Pride (18 page)

While he was home, Cap helped with the milking and plowing. He took his beloved tractor completely down and rebuilt it. His father watched over his shoulder, shaking his head in amazement. What kind of a son did they have?

He left the tractor in better shape than when he'd bought it new. He'd added yet more improvements: bored out the cylinders, put in oversize pistons, improved the carburetion, and installed an electro-start, battery, and generator. He left the tractor in great condition, but he also left farming. The excitement and challenges of race driving now occupied completely the forefront of his mind.

Four years later, after many races, Cap was in California. He was racing with another team, a more important team, a team that raced all the major tracks throughout the nation.

America was in the midst of a grand party, an hysterical party, an ongoing celebration of war's end, of seeming new prosperity. It was totally unrelated to the grinding, constantly losing battle his mother and father were waging on the farm. It was impossible for Sture to put the two worlds together in his mind, so he didn't. He was addicted to, fascinated by, the speed of these new machines, the competition, his own skills virtually unmatched, the adulation he received from every side as he won more and more prizes.

He was staying at the Coronado Hotel right on the beach outside San Diego and had just driven a successful race in which he'd barely missed first place. It was evening, he'd eaten dinner in his hotel room, and was bored. So, he decided to go down by the waterfront.

He borrowed one of his team's spare cars to drive into the area where sailors hung out.

San Diego was then primarily a sailors' town. Sture was yearning for people of his own background, simple people who knew how to work with their hands. He was, more and more, as a famous auto racer, surrounded by the idle rich, the bored wealthy, looking for cheap thrills; using Sture as a way to obtain them. There were women who wanted him as a plaything, but Sture didn't want to play or be played with. He was still leery of women.

Sture went into a bar. It was noisy, smoke-filled, crowded, just what Sture was looking for, a place where he could sit and watch, feel part of things.

He had been there perhaps an hour or more when a small, compact sailor came in the door. He had a burlap sack under his arm, and slung it onto the bar.

“Hey, anybody here wanna buy a lion? The skipper won't let me ship this one on and we're heading out for Lima tonight.”

Cap, always interested in animals, drifts over. Judging from his voice and loud bravado, the sailor had apparently been to other bars before he hit this one. Cap moves close to the lion cub. It lies bewildered, close to dying, thin, bedraggled, its fur matted and sticking in tufts from its thin body.

Cap reaches out for it, pulling the stinking burlap away. “O.K. if I hold this feller for a minute, sailor? He looks pretty tuckered out.”

The sailor leans over to look at Cap. He's been getting free drinks all along the waterfront walking into bars with the lion cub. He's about decided just to drown the animal when the evening's over. He's tired of cleaning up filthy, stinking messes, trying to feed it with a milk bottle, then pushing down its throat handfuls of scrap meat he begged from the cook on ship. He'd bought two cubs in Mombasa and the other had died after two days at sea. There'd been a lot of complaining in the locker from his mates about the one cub that was left, and now he had to get rid of it.

“You wanna buy this little lion, matey? I'll sell it cheap.”

He shouts this out, clamoring for attention. He gets it. So far he's gotten it wherever he's gone. It was for this he'd kept the poor critter alive, thinking of when he got shore leave, how he'd be the center of things with a real lion.

“No, I don't know what I'd do with it. I'm on the move all the time myself.”

Cap splays the cub out on the bar. He picks at where the milk and meat have clotted around the cub's muzzle and pulls some running sleep from the corners of its eyes. The cub looks as if it doesn't have much longer to go; it'll probably be dead before morning.

Cap lifts the cub, holds it against his chest. The cub wraps its huge soft front paws around his neck. The rest of the bar has huddled closer. The cub almost tilts off Cap's cap to expose his bald head. Cap reaches up quickly to hold it in place. He's still embarrassed by his baldness.

Cap is surprised how light the cub is: it's literally only skin—loose skin—and bone. Cap pulls his head back to look into the cub's eyes and sees they're half closed, lusterless. There is a bluish cast over them.

“How much you asking, anyway?”

“How much'll you give me, mate?”

Cap looks into the cub's eyes again. He's sure the poor dumb animal is dying.

“I don't really know what I'd do with a dead lion cub. He's too little to make a lionskin rug in my den where I could seduce Theda Bara or somebody like that.”

Cap is playing to the crowd, too, now. He's trying not to show his anger at the condition of the helpless cub.

“You saying I'm mistreating this lion, mate; that whatjur sayin'?”

Most of the merchant sailors in any bar are looking for a fight, not necessarily one they'd get mixed up in themselves, but something to watch. Still, some of them are
really
looking for a fight, especially those about to ship out. They want a few cuts, black and blue marks, a black eye, maybe some loose teeth to share with their mates at sea, something to nurse during a long cruise; something to back up the wild stories they'll tell about shore leave. If you can't take a woman with you, the next best thing is the remnant of a tough fight.

Cap realizes this. He doesn't want to get involved in any rough stuff. He's getting all the competition he needs driving cars. He's low on aggression, hostility, desire to prove anything. He hasn't much to waste on lonely sailors.

“Nope, but he does look pretty well done in. I'll bet it's hard keeping a cub like this on a boat; lions aren't exactly seagoing animals.”

The sailor leans over even closer to look at Cap. The sailor's unsteady on his feet. He has vomit and the smell of sick cat on his uniform. Cap stares levelly. He hopes he doesn't have to fight a more than half-drunk sailor for a dying baby lion.

The sailor leans back, swills down his drink.

“All right. You look like an O.K. guy. What'll you give me for him, anyway?”

“How's twenty bucks sound?”

“Like plain robbery, that's how it sounds.”

The sailor reaches over and takes the cub from Cap's arms. He grabs him from underneath behind the front paws just below the shoulder joints and holds him up in the air with one hand.

“This bastard's offered me twenty dollars for my lion cub. Anybody here willing to give me more than that?”

There's quiet up and down the bar. The bartender moves along the bar toward the sailor. Cap stares up at the cub; there are some dark marks across his muzzle as if he's been hit or scratched. Cap holds out his hand for the cub.

“O.K. I'll make it twenty-five, but that's it.”

The sailor yanks the cub away. Cap reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He has most of his prize money stashed at the hotel but he has forty dollars in his pocket. He pulls out two tens and a five, spreads them like a poker hand, looks the half-drunk sailor in the eye, then shifts them to the eyes of the cub. This lion is so sick, so tired, he looks more like a newborn calf than anything. The sailor lowers the cub onto the bar again, looks at Cap aggressively.

“Hell, this critter's worth at least a hundred dollars to any zoo. He's a valuable animal. I paid fifty dollars for two of them and had to pay the coxswain another ten to let me keep them on ship. Lost the other just out of that crummy African port. This one's worth more than a lousy twenty-five bucks, I can tell you that.”

He orders another drink. Cap spreads and leaves his money on the bar. He's beginning to wonder what he's doing. He knows he's not drunk, but what in hell will he do with a baby lion cub? He knows he's thinking the cub will die in a few days at the most, but even so, how'll he smuggle it up into his hotel room? What'll he do with it during the days? He can't possibly travel across the country in a car with a lion cub.

There's a moment's pause and the sailor sweeps Cap's money off the bar.

“O.K., matey. You drive a hard bargain but this here lion's yours now. He needs a couple bottles of milk a day and he's started eating meat. Here's the bottle and some nipples.”

He reaches into the shore bag at his feet. “Try to keep him warm nights; he comes from a hot place. I tell you he's gentle as a kitten but watch out for them claws; he's not careful sometimes and they're sharp.”

He pulls up the sleeve of one arm and shows long raked scars down the length of it. The sailors at the bar laugh. They all figure this landlubber with the leather hat's been taken to the cleaners. Who the hell wants a lion cub anyway? He's not much different from some alley cat, only bigger.

The sailor pulls down his sleeve.

“Here, mate, have a drink, on me.”

Cap joins in, glugs down his drink. He has the cub against his chest; from its breathing he can tell it's asleep. Its thin stomach rises and falls. Cap is surprised at how long the cub's body is, even though it's young. When the cub breathes out he can see the vault of his ribs; there are soft folds of skin over his empty belly. Cap wants to get out fast, buy some milk, some meat, a brush, and take the cub back to his hotel.

Cap leaves to the cheers and jeers of sailors. He buys the things he needs at a little market by the waterfront, one he knows is open till midnight. It's where he buys soda crackers and ginger ale to nibble on in the hotel when he can't sleep. The old man in the store can't believe Cap has a real live lion cub in his arms. He's sympathetic but scared. It's the first time Cap runs up against the almost universal fear of large cats.

Cap manages to smuggle the cub into his room by going up the back way. He puts some milk in the bottle with a nipple the sailor gave him. The cub's so sleepy, or maybe in the process of dying, Cap has a hard time getting him to start sucking, but once he starts the cub empties the bottle twice. Then Cap opens up the pound package of ground round he's bought and puts it on the floor. He lowers the cub to the rug; the cub collapses onto its side. He's so weak he can't stand.

So Cap takes pieces of meat and pushes them into the cub's mouth. When he gets it past the milk teeth and onto the tongue, the cub gulps and swallows. Cap gets half his meat into the cub's mouth before it falls asleep.

By now, it's almost two in the morning and Cap is tired himself, but he puts the cub on his bed and, using the hairbrush he bought at the store, starts currying the cub's fur, pulling out knots, straightening all the snarled hairs until the cub begins to look presentable. Presentable for death, Cap thinks. He turns out the light and goes to sleep.

Cap is wakened in the morning by a rough licking on his cheek. It's the lion cub and it's standing shakily next to Cap in the bed. His eyes, although still covered by the bluish haze, are open, awake, aware. He's standing, a bit wobbly on the shifting bed, but standing.

Cap reaches up and pulls on the cub's ears.

“Hey there, feller. You're supposed to be dead. What you doin' standing up on my bed, getting ready to eat me, huh?”

Cap rolls out of bed and pours more milk into the bottle. The cub sucks at it voraciously, pulling on the nipple so it almost tears, pushing hard against Cap's hand. He's obviously been starved.

“You really are a tough one, feller. That's what I think I'll call you, Tuffy; if you live long enough.”

Cap's beginning to feel he might very well be the owner of a live, more or less healthy, growing lion cub. It's something he hadn't bargained for. He puts the rest of the hamburger Tuffy didn't eat the night before on the floor and Tuffy snuffles it down. He looks up at Cap, strolls around the bed.

Cap sees where he's made a mess in one corner.

“Oh, boy, just what I need.”

Cap cleans up after Tuffy, showers and dresses as the cub follows him around the room. He knows he has to buy more food and some kind of collar and leash for the cub. Cap's supposed to race the next day up on the Beverly Hills board track. He needs to join the team and help pack up the cars, all the equipment.

Cap goes out the back way again, puts Tuffy in the car he borrowed, and goes around front to pay his bill. He shops on the way and buys three more pounds of meat with two bottles of milk. He'll have to win more races just to feed this cub.

At Beverly Hills, on the board track, Cap does win. It's his first win in five races, so he considers Tuffy his lucky omen. He introduces Tuffy to the rest of the racing team. They aren't too enthusiastic about a lion cub being around, but after somebody's driven and won a major race you don't argue much. The lion is Cap's problem anyway. Cap doesn't seem to have anything for women so maybe he's got something special for lions.

The next weeks Cap drives in an open car, cross-country to a race at Maywood, near Chicago. Tuffy is in the front seat beside him. Cap stops every hour or two to feed the cub, curry his fur, or give him a chance to do his business. Tuffy, by now, is beginning to act like a real lion, that is, sleeps most of the time. But, when he isn't sleeping, he's sitting up on the passenger's seat staring out the front windshield or out the side as the landscape passes by. There isn't too much traffic but Tuffy carefully observes passengers in cars that pass and they in turn look carefully at him.