Pride (39 page)

“He'd die in a week or even days in Africa, Murph. I keep trying to tell you he doesn't know how to hunt. He has no pride, no family; he'd die of starvation. I don't know why he killed Jimmy, but he didn't touch that Chinaman and did you see him with that merry-go-round? Any alley cat could do better than that. He doesn't know how to hunt and I can't feed him any more.”

There's a long pause. Dickie looks from one face to the other, from Tuffy to Murph to Cap Modig. Cap turns and looks at Tuffy.

“Murph, could you let me do it? I know how to handle a forty-five. That's all I ask, let me do it; it's the least I owe him. Clear these people back in case there's a ricochet.”

Murph looks at Cap. He motions the other police back. He unhooks the flap on his holster, pulls out his pistol, checks the load, snaps it shut.

“The safety's on, Cap. Do it fast before there's any scene, and make it right between the eyes.”

He turns away, motioning with his hands.

“O.K., everybody back. We don't want anybody getting hurt.”

Dickie breaks through; he's slipped past the other police. Murph grabs him by the arm with the box and Cannibal in it. “Where you think you're going there, young feller?”

Dickie's crying. Dick is struggling to get through to him but is held back by police. Murph grabs hold of Dickie hard.

“We've got to do it, sonny. There's no other way. All these other people want him killed and there just isn't any place for him any more. Come on, you stay with me.”

Cap Modig reaches in and strokes Tuffy's muzzle. Tuffy licks Cap's wrist with his rough tongue. Cap steps back with Tuffy staring him right in the eyes. He's not afraid; this is his friend, Cap.

Cap raises the pistol and flips off the safety. He sights down the dark blue barrel between Tuffy's soft, open, amber eyes, the pupils wide in the waning light. Cap pulls the trigger and holds the gun tight on target so he sees the dark red hole appear directly between the eyes and the slight jolt backward of Tuffy's head as his four hundred pounds absorb the shock from the .45-caliber slug. There's the noise and then the smell of cordite. Cap lowers the gun.

Tuffy stands a moment, shakes his head, grunts, coughs, staggers, then slowly, gently settles onto his left side.

Cap puts the safety back on and turns. He gives the pistol to Murph. He's crying openly.

“Is it O.K. if I dispose of him myself, Murph? I'll take him inland into the pine barrens and bury him there.”

“That's O.K. with me, Cap. I'm really sorry about all this, especially about Tuffy.”

“There was no other way. It's not your fault.”

Murph's still holding on to Dickie. Dickie has Cannibal clasped to his breast. He wants to edge up close to the cage so Cannibal can visit Tuffy one more time.

Just then, Sally breaks through the crowd, through the police. It's started drizzling. The crowd is beginning to disperse. She runs up to the cage.

“Oh no! Oh no! Poor Tuffy.”

She turns on Murph.

“Why'd you have to shoot him? Couldn't he go in a zoo somewhere? He never wanted to hurt anybody.”

Murph shakes his head. Cap turns Sally toward him by the shoulders.

“Murph didn't shoot him, Sally; I did. There was nothing else to be done. All this is finished. When you think about it everything was wrong. It was wrong for Tuffy, for you, for me, even for Jimmy and the crowds. We were all somehow fooling with something that's too important.”

“Oh, Cap. I'm so sorry; sorry for everything.”

“I am, too, Sal.”

Cap takes her in his arms and holds her as a light rain starts. He leans and whispers in her ear.

Sally holds Cap tightly and cries harder.

Dickie breaks away from Murph. He runs past his parents down the boardwalk. He has Cannibal still clasped against his breast. He's running fast and crying so hard he can hardly breathe. As he runs, the lights lining the boardwalk come on. The rain has begun to cover the boards with a slick surface of water so the light shimmers.

I
don't think I ever ran so fast in my life. The rain is coming down hard and I'm getting soaking wet. It's almost as if I'm trying to run out from under the rain. The boards of the boardwalk are slippery.

When all the lights come on, I almost feel as if someone has shot me. I hunch down over Cannibal. I'm holding her box in my arms against my chest and waiting for the sound of a gun.

Then I hear fast, heavy footsteps running behind me. I know it has to be Dad or that fat policeman who was holding on to me. I run harder without looking back.

First I feel his hand on my shoulder, then his other hand on my other shoulder, pushing me down, holding me back. I'm about to twist, try getting away, when I see it's Dad and I stop.

“Hold it there, Dickie. What's the matter? It's not so bad as all that. They
had
to kill that lion. You saw all those people. They were afraid, they wanted him shot. And besides he'd killed a man. Some things just have to be; that's the way it is.”

He's out of breath from running and I am, too. He gets down on his knees on the wet boardwalk in front of me. I'm crying so hard I can hardly talk. He takes Cannibal's box out of my arms and puts it down on the boardwalk. I don't think she's getting wet in there, the roof slides in grooves so no rain should get in and no rain will blow in the holes.

Dad takes me and holds me in his arms, hard. I put my arms around him, too. He's so big. It's been a long time since I've had a hug from my dad. I think the last time was when I was in second grade, at Christmastime, when I gave him the copper oil can with the long spout. It cost 69 cents and took almost all my Christmas money.

All these thoughts are running like crazy fish through my head, thoughts about Cannibal, Christmas oil cans, but I keep seeing the lion falling over slowly with practically no blood at all, almost as if he was just giving up, giving up life. I know I have to tell Dad; if I don't tell him, we can never really be friends again.

“Dad, I did it. I let the lion out of his cage.”

“What did you say?”

“I let the lion out. I didn't mean to.”

Dad holds me tighter. He's quiet.

“That's just your imagination, Dickie; you're all mixed up. How could you have let the lion out anyway?”

So I tell him. I tell him about taking Cannibal to visit that morning, about me climbing under the fence, about Cannibal going in the cage and the lion licking her, about how scared I was and how I took the lock out and how the lion knocked the lock deep into the cage where I couldn't reach it.

“But why didn't you tell somebody, get somebody to help?”

“I was running to tell you when I saw the man who owns the lion, the one who just shot him, going along the boardwalk toward the Wall of Death. I thought he'd get there before the lion got out. That lion had just been rubbing his face against my hand and wanting me to pet him. He was sitting there so quiet in the sun behind his bars. And besides I think something in me, it might be that devil,
wanted
him to get out and walk around without staring at bars all the time.”

Dad pushes me away, holds on to my arms so hard they hurt. He looks over my shoulder; I turn and look, too. Mom and Laurel are putting newspapers over their heads and getting ready to come after us. Mom must think we're crazy, standing and kneeling out in the rain, in the dark.

I think Dad's crying, too, but I can't tell, there's so much rain; but his voice is low and he takes deep breaths between sentences. “Listen, Dickie! Listen hard! Don't you say a word to anybody about letting that lion out. It's a secret just between us. You understand?”

He looks over my shoulder again. I nod my head.

“Not even to Mom or Laurel.”

I nod my head again. Dad stops a few minutes, looks up at the sky. Then he looks me right in the eyes. He's never really looked at me that way before. It's even more peculiar than winking.

“I want to tell you something, Dickie. You remember this. Nobody can let anybody else, not even a lion, out of a cage.

“The important thing for all of us is never look
at
the bars, look
through
them. Because if you keep looking
at
bars, you'll never get anything done, and you'll never have fun in life, any joy. Do you understand?”

I don't think I did then; but I do now.

Mom and Laurel come running to us; a wind has blown up and is blowing Mom's dress against her legs. The newspapers are sopping wet, so they're flopping all over their faces.

“What in heaven's name are you two doing out here in the rain? Are you all right, Dickie?”

“I'm fine, Mom. Dad and I were talking. I was sad about that lion being shot, so I ran away and Dad just explained how they had to shoot him.”

I'm not crying. Inside I feel warm and the rain seems to be only bouncing on the outside of my skin. Dad stands up and takes the wet newspapers from Mom and Laurel.

“This rain isn't going to hurt anybody. Let's enjoy it; it's probably the last of the warm rains before winter sets in.”

He mashes the newspapers into a ball, runs over on the slippery boardwalk and pushes them into a trashcan. I remember the man coming along with the stick with the nail in it. If everybody was like my dad we wouldn't need people doing that kind of work. Dad always said when we'd finish one of our porch jobs and were cleaning up the work site, “One of the ways you can tell a good workman is he covers up his tracks.”

I reach down to pick up Cannibal. Dad's come back and takes the box from my hands. He has a hard time sliding back the top because the rain has made the wood swell, but he gets it open. He lifts Cannibal out.

“I think Cannibal's big enough to enjoy a little rain; we can wipe her off when we get home. I don't think there'll be any dogs stomping around in a rain like this.”

He pushes the top closed and hands the box back to me. Cannibal is already trying to catch rain drops as they hit the boardwalk. She's dashing back and forth, but they're hitting all around her. We watch and start laughing, even Mom. Cannibal hardly notices us; she's trying to beat up every rain drop that even comes near her.

Laurel has her head tipped up with her tongue out and is tasting the rain. I've done this with snow but never with rain. I try it, at the same time watching to see I don't step on Cannibal. Dad has his head tipped back, drinking rain with us, and he puts his arm around Mom's wet shoulders.

“Come on, Laura, taste this rain. It might just be the best-tasting rain you'll ever taste in your whole life.”

We walk along drinking rain, and every once in a while Cannibal will get behind but then she'll dash forward to catch up. We're her family.

William Wharton is the pseudonym for the author of eight novels:
Birdy,
Dad, A Midnight Clear, Scumbler, Pride, Tidings, Franky Furbo
, and
Last Lovers
. He has
also written two memoirs,
Ever After: A Father's True Story
and
Houseboat on the Seine.
Birdy
won the American Book Award for best first novel when it was published in 1978, became a
national bestseller, and was made into an award-winning film starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew
Modine.
Dad
was a National Book Award nominee and was made into a feature film with Jack
Lemmon and Ted Danson; the movie version of
A Midnight Clear
starred Ethan Hawke, Kevin
Dillon, and Gary Sinise. A native of Philadelphia, Wharton fought in World War II, where he was part
of the Army Specialized Training Program. In 1960, he received a Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA and
moved to France. There Wharton made his living as a painter while raising his two daughters and two
sons; the tragic death of his daughter Kate, her husband, and two infant daughters was the subject
of
Ever After
. He now lives with his wife, Rosemary, outside of Paris on a houseboat on the
Seine. Wharton's works have been acclaimed worldwide and have been translated into over fifteen
languages.

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PRIDE

“Two stories and several meanings of the word ‘pride' interweave in Wharton's poetic novel about families, love and coming to terms with reality.... It's pride in the sense of self-esteem that saves the little family; pride in the sense of arrogance that destroys others. And pride in the sense of the company of lions that brings the two stories to a moving and transcendent ending.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Mr. Wharton has a special gift for portraying filial relationships, and his portrait of Dickie and his father … possesses a sweetness and felt emotion that leaves a warm, pleasant afterglow in our minds.”