That’s unusual, he thought. Moreover, there had been an unusual expression through the eyes of the tiger before he lay down. The eyes were careworn and self-conscious. He felt toward the tiger as he often felt toward the patients at St. Mark’s. Haven’t you troubled yourself and fretted needlessly over the years? Did you ever really know your times and seasons? What a mystery that you should have come here without knowing! Were you ever really a splendid tiger burning in the forests of the night?
A dry rustle came from the dead tiger like wasps in a gourd. Something was stirring in the carapace of this beast. Perhaps it is a female tiger lying down to whelp. No, this was an old male tiger, a friendly senile child’s-picture-book tiger. It was a death rattle.
As he absently explored the beast, hide now hardened and chitinous as a locust, his hand felt along the spine as if it were looking for the slit where the creature escaped. There was no slit, but the skin had loosened in preparation for the molt.
Molt? Tigers don’t molt. Be logical. It can be figured out. Very well. Whatever is alive here is more than a dying tiger. Yet it is not a tiger giving birth or a tiger molting and being transformed like a cicada. It is the same tiger but different.
He watched curiously until he saw the joke. Then he grew sleepy and lay down beside the beast.
The joke was that for the first time in the history of the universe it was the man who knew who he was, who was as snug as a bug in his rock cocoon, and the beast who did not, who was fretful, unsure of himself and the future, unsure what he was doing here. The tiger asked: Is this the place for me? Will I be happy here? Will the others like me? Will my death be a growth experience?
But how can you be dead and grow? Dead is dead.
The man laughed, took three more pills, scooped up water from one of the holes which was as perfectly cylindrical as if it had been drilled by a bit. Tiger or no tiger, he thought, it’s all the same. The experiment continues. That was no sign.
He was vomiting. The pain from the tooth forked up into his head like lightning.
I’m really sick, he thought with interest. Sick as a dog. What could have made me so sick? the drug? the toothache? How long have I been down here?
He looked at the row of Placidyl capsules. Not quite half were gone. Six days? Ten days?
There was the sound of water dripping.
A tiger? John Ehrlichman? He shook his head. It made him vomit again. But he shook his head again and, gathering flashlight and batteries, started for the opening. Let me out of here. It is astonishing how such a simple and commonplace ailment as pain and nausea can knock everything else out of one’s head, lofty thoughts, profound thoughts, crazy thoughts, even lust.
Ooooooh, he groaned aloud.
Let me out of here, he said with no thought of God, Jews, suicide, tigers, or the Last Days.
When he wiped his mouth he felt more than the beginnings of a beard.
The trouble was he was weaker and more drugged than he knew. Halfway down the chimney, his knee gave way and he fell the remaining twenty or thirty feet, fortunately bouncing off the walls, else he’d have surely killed himself, and landed in a heap, bruised and bleeding, at the bottom.
He lay quietly for a long time before he began to feel himself for broken bones and serious bleeding. Save for a few scrapes and many bruises on his hips and arms and head, he didn’t seem to be badly hurt. The dark pressed in. It didn’t matter whether his eyes were open or closed. Suddenly his heart gave a thump. The flashlight! Certainly it was in his hand when he started down the chimney. How stupid of him not to have brought a spare, a little pocket penlight! Now, even if he found the light, it was undoubtedly broken. Not even a match or a lighter. The toothache and nausea, he noticed, were gone. Gooseflesh rippled like wheat along his flanks. His scrotum drew up tight as a slipknot. Does fear supplant nausea as nausea supplanted God? Taking care not to move his body, he felt every square inch around him. No flashlight. Getting up on hands and knees, he almost fainted. Then putting his head down like an anteater, he began to spiral slowly, sweeping the rock with the outer hand. What if the light had landed on a ledge above? But no. The flashlight was lodged face up in a crevice a good twenty feet from where he had fallen. When his hand closed over the plastic rim, one finger went inside. The glass was broken. But the bulb wasn’t. He pushed the switch. Darkness pressed in. He pushed it again. Darkness pressed in closer. Ah then, this is how things are, things might be settled for me after all. If he hadn’t been so weak, he would have laughed. What kind of answer is this to an elegant scientific question? This way Prudential is going to get euchred honestly, he thought, and tapped the butt of the metal case against the rock. The darkness sprang back like an animal.
Limping and aching in every joint, legs spraddled like a drunk’s, he made his way slowly along the beach, not bothering to look for fish, past Honest Abe and the three nuns, and started up the slide. He crossed the theater, but when he came to the upper slide, it was necessary to stop and rest with every step. I’m weak. I must have been down there a week. His legs and arms trembled. Twice he fell, once badly. He was so weak that, when he felt himself fall, he cradled the flashlight in both arms and let go of his body like a sack of potatoes. It, his body, rolled down a flat rock and wedged under an outcrop. He turned off the light and lay in the dark for half an hour. The nausea and the toothache were better but he felt very weak and all at once very thirsty. Why was he weak? How long had he been in this cave haranguing with God, the Jews, tigers, and John Ehrlichman? Five hours? Fifty hours? A week? He felt his beard. At least a week.
This time when he checked his bones, he found that one was probably broken, the small bone below the knee. When he tried to stand, it seemed to want to come through the skin. But there was little pain. It was possible to go on all fours, knees spread. Perhaps the bone was only cracked.
It was only after an hour, when at least, by any calculation, he should have gained the top and the opening, that there came the awful sense of loss, like a traveler who even before he slaps his back pocket knows his wallet is missing. Something was missing. He had lost something. What? The crawl. He had misplaced the crawl.
No, he hadn’t misplaced the crawl. The crawl opened into the theater. When he crossed the theater he should have entered the crawl. Instead, he had started up the slide. It was the wrong slide, however. He was lost. A cave is like a river. It is hard to get lost going down. Going up is something else.
Turning off the light, he made himself comfortable and took stock. All he knew for certain was that he could not go back to the theater, let alone negotiate the crawl and another slide. Well then — he thought, yawned, and either fainted or went to sleep.
When he woke, he found himself wondering where he was, what strange bedroom. The toothache was gone, he noticed. He spat out something. Probably pus. The abscess had drained. Then the bad memories opened in his head like doors. This was not a bedroom but a cave. He had lost the crawl. He was very thirsty. It took a long time to stand up. As he shone the light around, he realized he was looking for something, water.
One of the dark spots on the ceiling close above him drizzled. He reached up his free hand. It was not water. Furry bodies fell on him, around him, squeaking. Tiny fans of warm skin brushed against his face. Hooks went through his hair like a comb. The dark spot went away. The rock was dry. The spots were colonies of bats. It was the bats that drizzled. Then, whatever day it was, it was daytime. Bats roost during the day, don’t they? How did the bats get out?