I’m destroyed over the Roy mauling incident. It is horrifying. I can barely speak of the tragedy. It makes me terrified, angry that I am able to do nothing but wait, and see how he will heal this. Will he be ok? He had lost a lot of blood, and is in critical care. I want to hold Seigfried. There is no longer a show, the theatre is dark, and The Mirage ironically lives up to its name. It wasn’t real at all, they couldn’t tame nature, make it do their will, the white tigers are not human beings. They belong to the animal kingdom, not to Las Vegas.
Do you know where you were when you heard? I got a phone call, at the Baggage Claim at Logan Airport. My friend said only, “Roy.” And I knew. There were some snickers, guffaws. Siegfried and Roy had been the most popular show in Las Vegas, and there was nobody who would share the same iconic status. The ageless, windblown pair, in pirate shirts, looking at the camera, as if they dared the audience to come see the spectacle, and how tan they were in person. It was bound to happen, but no one ever thought it would. The duo seemed invincible, and the tigers were snowy and stuffed animal-like. I think that it was the inimitable Seigfried and Roy hair, motionless and shaped like lion’s manes, one dark, one light, that made them seem like they could commune with the big cats, that they were part of that family. Roy, as he lay bleeding backstage pleaded, “Don’t kill the cat..” They were a pride.
I am aggressively allergic to cats. They are beautiful, always, with their soft fur and pretty, heart shaped faces. Cats seem to all be female to me, with the grace and mystique of femme fatales of the ages. Felines are ancient, knowing, unpredictable, independent. I want to pet them, but if I am to do so, my face will swell up like a basketball, my eyes will turn themselves inside out, my breathing will slow and then gradually stop. To this I am of the belief that cats reject me, and they do not welcome me into their lives. When I moved into my home, a cat had once resided there, and I coughed and sneezed and continued to be haunted by the ghost of that cat until the house was literally purged with ritual and HEPA vacuum cleaners. It was an exorcism of dander.
Dogs however accept me unconditionally, and I give it right back. I am a notorious dogizer, and when I come home, my own Bronwyn and Ralph suspiciously smell my clothes and search for hair for scents of the ‘other’ dog. The phone rings unexpectedly in the night, and Bronwyn pricks up her ears and lifts a dog eyebrow as if to say “Who was that?” If they could afford it, they would hire a private detective, to follow me around the city, catch clandestine encounters with a Black Lab on La Brea and Melrose, me holding an unidentified German Shepherd’s face in my hands near the Beverly Center, at someone’s house, lying on the floor spooning with a Golden Retriever. fortunately, they are dogs, and they don’t know how to use the phone to contact a private dick.
I miss my dogs too much, and my traveling makes them lonely for me. They are well cared for by my family, and just get angry when I start packing. Ralph will put his toys in my bag hopefully. “Should I bring a change of collars?” When I leave, they are sullen, staring at me with disbelief and horror. “How could you? Don’t you know who we are?” Then I come back, and the tails wag so hard that it begins with the middle of their dog bodies. They shake their entire backsides in joy and excitement, like I have come home from the war, and they’d thought that they would never see me again. I hear that when I am on the television, their ears and eyes fly up, and they think that I am home. My dog daughter, Bronwyn, sleeps with me on the bed, and I reach for her in hotel rooms all over the world, and she is not there. It is the emptiness, the void that swallows me for a moment, and I realize I am working, and far from my love. Ralph is unable to get onto the bed without assistance, and he is very image conscious. He will not have anyone see him try to jump on, and tragically fail. Yet, when we are alone, I will encourage him to try, and he looks around to see if anyone is watching. I am cheering him on, telling him he can do it, that anything is possible. finally he believes me, and jumps onto the bed. He circles a few times in heated satisfaction, and lays his body down, warmly pushing into mine.
Who will be with the white tigers if Roy doesn’t return? Will Siegfried take his revenge on them? What happens to the animals, and what do they feel about it? Have the other tigers ostracized the one who bit Roy? Do they gossip about him around the waterfall, or do they see him as their hero? Or is there much more to it all. Perhaps there is a tiger conspiracy, and the one who bit will be mauled by another tiger, or shot by Jack Ruby, making the biter merely a patsy in the greatest tiger crime and cover up ever.