Lions on the Green

The lion sleeps at the edge of the golf course green. Overhead, the moon pales. The lion’s massive body heaves. In and out, in and out. Beads of dew ornament its mane. The sun shines through them and they glisten. The lion stands up and shakes off sleep. It yawns, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth and a fat pink tongue. He walks, slowly but with purpose, into the woods bordering the green. He is gone. For now. 

Douglas takes his morning walk around the garden. It is only 7:00 am, but he’s already showered, shaved, and dressed, wearing a pair of pressed khaki pants that he would describe as casual wear. He holds a white porcelain cup of earl grey tea that wisps smoke into the early morning air. Douglas takes a sip. It is too hot but he does not care. It feels good to feel this morning.

The roses are beginning to bud. The nandina bronzes autumnal. A surprise bloom on an angel trumpet, placed just at the border of the lawn and the golf course, shines translucent. Douglas spots an oak growing right under the teacup magnolia. He makes a mental note to rip it out later. 

Volunteer trees. That’s what John said they were called. John always made a fuss about finding them, going on and on about how it was a marvel that they got there of their own accord. He always apologized to them, too, when he ripped them up, saying the same phrase every time—We thank you for your service, but this garden doesn’t need any volunteers. Douglas chuckles thinking about it.

Douglas is pleased with the garden, with how he’s maintaining it. It does not shine like it used to, but it is not dead. That in itself is an accomplishment. He walks along the loose path that John had allowed to breathe between rows of holly bushes and crepe myrtles. 

At the end of the path, where the property opens to the green, azalea petals carpet the ground. They make a fuchsia rug over the underbed of pine straw. Or maybe a pit, a portal opened up right at the edge of the golf course. 

What the fuck, Douglas says to himself. Every single bud has been knocked clean off. They had just bloomed. Encore azaleas. That’s what they were called. John had a bit of a ceremony about them too. They bloomed three times a year. Each time, John made Douglas join him when the flowers appeared. 

First, they would sit down in front of the azaleas and take two deep breaths. John was into mindfulness and made Douglas take lots of deep breaths. Then, John would launch to his feet and scream, Bravo, bravo! while clapping at the flowers. Encore, encore! Without a doubt, Douglas would say, The neighbors are going to think we’re crazy, to which John would reply, Well we are, aren’t we?

Douglas puts his teacup on the ground, screwing an indentation into the dirt so it doesn’t fall over. He kneels down on the pine straw, careful to avoid any mud that would dirty his pants, and cups his hands underneath the mass of flowers. They are still wet. He spreads his fingers apart and the flowers fall through them, scattering back to the ground. He does it again, over and over, mizzling confetti petals through outstretched fingers. He is crying now, mumbling to himself, Bravo, bravo, encore, encore. His hands come to his face. He sobs into his dirt-scented hands. Maybe we were crazy after all, he thinks.

Realizing a neighbor, especially nosy Nancy, might see him, he collects himself and goes to pick up his cup. Next to it, in a splotch of dirt, is a print. It is massive. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it before. Douglas puts his hand in it and the print swallows his hand whole. What the fuck, he says again.

Douglas sits at the breakfast nook they had custom built for the house. He had picked out the wood himself to match a statue of Buddha they’d bought in Thailand on their honeymoon. Lion, their cat, jumps on the table. Shoo, shoo, Douglas says. Lion plops down on the table, extending his creamsicle belly for Douglas to rub. Lion, I really don’t have time for you right now.

Douglas is looking up the hours for Lowe’s, but he can’t find them on his phone. He keeps getting stuck on the oven page of the website. John was the one who was good at phones, was the one who made them get Lion, too, he thinks. Lion always liked John more, but Lion has gotten really snuggly with Douglas recently, even slept with him last night, curled up between his legs. Douglas wanted to kick him out of the room at first, but he welcomed the warmth and companionship.

In the Yellow Pages, the one John always made fun of him for keeping around, Douglas finds the number for Lowe's. It’s early, and he doesn’t expect them to be open. Not everyone wakes up as early as him. He calls anyway.

“Hello, Ambridge Lowe’s, how may I help you?” The boy on the other end of the line sounds young. 

“Hello, excuse me,” Douglas says. “Sorry to call so early, but are you open?”

“Yes sir,” the boy says. He is polite. Douglas likes that. “We’re open from 6:00 am ‘til 9:00 pm. Every day except major holidays.” 

“6:00 am, wow. That’s pretty early. Are there a lot of people there now? I don’t really like to be around a lot of people.” Douglas feels self-conscious for asking. 

“Not a lot, we don’t get much of a crowd until around 9:00 am. And even then it’s not that much since it’s a Tuesday.”

“Great,” Douglas says. He stays on the line, thinking. 

The silence must feel awkward for the boy because he breaks it by saying, “Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” 

“I don’t think so, thanks.” Douglas is silent for a moment. “Wait, are you still there?”

“Yes, sir. I’m still here. What can I help you with?”

“Do y’all sell bobcat repellent? I think I’ve got one eating my azaleas.” 

“I’ve never heard of a bobcat that likes azaleas, but we do have bobcat repellent.”

“Okay, great, thanks. That’ll be all.” Douglas hangs up the phone. He pours the remainder of his tea into a travel mug. He can’t decide how to dress for Lowe’s. He’d only been once before, and he remembers a lot of men in jeans and t-shirts. Douglas doesn’t own any t-shirts, so he does his best and changes into jeans and a polo shirt.

In the woods, the lion waits. The trees, stripped of their leaves, offer little protection, so he lies low. He watches as the man leaves his house, gets in his car, and drives away. A squirrel darts in front of the lion. It stops to pick up an acorn. The lion arches its back and wiggles its hind end before pouncing. The lion does not kill the squirrel immediately. He likes to play with his food. 

The moment Douglas walks into Lowe’s, he knows he’s dressed wrong. He really should have gone with the navy polo instead of the salmon one. A worker with a blue vest sees Douglas, obviously lost, and walks up to him. She has customized her vest with different iron-on patches. Douglas sees one from Ambridge Community College, where he used to teach as an adjunct. He’s glad he’s been gone from there long enough that the girl wouldn’t recognize him.

“Hello, sir,” the worker says. She is stout and her hair is shaved, just on one side. Her nametag reads Cloris. 

“Hi, Cloris. I’m looking for some animal repellant.” 

“Sure, no problem. That’ll be down there.” She gestures. “It’s right outside the garden center.” 

“Thank you very much, Cloris.” 

Douglas walks in the direction she pointed. The store is not empty, but it is empty enough. Douglas passes men in ill-fitting jeans. Paint splotches their shirts. They have a musty smell to them. Douglas can’t tell if he likes it or not.

Just before the door to the garden center, a gateway to a green oasis, Douglas finds a wall of animal repellant. The selection is a little overwhelming. Douglas picks one up, a white bottle with images of all sorts of animals on it. There is a raccoon, paw extended, next to a porcupine. There’s even an otter, which seems odd to Douglas, because he can’t think of anywhere he’s seen an otter outside of a zoo. Douglas doesn’t think he sees a bobcat, but when he thinks about it, he’s not sure what a bobcat looks like.

He puts the bottle back on the shelf and keeps looking. A few shelves down, he finds a red bottle labeled coyote urine. How the hell do you even get coyote urine, Douglas thinks to himself. There are various sized bottles, and he can’t decide if sixteen ounces will be enough. He splurges on the twenty-four ounce bottle just in case. He also grabs the white bottle with all the cute animals and goes to check out. 

On the way home, he picks up two glazed donuts at The Donut Spiral. He eats them in the parking lot. Even though it is a cold morning, he leaves the car’s heat off. He bites the donuts and feels the sugar dissolve on his tongue. People heading to work rush in and out of the shop. One lady walks out with a stroller. A gruff-looking man holds the door open for her. She is holding a brown bag stained dark from donut oil. She pops a donut hole in her mouth and smiles. Douglas licks his glazy fingers and pretends to smile too. 

Back at home, Douglas prepares to protect the plants. He changes out of his polo shirt and jeans and into his garden shorts. He walks down the hallway holding his wide-brimmed gardening hat. Lion chases a loose string hanging from the hat, so Douglas sits in the hallway and dangles the string above Lion’s head. Lion bats at it. 

Douglas reads the coyote urine instructions a few times. He opens the spray bottle lid, leans in and takes a big whiff. He coughs, gagging on the scent. Lion comes up to the bottle and sticks his curious nose in. He bolts away.

Douglas sprays the azaleas with the urine first, then with the white bottle, too. He wonders if he’s making some chemical Love Canal disaster to be discovered by future generations, but he’s pretty certain the golf course was already doing that. Grass couldn’t be that green in winter. He is careful not to get any of the scent on his hands, and once he feels satisfied that there is enough piss on the azaleas, he sprays the teacup magnolia as well. Just as he’s about to shower, he remembers the angel trumpet. He takes the coyote urine bottle and sprays that too. 

He listens to the radio as he showers, putting the volume as loud as possible to drown out the sound of the water, the sound of his own head. 

The squirrel didn’t sate the lion’s hunger. He needs more if he is going to wait. He waits until night, of course, because night is his hunting hour. The town now asleep, he slinks from the woods and back onto the green. It feels good to leave the confines of the woods. It feels good to stretch. A light wind breezes over his pelt and through his mane. He shakes his head and wants to roar, but he swallows the urge.

The lion collapses onto his back, scratching an itch that has been growing all day. Satisfied, he begins to prowl the neighborhood. He follows the brick wall of a two-story house away from the golf course and onto the street.

Under the streetlamps, he shines glorious. The asphalt snuggles warmth between his paw pads. He sniffs a mailbox and a pot filled with a dying ornamental sweet potato vine. Then he hears it: the light growling of some creature. 

The lion turns and sees a pitbull. Its whole body a tangle of tense muscles. Its face locked in a snarl. The lion takes a step toward the pitbull. It does not move. The lion takes one more step. Still the dog does not move. A ten-foot gap between the lion and the dog.

The lion plops down to clean himself, licking his paws and using the saliva to stroke his mane. Sensing weakness, the pitbull charges. Its mouth, a piranha’s. Its voice, a bear’s. The lion continues grooming himself, now licking his private parts. The pitbull closes the gap and the lion explodes, slamming his paw down on the pit-bull’s body.

The pitbull whimpers and goes limp. The lion picks it up by its neck like he would a cub and promenades to the center of the green. He lowers the pitbull and it does not move. The lion pokes it with an outstretched paw. 

The pitbull jolts up. It tries to run, but the lion grabs its puny tail. The pit-bull squeals. It is a pig. The lion looms over it, inhaling its entire scent before plunging down and disemboweling it in one swift bite.

After devouring the dog and cleaning his mane again, the lion drags the carcass into the woods. Then he goes back to the green, squats in the sand trap and defecates. Finished, he turns around to smell his poop. He buries the fresh pile of feces and goes to the lake to take a healthy drink of water before returning to the woods to wait another day. 

First thing in the morning, Douglas goes out to check on the plants. The angel trumpet is still there. The azalea petals look undisturbed. The piss must be working, he thinks to himself. He sprays some more just to be certain.

Once a week Douglas drives to Collinstown, a neighboring city where no one knows him , for grief counseling. He hates it, but he had promised John he would go. It was something they’d discussed after John’s diagnosis. You can mourn me, John had said, but you need to move on. In his head, Douglas had thought that he didn’t want to move on, but he promised John anyway. He found it hard to deny John anything on a good day.

Douglas’ therapist wears a sweater vest that makes him look like a frumpy professor. His name is Dr. Nissen, but he insists Douglas call him Walter. He is youngish, younger than John had been at least, and Douglas wonders what this kid can teach him about grief. 

Walter speaks in a measured way that Douglas find hard not to read as performative. It is very TV show therapist. He asks all these questions that are supposed to make Douglas reflect, but a lot of the time it just makes Douglas angry. He is beginning to hate Walter. 

“So, Douglas, last week we talked about different models for grief. This week I just want to get to know your own experiences with grief a little more. Can you tell me about other times you’ve experienced grief? Maybe it was a parent. Or a friend.”

“My parents died a long time ago. I lost a lot of friends and lovers in the eighties and nineties. It felt like we were going to a funeral a week then,” Douglas says.

“I can imagine that was really difficult.” Walter leaves silence in the room, as if he is expecting Douglas to fill it. Douglas does not, so Walter says, “Was that difficult, Douglas?”

“Yes, Walter, it was really fucking difficult,” Douglas says.

And it had been difficult. That’s what pisses Douglas off so much. His first boyfriend had died from “complications from AIDs.” Douglas had somehow made it through all that, the constant death, the dwindling numbers of friends. John was twenty years younger than Douglas, hadn’t been through all of that, was supposed to outlive him. 

Walter grunts in acknowledgement of Douglas’ response. Then he says, “ Tell me about when you first moved to Ambridge.”

“John was the one who wanted to move. He wanted that white picket fence, kids. And he wanted enough land for a garden. He’d lived in a city all his life. I didn’t care either way. I’d lived everywhere I’d wanted to at that point. I let him decide.”

Douglas had thought he didn’t care where he lived, but Ambridge reminded him too much of where he’d grown up. It was too Stepford. At first, he and John had told everyone they were father and son. Douglas had come up with the idea. It was easier. Well, it was easier at first, and then it was hard. Because when everyone thought they were father and son, they couldn’t kiss or hold hands or anything. That would have been the scandal of the year, the father-son lovers. Douglas hated that they had chosen to live somewhere that had small town gossip and small town scandals. 

It wasn’t all awful. They had found community at First Baptist. They went to bingo together on Wednesdays and attended church potlucks. They volunteered at the food bank. They kept busy except when they didn’t want to, which was perfect. Some days they would lie in bed all day. Douglas would read. John would watch TV. In respective silence, they would cherish each other’s company. 

“Now that John is gone,” Walter asks, “How is living in Ambridge?”

“It’s fine,” Douglas says. “The house is nice. I know the area now. It’s fine.” 

But in his head he thinks, I just don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.

By the time Douglas gets home, it is lunchtime. He looks in the fridge. Empty. In the freezer, there’s a collection of frozen rations he has been staving off eating. John had prepared it all for him when he knew he was going to die. Bags of frozen meatballs, a few lasagnas, cartons of mac and cheese. Douglas knows he should eat it, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Because when he gets to that last meal, he will never taste John’s cooking again. He can’t handle that thought. So he closes the freezer door and calls in Chinese food.

Douglas always orders from the Golden Panda. They have the best egg rolls in town and their dumplings are homemade. He looks over the menu. There are marks by John next to the teriyaki chicken and General Tso’s. Douglas strokes his fingers over the marks. 

Douglas orders enough so he will have some leftovers for dinner and food for tomorrow too. When it arrives, he is devastated to see they have put four pairs of chopsticks in the carry-out bag. They thought he had ordered for a family. They didn’t know he was alone.

After dinner, Douglas takes out the trash. He hears a rustling in the bushes and wonders if it is Nancy’s dog. He’d heard it had gone missing. Nancy had made some frantic post on Facebook about it. People mostly ignored it, because that dog got out at least once a week. Douglas follows the sound but sees nothing.

Back inside, he watches the local news with the lights off. He sits on the loveseat facing the TV, covered in its blue light. Some young reporter is stumbling over a story about massive poop found on the golf course. Douglas wonders how this has even made the news. He begins to nod off, lying down and squeezing himself into the parentheses of the love seat. Lion hops up and snuggles into the space behind his bent knees. 

Breaking glass wakes him. That damn cat, he mumbles to himself. He gets up and fumbles around in the dark for his shoes. He slips them on and tries to find the broken glass. He thinks it might have been a vase, since Lion loves to eat the flowers he buys at the grocery story. But the kitchen is clean. Then he sees it, the entire kitchen door shattered, shining in the moonlight. How the hell, Douglas says.

He does his best to sweep up the glass, but it is too much. He hears a rumbling outside . Shit, the damn cat must have gotten out, he says to himself. He grabs a bag of cat treats from the pantry, the blue kind that Lion likes best, and walks into the garden. 

Here kitty kitty, he says. He shakes the treats. Here kitty kitty. When Lion does not materialize immediately, Douglas starts to worry. Lion loves the blue treats. This is how John used to always get him in when he escaped. Douglas hopes Nancy’s dog hasn’t eaten Lion. Douglas walks closer and closer to the golf course, jingling the bag as he goes. Then he sees it. 

A lion lies prone on the green, its tail swishing. And Lion is lying there too, playing with its tail. The lion does not seem to mind. Douglas watches the beast, its massive chest inflating with each breath. Its eyes lit under the moon and the stars. 

The lion slowly lifts its nose to the sky. It shifts its neck in Douglas’ direction. Douglas lies down in the bed of broken azalea blooms, hiding under the cantilevered foliage. The lion walks over and crouches over his body. Lion follows, swatting at the lion’s tail. Douglas reminds himself to breathe. The lion hovers over him. It sniffs him, and smelling the coyote piss, it turns away. 

But then it turns back to him. They stare at each other, and the longer Douglas stares, the more his face begins to soften. The lion eyes the bag of treats clenched in Douglas’ hands. Douglas sits up and shakes some out onto his palm. He offers them to the lion. The lion sniffs his hand and licks them clean off his palm. Then the lion bends down and licks his face. 

And Douglas is still. And the lion leaves. 

Nancy would never admit it to anyone, but she took a perverse delight in being the one to find Douglas’ body. That week at church, everyone had wanted to talk to her. She played coy of course, saying how it really was a private matter, not talking until pushed. If anyone wanted to know the details, she told everyone, they could watch her interview on the news that night. 

Nancy had always made it her job to know where people in the neighborhood were. She had accidently memorized everyone’s car make and model, and she was used to the ebb and flow of the neighborhood. She knew when Gerald across the street was having his mistress over and when that punk who blared his music was suspended from school. She couldn’t wait for him to go away to college, if he could even get into college.

After her little Hermie’s disappearance, Nancy had become especially vigilant. The cops said Herman had probably just run off, or maybe he had gotten hit by a car. She didn’t find the hit-and-run story likely and was determined to find who had dognapped her sweet little baby. The town Facebook page had been useless, too. Some bitch from a few streets over had even said Nancy should put her dog down. 

The second morning after Hermie disappeared, Nancy noticed that Douglas didn’t take his normal morning walk. That fruit always took his walk, even after his so-called son had passed. Nancy was convinced the bastard was keeping Herman for himself. He was probably mad that she had gone to Pastor Luke and told him what he and John really were. Pastor Luke hadn’t kicked them out or even talked about it, but Nancy made sure that everyone in church knew they were breaking bread with sodomites. For their own protection, of course.

Nancy decided to investigate Douglas on her own. She baked a casserole, the same one she’d made after John’s funeral. As she walked to his house, she practiced the speech in her head. I know how hard it must be losing your son so young. I just wanted to make sure you were eating so I made this casserole. She even planned out how she would stretch out the word son extra long. He would try to refuse, she knew, but she was prepared. Oh sweetie, it’s really nothing. Do you need any company? I’m glad to come sit with you for a bit.

Casserole in hand, Nancy rings the doorbell, but it’s broken, of course. Those two always kept their house in such disarray, especially the garden, if you could call it that, they let grow wild in the back. Nancy knocks hard, but nobody comes to the door, so she knocks harder.

After trying the front, she walks around the back. Again, she rehearses. Oh darling, I was just worried about you, you being in there alone and all. I just wanted to make sure you were alright, so I thought I’d try the back. As she walks, she also tries to hear if Hermie is barking. She whistles for him, the way she does when he runs a little too close to the other dogs at the dog park. Nothing. Silence. 

Rounding the corner to the back, Nancy sees Douglas’ cat, Puma or something like that, in the middle of the garden. It mews at her and comes up to rub her legs. It looks up at her expectantly, and, thinking it might lead her to Douglas, she follows. The cat guides her away from the house and off to the green. Its tail sways as it walks. 

The first thing she notices are his eyes. Where his eyeballs should be are two holes, chewed out by something. Looking closer, Nancy sees his nose and ears have bits missing too. The damn cat rubs against her again and walks up to Douglas’ frozen body. It licks his nose before nibbling into it. It makes little munching sounds. It turns its face around to Nancy and mews again. 

Jesus Christ, Nancy says before running over to her house to call the police. 

The pair of lions take one last look at the house before pawing their way into the woods. They lick their chops and raise their snouts to the air. In the wind, there is something sweet, something new. The lions follow the smell, crunching leaves under their feet as they go. A squirrel freezes in front of them. The lions ignore it and keep walking, following whatever is calling them to wherever they are meant to go.