy’s leaving, might even be gone already. He thinks again how it will be when Sally leaves. Maybe she’s only been sticking around the last few years because of Jimmy. Cap hates to think of life without her. Love for him, late to come, is not easily given up.

  “I’ll look in the pit to see if Tuffy’s O.K.”

  Cap opens the door to the pit carefully. He’s not afraid, but he doesn’t want Tuffy escaping again. He also wants to see if Jimmy has really fed him. It’s fairly dark in the pit and Cap switches on the overhead lights.

  When he discovers Tuffy is gone, he stands there a few seconds in bewilderment. He checks to see if Jimmy’s things are there; they are. Now Cap’s scared. He dashes out, leaving the lights on. He runs over and peers into the cage, an illogical last hope. It’s then he sees the lock on the floor back in the cage. He reaches in, picks it up.

  Sally’s still talking with Sammy. She turns around and looks at Cap. “What’s the matter?”

  “Tuffy’s gone!!”

  “What do you mean he’s gone? Where’s Jimmy?”

  “Tuffy’s not in there where I left him. There’s no meat on the floor and the sack isn’t there either. He’s just gone.”

  “Mother of God!”

  Cap looks up at the catwalk. It doesn’t make sense but it’s the last possible place. It’s where Jimmy was supposed to go. He starts in a dash up the steps with Sally behind him, her concern for Jimmy overwhelming her fear of Tuffy.

  Cap starts running around the catwalk clockwise. A quarter of the way around he comes on the remains of Jimmy, the filled burlap sack beside him.

  Jimmy is such a torn mess, the blood so all-encompassing, and Cap is so confused, frightened, he doesn’t realize at first what’s happened. If you don’t believe something will happen, it’s hard to see it, even when it’s before your eyes.

  Sally runs past Cap. She falls to her knees in front of Cap beside Jimmy. She sees one of his arms ripped from the carcass, twisted backward across his torso, so the tattoo of the eagle riding a motorcycle, smeared with blood, is just visible.

  “Mother of God! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Oh, please don’t let this be. Oh, Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!”

  She’s not expecting an answer, only trying to call him back, asserting her right to him.

  Cap drops to his knees beside her. He stares, the blood drains from his face, and he vomits. He vomits on Sally’s feet. He stands up and starts vomiting over the edge of the railing into the pit. He vomits until he’s retched dry and is crying.

  Sally stands up, her back to Cap. She’s hunched over sobbing, sobbing so hard now she can’t talk. She turns, looks down at her shoes. She looks up at Cap, who is standing there, vomit on his chin, across his shirt. Sally swings back her arm and slaps Cap hard across the face. He stands without moving. She swings with the other arm, full swing, and slaps him again. She’s hurt her hand and tucks it against her breast, holding it with her other hand. Cap takes a step forward, his arms out to hold her, to comfort her; he staggers. When he gets close, Sally begins pounding on his chest, his face, with her fists. Cap tries to hold her in his arms; she kicks at his legs.

  “You wanted it to happen. Jimmy knew it; he told me so. He knew he was going to get killed by Tuffy and it’d be your fault. Oh, God! I hate a coward.”

  “You’re talking crazy, Sally. Come on, let’s go; we’ve got to do something.”

  Cap starts running, pulling Sally with him. She follows unwillingly, looking back at Jimmy. Cap pulls her behind him down the stairs. When they round the side of the Wall of Death he yells.

  “Sammy!! Sammy!! Tuffy’s escaped again and he’s killed Jimmy up there. I’ll report to the police, then look for Tuffy. I’m taking Sally with me.”

  Sammy's face appears over the edge of his platform.

  “He’s killed Jimmy? Are you sure?”

  Cap is trying to kickstart his motorcycle. Sally awkwardly, reluctantly climbs on the back. It takes four kicks to turn the motor over. Cap shouts up to Sammy as he keeps kicking, adjusting the magneto:

  “I’m sure. Jimmy’s dead. Tuffy could be around somewhere, so stay close to your pool. Warn everybody away with your megaphone. If you see him just jump in the tank.”

  Cap gets his bike started. He pulls out, around the Wall of Death and off to the police. Sammy watches them go, then looks carefully all around him. He slides over to where he can keep an eye on the boardwalk. He settles down there, turning his head over his shoulder now and again, half expecting to see Tuffy stalking him, maybe only trying to be friendly, or maybe wanting to kill again.

  PART 11

  “Come on, Dickie. No lion’s going to catch us way out here; lions are afraid of water.”

  Dad has the fishing poles we rented and he’s ahead of me. We’re walking out on a rickety old pier with boards missing so we can look right down into the water.

  Two days have passed since the lion escaped and killed that man in the motor
cycle act. It’s been in all the newspapers, even the Philadelphia papers, the Inquirer, the Bulletin, and the Ledger. The lady at our place where we’re living says the radio told everybody to stay at home if they could, except for emergencies, until the lion was either caught or killed.

  But after two days in our room, while I’m having an awful time keeping from crying or sometimes from just coming right out and telling Mom and Dad how I let the lion escape, Dad says he isn’t going to waste his vacation mooning around and anybody who wants to go fishing with him can come.

  I want to do anything, just to think about something else, so I say I’ll come. Mom and Laurel decide to stay inside but say they’ll go out with us in the afternoon to the beach, especially if the lion gets caught. I leave Cannibal with Laurel.

  So we’re walking out on this old pier with thick pilings, thicker than telephone poles, holding it up all crooked and coated with black shells and green seaweed. The whole thing sags and tilts back and forth. Boards are missing everywhere, and it all shakes when the waves break against it. We walk past a sign saying FISHING PROHIBITED ON PIER. It took me a long time to learn that prohibited meant you couldn’t do it. Prohibited sounds an awful lot like permitted to me. It looks like permitted, too.

  But Dad walks right past that sign. He says it’s only put up there so if anything happens to us it’s our own fault and we can’t sue anybody; he’s fished lots of times from this pier and he’s always caught good fish.

  I follow along behind him. I try not looking between the boards when there are two or three in a row missing; some of the boards look as if they might break if you step on them, too.

  I know Dad’s taking me out here partly because he feels something’s wrong. Both Mom and Dad have some mysterious way of knowing if I’ve done something bad and I don’t know how to hide it from them.

  But I can never confess about letting that lion out; they’d probably have to tell the police. Then everybody’d know I have some kind of devil in me for sure. Who else but a devil would let a lion loose so he could kill somebody? The way it happened, I didn’t even know I was doing it; but now, in my mind, I can almost believe I did it on purpose with some help from Cannibal and the lion. That lion is called Satan, the Dare-Devil Lion. That must mean something.

  I’m wishing I had Cannibal with me here but she’d have to stay in her box all day. Laurel’s getting really good at playing with Cannibal, and I think Cannibal likes her. Cannibal acts more like a kitten and less like a cat every day. I’m not so sure I like her as much this way.

  Dad’s stopped and has our fishing poles leaning in a crotch where two huge posts stick up higher than the pier. He’s down on his knees opening up the waxed paper full of cut-up squid we bought for bait on our way.

  It was still dark when we bought the bait and rented the poles. I was looking out our car window into the salt marshes and under all those little wooden bridges, hunting for the lion. If I could only help find him it might make things not so bad.

  Now Dad’s tying the hooks and sinkers onto the leader. Dad took me fishing before once, when I was real little, little as Laurel, but I’ve never caught anything. Dad puts some bait on each of the hooks. He’s tied two hooks on the line, three feet apart.

  “We’re going to catch some fish today, Dickie. I feel it in my bones. Once, in this very spot, I caught eleven kingfish and two flounder, all of them at least two pounds each. Boy, were they ever good. I don’t even mind cleaning fish like that. We’ll clean anything we catch out here so we can bring the fish home all cleaned and ready to eat. That’s the way Mom likes it.”

  He’s still watching me. As he untangles his line and swings his pole over his shoulder to cast, he takes another look at me, and just before he whips off his cast he gives me a wink.

  My father never winks. He can’t know, can he? If he did know, he wouldn’t wink, would he? Winking that way he looks like Brian Donlevy or some other actor in a suit.

  His cast is perfect, arching up high and dropping a long way out there just at the right time. My dad can really fish. He puts on the ratchet and reels back in slowly until his line is straight. I take the other pole and swing my line with the bait on it back and forth, getting it clear of things. I take off the ratchet but keep my thumb lightly on the reel so the line can go out but it won’t backlash. Backlash is usually what happens when I cast.

  But this time it goes out pretty far, for me; at least it doesn’t get all snarled. I don’t think I jerked the bait off either. Dad sits down on the edge with his feet hanging over the side of the pier. I’m a little bit afraid but I sit beside him. He wouldn’t let me fall in, and if a really big fish bites on my line I can pull back hard and hold on to the post beside me so I won’t get pulled into the water.

  The waves are crashing into the pilings under us. They smash, and foam crashes up high or sometimes the waves just roll on by, creeping up the side of the pilings, then rolling on toward shore while the shells and seaweed on the pilings drip water and hiss after they’re gone.

  I like fishing more for watching the water than catching fish. I peek over at Dad a few times but he’s looking out across the water, watching his line. He has one finger pushing against his line above his reel to feel for any bites, and he has his ratchet on so every once in a while it clicks. I put on my ratchet and push my finger on the line the same way; I’d forgotten all about that part.

  I stare some more down into the water and think about the lion. The water’s something like a lion; awfully strong so nothing can stop it. But the ocean isn’t in a cage, it’s free; now the lion is too. I wonder if he’s happier this way. I guess an ocean is one of the freest things you can think of except the sky. I look over at Dad again; he’s looking at me and smiles.

  “What in heaven’s name are you thinking about, Dickie? You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. You worrying about me and J.I.?”

  I don’t know what to say. Nobody except Sister Anastasia that time in Religion ever asked me what I was thinking about. I don’t think anybody ever even cared what I thought. It’s a peculiar thing to feel somebody wants to know what’s inside your head. I don’t know how to answer. I don’t want to lie but I could never tell Dad the truth about the lion, not now anyway, maybe some other time, after they’ve caught the lion. I wonder if I’ll need to tell about letting that lion out when I go to confession. Which one of the capital sins is Mistake?

  If I tell, I know darn well Father Lanshee will squeal to my parents. Even Father O’Shea might. But I’d never tell about it in confession anyway. I’m ready to live with this lie, even go to communion without telling it. Letting out a lion to kill somebody is a bigger thing than confession and communion can do anything about. I’m like one of the old pagan Romans putting Christians in to be eaten by lions. I wonder if the motorcycle driver the lion ate was a Catholic.

  “I was thinking about that a little bit; but mostly I was thinking about how strong the ocean is, how it keeps doing the same thing over and over but it isn’t monotonous like a clock.”

  “Dickie, they say each seventh wave is supposed to be bigger than the other ones. I watch every time I’ve come down here to the ocean but I don’t think that’s so. People just make up those kinds of ideas.”

  We’re quiet some more. I try to think about school things or about Cannibal or even about Dad and J.I. and the union, anything except about that lion; so if he asks me again what I’m thinking I won’t have to lie. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder what he’d say if I asked him.

  Just then, something strikes so hard on my line it almost cuts my finger. There’s a sucking pull, then a strong jerk so my pole bends. I grab the pole with both hands; the line starts reeling out fast and I can’t catch the handle.

  “Holy smokes, Dickie! You’ve really caught into something there! Try to slow it down before your line runs out.”

  I try again to catch the handle but it’s spinning too hard, too fast. Dad jumps up, wedges his po
le between two boards, and reaches over to me, fast. He’s already breathing hard.

  “Here, let me give you a hand with that. You must’ve caught into a whale or something. My goodness. We’re liable to lose the pole and everything.”

  Dad takes the pole from me, braces the end against his knees held tight together, and manages to slow down the line going out. He can’t stop it but he slows it and starts trying to pump the pole up and down the way you do when you’re pulling in a big fish, but he can’t do it; the pole is practically bent in half. It looks as if it’s going to break, and then we’ll have to pay for it. Dad’s concentrating and sweat is coming on his forehead.

  I’m scared. It reminds me of the lock inside the lion’s cage. It’s something so scary and you’re caught into it and there doesn’t seem to be any way out.

  The line out there starts pulling sideways toward the end of the pier, where there are practically no boards. We can see the fishing line cutting against the water. Then the line begins slackening and Dad reels in as fast as he can. He’s slowly working his way out to the end of the pier at the same time. I’m afraid to follow him; sometimes there are as many as four or five boards missing and you have to jump over empty places. Dad’s a good swimmer so he could swim in, but I’d have to hold on to one of those big pilings with that strong water and I’d probably get all cut to smithereens.

  Just when it looks as if that fish is going to go completely around the pier and get everything all tangled up, he turns back to where he started. Dad’s letting out a bit now but pulling in whenever he can. The pole still looks as if it’s going to break.

  “Watch, Dickie. The important thing is never to let the pole flat down or the fish can break your line for sure. You’ve got to keep as much drag on him with the pole and pumping as you go without breaking anything and at the same time keep trying to bring him in close. This is some kind of a monster fish and I think he’s about ready to make another run. If he goes too far, we run out of line and I’ll lose him. We can only hope he’ll tire out first. I’ve never had such a big fish on a line before. Isn’t it exciting?”