The Tiger Trap
By Lee Klein

Palm oil and rubber have always been the village’s primary exports, besides embroidered trinkets sold to tourists who come to paddle naked in the region’s sulfuric baths. As they improved their harvesting techniques, the villagers’ swath increased from square miles to valleys wide and mountains tall, things beyond measure. The tigers’ preferred prey (wild boar, deer, antelope) were seriously depleted. The villagers had made themselves the only substantial meal left.

That’s not a good start, is it?

You won’t pay attention if it’s told like that. You won’t
stick with it.

So let’s try it like this?

Because you’ve forgotten everything I’m writing all this down hoping it will help you remember. Helping you remember is a nice thing to do, especially since you’ve done so much for me and I’ve done so little for you. I’m returning a favor. When you read this, come find me if it helps you remember the mannequins, the ice, how we fell into the Tiger Trap. Not the kind of things you should forget.

For awhile I thought we’d find the experience improving. Now I think it will be too bright. Once we get out of here, I now think there will be too much space as well, although, each day, the Tiger Trap seems to be getting larger. But yes, when we finally get out (if we do get out) remembering will be good. I wouldn’t be writing this down if I didn’t think it’s a good thing to remember. I’ll never forget, but you seem to have a window-washer mechanism somewhere behind your eyes that’s wiped your memory’s windshield. That’s why I’m doing this. I guess you could say I’m trying to muck-up your windshield, and if you agree with that, what I’m doing could be called an anti-wiping effort. I’m not sure why I rely on abstractions, but it’s obvious that, for some reason, I can’t do without them. Maybe when things don’t make perfect sense you express yourself likewise. Maybe so. Maybe snot.

When you ask if we’ll ever get out of where we are, I tell you that we may never get out, but at the rate the Tiger Trap’s expanding, in a few months, it probably won’t seem much different than where we were before. The Tiger Trap is certainly expanding. There’s always something we haven’t seen. There are always a few more steps to the far wall. Once our eyes adjusted we noticed there was more space down in the Tiger Trap than we originally thought. There was more going on. There was the jukebox. The big screen. There were many more people down here than just us. And we quickly realized we had so much time. I could have knitted a sweater we had so much time, that is, if your ice didn’t run out. But now it’s hotter than hot. It’s superhot. Human flesh burns at about 150 degrees above freezing. It’s almost that hot -- but not.

It’s not as hot in the village as it is in the Tiger Trap, but when the big screen shows villagers drinking huge jugs of iced tea, we all think it’s because they’re hot. Apparently, all those still in the village no longer believe in tigers, mainly because they’ve been gulping down iced tea by the gallons. The rumor is that once you piss white, whatever’s in the brain that lets you believe in tigers is so soggy that tigers scare you no more than fire-breathing dragons do. So all the villagers interested in not believing in tigers have been drinking tons of this tea. Not everyone’s interested in not believing, however. Some tried to catch the tigers, but not by their toes. That was a joke. What they actually did wasn’t funny. Or, if you thought the joke wasn’t funny, then what they did was actually about as funny as the catch a tiger by the toe thing three sentences back -- and it’s actually why we’re here. They set cages out, at first, with baby antelopes as bait. Then they camouflaged the cages with thick palm fronds, as though tigers know what a cage is. When this didn’t work, the leaders did the thing they did with the mannequins. And the villagers have always believed tigers are attracted to blood. When I ask about this now, even the villagers admit it doesn’t make sense, not rationally, they don’t have proof, nothing like that. They say it all goes back to a legend about a villager who once gave birth (simultaneously) to a tiger and a shark. It’s possible that the villagers have been losing their shit for quite awhile. For years the villagers and the tigers lived together, well aware of the other’s existence, staying as far away from one another as they possibly could. But once the tigers started at it, the villagers started back. It’s also very possible, and from one perspective equally true, to say the villagers started it and the tigers retaliated. Regardless, after the first tiger attacks, the leaders recommended that all villagers remain in their huts, which they’ve always built on tall stilts to survive the annual floods. Word spread that all those who left their huts should grease their stilts. Calling into question the efficacy of the tea that makes you not believe in tigers, however, is the fact that villagers who drank rivers of it were often seen greasing stilts. The grease, of course, was thought to dissuade tigers from climbing; nevertheless, the last attack involved a tiger surprising a sleeping family: it jumped from the limb of an overhanging tree, crashing through their thatched roof. Further damaging the thing about the tea was the fact that the family attacked by the tiger were all huge proponents of the tea; they would often use their piss buckets to water the outdoor plants, flaunting their disbelief. Now the big screen’s showing a loaf of white bread as it’s run over on a highway. And the writing in the ashtray resembles a multicar pileup, a yawn with incredibly crooked teeth.

You don’t remember, but you liked to barrelhouse all night long. You slid headfirst into first base when intentionally walked. You made the one-handed grab when it counted. You never backed down from a challenge. You lent a helping hand to those who suffered with priapism. Your ass was too hairy to wear a thong on the beach, but you were satisfied with your position and your fate. Now you ask me questions about how things have changed for you. The obvious answer is that, once we fell into the Tiger Trap, you produced ice.

You don’t remember, but I’ve already told you so many things about myself, about how I used to be. I played guitar like Joe Satriani would if he only had one finger, on his foot. I was the one who’d bring you flowers when you ain’t got none. I was the one resembling a duck in the rain. Who believed disturbed mumblers on the street should receive hands-free cellphones so they could talk without worrying whether others doubted their sanity. If I were drinking red wine, the wine’s color would go directly to my ears, especially when talking to someone pretty, while all its other properties would huddle beneath my tongue. I was one who tightly crossed one leg high above the other knee to hide the torn crotch of his jeans. I was the one who saluted the white flag, then ravaged the $4.95 buffet at the Indian place. I can’t believe I did all these things.

The way I self-see, before I got trapped between the tigers and the villagers, I was a coward, and because I was a coward, I made us run away as fast as we could. And running away led us to the Tiger Trap. Down here there’s no possibility for escape, so, in a way, it’s no longer possible to be a coward. I have changed my ways in other ways too. I no longer wear the crotchless jeans. I no longer look like I duck since it doesn’t rain here. If there were a guitar I could play it (in my inimitable one-finger-on-foot style) but the closest thing to a stringed instrument down here is your hair, whether hanging from your head or growing on your ass. I can’t help with the blushing; there are some things you can’t change, no matter where you are, no matter what happens.

You ask if I’m blushing now.

We’re drinking wine and you’re pretty. Can’t help it.
You ask who these people sitting with us are.
They’re villagers. They’ve shared their cigarettes and given us an ashtray. They arrange our cigarette butts into odd letters, acronyms we don’t understand.

You ask what else I can tell you.

One thing’s for sure, the sweater I’d have knitted would have been gorgeous. I would have made mittens too. But then your ice ran out. It couldn’t have been an unlimited supply. All things end, alas. But for awhile it seemed there’d be so much time, and during that time there’d be a lot of ice. The ice you rubbed along my forearm was so cold. The ice was more potent than the heat. I’m not sure if potent is the right word. The ice was colder than the heat was hot. I shivered. But instead of getting rid of the ice, you made more ice, pouring it on my arms, making wreaths of thin rags filled with ice, draping them around my neck, making me wear wreaths around my thighs too. I was shivering when my eyes finally adjusted. I guess you thought my limbs were caducorn (like a deer’s antlers or a salamander’s gills) and the ice would keep me from shedding them. I guess you were trying to preserve me, as though I were perishable. It worked. For awhile. It kept me cool. But then my arms started to steam. It looked like my skin was evaporating. I thought I might burst into flames at any minute. You were there for me. But I did nothing for you. All I did was hold out my arms for more ice.

You ask about the ice.

You don’t remember the ice. That’s why I’m doing this. I’m writing this down so you won’t ask me about the ice again. OK. Ready? The thing about the ice is this. When we fell into the Tiger Trap we couldn’t see anything at first. And once our eyes adjusted, we only saw each other and the ice. I kept saying I can’t believe we fell into this Tiger Trap. The heat there. I was whining. You consoled me. You rubbed ice along my forearm. I was dazed. I was frightened. But you could produce ice at will. (Each time I read that sentence I can’t believe I wrote it.) You consoled me. I was whining. You were more human than I was, since I was someone who remembered and you were someone who forgot. I liked your wet fingers. The cold trail along my arm. Now I think you were more human than I was. But when it happened, when you were producing all this ice, I remember thinking you were 50% freezer, 100% demon.

I apologize.

When we fell into the tiger trap, I thought something had stepped inside you. At first, when you rubbed ice along my arm, it was so unexpected. For a moment I thought I no longer recognized you. I thought you’d suddenly become a hybrid of human and freezer, a demon. The heat there. It was unbearable. At the bottom of the Tiger Trap, all we could see was the ice and each other, just barely. If you were 100% freezer, I would have opened your doors. It would have cooled things down. It’d have brightened things up. But you were only an ice provider. Once we ran out of ice, a jukebox began playing. This was a welcome surprise.

You ask what the jukebox played.

The one about the jukebox hero with stars in his eyes. The one about an ashen lady told to give up her vows and save our city, right now.

You ask what was on TV.

The big screen let everyone know that no one was buying the play-action fake. Then it showed the remains of a villager’s torso after a tiger mauled her. Another villager dropped into the Tiger Trap. The sound we hear when someone hits the bottom of the tiger trap, the thud, the confusion, the obvious disorientation of unadjusted sight: why does it sound like someone dissolving an ice cube beneath a hot-running faucet?

You ask why you can’t make sense of any of this.

Don’t worry. Ice prevents swelling. I think it might have something to do with the fact that ice is more coherent than steam. You can cook with steam. But ice preserves. I think it has something to do with water caught between two extremes. Ice, the extreme of steam. Something like that. Maybe the ice has something to do with being caught between the villagers and the tigers. Maybe ‘tis twine. Maybe ‘tis knot.

You ask how we got here.

It scared us off when they started hacking. We ran into the forest. There was a great scampering among palm trees and bamboo groves as the villagers scoured the ground for pug marks, for our remains. By then, we were in the Tiger Trap. You were applying ice to my arms. We sat at the bottom, wondering who, or what, would find us. Now that things have settled, now that our eyes have adjusted, in no way do I question our reaction at the time. After we witnessed what the villagers did, the revelry with which they hacked, in no way should we regret running away from there as fast as we could.

When they arranged the mannequins around the plaza, there was a rationality to it: the methodical loading of a trap. But the machetes came out and flashed and smacked through the plastic bodies. The sound of the blows undercut their snarling hoots, their warpath raving. Even their trademark shrieking -- zya-zya-zya -- had something new about it, something even more unstable. It sounded like the disturbed cousin of what they chanted before soccer games, but there was something new there, something that tore through skulls, singed the eyelashes of all those in earshot. It was unlike anything I’ve heard before, almost impossible to imagine coming from the same people who greeted each other with caresses, who spoke a language of gentle shoosh-shooshing sounds.

Anticipating the tigers’ reaction to the butchered mannequins proved that the villagers were scared shitless. It was the hacking that did it. It was the fury with which they staged the mutilation, the bloodshed, all in an attempt to take out the tigers that, over the last few months, had taken out so many. We weren’t really scared of the mannequins. We didn’t even consider the fact that they were doing it to lure tigers to the village’s center. It was more the hacking, the frenzy, the mad release of the villagers’ tension and fear. It was something they’d stockpiled to let loose on the tigers, but they dropped its payload by proxy. What got to me most was that the villagers probably thought something along the following lines: “The tigers will approach the lure cautiously, and if they do not see blatant wounds, they will realize the mannequins are just mannequins splattered with human-smelling blood, and if they realize this, we will not have enough time, and if we do not have enough time, we will be in greater danger.”

You ask about the blood.

Villagers action-painted the scene with blood. The blood was real-life blood an international effort donated after the first round of tiger attacks. Ceramic urns were used to projectile-pour the stuff all over the mannequins. There was whooping and splashing and gesturing. A well-coordinated blood-toss. When the mannequins were as bloody as they could be, the villagers slashed the mannequins’ necks with machetes. It was frenzied. The slashing couldn’t have been for the tigers’ sake, not really. No way the tigers could care. It was for the villagers. If they were to attract the tigers, whatever remained in the plaza had to scare the living shit out of everyone. Remember that whenever a village starts slaughtering mannequins it indicates there’s no shit’s left to lose; they’ve already lost it, totally, entirely, without a fucking doubt.

The leaders borrowed mannequins from storefront windows, then carried them to the plaza. Other villagers propped them casually, with care, following directions relayed from sharpshooters in the trees. After a time, mannequins leaned on fences, talked in pairs, sat on benches, played in the fountain, chatted around a table at an outdoor café. If their legs could be crossed, their legs were crossed. Standing mannequins gestured with long bare arms. Most mannequins were nude, naked, without a stitch. Others wore designer outfits or athletic gear. Some modeled hats. None of the mannequins seemed too concerned about their lack of genitalia. None blushed, although the nipples on one were so seemingly excited that a villager, in the name of modesty, wrapped a long silky scarf around her chest, then brought his lips to her cheek.

And when you say, “So that’s how we got here,” I’ll say “Something like that.”