AN IDEA
I knew a bad idea when I heard one, even if it was one of mine. “What if everyone showed up for the first day of school and there was a tiger loose in the halls? It burns the whole day for the cops to tranquilize it and get it out. Epic senior prank. All we have to do is make sure all the doors are locked and get a tiger.” I tried to make it sound to Cam and Tyler like the thought just came to me.
We go to Dripping Springs High, (that’s in Dripping Springs, Texas); the mascot for the elementary, the middle, and the high schools is a tiger. Everything is tigers. Tiger Spirit, Tiger Pride, Tiger Achievers, Tiger Camp. So why not a Tiger Prank?
“Mr. Chambers would blow an epic anger brownie into his tighty-whities,” was Tyler’s response. In addition to being tall, Tyler has a talent for creative swearing, and of course we have always encouraged and nourished it.
What clicked things into gear was Cam’s response. Cam is my best friend, and he’s a true genius; the kind where you can almost see that he’s disappointed that he has to live in a world with so many people dumber than him. If he was on board with the idea I knew it couldn’t be entirely stupid. “That wouldn’t be funny to the tiger.”
The tiger idea had survived the first two responses. New ideas are like little sparks when you’re trying to build a fire. They’re easy to snuff out right away. But if they don’t go right out, and you can put a little kindling on them, get them some oxygen…
“We get a tiger that’s locked up and bored out of its mind. It gets a cool adventure out of it and we pull off the greatest senior prank that’s ever been pulled off!”
Cam processed the idea, “And you’d impress your girl.”
The ‘my girl’ was Anna Sims. I’d joined the cross country team junior year just to be around her more, but at this point we’d barely spoken.
“The three of us would impress every girl at the school. We would all completely reverse our girl situation for our senior year.” Impressing a girl wasn’t my motivation, but it could be theirs.
That sold Tyler on the concept, “I’d love to be skinny dipping in the babe pool, but where do we find a tiger?”
Cam was imaging a senior year totally better than his junior year. “I think transporting it’s going to be the problem, not finding one.”
The spark had caught fire.
2
In less than an hour we were at the Austin Zoo. Ideas and fires can gain momentum fast – though I didn’t recognize it as a warning at the time.
“We should’ve made disguises,” was Tyler gripe. Three teenagers going to the zoo together during their summer break looked a little off, but could you imagine us in disguise? We would’ve been a motocross racer, a paintball player, and Batman. We managed to buy tickets and get into the park without disguises.
We got to the tiger exhibit, and there were no tigers – just an empty paddock.
Cam said, “It’s ‘cause it’s too hot.”
“Your balls are stickier than normal?” showed Tyler’s level of concern.
I suggested, “If they only let them out at certain times there should be a sign.”
Cam nodded to me like an elementary teacher nods to a student. Surely he’d had this same thought already.
Then I noticed a little girl pointing and talking to her mom. I followed her finger into the rocky part of the paddock.
“No way…”
It was, no big surprise, a tiger. What was amazing was how well its camouflage worked. Even though it was orange against tan rocks, it blended into the shadows. I thought: If we get this thing, and it gets away from us, we’ll never find it.
Then one of the zoo workers came to a gate inside the paddock.
And a second tiger, that had been lying in the bush directly in front of us, casually got up and headed to the trainer. There had been a tiger thirty feet away from us the whole time, and we had had no idea.
It moved like a push through the bushes – like a shark through water. You could almost see muscle strength radiating off it, like an over-tightened spring that could let go at any minute. It made my torso feel hollow and my head tingled. My leg muscles got a strange, nauseous feeling. My body knew a primitive reaction that I’d never felt before.
Cam said, “Well, they’re tame. But how do you contain it if it’s not in there?”
This genius had just been ambushed by two domesticated tigers and was still willing to go forward with the plan. I was proud of him, and I was proud of myself, because I was on-board more than ever. Yes, the danger was now obvious, but by going to the zoo we’d taken the first step, so momentum was rolling. And if momentum is as important in tiger kidnappings as it is in high school football, we were sitting pretty. Let’s hear your Tiger Cheer!
3
We needed a way to move and contain the tiger.
We came up with using those dog catcher poles with the lasso loop on the end to move the tiger, and Tyler’s mom’s horse trailer to hold it. Cam and Tyler both had horse trailers, but Tyler’s was perfect because his parents were almost never home, and they kept the trailer parked away from the house and in some thick shade so it stayed cool inside. Now we had to get the poles.
We could have ordered them online, but that would be a direct evidence connection to us after we’d sprung the prank. We didn’t want to steal them because if things went south we sure didn’t want any animal control group to be missing its lasso poles. So we decided to make the tiger poles, and that meant a trip to McCoy’s. And again, since we didn’t want the police linking us to this master crime, we decided to go to the McCoy’s way over in Bastrop, which was almost an hour east, on the other side of Austin.
I drove. I have a Ford Focus that my grandpa bought for me when I was sixteen. My parents fought him over it because a brand-new car for a brand-new driver didn’t seem right to them. He wanted me to have a Ford because he was a Ford man, wanted me to have a stick shift because he thought it was important to know how to drive one, and he wanted me to have a brand new car because he was sympathetic to how many times I got my brothers’ hand-me-down things growing up. Both of my brothers were at college when they found out, and both blew a gasket. I won’t mention them by name only because it would just make them bigger douchebags, and they are doing wonderfully at it already.
I’ve thanked my grandpa plenty and I’ll thank him again here. Thank you, grandpa! For my part I run errands for and with him all the time as a way to show that I’m thankful not just say that I’m thankful (something important to do that my dad drilled into my brain).
4
We left early the next day, Thursday morning, toward Bastrop. I had to be back for work at two o’clock; I worked at “Jump Wild,” a trampoline party place for kids.
So we took highway 290 straight across the bottom part of Austin and were heading out to Bastrop when I saw a really cute girl driving alongside us in a Jeep. She had three friends with her, so as-per tradition Tyler declared, “Two for me and one each for you!” The one I noticed was the driver. Her window was down and her long hair was flying all over the place. It flipped forward, backwards, sideways and popped out the window sometimes. It revealed her face in flashes. She was laughing about something and her smile was dazzling.
So I laid on the horn.
I’m not normally bold when it comes to girls. But I was feeling reckless and free; I think I was caught up in a bravery that the tiger plan had given me. It was the first time on this adventure when I made the choice to be the person I wanted to be, not just the person I already was. Chalk it up to strange powers you gain when you set out to do something big.
The girls looked over just as my friends turned toward me with a look of terror.
Then the girls cheered at us, and the girl with the whipping hair laid on her horn, too.
I downshifted, put the pedal down, and accelerated in front of them. I turned on my right turn blinker. In my rearview mirror the girl did the same. I exited at the next offramp, and the carload of girls followed.
Those looks of terror on my friends’ faces turned to looks of awe.
“Do you know those chicks?!” came from Tyler.
I pulled into a Shell station and up to a pump; the girl with the wild hair pulled up right behind us. Her front bumper kissed mine as she put her car into park.
I was already out my door and halfway to her when it happened.
“Hi.” I said.
“Hi.”
“Thanks for stopping.”
“The way you honked, I thought there was something wrong with my car,” and she flashed that killer smile. Her eyes were green and she was drop dead gorgeous.
“There is, I’m not in it.” This coolness in no way represented me up to this point in my life. Somehow I wasn’t nervous at all.
“Do you want in?” Now if that’s not a suggestive thing to say I don’t know what is.
“Where are you girls going?”
“Just driving around. Where are you all off to?”
Now I’m not originally from Texas, my family moved from Phoenix when I was in seventh grade, and I usually think the “Texas talk” sounds dumb. But from the instinct of propagation of genetics, the “you all” coming from this cute girl who just stopped her car to flirt with me really stirred up my young reproductive system. “We’re going to Bastrop”
“Yeah, Bastrop, cultural hotspot of the nation.”
“Bastrop’s cool.”
“I’m glad you think so, that’s where I live.”
“Now it’s really cool.”
“Where are you from?”
“Dripping Springs.”
“I’ve been there. What’s your name?”
“Kip Kellogg.”
“You’re not giving me a fake name, are you?”
“That’s my real name. Are you saying yours is cooler?”
“Marie Kinsey.”
We chatted for a short while. She was going to be a senior at Bastrop High. She wasn’t a cheerleader… so now you might think I’m exaggerating about her looks – but no, she wasn’t a cheerleader, she was a model. I told her that made sense because she looked like a model, and she said that was sweet. Then she pointed to my car and said, “Your friends are sure a lot shyer than you.”
“They’re pretty ugly and we figured this would go better if I keep them locked in the car.”
I didn’t have a good answer if she asked why we were headed to Bastrop, so before she could talk again I said, “You know you hit my car when you stopped here. Legally we’re supposed to exchange contact information.”
She screwed her mouth up to one side and said, “Lame.”
“You’re right. Look, I think you’re beautiful, and you’re really nice to talk to. Can I have your number?”
To that she smiled. “Give me yours and maybe I’ll text you.”
I put out my hand, and she put her phone into it. I opened her contacts, and you can’t blame me for being confident after everything that had happened in the previous five minutes, so I typed in “Kip Kellogg – Boyfriend” and added my number. I didn’t call myself to snag her number – I was sure this was a test and I was feeling immensely confident.
I handed the phone back and she looked at me out of the corner of her eye like she was impressed.
“I hope you text me. I’d love to see you again when I’m not babysitting.”
“You never know,” was her flirty conversation ender. I let her have the final word, smiled and turned back to my car.
I tried to walk slow but not look like some cowboy in an old movie. I for sure didn’t want to walk fast and blow the illusion of cool.
Though the corner of my vision I saw Tyler in the back seat pressing his hands to the window and staring at me. He looked like someone who’d just been captured by aliens and thrown into a spaceship and was being pulled away from earth.
I got into my seat and muttered, “Just be quiet. Don’t say anything.”
I was sure they were going to flip out.
I took off. Marie took off right after us. We both pulled onto the freeway onramp.
“Kip!”
“Tyler, not yet,” I soothed.
I accelerated onto the freeway and sped away. Marie let me go. Once we went over a rise and Marie’s Jeep was out of sight, Tyler’s head shot right into the front.
“Holy shit at a Shell station! What did you say?!”
Cam had a shocked look in his eyes, “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Guys, relax.” No one was more excited and impressed than me, of course, but it just felt so cool to play it down.
Tyler was still in his captured-by-aliens shock, “Kip, you just picked up a girl on the freeway! Who are you?”
“You saw how I did it. It’s no big deal.”
Cam asked, “And you got her number?”
“No, she didn’t want to give it to me.”
Tyler suddenly knew everything in the world, “Oh, bad move. You should’ve gotten hers.”
“She’s got mine. She’s going to text me.”
“What year is she?”
I tried not to smirk. “Senior.”
We had this theory that girls generally don’t want to graduate as virgins. This was more wishful thinking than based on any evidence to support it, but it was better than theorizing the opposite. So, our theory goes, if they have a boyfriend, he gets the prize. If she doesn’t have a boyfriend, she’s looking for one or considering guys to just sleep with. And if she’s not a virgin, then she’s already ‘over the hump’ and any new boyfriend will reap the rewards of her previous milestone.
We got off the highway and headed to the Bastrop McCoy’s. I explained how Marie had to drop cheerleading because of her modeling. I didn’t have any reason to believe she’d previously been a cheerleader, but it was a safe assumption to make and a good story to tell.
We were all three totally distracted. I couldn’t stop seeing Marie’s smile, and Cam and Tyler couldn’t stop thinking how great their senior year was going to be now that they had a friend who held the key to meeting girls. Marie hadn’t texted yet, but the thought energy of it was as real as anything, and it was clear something new in the universe had occurred and would influence our lives going forward – all started with deciding to honk, deciding to go for it. Deciding to decide to be who I wanted to be.
5
At McCoy’s we got some five-foot-long copper pipes, some cable, some rubber cable cover, some handles and some fasteners, and we were back on the highway.
We made it back to my house and took the supplies to my barn. Now before you imagine rows of corn or pens of cattle, we live in a normal neighborhood; the houses are about a hundred yards away from each other so each has a big yard. And when I say barn, I mean a one-story green wood barn about the size of a three-car garage. Inside, it holds nothing ‘barn-y’ unless you count dirt bikes, bicycles, and typical garden tools.
It was a hot day, so we set up in the shade under the barn’s porch overhang and built the tiger poles in near silence while we individually thought about having sex with carloads of models. At one point Cam brought up colleges to re-confirm where we were all hoping to go. He’d get in anywhere that I did, and I suspected he was thinking that if I wound up sleeping with Marie he’d go to whatever college I got into. A roommate who could meet girls would outweigh any academic scholarships or university reputations; there would for sure be some college choice arguments in Cam’s house if my love life took off.
The tiger plan was already changing who I was and what I could do. Marie was just the universe’s little encouragement to keep going.
I’m not some metaphysical or overly spiritual guy. I’m talking about something a lot of people call ‘confidence,’ some people call ‘faith,’ and others call ‘luck.’ I see it as something inside you that can become something real in the world. It’s something other people and other things sense and respond to. It changes events and opportunities and outcomes. There was no backing down from getting the tiger, that was the momentum that was driving everything right now. The fire was ablaze.
6
Pretty soon we had three poles done, and supplies to make three spares, and by then it was time for me to go to my job.
I dropped my friends off at their houses and got to work at 2:01, just one minute late, to which my boss Bryce commented, “No overtime for being early,” which was his way of saying I was less late than usual.
Bryce was the owner of Jump Wild, a guy in his forties or fifties or sixties who had been a car mechanic before he traded car oil for kid puke and opened a trampoline jump center. Whenever I’ve asked him which he liked better (between the jobs, not oil vs. puke), he’d just hold out his hands and say, “We’re in air conditioning.” Bryce was a good boss, and because the kids and parents always seemed to like me, I got a lot of leeway at work.
It was a typical Thursday shift, a couple kids’ parties wrapping up, a couple near-fights in the dodgeball area, and a ton of mess to clean up before the next parties.
Then about 5:30, as I was clearing up one of the party areas, I looked up and Anna Sims was walking right toward me.
Somehow the energy and momentum that the new me was putting out carried pretty far, so that girls who once could barely see me cooked up excuses to get their parents to drive them to me now. As surprising as this should have been to see her and the way she was walking to me, it all seemed like an obvious thing to have happen; which relaxed me, which gave me even more confidence.
“Hey, Kip, I thought you worked here.”
“Work? Nah, I’m here with the wife. Our triplets are turning seven and we wanted to give ‘em a big sugar rush before we tried to put ‘em to bed.”
She laughed like polite people do when you make a bad joke then said, “My little sister’s been wanting to come here all summer. My parents said she could go tonight if I’d go with her, so ta-dah!”
“That’s my favorite magic trick!” I got a genuine smile for that. “That’s nice of you. I don’t think my big brothers would’ve done that for me unless my parents paid them.”
“Aw, I wasn’t doing anything else tonight anyway.”
“It’s actually pretty fun in there. And you’re welcome to hang out out here or keep me company if you get bored in there.”
“I’ll keep you company for a while if that’s okay with you.”
It was better than a date. We always had something to do, and she saw me deal with kids so saw how nice I am to them. She even helped me get a twenty-dollar tip because one dad thought Jump Wild had both of us helping his kid’s birthday. I told her I’d split that with her, and she said, “We’ll spend it together on something.”
Well, we weren’t going to spend it at Jump Wild, so she was clearly telling me she wanted to go out again.
At 9:30 the place was pretty quiet, and Anna’s sister Madison had run out of other 11-year-olds to play with. Anna was going to call her parents for a ride – she had her license, but her parents were using their cars. I told her to wait while I checked with Bryce if I could get off early. He proved that he’s a romantic at heart, “Hell, you came in early, you deserve it.”
I told Anna I could drive her and Madison home if she wanted. She smiled huge.
As we got Madison’s shoes back on I asked her, “Are you excited about school starting pretty soon?” I think I’m good with kids because I don’t treat them like short idiots, and that’s pretty refreshing for them.
“No.”
“Yeah. School’s for dummies who don’t already know everything.”
“I don’t already know everything.”
“Then stay in school.”
I waved to Bryce as we headed out.
Madison said, “You go to my sister’s school.”
“How do you know? Has your sister been talking about me? Does she come home every day and fall down on the floor and talk about how handsome I am?”
“You wish.”
“That’s true.”
I caught eyes with Anna.
Anna said, “I flop down on the couch and say it.”
“Good thinking.”
“She doesn’t do that.”
“As far as you know. Do you always see her come home from school?”
I opened my Focus’ back door, Madison climbed in, “Oh, brother.”
I opened Anna’s door for her. She said sweetly, “Thanks, Kip,” and kept her eyes on me as she slid into the seat. I closed the door for her.
As I walked around the back of my Ford, my phone beeped with a text.
It was from a new number, ‘Want to come w me to San Antonio this weekend? I have a modeling job sat and sun. Marie’ with a winky happy face emoji after ‘sat and sun.’
I stuffed my phone back in my pocket as I opened the driver’s door and took a seat behind the wheel. Two amazing things were happening with horrible timing.
I looked over at Anna and she was laughing lightly to herself. I put on a playfully condescending tone, “You doing okay over there?”
“You didn’t see that?”
“What?”
“I totally bumped my head on the window reaching for my seat belt.”
I was pretty sure she was just being playfully clumsy, which told me she was trying to be cute, which told me things were going really great. The thought of an overnight trip to San Antonio with a professional teenage model dissolved. Anna was my girl. I’d liked her for so long, and that counts for a lot. Doesn’t it?
My confusion put me into a sort of neutral that night that was probably the best thing that could’ve happened. In an instant I made a decision I never thought I’d have to make – how many girls at one time I would date. The answer was comforting – one. If I kissed Anna tonight, San Antonio was off. If San Antonio worked out the way my imagination saw it, no Anna Sims. It felt simple, honest, and right. And like my dad always told me: ‘Always only do things you’re proud of.’ So in case you think I’m a bad person for planning to steal a tiger (even though that’s planned to work out good for the tiger), realize I’m very moral when it comes to relationships. Even old fashioned. At least so far, but I had my policy figured out, now I’d just have to stick to it.
So to Anna being cute-clumsy by bumping her head I replied, “You know, that window has always looked too close. I’ll get that fixed.”
“Before someone gets hurt.”
I started the engine and put the stick into reverse.
“You have a stick shift?”
“Yeah. My grandpa got me this car. He thought a guy should be able to drive a stick.”
“Is it hard?” she asked.
“Kinda at first, but then it’s pretty easy… Wanna learn?”
“Are you kidding?! I would love to!”
“We’ll go to the H-E-B parking lot.”
“Not now, some other day.”
“Tonight’s best.”
I turned my attention back to Madison, “Madison, the first lesson’s usually the most dangerous. I want Anna to have a family member in the car so she might be less likely to wreck.”
Madison nodded her approval. Anna looked nervous and excited by either my take charge attitude or the prospect of learning to drive a stick shift.
Within a few minutes we were smack in the middle of the H-E-B grocery store’s parking lot. Anna was at the wheel, the engine was running, the lot was mostly empty, and both my car’s transmission and my love life were in neutral.
The lesson went as you’d expect, considering Anna is very coordinated. I won’t say it was romantic or like a date, but a few times she looked over at me with eyes full of excitement and it was the first time since I’d met her that there was no social pressure or self-consciousness in either of us. And Anna didn’t play up having trouble or anything trying to be cute like the head-bonk. She was awesome – full effort, no excuses, great attitude. Madison had fun, too, and I think she was impressed with her big sister.
I got back behind the wheel and drove them back home, just a few miles up highway 12. She grilled me about what I was doing during each shift.
Then we got to their house. I didn’t know if I should walk her in, but it didn’t feel right to just have them pile out like I’d do with Cam and Tyler.
“Let me walk you up.”
“Sure.”
I walked them to their door. I said, “That was really fun.”
“I agree! I want another lesson!”
“How about tomorrow?”
She seemed sad to say, “I don’t think I can tomorrow.”
“Tell me when to be here and I’ll have a full tank of gas and a spare clutch with me.”
“Ha, ha. How about you give me your number, and I’ll call you if tomorrow works.”
I gave her my number. I didn’t know if I should lean in for a kiss. Before I had much time to really think about it she cut the moment short. “Thanks for the ride, and especially the driving lesson. I’ll call you if I have time tomorrow.”
I told her, “Anytime.”
I levitated back to my car, nearly stalled the engine as I backed out (some driving instructor!) and took off down the street.
Then I remembered the text from Marie. As I drove back towards home I called Cam and Tyler separately. Cam said don’t slow down with either girl, and threw out, “All’s fair in love and war.” Tyler played out a pursuit of each girl over the next six months and with Marie I was having some pretty elaborate sexual adventures and with Anna I was frustrated and getting nowhere.
Both of my friends made it very clear that they were available to go to San Antonio if this was a trip that included her friends.
I got home and parked in the carport out by our green barn. It has been 55 minutes since Marie’s text. I read it about ten more times – ‘Want to come w me to San Antonio this weekend? I have a modeling job sat and sun. (then the winky/smiley face). Marie.’
I actually didn’t know if this meant drive down with her and her friends, if my friends were invited, if her parents were coming, or if she meant stay there or come back each day; San Antonio is about an hour and a half drive. Then there was that smiley face after ‘sat and sun.’ That probably meant overnight, and the smiley face probably meant… maybe what I would look like Sunday morning?! I texted her, ‘Still awake?’
Her text came back quickly. ‘Awake.’
I dialed her number but she forwarded me to her voicemail. My message was pretty vague, just asking her to call me back. Before I was done talking she’d texted me – ‘I can’t talk now. In or out? I want someone to come w me.’
Double meanings aside it sounded like just the two of us, and she seemed like someone not to get too hung up on the little details like what the sleeping arrangements would be like or how naked everyone would be getting. It seemed like she worked on a more sophisticated social level where such trivial things weren’t considered. She was my lift up to that level, so I figured I could play along her way until I really understood it all.
So I texted back – ‘I’m in.’ Which I thought was two playing at the same game. She texted me back a smiley face. I guess I would find out in two days what it all meant.