ponyboycurtis

The Haze of the Jaguar
By
Joshua Raila


He first saw it after lying out for four weeks. He convinced himself that it had been his steady regiment of painkillers and solitude, until the jaguar appeared for a third time. At this point, he was willing to accept anything. He hallucinated himself caught in bushes and vines and falling victim to train wrecks during his first week of recovery, so this was small fries compared to what he had endured. He had just grown strong enough to work his way from his bed into his wheelchair on his own. Surviving a wreck like that had been draining he would tell his friends.

It always started with a haze. He never discovered a better way of describing it, just a haze and then movement on the edge of the green strip, movement slow and sexual. He fought with it so hard in the beginning because it had felt like flirting and he was simply not comfortable thinking about it. He could have ignored it but it was coming closer every visit.

The library his father had amassed over the years provided enough information to shed light on his growing madness. Looking with disbelief once again in the books, he said to himself A jaguar, a fucking jaguar. I am a goddamned nut bag. On the previous visit, it lingered long enough for him to confirm its markings and for him to study its slinky muscular body. The next time, if it continued its steady invasion of his fathers back yard, she would simply be lounging about on the porch; the porch he reach on his own now.

He felt the cloud come over him like fog in some cheesy black and white. Adjusting his hospital bed to the upright position, he grabbed the triangular handle dangling above his bed and swung his legs painfully over the edge. He was always amazed at how the pain mattered less and less as the days went by. He gripped the handle and pulled the wheelchair parallel with his bed. Ok, ok, ok, ok he whispered as he occasionally glanced up to see how close it was getting. Nothing seemed to affect its avid attention on him and its steady advance. He was pleased because he knew it would happen; their union was certain.

In one unsettling and yet graceful movement he slid into the wheelchair. He propped up the leg support and as he lifted his wasted leg into it, he looked up. The jaguar had already reached the gardenias marking the edge of the house and the border of grass and porch. He sighed. He had not thought he could ever feel so intense, so in love. He unlocked the wheels and glided forth on the hardwood floors towards the paned French doors that lead to the porch. He watched every square in the glass frame his beast. Mine he thought and owned it.

His hand lay on the brass knob as he took the animal in. He knew it deserved his reverence. Twisting the handle slowly, he carefully pulled the door open. He closed his eyes as the door cracked loudly. In his careful eagerness, he had forgotten that the door always popped quite loudly if you did not open it just right. He opened his eyes; the cat had stopped with its front two paws on the porch. It stared at him.

He introduced himself. Hello Kitty. The animal panted in response. He thought it was strange as it was not a hot day. He pulled his way into the door and lent back as he pulled himself over the weather stripping onto the concrete porch. He himself had begun to breath heavy as he slowly advanced. The jaguar remained, front feet on the bleached concrete.

He wheeled up closer, but stopped, deciding that maybe a sideways introduction would be better as his legs would certainly hit the beast if he kept rolling head on. He backed up, faced the wheel chair to the right and began the slow crescent towards it his propped up leg on the inside curve; the animals eyes never leaving him.

He was only a few feet away now and he felt his skin bulge with every pump of blood. He felt the hot moist air on his arm as he locked his brakes. Hey, hey, hello hello He reached out his hand in from to the cats nose. It bent slowly but never broke eye contact with him. Ok ok, its ok. He moved his hand past its open mouth and with two fingers moved to caress the cats neck. It happened faster than he could react. Under a vice, His hand held him there firmly by the jaguars powerful jaw. He could feel the saliva on his wrist and the scratchy hot tongue on his palm. She moved him back pulling his arm as far out as it could comfortably go. Like a marionette, he lent in the direction the jaguar pulled. The pain was horrible as the animal clamped down. He closed his eyes as he felt his skin about to break. Suddenly it was gone. The pain left as abruptly as the jaguar had bit. He could feel the saliva cooling on his hand and wrist. He opened his eyes. It was his backyard and just that. He let his hand drop. His nostrils flared as he lent back and brought his clean hand to cover his mouth as he wept.

He knew he had done something wrong; he knew he should not have touched it. He knew it was never his to touch in the first place. Worst of all he knew it would never come back. He had spoiled his gift. He sat in the September sun until he stopped shivering and the tears had dried. His face held his grimace. He hitched at every breath through his mouth, his nostrils too clogged to breathe through. He turned around, wheeled his way back to the open door, and pulled himself back through into the cool house. He took a double dose of his painkiller after carefully getting back into bed and drifted, dreamless, into unconsciousness.

In the next few days, nothing, as he expected, but he watched his backyard nonetheless. He would sometimes spend all day outside on his porch staring at the tree line. When he was beginning to take his first few tentative walks with his crutches, he would go past the gardenias and as far back into the yard as he could, but the grasses were too tall and thick near the forest to make it through without falling. He began to doubt whether or not he did feel the saliva cool on his hand. Haunted by the disturbing fact that when he awoke from his opiate sleep, his hand had no bruises or marks at all; There was no dried anything on them, they were as plain as hands got. He felt strange when he thought of it too much, mad and embarrassed but mostly heartbroken.
Years would pass and always he would come back. What kept him coming back were the rare moments, at night, when he would wake up to a feeling of pressure on his body and hot breath on his face. He would open his eyes, rewarded with an empty room and his cooling skin. The haze of the jaguar was all he had and it would keep him the rest of his life.



-end-