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Tiger

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When I was seven, my parents gave us a cat named Tiger. My brother, sister, and I absolutely loved him and had our own little things we did with him. My sister liked to fall asleep with him curled up at the end of the bed, my brother would draw pictures of him, and I’d run around in the backyard.

Our backyard adventure prominently featured the rock wall that ran along the back. It was about four feet tall, and I’d walk along the top while Tiger walked beneath me on the bottom. When Tiger hopped up onto the top, I jumped down to the bottom, and we’d switch back and forth like that. My parents always told me not to, as I’d eventually knock a stone loose and twist my ankle, but I did it anyway. I was a seven year old in the early nineties without cable or an NES, and walking along a rock wall with my cat was all there was to do.

One day, I was walking along the wall again, with Tiger keeping pace on the bottom. At one point I lost my footing and scrambled to regain my balance, knocking a large rock loose in the process. I didn’t think much of it until I noticed Tiger wasn’t following me anymore. I looked back and saw Tiger squirming under the rock, which had landed right on his neck. I rushed to his side only to witness his last breaths and his terrified, confused stare. It was horrible, awful, and soul-shattering.

I killed my cat.

I sat down and started crying out of a combination of shock, loss, and total, all-encompassing fear. My young mind had only just recently been introduced to the concept of Death, and had little to no faculties with which to process this event. All I knew is something terrible had happened to Tiger, and that I was in huge trouble because of it. I thought of how my siblings would react when they discovered their beloved pet’s passing, and how much they would hate me when they realzied it was my fault. I thought about how grounded I’d be for walking on the wall. (Note: Yes, a rock finally came loose, but it took three years to happen. The statute of limitations officially ran out on my parents’ “I told you so" rights. Of course, my ten-year-old mind wasn’t really considering anything past “angry parents".)

Then I heard my dad pull into the driveway.

In a moment of sheer panic and with absolutely no thought paid towards my next step, I rolled the rock off of Tiger, scooped him up, and frantically looked for a place to hide him. Finding nothing immediately accessible, I ran around to the side of the house with his limp legs dangling out of my arms and hid in the bushes. I squatted there for about fifteen minutes, blind terror blotting all logic from my thinking process.

Finally, seeing no other solution in my mind, I walked over to driveway, put Tiger under the wheel of my Dad’s car, ran to my room, hid under my covers, and cried until dinner.

I remember the looks on my parents’ faces at dinner. My mother’s was full-on, quiet fury, and my father’s was deep, utter sadness. We ate a quiet, tense dinner that night, with a joyless ice cream dessert, and went straight to bed.

My sister was accustomed to sleeping with Tiger, and did not take to her first night without him in three years well. My mom told her he was out visiting his neighborhood cat friends, and would be back when he could. A few days later, my sister was still inconsolable, and Tiger’s Extended Vacation was no longer cutting it as an excuse. She was growing more and more heartbroken, coming close to “ruined-childhood" levels.

One day, about two weeks after the event, Tiger suddenly returned home. My brother and sister were elated, and I was as convincingly elated as I could be. We grew up with this Tiger. My sister put him at the end of her bed and my brother continued to draw him. Every time I looked at him, though, I saw the lie I had tricked my parents into covering up for me. I was never able to bond with this Tiger, even though he was a very friendly cat and certainly tried to. He had different colored eyes. He was just always a reminder of the horrible dishonesty the rest of my young life had been built upon. By the end of his fifteen years, he and I had come to regard each other as warm pieces of furniture, and little else.

I never said anything about it until now. So Mom and Dad, I know what you did to protect our extremely fragile young minds, and I really appreciate it. And no, Dad, you didn’t kill your children’s beloved pet. I did. I killed Tiger and put him under your car. To my brother: Your art was a lie throughout your entire childhood, but you’re still great at it. To my sister: You shared your bed with a stranger before you were old enough to think about sharing your bed… ok, there’s no way to spin that positively. I apologize for that.

I’m really sorry, guys, but that’s what family is all about, isn’t it? Lying to each other when the truth hurts too much? Right? We can find a way to rationalize this whole traumatic episode of childhood murder and deceit, can’t we?

 

Sean Curry operates his own blog, as well as one for his storytelling show (which you can totally be on!) on NYC’s Lower East Side, Sean Curry’s Pit Of Sin. Be his friend on Facebook or Twitter, or view his true form.


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