Let Them Run

Darren was five when he met the tiger.

Cocooned in his shoebox room, Darren covered his ears against the shouting outside. He could still feel the thump of heavy hits against the wall, the shuddering thud of limp weight tumbling to the floor. He screwed his eyes shut, keeping the darkness out and hot shame deep inside. 

Soft fur brushed against Darren's skin, whiskers tickling his face. The low thrumming of a feline throat peppered with warm snorts of investigative breath. Darren dared to peek as a paw pad pressed against his chest, a gentle lie disguising dagger claws. In the close dark, Darren could not see the blazing stripes, only the glitter of lamp-like eyes. A rough tongue licked the boy's glistening cheek.

It was small then, Darren's tiger. Only a cub. But it would grow.

Soon, it would be bigger than his father's.

Shuffled between foster homes, Darren learned to tame his tiger, to hide it before it got taken away. He trained the beast to run from the room when an adult looked in, to disappear when Darren had to sit still through church or school. It always came back when he called it, the muscled ferocity impressing his friends and keeping the bullies off his back. Anyone who saw the size of it, the command Darren had over that wild power, looked at the boy with new respect. And Darren learned the hard way that if the wrong person saw his tiger, they would look for a way to make it their own.

The tiger became a secret. Darren refused to call it for anybody else, even when goaded, even when threatened, even when the bigger boys held him back and took his possessions away. "You want your shit?" the ringleader sneered. "Get your cat to take it back!"

Darren spat blood from a split lip and glared at the leader, hands tight with white-knuckled fists. One word would call his beast back again. One word would summon up eight hundred pounds of fiery stripes. One word for snarling jaws and keratin scythes to spring, slicing the arrogant braggart from jaw to giblets and peeling the heart from his ribs. One word. One.

Darren stayed silent. And that scared the bully far more than any cat.

When Darren was alone, he let the tiger run free. They'd chase each other, leaping and roaring through the night, burning up everything they'd swallowed that day. Darren cared for his pet, sheltered it, protected it, smoothed and preened the sleek coat of smouldering fur. It butted the flat weight of its head against him, pressing its warm muscle into Darren's embrace, rumbling with majestic pleasure to be by his side. 

In the bleakest hours of a mind-numbing day, Darren would yearn for that feral companionship. He let the trivial, made-up world of offices and politics breeze past him, a man with a tiger at home. His sense of purpose wasn't wrapped up in prestige or reputation, but providing his beast with all the comfort and security it needed to thrive. When the traffic was thick, when someone else's blame stained him, when small injustices piled high on his desk, Darren would remember the tickle of whiskers, and count down the minutes to his next wild run.

With all the care Darren took to keep his beast contained, it was unsettling to see others in the office calling on their protectors. At the flimsiest whiff of shenanigans, Carol from finance would send her clawed cassowary shrieking into battle. Armando in HR could summon up a lithe python to slowly squeeze the breath from any threat. Tammy the intern had once unleashed a bone-shattering T-Rex and never stopped apologizing for it, but no one called her 'princess' ever again. Some people just bragged about their animals, making sly allusions to creatures no one else would ever actually see. And some people, like Darren's boss, kept their beasts on a short leash, letting everybody know their snarling Rottweiler was always ready to bite. 

This didn't bother Darren. He had a tiger at home. 

There was a certain kinship among people like Darren who pretended that their beast did not exist. They never threatened one another, preferred to work out their differences calmly and extend each other grace. They treated each other with equal decency, refusing the smug superiority that the keeper of a rhino might lord over a falconer. Having never called them out and measured, they simply agreed there was no need to fight.

And one of these secret-keepers was Lucy.

"You still have to be careful," Lucy cautioned. "Sometimes people only pretend to be safe until you go home with them. Then, the animal comes out."

It was important to Darren to make Lucy feel safe. The natural confidence that comes with a tiger enforcing his words drained away. For the first time, he wished his beast was smaller, cuter, less of a threat. He spent more time away from his magnificent monster, taking Lucy out late into the night. He would not dare invite her back to his tiger's den, and have to watch her run away screaming.

Or worse: to have her stay. And look at Darren the way his mother looked at his father.

"I needed you when I was a kid," Darren said, pressing his fingers through the tangerine fur. "I'm not a kid anymore."

The tiger laid its heavy head on Darren's lap, looked up at him with crystalline eyes, and heaved a soul-destroying sigh. Darren could not remember the last time they had gone for a run.

"I can tell something's bothering you," Lucy told Darren when he came to pick her up. "You can tell me anything."

She meant it when she said it, but Darren didn't think that was true. "It's...sort of hard to describe."

"Take your time." Lucy's lips brushed his cheek, warm and soft. "I'll just grab my purse, and we can go."

Darren lingered on the threshold, taking a curious but unintrusive glance around her apartment. It looked like her, with plush cushions and gentle watercolor prints. Vanilla incense lingered in the heady air, muting the ticking heart of a pendulum clock. 

Darren frowned, listening. There was another sound.

Taking a tentative step inside, Darren strained his ears, tracking the source. Behind the closed door of Lucy's bedroom was a sound like a whine, a whimper. A sob. It sounded like pain.

"Lucy?" Darren knocked, and the unlatched knob let the door swing open. "Are you--"

"Don't look!"

The door carried on its slow swing, an arc of lamplight spreading through the bedroom. Lucy leapt in front of the bed, eyes wide, hands warding, but her small frame could not obscure the scene. Darren watched a mangy, gnarled paw retreat beneath the bed, a piteous groan seeping from beneath the sheets. 

Darren sank to his knees, reaching out with hesitant fingertips. The beast cringed, and so did Lucy, hands clasped over her horrified face. The coarse, brittle fur stretched over the emaciated frame was dull and mud-colored, but Darren could still see the stripes. 

"You were never supposed to see this!" Lucy trembled. "I'm not...that's not mine! That's not who I am!"

"The poor thing.” Darren stroked the neglected fur, feeling the bony shoulder shake. "Sh, it's okay. You're okay. You're safe."

The starved tiger relaxed at his touch, dabbing his hand with a rough, pink tongue. Lucy took a small step closer. "You're not...you don't hate it?"

Darren stood up, and held out his hands. After a moment, Lucy took them.

"I love it," Darren told her. "You should, too."

Retracting her hands, Lucy told him, "I can't! I hate having this...this thing that lashes out! It frightens people, it only ever makes things worse! I can't get rid of it; it just keeps coming back, and getting more vicious and out of control--"

"It's not it's fault!" Darren insisted. "It just wants to protect you."

Lucy shook her head, her eyes shining. "You don't understand."

Darren folded his arms around Lucy, all cringing bones beneath the thin fuzz of her sweater. The scrawny tiger crept out from under the bed, butting its flat head against Darren's muscle. It was impossible to tell how long it had been living in pain, but Darren was sure it would heal again. One word would explain everything.

One word.

One.