Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso Read Free Book Online

thought I’d start crying, Poppa came back with two kinds of cigars, Ninfas and Senadores.
    “You know something,” Poppa said, gripping the wheel even though he hadn’t started driving yet, “I was talking to the man in there and he said we got out of here just in time. There are more drug addicts than ever and gangs and lowlifes creeping up from the twenties and teens. They creep in, like roaches, and they cannot be stopped. I heard there are even prostitutes sleeping in the Toys R Us parking lot now, can you believe this?”
    As he pulled out into traffic, Poppa looked around. “This is a bad section of town, Keesy. Look at that man spitting in the street. I would not spit in the street even if I were choking to death! This is why I carry a handkerchief at all times; I never spit, and I never curse on the street like a lowlife savage, and I do not throw trash on the ground. Look over there, Keesy, at those two pigeons pecking at cigarette butts; they think it is food! It is a depressing sight. This whole place is so depressing to me. I thought one day I would simply get in my car and drive away from here and live anywhere, anywhere but this place. But I am a responsible man; I am not a deserter. Who else would put up with a woman like your mother? I am going to tell you something, Keesy. Enjoy being young. Because you don’t know how your life is going to turn out.”
    He sighed and continued: “You cannot have what you want in life. But you can be yourself, the kind of person who has done brave things, that has overcome fears, and you can look back on your youth with pride. This is why I joined the army when I was eighteen. My father had been in the army and my brothers were in the army and I knew that it was my turn. Do you think I enjoyed sitting in a tank that got up to a hundred and thirty degrees in Germany? But now I am glad to have been that young man almost dead from the heat in that tank, because if that young man had not withstood the test, I would not be the man I am today. The most important thing, Keesy, is self-respect. Other people can hate me, I may be hated by co-workers, despised by my boss, disliked by these savages on the street, but I know that I have sat in that tank and that I have made my bed every day to perfection when I was in the army and that my clothes were always correct. I look at myself, and know that I have kept to the contract of life. Life is a contract, Keesy.”
    Poppa pulled the car over briefly, reached into the six-pack he kept on the car floor in the back, stuck the empty bottle into a Met shopping bag, and put a fresh beer inside the crumpled paper bag. He offered me a sip, and I refused, saying that I liked my beer cold. He laughed and patted me on the leg.
    “When I married your mother, I didn’t know I was getting stuck with a sick, helpless woman. Her sister is a bitch, but I still should have listened to her. That bitch in Connecticut gave me a warning, but I did not pay attention. Do you know what she told me, Keesy? She said she noticed that when she and your mother would go to the beach, your mother would always wear headphones. Most people would want to listen to the sounds of the surf, the breeze blowing through the sand, the cries of the gulls. But your mother always needed music playing. I should have known something was wrong then. But the young are foolish. I don’t know why I wanted a wife. I would have been happier living alone, a hermit. But I wanted to have children, I wanted to pass my genes down to another generation; I had the basic drive of life, which is to reproduce. Your instincts—remember that they are almost always wrong. What’s right is what your friends and family tell you to do, they always know better; even a stranger on the street who doesn’t know the first thing about you: tell that person your situation and you’ll get better advice than if you sit down and think about it yourself.”
    Poppa had driven dreamily through the usual