The Growling
                                   

            Dana was a linebacker for the Bruins with a girl's name.  If you brought up the femininity of his given name he might line up and shoulder tackle you.  But mostly he was a quiet guy with massive back muscles.  
            His roommate in his small apartment near UCLA was half his size.  Larry was a babbler.  His constant goal was removing the panties from women.  He kept them laughing and smiling, swooning until they realized they were being disposed of post-ejaculation.
            Larry was on the phone with a potential panty-removee when he heard a knock on his bedroom door.  He was an attractive, young black man who constantly smiled because he was acutely aware of that fact. 
            “Hold on, sexy,” he said.
            He opened his door and Dana stood there looking like had caught malaria.  His short, disheveled hair crowned a pale face.  His normally sparkling, green eyes seemed melted and weak.
            “I need your help,” Dana said meekly.
            “I’m busy,” Larry said, pointing to the phone.
            “It’s important.”
            Larry hesitated, rolling his gum around in his mouth and adjusting his glasses before nodding.  It probably was important, Dana never bothered him normally. 
            Talking into his phone he said, “Charmaine?  I need to go.  I’ll see you at Gavin’s party on Friday,  all right?”
            Dana led his roommate to his own room.  Larry walked with annoyance in his legs.  He dragged his gym shoes across their oft-stained carpet.  Balsamic vinegar, beer, nacho cheese, boxed wine. 
            “What is it, Dana?  Physics again?  I’m telling you should drop that class.”
            Dana didn’t say anything.  He was shrunken somehow, a hulking, tight body whittled down from the inside.  He paused at his doorway, took a deep breath and turned to Larry.
            “The thing is, in my room, there’s…”
            “What?”  Larry said, poking his head in.  There was a series of hills of dirty clothes.  There was a poster of Ray Lewis sacking some no-name quarterback who is not even in the league anymore.  There were CDs scattered all over his dresser.  Nothing to interrupt a flirting session with.
            “Just wait, Larry.”
            “What the hell am I waiting for?  For you to starting picking up after yourself?  You’re losing it, aren’t you?  Falling off, man, falling off.  You got to stay cool, they aint gonna fail you, they want you to stay on the field.  Luckily you got yourself a battering ram for a body.  I mean my body isn’t for shit, don’t get me wrong.  The ladies like to rub up on it, for sure, but I’d get killed doing what you do.”
            Then from behind his closed closet doors came the clear and distinct sound of a lion growling.  It was a haunting sound slipping out the slits of his closet.
            “What the hell was that, Dana?”
            He said nothing, instead producing a sad face washed with hopelessness.
            The sound came again, louder.  It was a raspy growl singing between a set of monster teeth.
            “There’s a lion in your closet, Dana!”
            “I know.”
            It growled louder and they both jumped back, squealing. 
            “How could it get in here?  Did you trap it in there?  A lion, Dana, a lion!”
            Larry closed the door to the room and started backing away.
            He started panicking out loud, “What the hell are we going to do?  Call somebody?  Who do you call in a situation like this?  Jesus, man!  Animal control?  The cops?”
            Larry was out of the apartment by then, speaking from the hallway, still inching further and further away.  Dana was entranced.
            “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Larry yelled, waving his arms.  He was heading elsewhere, toward his car, ready to press down on the gas and escape the jaws of the jungle king.  But Dana walked toward the beast.
            “What are you doing?  You crazy?”
            Dana didn’t answer.  He opened his bedroom door.
            “That thing is going to bust out and eat your ass!”
            Dana entered his slovenly room, the growls grew louder.  Dana walked in front of his closet and the sound of the lion’s mangled song scratched through the room, through the apartment, through the lining of Larry’s shriveled heart.
            “Dana!  Come on, let’s go!  Let’s go!”
            “I have to see it.”
            Larry could only turn away and shut his eyes down tight.  He had pulled the front door to an inch from being closed.  Dana reached out his hand and flipped open his lion-holding closet. 
            There was nothing there.  Larry inched his head in to make sure. 
            “What kind of game you playing?” Larry shouted.
            He stomped back inside.  He rushed into the room, then dug through the clothing waterfall that housed no visible animals. 
            “You got a tape recording in here or something?  You got me good, ooooh, you did.  You bastard.  This is because I fucked Rebekah, huh?  You wouldn’t have done anything with her anyway.  You would have bored her with sports crap.  How did you even think of this?  Lion in the closet, that’s inventive, cruel, but inventive.”
            “I didn’t do this.”
            “Bullshit.”
            Dana fished through his overturned shoes, his letter jacket from high school, belts dangling from hangers.
            “Where did it go?” he mumbled to himself.
            “It didn’t go nowhere, coz it wasn’t here.  You gotta own up to your practical jokes.  I’m going out, man.”  Larry stormed out, yelling behind him, “I don’t play these games.”
            After he slammed the door, Dana could hear Larry’s cursing fading slowly like a sun ducking behind the horizon.
           

            ***
            Larry came home and took off his jacket.  He set it down on the couch and headed to the kitchen.  He pulled out a beer and drank it while leaning against the dishwasher. 
            Dana walked out barefoot and shirtless.
            “You still up, Dana?  I thought you had a test in the morning.”
            “I can’t sleep.”
            “Went out with Charmaine, she’s full of it, man.  I mean, girls try to come off like sex is this great gift that they have and can bestow upon us lowly men.  But we all know they want to get laid as much as us.  Don’t pretend you’re not horny, know what I mean?”  Larry took another swig of his beer and continued, “I told her you’re not special.  You’re pretty much a forgettable person.  Just being honest, you know.  She trying to act like she all special, but I don’t…”
            Then over the ticking of clocks, the hum of the AC and Larry’s voice came the guttural and bassy growl. 
            “What the hell, Dana?  Game’s over, I told you.”
            “You gotta believe me.  I’m not doing anything.  It won’t stop.”
            Larry looked at Dana and saw that he had been crying.  He looked like the air had been let out of him, certainly not like a practical joker.     
            “Then somebody’s trying to play us both.”
            They followed the sound back into Dana’s room.  It was coming from under his bed. 
            “A lion couldn’t fit under here could it?” Larry wondered. 
            “I don’t think so.”  
            “I mean, you’ve got like thigh-masters and board games and whatever under there, no way anything could fit.”  He lowered his head slowly.  He bent down and looked under the bed.  There was nothing.
            But he could it hear it louder.  It was no repetitious riff, it was breathing, growling, lip smacking.  It was right behind them and they both turned around and around seeing nothing. 
            Larry climbed under the bed, pushing aside wadded shirts and old term papers.  He clawed through everything trying to find the source of the sound.  It felt like he was in the mouth of the animal, but found nothing.  Larry crawled back out and wiped off all the dust from his hair, from his clothes.
            “Can I sleep with you tonight, Lar?”
            “No.  This aint that kind of situation.  Sleep on the couch, whatever you need to do.  But there aint a lion in here.  So you don’t need to worry.”
            “You’re not scared?”
            “Nah.  Just a game, just a trick.  Nobody is going to run me out of my place.  Just gotta plug your ears or something.”
            Larry started to walk out but tripped on a textbook.  He fell over, landing on his side on the carpet. 
            “What the hell?  Messy motherfucker.”
            “Sorry, man”  Dana lifted the book and started to put it on his dresser amidst the spilled CDs and loose change. 
            “Let me see that,” Larry said as he snatched the book from his hands.  “Who is this guy?  I’ve seen him before.”
            “Haile Selassie.  He was the emperor of Ethiopia.” 
            “Why you reading this?”
            “In my black history class, we talked about Marcus Garvey and the back to Africa movement, then my professor mentioned Selassie.  He told us how the Rastafarians thought he was God, that he was the messiah returning.  He was supposed to lead his people to freedom.  Some people claimed to see scars on his hands, like from being on the cross, you know?   I just wanted to read more about it.”
            “Dana, that’s cool.  I didn’t know you were taking black history.  You’re going know more about this stuff than me, man.”
            Larry held out his fist to give Dana dab.  He didn’t react.
            “You got to put this thing out of your head.  It aint real.”
            Larry set the book down and went to his own room.  They both tried to drown out the lion with music.  When that didn’t work they stuffed their ears with cotton and went to sleep as well as they could. 

            ***
            Rose came home with Larry to study.  They heard the shower running as they walked in.
            “My roommate,”  Larry explained.
            Rose was a slender girl.  She had narrow, muddy eyes and had on pearl-colored acrylic nails.  Her mouth was small, her smile just a tiny V toward the bottom of her face.  She wore a Hello-Kitty shirt stretched out by her chest.
            They pulled out their copies of “The Ethics of Business” and flipped to the chapters they needed to read and be prepared to discuss the next day.
            “We probably only need to read half of the chapter  because Professor Piakowski will probably fill the rest of the time with ‘uh…um…’ Am I right or what?” Larry said.
            “He’s not that bad.”
            “You kidding me?  I counted him one time.  He said ‘um’ 157 times in one class.  157 in a fifty-minute lecture, do the math, that’s way too much.  I can’t pay attention, all I hear is ‘um’ or I’m waiting for the next ‘um.’  Sometimes he strings together like seven or eight in a row.”
            Rose laughed, “Maybe he has a speech impediment.”
            “Maybe.”
            They read for a several minutes before Rose was caught staring at Larry’s tattoo.  She could see it through his sleeveless undershirt. 
            “Can I see it?” she said.
            He lifted his shirt exposing his firm abs and a dragon that was in constant flight across his stomach.  The ink was a deep blue, barely visible on his brown skin. 
            “Nice,” she said running her fingers across the orange serpent.  “Did it hurt?”
            “Not too bad.  Near the ribs it did though.  It’s tender around there,” he told her while moving her hand so she could retrace the journey of the tattoo needle.  Then he took that same hand and slid her nails up to the left side of his chest and around his nipple.  “It’s tender here, too.”
            “Oh yeah?”
            He reached over and snaked his hand around her waist.  Then he put his lips on hers and studying became a faded concept.  They rolled around on the couch, their tongues wrestling each other.
            Larry realized that Dana was still in the shower.  It had been about an hour since his study buddy and he had come home.  A crisp image was implanted in Larry’s head of Dana laying face first in the shower, his head cracked open, the running water flushing his never-ending blood stream.
            “Maybe I should check on my roommate.”
            “Really?  Now?”        
            “What if he fell or something?”
            “All right, go ahead,” Rose said annoyed.
            Larry knocked on the bathroom door and there was no answer.  He could only hear the water running.  He knocked again.  Nothing.  He opened the door wincing, hoping not to see a dead guy.  Instead he saw Dana crouched down and crying, the shower head beading down on him.
            “Dana, you all right?”
            Dana was still clothed. He had on jeans and a polo shirt, both soaked and sticking to his skin.  He sobbed like a ghost.
            Larry flung his way into the shower, shutting off the water and sternly saying, “Dana, what the fuck?”
            Then he heard it.  When the sound of the water slapping against the tile stopped, he could hear the lion again.  It sounded like the huge, prowling hunter was right there in the tub.
            “It won’t go away,” Dana whispered.
            Larry had never seen him like this.  This was a tough guy, a man’s man who played three games last season with cracked ribs.
            “What’s going on, Dana?  What the hell is happening?”
            “It’s in my dreams.  It hates me.  It wants to punish me.”
            “I’d say you were crazy, except I hear it too.  Why don’t you get into some dry clothes and come sit on the couch.  I’ll get you wasted, so you can at least sleep.  I’m gonna drown this sucker in JD.”
            Larry walked back out to the living room and approached Rose.
            “Maybe you should leave.  My roommate’s going through something.  Kinda losing his mind.”
            “This is some elaborate lie to cover up that you don’t like the way I kiss, isn’t it?”
            “What?  Don’t be stupid.”
            “I think I already have been,” she said forcefully as she grabbed her purse and her books. 
            “No, he’s really losing it, I need to help him.  Trust me.”
            “I don’t play games, Larry.  Bye.”
            She strutted out and Larry could only shake his head.  He pulled out the bottle of whisky he kept above the fridge.  He placed two shot glasses on the coffee table and waited for Dana to come out.
            Dana dove into the Jack Daniels.  He knocked three shots back before stopping to rub his eyes a bit.  The growling did not quiet.  It was sounded like it was everywhere.  It touched Larry like it was his skin.
            “So it’s not just in one place anymore, is it?  Does it follow you around?”  Larry asked.
            He nodded.  The growl shook the room.  Larry jumped, shook it off and took a shot. 
            “Maybe somebody pinned it on you, some mini recorder, some new technology.”
            The lion’s throat walked from wall to wall.
            Larry patted down his roommate.  He slapped his chest, his thighs, hunting, searching.  He found nothing.  The sound was there, scratching to get inside their skulls.
            “It’s not on me, it’s in me,” Dana said.
            “What are you talking about?”
            “It’s been coming for me, it’ll catch up eventually, it’ll get me.”
            “It’s not real, Dana.”
            He was crying again.  He downed another handful of shots.  The growling paused. 
            “I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t even realize it was happening.” 
            Larry tried to comfort him, “What are you talking about?  This is some crazy shit that nobody could handle.  It aint your fault, man.”
            “She was telling me ‘no,’ but we were almost there.  We were already naked, I…I couldn’t control myself.  I knew it was wrong, but I kept on.  She didn’t cry out, she just kept saying no.”
            “Shit, Dana.”
            Dana gulped down one last shot and leaned back onto the couch, exhaling.
             Larry couldn’t figure any of this out.  If the lion was some manifestation of guilt then why could he hear it too?  Was it some external, waking version of a running nightmare?  Was it some mutual hallucination?  Larry turned to start walking toward the kitchen. 
            Sitting in the corner of the living room was a lion.  It sat straight, resting its paws on the rug Dana’s mom had bought for them.  It stared at Larry calmly.  Larry’s throat felt like it had caved in.
            “Dana,” he whispered, “Dana, a freaking lion.”
            But he didn’t answer.  Larry couldn’t turn his head to see what Dana was doing, if he could see this.  Larry’s couldn’t keep his heart from trying to run right out of him.  His brain sputtered trying to remember if you were supposed to play dead with a lion, if you were supposed to run, or to figure that it is probably not real and close your eyes and wait for it to go away.
            It growled.  The lion began to walk slowly towards him, making that all too familiar sound.  It was like discovering the source of an echo, tracing the epicenter of an earthquake.  The sound crawled up his spine leaving every inch of him cold.
            The big cat slinked its way across the room.  Larry sweated.  Larry prayed.  Larry pissed all over himself.
            Then the lion leapt out of an open window.  It was silent, though it should have hit the trashcans outside or something.  Larry shoved his head outside and saw nothing but bugs circling a streetlight. 
            “Dana, what the hell?  Did you see that?  What’s happening?”
            He turned to his roommate who was still.  Dana had his eyes closed, but he was certainly not sleeping.  He had the look of a new corpse.  His face had a shroud of finality hanging on it. 
            Larry started to pace nervously through the room, feeling his sanity dripping through the pores in his skin.  He was hyperventilating.  He walked a tiny circle again and again until the morning sun seeped through the blinds.

Salinger Reckford