The Dragon Keeper (6 page)

Jata reached the top, and her thick, dart-shaped head swiveled toward the bucket in Meg’s hand.

Ignoring the crowd—
Wave?
she’d asked Chuck.
Do I look like Miss freaking America to you?
—Meg reached into the bucket with her long-handled hook to spear a chunk of raw turkey. “Guadalupe says hi.”

My best customer
, Guadalupe, one of the cafeteria cooks, always said as she dumped the food into Meg’s bucket.
Now, you be careful in there, okay?

Careful was so much a part of Meg’s routine she barely registered it. Careful was buried in the way she held the hook out to Jata and how her biceps tensed in preparation for retracting it before Jata could bite down on the metal. Careful was designed into her boots, Desmond’s position behind her, and even the rock itself. She freaking breathed caution and, like air, forgot about it as easily as exhaling. Being careful wasn’t the big thing on her mind as she offered the shish-kebabbed turkey to Jata and watched the dragon’s jaws fall open. It was intimacy.

Only she could see the individual rows of teeth, each like a serrated knife pointing back to her pink, gaping throat; only she could smell her wet scales and her warm, rancid breath; this was a tiny piece of space and time that only she shared with Jata, a private yet bizarrely exhibitionist dinner party that none of the voyeurs were brave enough to attend. She didn’t feel careful, holding that first bite out to Jata. She felt wired and calm at the same time, as if she were swallowing little balls of thrill wrapped in soft, dark pillows. There was no other experience like it. It was how she’d always thought being a keeper was supposed to feel.

Jata tore the turkey off the feeding hook and threw her head back for a better grip on the meat before swallowing. Meg prepped the next bite, waiting for Jata to be ready. Once they began, they kept a quiet, rhythmic pace that was made up of these motions—offer, take, swallow, and repeat—again and again until the bucket was empty.

As Jata ate, a trail of bloody saliva fell from her jaws. Dimly, Meg heard the crowd murmur in response and wondered if they knew the pink liquid was the real source of the Komodos’ terrible reputation. They tore their own gums apart as they ate, creating a foamy soup of spit, bacteria, and blood: a perfect, killer cocktail with a twist of venom. It wasn’t fire breathing out of their mouths that gave the dragons their power. It was right here, in Jata’s scary table manners. Oblivious to the crowd and her own drool, Jata shifted her weight and dug the claws of her front feet into the rock. She always seemed the happiest right here during their feedings. Meg understood.

When the bucket was empty, Meg turned it upside down and tilted it so Jata could see the bottom. Jata swallowed the last piece, cocked her head, and sneezed loudly.

“Bless you,” mumbled Desmond. The crowd laughed.

Meg shrugged and tossed the empty bucket behind her toward the door, hoping she splattered Desmond with some flying turkey juice. Sometimes Jata didn’t believe the bucket was empty and would walk over to investigate. And sometimes, after finding no more meat, she would start chewing the bucket itself. Unable to stop her, Meg would just retrieve the bucket—or pieces of it—when Jata was done amusing herself. Today, though, Jata seemed happy to be done with her meal. She blinked at Meg with sleepy, satisfied eyes.

“Yeah, we’re done now. You can hang up your top hat.” Meg cocked her head to the same angle as Jata and smiled.

Instead of retreating back to her pool or sunning rock, Jata backed down the feeding rock and walked around it toward Meg. The crowd stopped talking, and Meg could feel the hush creeping up the back of her neck.

“Meg?” Desmond sounded nervous and distant.

She waved behind her, shooing him off. Jata lumbered easily, no hints of stress or aggression in her posture, and walked around Meg’s legs. As Jata circled around to the front, Meg reached out and scratched the back of Jata’s head behind her ear sockets. The scales were bumpy and hard even through the thick leather gloves. Jata flicked her tongue and paused for a minute, letting Meg scratch from one side of her skull to the other, before she walked back to her pool and submerged her head for a long drink. Absorbed in watching Jata, Meg jumped, startled, when the crowd burst into applause.

Her face burned. As she tossed a quick hand toward the crowd, she spotted a white lab coat disappearing from the front rail of the viewing area. The dark goop on top of it looked like Antonio’s hair, and as she frowned at the back of that head, it disappeared behind a tall, stocky man who stood as still as a pier in the center of a tide of shifting people. She blinked and focused in on the man’s gruff face and smiling features. It was her father.

~

He hadn’t really changed. The dark brown hair she’d inherited was shot with silver at the temples, but it still waved thickly over his broad forehead. His barrel chest was still broad and trim underneath an unfortunate baby-blue polo shirt. Hadn’t he moved to Ireland, land of beer guts and liver cirrhosis?

He shifted uncomfortably in the seat as Meg sped out of the zoo parking lot toward home, and it came back, in one of those greedy flashes, how he’d hated to let her mother drive the few times they went anywhere as a family. He couldn’t stand to be the passenger.

Meg took a corner at forty, pushing the poor Buick to its screeching limits, and bit down on a small smile as he grabbed the dashboard for balance.

He didn’t say anything. Uncomfortable as he was, at least he knew damn well that she was in the driver’s seat for this little family reunion. They rode in silence until she got on the entrance ramp to the freeway.

“You look good, Meg. Look like you’re doing well.” His voice was the same strong baritone that had reminded her of blues singers when she was little. She checked her blind spot and merged onto the highway, swerving across three lanes of traffic.

“Of course, I can only surmise that by looking at you,” he continued, in a conversational voice. “You haven’t returned any of my phone calls since Christmas.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“I can see that.” He kicked aside some of the takeout bags on the car floor. “Feeding dragons and discovering miracle virgin births.”

The surprise snapped her head around, even as she forced her way onto an exit ramp. His face was mild—always the friendly salesman—but all the blood had run out of his fingers as he gripped the door handle. She cranked the wheel around the exit loop, hugging the exact edge where the asphalt broke into rocky spinoff, then eased up on the gas as they entered residential St. Paul.

“How did you know about that?”

“I keep up.” He paused. “Your mother would have been proud.”

“I don’t think so. She wasn’t capable of that.” It had been two years since her last conversation with her mother, and even though the cancer had wasted Theresa Whittaker down to eighty pounds and killed her less than a week later, on the phone she’d sounded as immutable as ever. Meg had arranged the funeral, shipped the body from Florida back to Minnesota, sold her mother’s prize show dogs, and returned to work, all before her father had even booked his flight.

“Meg, there’s some things I’ve been meaning to say to you.” He started in, and she almost gagged. People said that—plenty of washed-up old men who’d alienated their families for their entire lives said that—but they were generally in twelve-step programs or banging late-life bibles, not looking healthy and even prosperous from their luxe new retirement in Ireland.

“Save it. Unless it’s something that’s going to change the past, I don’t want to hear it.”

He was quiet for the rest of the ride.

~

Meg pulled into the driveway of 1854 Belmont Avenue and turned off the Buick’s engine, silencing the high-pitched squeak of the belt she still hadn’t replaced. With its edging of rust and smatters of chips, dents, and scratches, the car looked more ancient than some of the houses in this old St. Paul neighborhood. Most of the homes in Groveland were built after World War I, and whoever built them had money. Gingerbread-looking Victorians lined up next to Spanish-style adobe places and three-story mansions with the occasional turret, if Meg looked closely enough. The neighborhood had that urban snobbery—full of mom-and-pop shops that looked more like young-and-yuppie, with tree-lined streets and private academies every mile—but it was still better than the vacuous burbs and strip malls that surrounded the America compound. Meg liked it because Groveland was its own kind of zoo, the houses just like exhibits with their meticulous landscaping and functionless ornaments, all crowded up against one another and yet still completely isolated. Driving down the street and glancing in living room windows was like making the rounds in the Reptile Kingdom.

Meg rented the downstairs apartment in an old Victorian that had been converted to a duplex in the sixties. When she and her father arrived, Ben was in the driveway, buried up to the waist under the hood of his truck. His frayed jeans bagged low under the sweaty T-shirt hem, revealing pale hips but, luckily, no ass-crack. As Meg killed the motor, her father grunted.

“Is that your landlord?”

“It’s Ben.”

Her landlord, a guy named Neil who lived upstairs, was probably around here somewhere. Neil was like Andy Warhol in Dockers. Meg had no idea whether he had a job. He sat on the upstairs porch most days, drinking a Bloody Mary and doing crossword puzzles, and when she came home from work, he always asked if she had set the bears free. Sure, Neil. Keep drinking.

“You’re still seeing Ben?” The concerned father: It was amazing how he could pull it off with so little practice.

Instead of replying, she grabbed her lunch bucket from the back seat.

“I didn’t know he was living with you now.”

Everyone thought it was such a big deal. Gemma and even Paco, Ben’s acid-rock-listening, pot-smoking business partner, both called it a “step,” as if they were on some giant relationship staircase with a fat prize at the top. It just worked out this way. Four years ago, Ben and Paco bought a corn-dog stand from Paco’s uncle and started working the fair circuits. They hit every county and state fair from Nashville to Billings, starting out in mid-May and arriving back in the Twin Cities in time for the season-ending Minnesota State Fair in the last week of August. It was a gold mine—if you could stand fourteen-hour days of sweating grease and batter—and even though Ben made more than enough cash to loaf around and watch the news the other eight months of the year, he’d defaulted on his rent last summer while he and Paco were on the road. By the time they got back in August, the building manager had sold off all his stuff. He’d started crashing at Meg’s place and never got around to finding a new apartment.

And yeah, maybe the whole thing was a bad idea, but it wasn’t completely uncomfortable. He made dinner sometimes, and the sex was a lot more convenient when it was across the couch instead of across town. She’d thought … well, she hadn’t really thought that much about it at all, but in retrospect it could have helped them work out their issues. They’d made one terrible choice two years ago, and two years was a long time to be angry. So maybe they’d moved in to move on, or something like that—but so far, it wasn’t working. They hadn’t moved past anything, and seeing him every day, unchanged, untouched, was just throwing it all back in her face. Something had to change soon, but that was all between her and Ben. It wasn’t anyone else’s business, least of all her father’s.

Ben unfolded himself from under the car hood, bringing out a torque wrench and a hasty, scared smile. Wiping the excess grease on his jeans, he stepped forward and shook her father’s hand.

“Jim, hi. Long time.”

His eyes were cracked-out nervous, bloodshot and darting around her father’s shirt like a fly trying to find a steady place to land. Meg didn’t need to see the joint stamped out in the garage-side ashtray to know he was blitzed. It was Ben’s favorite way to work on cars. Or to do anything, really.

“Ben Askew. You’re living with Meg now, I hear.”

“Yeah—yes, sir. It’s the off-season, and I was going to stay with Paco, but—funny story—his place had a fire while we were on the road. His ex torched this sweater she thought belonged to—well, I’m staying with Meg for now. I’m paying rent.” He cleared his throat and played with the wrench. Her father didn’t say anything but looked at him through squinting eyes.

“Are you in town for long?” Ben asked, awkwardly breaking the silence.

“No, just a week or so.”

“Uh, on business?” Ten bucks said Ben had no idea what kind of business her father had ever been in.

“I’m retired. I’m just here to see Meg.”

He was here for her? You’d think he would have mentioned that, maybe elaborated beyond
Hi, it’s Dad, just checking in
on her answering machine.

“Well, I’ll let you two catch up.” Ben lifted the wrench like a clumsy salute and retreated back under the truck.

The wind licked at her face; it was still cold for late March. She walked down the path to the house with her father at her side and opened the kitchen door. He followed her in and made a big show of looking around, as if there were something to see besides a room full of empty cupboards and dusty, creaking appliances.

“This is a nice place. You’ve been here a few years now.”