The Caged Tiger

We were somewhere outside Charleston, on route 95, when the hurricane caught up with us. The rain came on so suddenly and with such intensity I almost sideswiped a truck trying to get to the exit that advertised ‘Food, Gas, Lodging.’ The girl didn’t notice any of this – she had slept almost the entire way since I picked her up in Florida. It was only three in the afternoon, but there was no way I was going to drive any farther.

Even if I wasn’t half-blind from the rain, I probably still would’ve been unimpressed by the area surrounding the Motel 6. Besides the motel complex, I could make out the faded red neon sign of a Safeway, and what could’ve been railroad tracks. Everything else was gray and rain and beyond interest. I pulled up to the entrance, ran inside to book a room, got partially soaked in the process, ran back out to the idling car and got fully soaked. There were a few other cars in the parking lot, but everyone else in the state seemed to have had the good sense to get out of the way of the hurricane early.

The girl – she said her name was Alice – woke up the second I turned the car off. She blinked wide and green, and stretched her skinny arms over her head. I stared at the steering wheel, noticed that I only had to drive another 340 miles before I hit the 100,000 mile mark. The rain beat a Memorial Day march on the roof.

‘Where are we, anyway?’

‘No idea. Still in South Carolina though.’

‘Why are we stopped?’

I pointed out the window – ‘See that there? That’s a hurricane. Hundred mile an hour winds is generally when the fun stops.’

Alice shrugged and cracked her knuckles. ‘Let’s get inside then.’

After letting her into the room I grabbed my suitcase and cooler out of the trunk. It rattled with bottles of lager and Coca Cola.

The room was surprisingly clean – but the remote control was bolted to the nightstand, sure sign of a dive. Alice was spread out on the bed, her sandals kicked off. She was thumbing through the Gideon bible.

‘Bet you think I’m religious.’

I was in the bathroom and stripping off for a hot shower. ‘Because you’re a southerner?’

‘Yeah, you yankee jerk,’ she hollered from the other room. ‘Bet you think I’m gonna be thinking about Christ and John the Baptist while I let you violate me.’

The water was almost scalding, but it felt good after the clamminess of the rain. ‘What makes you think I wanna fuck you?’

I unwrapped the soap from the wax packaging. Suddenly she was at the door. ‘Why else would you pick up a strange girl at a bar?’

The soap didn’t lather well. Motel soap never does. ‘So you’re assuming I picked you up for that reason.’

She thumbed the material of her tank top. ‘It’s part of the deal, isn’t it? You get to screw a sexy little eighteen year old, I don’t have to go Greyhound.’

I turned off the water. ‘Get out of here so I can dry up, please. And get me some clothes from my bag.’

Alice stuck her tongue out, but obeyed anyway, and a couple minutes later wordlessly dropped the clothes on top of the toilet

By the time I put on dry jeans and a t-shirt, the wind had really started to howl. Lightning flashed outside the windows, and though it was still mid-afternoon, the sky was black.

Alice had taken the liberty of opening up my laptop. I could tell by the way she drew her hand across the touchpad she was no stranger to computer solitaire. The cooler glistened invitingly with condensation. I grabbed a beer and popped the cap off on the windowsill.

She posed another question without looking up from her game. ‘Dark and stormy night, nubile young girl, you’re telling me you aren’t trying for anything?’

The tang of the beer was a welcome distraction from her yapping. ‘How much of a big fucking cliché do you think I am?’

A little ping came up from the laptop – I guess she won. I sat down next to her on the bed and drank more of the beer.

She got up and leaned against the wall and fiddled with the bolted-on remote. I looked out the window at the storm. ‘Can I have something to drink?’

I indicated she could help herself. Alice sauntered over to the cooler and bent over at the waist, her hand fishing around in the bottles and half-melted ice.

‘And you think I’m a cliché?’

She pulled a beer out and attempted to pop the cap off on the windowsill like I had. From the sound of the cap scraping against the sill and her exasperated sigh I could tell she was having some difficulty. After another minute she turned and held the beer out.

‘Could you?’

I just looked at her. ‘Could I, what?’

For a moment her eyes flashed red, but she said in a courteous enough voice, ‘Could you please open this?’

Without a word I got off the bed, popped the cap off, and lay back down again.

Alice took a sip, and grimaced. She tried another sip, this time pinching her nostrils shut while swallowing, but I could tell the taste was making her gag.

‘There are Cokes, too,’ I said, half to myself.

Alice treated me a spiteful stare and tried one more sip – then put the bottle down.

She handed over a bottle of Coke and I twisted the top off for her. ‘Fine, I’m sorry. Maybe you are just a nice guy, giving a ride to a girl with a Broadway dream.’

From her tone, I figured she was being sincere but I wanted to be a little mean. ‘There’s no way you’re eighteen.’

I was staring at my beer, so I didn’t see her almost choke on the soda. I peeled the label off my bottle. ‘Shit.’

Alice got up and paced in front of the bed. In her tanktop and shorts, the truth was painfully obvious. ‘Shit,’ I said again.

She stopped and crossed her arms. ‘Fine, you got me. But you’re south of the Mason-Dixon. Anything we do is nice and legal.’

I leaned back on the bed and let out a long, slow sigh. She was right about a lot of things: she was very good looking, I did pick her up with the intent of fucking, and technically the age of consent smiled on whatever happened in that isolated motel room.

‘Maybe so. But listen up hayseed, there’s something called the Mann Act. I’ve transported a federal minor across two state lines.’

Something twitched in her face. ‘I’m not a hayseed.’ Alice sat down on the edge of the bed, and I could see the little bones of her spine jut against the cheap tanktop.

It was my turn to be contrite.

We passed the next few hours in silence, except for the winds outside which for all the world sounded like a million rioting soccer fans. In the few instances we had to pass one another, we would turn our eyes down and mumble over-polite protestations. I closed the drapes and hoped nothing amusing would smash its way through the window, took Alice’s open beer and drank it slow. She kept to herself and would occasionally read aloud lines from Exodus out of the bible.

Night officially began. Tried watching TV but the only things on were live weather updates on the hurricane. Apparently a town in Florida, some backwater, had been hit pretty badly.

‘Oh shit,’ I said as the camera swooped over the devastation. ‘Isn’t that the place I picked you up?’

She put the bible down and squinted at the TV. ‘Sure looks like it. But they all look the same blown down, don’t they?’

‘You don’t seem all that concerned.’

She turned back to the Good Book and said, ‘Why should I be?’

Despite the devastation, the news guys in their ponchos were confident the hurricane would be downgraded to a tropical storm. My stomach began to growl.

Finally, I turned to Alice, who lay on the floor with her legs propped up on the bed and asked, ‘I’m getting hungry. You wanna try that Safeway?’

She put the bible down on her breasts and smirked. ‘Famished. That store’ll never be open.’

I grabbed the keys to the car and opened the door. The room immediately filled with the howl of the wind. The cheap paintings rattled on the walls. ‘Bad storm like this,’ I yelled, barely able to hear myself, ‘who knows what kinda damage there’d be to a store with glass doors?’

The sky was a trembling black and what few trees there were blew sideways. We ducked down to keep from getting blown over, and I managed to make it to the trunk of the car and grabbed the tire iron.

The road was empty, and the roar of wind was so encompassing it was like my ears were stuffed with cotton. Alice tapped me on the shoulder, and though I could barely make her out in the dark and the rain, I could tell she was pleased by my idea.

We ran commando-style across the road to the dark Safeway. Twice Alice fell over and almost blew away, so finally I grabbed her wrist and pulled her along with me. Bits of grit and sand from the road flew up and stung my eyes and cheeks, and the rain hit like BBs. What we were going through was probably what an ant felt like before it got sucked up the hose of a vacuum cleaner. It seemed to take ages but finally we got to the entrance.

It was a little bit sheltered from the wind and I could hear Alice panting beside me. ‘Is this a bad idea?’ I asked, but then I reared back and smashed the glass on the door. It cracked into an elaborate spider web design, and then fell inward as a single pane. I reached inside and flipped the lock.

Inside, dripping and cold, Alice moseyed over to the snack isle and picked up chips, dip, jerky, and other non-perishables to see us through the night. The first thing I picked up was a bottle of Jack Daniels, something to warm me up on the inside and go with the beer. On a whim, I grabbed a multi-pack of candles and a lighter, in case the power went out. Alice grabbed some cereal and milk, ‘For my breakfast,’ she said. Her eyes were wide with excitement, but otherwise we said nothing to each other inside the store.

As I triple-bagged our groceries, Alice picked up the pack of candles and fixed me with a look that I didn’t understand – sort of knowing, I guess, maybe a little intimidated. After stuffing the candles in that bag and twisting the handles into a knot, I left a dollar on the till, to assuage whatever minor guilt I felt. And maybe just in case there happened to be a security camera I missed. On the way out, Alice grabbed a copy of the Weekly World News that foretold the inevitable coming of the apocalypse.

It felt like the storm had waned while we were in store, so getting back wasn’t as much of a production as getting over. But there was close call when out of nowhere, a single tire came hurtling down the street, directly at Alice. I did the chivalrous thing and rugby-tackled her out of the way, right before the tire would’ve collided with her head. Something inside me wanted to laugh as I laid on top of Alice and watched the tire continue down the empty street, undeterred by the wind and rain.

We managed to make it back to the room in one piece. It took a little bit of work to close the door against the rain – I had to slam my whole weight against the door before it shut all the way, like I was in a bad zombie movie, trying to keep the ravenous wind out before it ate our brains. Once it was shut I had to lean against the wood for a few minutes, panting like a pack-a-day smoker.

I felt warm hands at the back of my neck, and a current went from there down to my crotch. Turning around, Alice had that same wide-eyed look she had in the store, and her breasts pointed directly at me through her now-filthy tanktop.

‘This is all kinds of wrong,’ I said, but kissed her anyway.

Her body felt like a barrel of snakes, all frustrated writhing energy. The storm, the larceny, something flicked the on-switch in that girl and it was all I could do not to get caught up in her enthusiasm. Later, I couldn’t remember if I kissed her for five seconds or five hours, but I know that eventually I pushed her away.

‘Look,’ I said, my hands on her shoulders, ‘stop fucking around. You are sixteen, aren’t you?’

She nodded.

‘Well, I’m twenty-four. Ok, I just lied. I’m twenty-six. Ten years ago I could’ve been babysitting you… if your parents had as poor judgment as I think they did. Anyway, where I’m from that just doesn’t fly.’

Alice shook her head. ‘You don’t think I know what I’m doing?’

I walked past her, tore the grocery bags open, and started stacking the food on the bureau. ‘You got in the car of a total stranger who stopped at a bar to buy a case of beer for the curiously large cooler in the trunk of his car. No, I don’t think you have a goddamn clue.’

‘You had a nice face, anyway.’ She ran her fingers through her sopping hair. ‘Fine, fine. Point taken. But in all honesty, I think you are a little nice. And you got a Jewy face. I always liked Jews. I thought if I had to fuck you, then it wouldn’t be so bad.’

I snorted, but part of me was actually kind of flattered.

She continued, ‘and I thought, maybe I’d see a cut dick. Never saw one before.’

Something occurred to me then, and I said softly, ‘You’ve never seen a dick before, have you?’

Alice didn’t have a chance to respond, ‘cause just then the power went out. In the dark she said, ‘Well, get out the candles. I’m gonna take a bath.’

I set up candles in the bathroom and closed the door on Alice. She came out wrapped in a towel a minute later, and grabbed the Weekly World News from the table.

‘Prescient of you to loot candles,’ she said and disappeared back into the bathroom.

‘Where did you get that vocabulary?’ I asked, but she didn’t respond. So I set up the rest of the candles around the room, stripped off my soaked clothes and wrapped my towel from before around my waist. It felt good to lay back on the bed with the JD, to take a swig and let the liquor burn my mouth for a second before swallowing. The warmth from the bourbon spread over me like a descending blanket, and before I knew it I was closing my eyes.

Must’ve fallen asleep then, because when I opened my eyes, there was Alice standing over me, wearing one of my t-shirts and underwear.

‘I don’t have much in the way of clean clothes,’ she said, and sat down cross-legged by my ankles. ‘And I figured you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Right,’ I said, and headed towards the bathroom.

‘There’s no hot water left,’ she said and started munching on a piece of jerky. ‘Um, sorry.’

‘It’s ok,’ I said as I stepped under the frigid needle spray. ‘Just wanted to wash the dirt off.’

What I really thought was, how could a cold shower possibly hurt in this situation?

By the time I got out Alice was into the Fritos and bean dip. ‘About earlier…’ she began.

I took a heap of dip on a chip and shook my head. ‘No, not now. We’re actually sort of talking to each other like human beings. Let’s keep up that good stuff.’

Alice nodded. ‘Ok, got it. I ate all the jerky, too.’

‘Well, you’re a growing girl, protein’s important and such.’

‘But can I just say one thing?’

I didn’t look at her, but I did nod my head.

‘You were right. Well, sort of. I mean, I have had sex before, but it was only once, and it

wasn’t really…’

She must’ve seen the look on my face, because she quickly stammered, ‘No, no nothing like that. I mean I wanted it at the time. It just – it wasn’t…’

I stopped her, ‘No, it’s okay. I get it. Sometimes…’

Truth was, I had no idea what to tell her after that, but there must’ve been something for her in that ‘sometimes,’ because that was the first time Alice smiled at me. Not a smirk, not a leer, but a real, eyes crinkled-at-the-corners smile.

Somehow, maybe it was the darkness and flicker of the candles, her half-stammered confession and my absolution took on the weight of a Pope poem. For the first time in months I began to feel comfortable. Even our meal – for all its processed, nutritionally deficient nature, had taken on a kind of significance – that she and I both, for the first time in a long time, had found good company. I’m happy to say that I didn’t spoil that feeling with words.

The candles began to burn out, one by one, as we ate the rest of our meal. I had more beer and chased it with JD. Alice stuck with Cokes. By the time we got to the last candle we were both full and I felt pleasantly drowsy, from the food and booze and atmosphere.

Alice cleared away the remains of our looted dinner and sat on the edge of the bed. I could see that the last candle was just about to flicker out.

‘Sleeping arrangements,’ she said as I took off my shirt and jeans. ‘I can sleep on the floor if it makes you more comfortable.’

I shook my head and lifted the covers up. ‘Here’s the deal. I’m gonna lie on this side, and I won’t move all night. You sleep on that side, be a proper lady, and we’ll still be pals in the morning.’

The candle burned out and I heard Alice move under the covers on the other side of the bed.

For a few minutes, all was silent. The wind seemed to have calmed down a bit, though the rain was still loud. I heard Alice turn over on her side.

‘Why did you want a ride to New York, anyway?’ The words were out of my mouth almost before I realized. She didn’t answer at first, then said:

‘I saw that was the plate on your car. Figured it was as good a place as any.’

‘You don’t want to elaborate further, do you?’

‘Not so much. Can you be satisfied with just that?’

I wanted to say ‘Not really,’ but I paid her a compliment, instead.

‘You’re the most well-spoken teenager I ever met.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I like watching TV shows with lots of talking.’

I felt her hand snake out from the other side of the bed, and would’ve rebuked her, but then her fingers closed around mine.

‘What were you doing in Florida, anyway?’ she asked this in a sleepy sort of way, and for the first time I felt protective towards her.

‘Was supposed to write something for this magazine, but I got fired first.’

‘And you don’t want to elaborate further.’

‘Not so much. Satisfied?’

Alice was silent for a second, and then said, ‘I hope this storm hasn’t put you out, too much.’

‘There’s no hurry.’

She squeezed my hand and asked, ‘Isn’t there anyone waiting on you?’

I felt my stomach clench, but then relax. ‘No.’ I swallowed. ‘There’s no one waiting on me.’

It was still raining the next morning. We got an early start, and had the road to ourselves through the rest of South Carolina.