Tiger Tiger Tiger

The tiger is a McGuffin. There are no two ways about it. The tiger is a McGuffin. The boy sits at McDonalds with his father. They enjoy an early-morning breakfast among the other 6.5 trillion served, including truckers and high-school students with too much ambition, or not enough sleep. Kyle. That’s his name. Kyle.

He sits at McDonalds with his father. The tiger is a McGuffin. They have a conversation about life. They talk about life. They eat their food amongst the mass of humanity.

Caution: Hot. Cuidado: Caliente. I don’t speak French, or Russian, or German, or Japanese, so I do not know which warnings are which. The coffee burns the tongue as it journeys down the esophagus. That’s the right path? Right?

The tiger is a McGuffin. Kyle’s father looks at him across the table. He munches on a hasbrown. His fingers glisten from the grease on the potato-product. He sips his coffee. Winces at the heat. This coffee is terrible.

He remembers the coffee in Africa. Africa had coffee. It was good. The tiger was a McGuffin.

He sipped the coffee while sitting in the Jeep. In his hand, he held an elephant gun. The gun was loaded. He surveyed the lands and saw nothing. Only the swaying of the tall, brown grass. No elephants.

None.

He sips his coffee as he stares across the table at his son. His son is wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap. In place of Chief Wahoo, Slider’s visage holds center stage. His son finishes his Egg McMuffin. The tiger is a McGuffin. McMuffin.

He saw something in the distance, through the swaying grass. Orange and black and black and orange, the felis hungered to approach. Its sleek body stalked through the weeds.

Detroit is in town. They play the Cleveland Sliders tonight. He will take his son to the game. His first ever baseball game. It will be a shoe-in.

The orange and black shifted across the field. Two eyes like marbles stared at him. The … tiger … was … just … a … McGuffin …

The mascot for Detroit is a McGuffin. Clearly a giant purple … thing could whoop any baseball player from Detroit, regardless of who their mascot is. He thinks about the other mascots for Cleveland. They really suck. What the hell is a Brown anyway? What about Cavaliers? Are we in the feudal system? Lumberjacks? We’re Canuks now? Jazz is the soccer team, right? They improvise while following a score? He sighs. But it’s not about Cleveland. It’s not about Detroit. It’s not about the tiger. The tiger is a McGuffin.

He lowered his elephant gun, pointing the business end at the giant black and orange cat. The cat roared. He pulled the trigger. He missed. He broke his shoulder. He fell off the Jeep. The cat jumped over the Jeep and landed squarely on him, pressing his broken shoulder into the Serengeti soil. The tiger was just a McGuffin. His guide started singing, singing a tune with gutturals and clicks and whoas, and other non-English words. The cat looks back at the guide, then at the man. He growls into the man’s face, then scampers away.

The man puts his arm around his son. The Cleveland Sliders are up by five runs. His son eats a lemon ice as peanut shells clutter around his feet. Baseball is a stupid sport. It’s boring, slow and just doesn’t make any sense. The man doesn’t dwell on these things, or the tiger. The tiger is a McGuffin. He thinks about his son, and how he will grow up to be a man. A real man.