The Nutcracker.

His body is smooth, hard wood. He tells me that, at birth, he was bathed in the shade of sunset, then his belly and paws in that of fresh milk by a nameless, faceless Malaysian child. I will call her Idayu, though doing so will not feed her tomorrow. She glued on his grizzly-colored cotton afro, his firm whiskers, the tuft of bleached hair that protrudes from his chest, his fine bamboo tail. These trappings make him more cartoon character than King of the Jungle. In this we are kindred. But do not believe his painted smile; his jaws were fashioned for destruction.

He was to have been a congratulatory gift.

Before Andrie’ was cast as our Cowardly Lion, he was the baritone who kept my warbly soprano in tune. For that feat alone, he deserved thanks.

So when the nutcracker lion took up residence in the win-by-claw-capture toy-bin-slash-rip-off at my place of employment, I had to make him mine. I ignored the Dorothy of the same series despite her freaking adorable but slightly demonic-looking miniature Toto. Resident Diva of the Arts Tessa would inevitably become Dorothy, and though I didn’t want the part (I would never choose home over brains or heart or courage), I couldn’t stand to recognize her theatrical superiority.

Yes, the appearance of the six-inch nutcracker actually predated casting, but Andrie’ was a shoe-in for the Lion. First of all, kid could sing. Second, he looked the part: almost a pair of hands higher than me, liberally and evenly muscled, padded more than lightly with chub. Most importantly, he was the principal’s son and would get whatever he wanted, to which I had no objection because what he currently wanted was nothing he shouldn’t be given otherwise.

I must have sacrificed twenty bucks worth of quarters to The Claw trying to buy its freedom, always to no avail.

I had all but given up hope when Services The Machines Guy came to trade out the inhabitants of the glass case. I pled with him to sell me the lion. Instead, he made it a gift, and at my explanation of the gravity of his present, he produced the Dorothy from his bag and said he hoped I got the lead.

I never gave Andrie’ his present; the Dorothy Casting Scandal of ’05 caused most of us seniors to boycott the production (the lead did not, as expected, go to the Resident Diva, but to a girl whose only qualification was her skin color). Under those circumstances, it seemed gauche to semi-randomly gift a nutcracker, especially to a casual acquaintance. So he sleeps caged beneath a sky of white-and-red-polka-dotted paper, in his original purple packaging, in a box under my bed, right between my botched attempt at a Cameroonian Passport mask and the tiny crystal unicorn wrapped safely in tissue paper with his severed front hoof, across from the Dorothy and her demon-eyed dog.

He will never show his capability, never serve his purpose, never fulfill his promise.

So long as I keep him Cowardly, so long as I keep him caged.