Read Online Sleeping Tigers by Holly Robinson - Free Book Online
Authors: Holly Robinson
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
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which sprouted like a dark mushroom from a tangle of hay-colored pubic hair. Then again, I didn’t know where else to look, since the five nude lunatics on the beach around me were whooping and spinning like tops, arms outstretched, while the Sunday family strollers and picnickers scattered away from us like seagulls.
Where were the cops? Who was going to order these people to put their clothes back on? But no, this was San Francisco. The human whirligigs sailed themselves into the water with shrieks of pain as a few teenaged surfers, sensibly enveloped in wet suits, paused with their boards to watch, yelling, “All right, oldsters! Go for it!”
The sheep didn’t last long in the water. I barely had time to shake out Cam’s blanket and fold it. The women came out first, bellies jiggling, nipples blue with cold, hair as slick as seal skin. They rubbed themselves with towels, ignoring the cheering surfers, and didn’t speak to me. Their teeth were chattering too hard.
Jon, Cam, and the third man came out together, holding hands and shouting, doing a sort of high-stepping jig over waves that threatened to catapult them back under water. Jon and Cam were streamlined, all stringy muscles along their tanned arms and legs. The plumper man plodded between them. They dressed hurriedly, their balls as shriveled as dried figs, their penises as tiny as crunchy cocktail pickles.
I drove Cam to his house in Berkeley, following Shepherd Jon’s battered orange van. “Is that your van?” I asked. “I don’t remember it being that vegetable color.”
“Nah. That’s Jon’s. Mine blew up in the desert on the way to Baja. It was good ‘til then. I made many a fine meal of radiator rice and had zero problemas fitting in the hitchers. I had, like, fifteen people in that baby when it blew. We got busted by the Mexican policia, though, and it wasn’t pretty. That’s why I wasn’t around when you first called me.” He shuddered slightly. “Cost us everything to cut loose from those bastards.”
This was the most I’d heard my brother speak since seeing him, or maybe ever, I thought, slowing for a stoplight. Cam was always quiet, even as a young child.
The only time I ever saw him speak freely was to Grammy, my mother’s mother, after she had her stroke and came to live with us. She was eighty by then, a woman built like a fireplug with a pale yellow mustache. Dad called her hillside mobile home “that Tinderbox on wheels,” but it had been a childhood paradise for my brother and me. During one of our visits, for instance, Grammy offered us jewelry boxes full of crispy locust shells. She helped us spray paint them silver and stick them to the curtains, saying, “There, now doesn’t that add a bit of sparkle to the room?”
By the time she came to live with us, Grammy’s cataracts were bad, her hearing was shot, and she was paralyzed on one side. She had trouble making herself understood, chewing through her words. I was shy around her, afraid to look into those rheumy eyes, but Cam spent entire afternoons curled up beside Grammy on the couch. While our grandmother huddled in a nest of quilts, Cam kept up a stream of chatter, explaining his television shows or video games to her.
“How can you stand to talk to her so much?” I asked Cam once, as we both said good night to our grandmother and climbed the stairs to bed. “I never understand a word she says. And she can’t even see the TV, you know.”
My little brother gave me a look that stopped me cold. “I do it because once Grammy told me she feels like she’s sitting alone in a dark tunnel,” he said. “I don’t want her to be afraid.”
Cam’s reticence had been his best defense against our father, I thought now, glancing at my brother’s profile as we approached the Bay Bridge. Dad began drinking off and on early in his twenties. My mother had once told me that he even drank in the waiting area when she went to the hospital to deliver Cam. By the
Where were the cops? Who was going to order these people to put their clothes back on? But no, this was San Francisco. The human whirligigs sailed themselves into the water with shrieks of pain as a few teenaged surfers, sensibly enveloped in wet suits, paused with their boards to watch, yelling, “All right, oldsters! Go for it!”
The sheep didn’t last long in the water. I barely had time to shake out Cam’s blanket and fold it. The women came out first, bellies jiggling, nipples blue with cold, hair as slick as seal skin. They rubbed themselves with towels, ignoring the cheering surfers, and didn’t speak to me. Their teeth were chattering too hard.
Jon, Cam, and the third man came out together, holding hands and shouting, doing a sort of high-stepping jig over waves that threatened to catapult them back under water. Jon and Cam were streamlined, all stringy muscles along their tanned arms and legs. The plumper man plodded between them. They dressed hurriedly, their balls as shriveled as dried figs, their penises as tiny as crunchy cocktail pickles.
I drove Cam to his house in Berkeley, following Shepherd Jon’s battered orange van. “Is that your van?” I asked. “I don’t remember it being that vegetable color.”
“Nah. That’s Jon’s. Mine blew up in the desert on the way to Baja. It was good ‘til then. I made many a fine meal of radiator rice and had zero problemas fitting in the hitchers. I had, like, fifteen people in that baby when it blew. We got busted by the Mexican policia, though, and it wasn’t pretty. That’s why I wasn’t around when you first called me.” He shuddered slightly. “Cost us everything to cut loose from those bastards.”
This was the most I’d heard my brother speak since seeing him, or maybe ever, I thought, slowing for a stoplight. Cam was always quiet, even as a young child.
The only time I ever saw him speak freely was to Grammy, my mother’s mother, after she had her stroke and came to live with us. She was eighty by then, a woman built like a fireplug with a pale yellow mustache. Dad called her hillside mobile home “that Tinderbox on wheels,” but it had been a childhood paradise for my brother and me. During one of our visits, for instance, Grammy offered us jewelry boxes full of crispy locust shells. She helped us spray paint them silver and stick them to the curtains, saying, “There, now doesn’t that add a bit of sparkle to the room?”
By the time she came to live with us, Grammy’s cataracts were bad, her hearing was shot, and she was paralyzed on one side. She had trouble making herself understood, chewing through her words. I was shy around her, afraid to look into those rheumy eyes, but Cam spent entire afternoons curled up beside Grammy on the couch. While our grandmother huddled in a nest of quilts, Cam kept up a stream of chatter, explaining his television shows or video games to her.
“How can you stand to talk to her so much?” I asked Cam once, as we both said good night to our grandmother and climbed the stairs to bed. “I never understand a word she says. And she can’t even see the TV, you know.”
My little brother gave me a look that stopped me cold. “I do it because once Grammy told me she feels like she’s sitting alone in a dark tunnel,” he said. “I don’t want her to be afraid.”
Cam’s reticence had been his best defense against our father, I thought now, glancing at my brother’s profile as we approached the Bay Bridge. Dad began drinking off and on early in his twenties. My mother had once told me that he even drank in the waiting area when she went to the hospital to deliver Cam. By the
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