The Tiger Rising

Chapter 10

Rob was sweeping the laundry room when Willie May, the Kentucky Star’s housekeeper, came in and threw herself down in one of the metal chairs that were lined up against the cement-block wall.

“You know what?” she said to Rob.

“No, ma’am,” said Rob.

“I tell you what,” said Willie May. She reached up and adjusted the butterfly clip in her thick black hair. “I’d rather be sweeping up after some pigs in a barn than cleaning up after the people in this place. Pigs at least give you some respect.”

Rob leaned on his broom and stared at Willie May. He liked looking at her. Her face was smooth and dark, like a beautiful piece of wood. And Rob liked to think that if he had been the one who carved Willie May, he would have made her just the way she was, with her long nose and high cheekbones and slanted eyes.

“What you staring at?” Willie May asked. Her eyes narrowed. “What you doing out of school?”

Rob shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.

“What you mean, you don’t know?”

Rob shrugged again.

“Don’t be moving your shoulders up and down in front of me, acting like some skinny old bird trying to fly away. You want to end up cleaning motel rooms for a living?”

Rob shook his head.

“That’s right. Ain’t nobody wants this job. I’m the only fool Beauchamp can pay to do it. You got to stay in school,” she said, “else you’ll end up like me.” She shook her head and reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a single cigarette and two sticks of Eight Ball licorice gum. She put one piece of gum in her mouth, handed the other one to Rob, lit her cigarette, leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Now,” she said. The scent of smoke and licorice slowly filled the laundry room. “Go on and tell me why you ain’t in school.”

“On account of my legs being all broke out,” said Rob.

Willie May opened her eyes and looked over the top of her glasses at Rob’s legs.

“Mmmm,” she said after a minute. “How long you had that?”

“About six months,” said Rob.

“I can tell you how to cure that,” said Willie May, pointing with her cigarette at his legs. “I can tell you right now. Don’t need to go to no doctor.”

“Huh?” said Rob. He stopped chewing his gum and held his breath. What if Willie May healed him and then he had to go back to school?

“Sadness,” said Willie May, closing her eyes and nodding her head. “You keeping all that sadness down low, in your legs. You not letting it get up to your heart, where it belongs. You got to let that sadness rise on up.”

“Oh,” said Rob. He let his breath out. He was relieved. Willie May was wrong. She couldn’t cure him.

“The principal thinks it’s contagious,” he said.

“Man ain’t got no sense,” Willie May said.

“He’s got lots of certificates,” Rob offered. “They’re all framed and hung up on his wall.”

“I bet he ain’t got no certificate for sense though,” said Willie May darkly. She rose up out of her chair and stretched. “I got to clean some rooms,” she said. “You ain’t going to forget what I told you ’bout them legs, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” said Rob.

“What’d I tell you then?” she said, towering over him. Willie May was tall, the tallest person Rob had ever seen.

“To let the sadness rise,” Rob said. He repeated the words as if they were part of a poem. He gave them a certain rhythm, the same way Willie May had when she said them.

“That’s right,” said Willie May. “You got to let the sadness rise on up.”

She left the room in a swirl of licorice and smoke; after she was gone, Rob wished that he had told her about the tiger. He felt a sudden desperate need to tell somebody — somebody who wouldn’t doubt him. Somebody who was capable of believing in tigers.