Tiger

I lived in the same house for my entire childhood, and it recently occurred to me that in all those years I had just two neighborhood companions—and one of them was less than half my age. He was Tiger, a five-year-old who could have passed for Curly Howard from The Three Stooges, if Curly had stood just three feet tall.

Tiger represented a dying breed: he was a child who loathed such things as shoes, shirts, and shelter. He was kind of like Huckleberry Finn, though he probably lacked the acute sense of moral introspection and certainly the corncob pipe. Year round, the fuzzy-headed lad wore cut-off shorts and not much else as he canvassed from house to house looking for playmates of any age or gender. Of course, these were still the days when five-year-olds could leave their homes at daybreak and return at twilight, none the worse for wear.

Despite our age difference, I spent an unhealthy amount of time with him, but I cannot imagine what he saw in me or I in him. It’s safe to say we had little in common. I was eleven and fond of Mad magazine and baseball and creature comforts, and he was the kind of kid who walked barefoot on gravel without wincing.

Soon after he moved in, Tiger became the most popular figure on the block. I guess the fact that he was “up for anything” accounted for his success at finding companions. He had a talent beyond his years for insinuating himself into the moment. Had Bob Dylan written an anthem about Tiger, a few of the lines may have gone like this:

I seen him diggin in gardens with old neighbor ladies
And shootin free throws in the Rick Barry style
And racin three teens who were ridin bicycles
A-chasin them Schwinns, his blisters a-blazin
And changin Pennzoil in a man’s dingy driveway
His bare feet protrudin from under the bumper

Tiger often made the rounds on a three-wheeled contraption that was a step-sister to the Big Wheel. It must have come from Thailand or Red China because it had a name that didn’t stack up, either—something like “Rapidly Racer” or “With Abundant Zoom.”

Like the Big Wheel, it was loud and colorful and low to the ground, but its designers had ignored all safety specifications. Whenever Tiger sped, the contraption flipped backwards, and, sad to say, Tiger often sped.

Those days, I took nothing more seriously than major-league baseball, and one July night as I lay on my living-room floor and absorbed the spectacle of the All-Star Game with the singleness of focus that one has when viewing the Mona Lisa, I detected a familiar rapping at our front door. It was Tiger.

He cupped his hands around his chubby face to get a better look through the screen door. “Can you come outside and pway?”

Suddenly I turned into someone from a Joseph Wambaugh novel. It may have been the first time I ever used the notorious “F” word in public: “Tiger, have you lost your $%#@* mind! The All-Star Game is on!”

“Pwease,” he begged, slanting his head like your puppy does when you’re telling it secrets.

That September, Tiger entered kindergarten. He had to wear shoes and shirts and hold still. A week or two later, my dad asked him how school was going, and he said, “I get in twouble a lot, Pete.”

Pete and Tiger got along well. I’m not sure what Pete saw in Tiger—perhaps he saw in him the son he never had, despite having had seven sons. But I know what Tiger saw in Pete: ice cream bars. My dad consistently dispensed ice cream bars to this little fellow, no questions asked.

I think my mom, too, got a charge out of Tiger. Sometimes she called him Savage. Either she got mixed up or she did it intentionally, as if the name Tiger could not capture the boy’s feral nature.

Tiger and his family didn’t stay on the block for long. Suddenly, without warning, their sunken slab of a house was vacant.

The last time I had seen Tiger, I’d given him hell over one silly thing or another—those days, I was always giving other kids hell, especially smaller kids—and I firmly suggested he find companionship elsewhere that night. In response, he sped down our driveway on his three-wheeler at such a fierce clip that we both knew what would happen next. I turned so as not to witness the inevitable smacking of skull upon asphalt, but I certainly heard it.

Seemingly trapped by the monstrosity that lay upon him, he managed to lift his head like a dying guy in the movies, and called out to me, “That didn’t huwt!”