All the Broken Things (23 page)

“Okay,” he said. “You try.”

Bear sniffed the bike and tried to climb up, clumsy and reckless, so that Bo had to help her and hold her steady like he remembered his father helping him when he was little. It surprised him to remember so clearly—a paved road and veering off wildly into a green patch and falling, the cutting laughter of his dad. Bear kept on nudging his arms away, making it hard to help her.

“Bear,” he said. “Quit that.”

Bo held her back feet to the pedals. Her legs rotated, and her front body lounged over the bars. After a while he let go and watched her ride to nowhere. Bo needed to perfect this act, needed to feel they might have some sort of show, some way to make money. Bear could dance and she could fight, but that was useless without a ring.

“Tour de France,” said Soldier Man, when Bear pushed herself off the bike and bounded a few metres away, panting. “Pretty smart bear.” He took a sandwich wrapped in a greasy piece of waxed paper from his pocket. He pulled the corner of the sandwich off and tossed it to Bear. When she sniffed the ground and then ate the treat, he tossed another piece a little closer.

“Bo?” he said. “I got news. Some fella is looking for you, kid. Guy said he could smell bear, when I told him I didn’t know anything about anything. He told me not to fuck with him.”

Bo stared at Soldier Man, at his drenched and ragged bandana, and thought this through, how he would have to work harder, hurry, hide better. “When?”

“Evening before last. I guess your second day here,” said Soldier Man, shrugging when Bo made a face. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Okay,” said Bo. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him, ‘Fuck you very much,’ ” and then Soldier Man was gone, not answering Bo’s hushed calls for him to come back.

Bo turned to Bear, watched her sniff the grass where the scent of sandwich must still linger. “Come on,” he said. He leashed her and they began walking. They had a routine already. Days, they slept, and under cover of night, they roamed and trained.

O
NE VERY DARK NIGHT
, two weeks in, they ventured back toward the old neighbourhood, Bo anxious and yearning. It was obsessive ghost stalking, of Emily’s house, of the stockyards—a place where the sweet smell of cow pat drew the bear more than it drew him. Bo was
homesick, and lonely, shifting in the shadows with Bear, and the risk of being seen was immense, even if Bo had never felt more invisible.

His house was dead and cold. The signs his family had lived there—a collapsed flowerpot, the begonias brown, their stems gnarled viscous limbs of some dead thing—insulted him. Junk mail, yellowed, piled up on the stoop.

He and Bear walked along the side of the house and up the metal back porch stairs. Bo had his key in the lock before he realized how crazy this was. He looked in the door window. A night-light burned ochre in a socket in the hallway. He could make out the peeling Naugahyde chair in the living room. No one had been in to clean. He looked in at that past for some time before he pushed the door open, and knew right away he couldn’t go in.

The stale air was so potent with sorrow after the park’s fresh air. His mother was really gone. He thought of her pride after the play when all the parents clapped, and he couldn’t put it together with the fact that she had left him. He thought, he must stop trying to put things together. And then Bear yanked at the lead so hard he let go, and she was down the hall and moaning at a cabinet in the kitchen. The kibble was still in there.

He followed and scooped a big bowl for her, rolling the top of the bag down and shoving the rest in his rucksack. He had learned never to pass by food she might be able to eat. A full bear was a happy bear.

“Come on,” he whispered, and they left by the back door, Bo pulling it shut and leaving the key stuck in the lock. He wouldn’t come back. He turned to descend the stairs and head back through the shadows to the park and there was Emily in the yard, looking up.

“Bear!” she said.

Bo was filthy, he knew, and so was Bear. “Emily,” he whispered. “How come you are here?” He brought Bear to heel and came down the steps.

“I was walking by, and I smelled her,” said Emily, smiling. “She really stinks, Bo!” And then she smiled wider and reached her hands out toward Bear. “Some old guy’s been around looking for you. Father Bart said a sermon for you too.” She laughed a little, and looked at him. “Where have you been hiding?”

“High Park,” Bo said.

“You can’t keep hiding in one place, I don’t think. That guy came around to my house asking if I knew where you were. He said he was your boss. I thought Max was your boss.”

“Max is his boss too. His name is Gerry.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Emily. “Teacher told him I knew you, he said. And he said something about getting the authorities involved, and that the newspapers are starting to talk about bear sightings in the park.”

Bo thought he’d been so careful. “Oh, no.”

“Gerry was scared that Max will find out he’s lost you and Bear.”

“We aren’t lost. We just don’t want to go to Grimsby,” said Bo, thinking that Gerry couldn’t lose something he didn’t own in the first place. “Do you know where Max took my mum and Orange?”

Emily shook her head. “I’m really sorry,” she added. “I miss Orange.”

“Me too,” said Bo. “I thought they might come back,” but even as he said it he realized how babyish he sounded. “It’s stupid. They aren’t coming back for me.” He told her how he’d been roaming by night and sleeping by day to avoid people. He told her about Soldier Man and how Max wanted to use Orange.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” He tugged on the lead and set off, the bear swaying beside him, snorting, chuffing. He didn’t like to be still for long and neither did she. He would have to be more careful in the park, find a few more spots where he could camouflage the bear and hide himself, maybe off the paths, farther south where fewer people bothered to go.

“I’ve got to know if you hear anything,” he said, turning back to face Emily. “Come find me, okay?”

“If you need to, you could hide in my pool shed.” The shimmering image of green water came into his mind, and this must have shown on his face. “There’s a back door from the alleyway. The key’s under a fake stone right below the lock. We keep the poolside door locked too.
It’s safe and you’d hear if someone was coming. I’ll put a blanket or two in there in case,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“In case, is all,” she said. “If you need to deke in anywhere.” She gestured to the house. “No one would ever think of the pool shed.”

Then the bear lunged. Bo let go of the lead, and she ducked under the porch to roll and face-snuffle into the dry warm dirt there, some memory smell of her own childhood enticing her. Bo climbed back up the grated stairs above her and stood looking toward the tracks, half hoping a train would rip through the night and give him awful sounds to cut the feelings he did not want to feel. He recalled ice cream oozing through his toes, Bear’s tongue. When he looked, Emily was watching him, her eyes glinting.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem, Bo.”

B
O AND
B
EAR ENTERED THE PARK
from the northwestern edge, crossed a creek and then followed it toward the marshes where it opened up into Grenadier Pond. Bear dug her paws into the path, refusing to move then, and Bo heard her rumbling growl. Bo tried to pull her into the rushes behind them, but she wouldn’t budge. Bear
rolled her head and scented, then let loose with a full roar when Soldier Man finally emerged from the green.

“Hey,” he said, and Bo’s breath caught in his throat. He had thought it might be Gerry.

“Jesus,” said Bo.

“I scare you?”

Bo nodded.

“Well, you should be scared, I guess. Your friend was here. Right here,” Soldier Man said. “Looking for you and your missus.” He gestured to Bear. “He’s the bear wrestling guy, right?”

Bo nodded.

“I told him you weren’t here anymore. Told him you’d headed west by night down toward Grimsby to find him. I did good, right?”

Bo’s heartbeat battered at his chest. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks.” But the screaming thought that ripped across his mind was, Where’s my mother?

“He had something to tell you, he said, if you wanted to hear it—”

“Thanks,” said Bo. “I don’t want to hear it,” surprised, as he said this, that Soldier Man had his back at all. He realized he would have to be even more careful.

He kept Bear still closer after that, and set about teaching her new commands:
bare teeth, bite
. No one would be able to take Bear from him. No one.

I
N THE WEEKS THAT PASSED
, Bear dug a hollow for herself a short distance away from the lean- to and raked grass and twigs into it for her bed. There was some bearness in her that led her to places that smelled good, where she could watch the night parade of fox and skunk and mole and rat. The pond below them tossed with fish, and she liked to watch that too.

Now, Bo could make out Bear’s face peeking over the incline below him—the hill descended in a series of soft steps. The bear’s back shuddered and then her head lifted. She had woken early, long before the sun crested in the east, and Bo woke then too. They’d been sleeping an hour at most.

Bear turned, orienting, noticing all there was to notice in the meagre light, and her nose twitched, taking in the musk of sewage that plagued them in that corner of the park—he had no indication she disliked this—and the particular odour of morning, its fresh greenness, the insects scuttling, earth smells—all the things Bo could neither smell nor see.

Bear emerged from her bed, and bumbled out along the slope. She rooted and tore up horsetail, pushed at deadfall in search of worms and woodlice. It amazed him how much she ate. Bear moved closer to the pond and scratched along the path, turning up what she could—ants,
Bo suspected. Then she seemed to hear or smell something farther down and was drawn there. Bo figured it must be close to six in the morning, a time when early risers might bring their dogs into the area, so he whistled for her to come back, but she ignored him and kept on.

He could hear her chuffing, and rattling the undergrowth, and so he rose and made his way toward her. He could not see her. He began to worry about Gerry, worry that he would lose Bear too, and then he would be entirely, awfully, alone.

“Bear,” he called, soft, soft. He needed her.

Nothing.

“Bear.”

He heard her move again and located her, a fur line undulating at the shore of the pond. She looked back at him briefly, and then scooped at the water. The edge of the pond was mucky and grown up with bulrush and willow struggling against erosion. If she dug she might find a frog, but she did not dig. She slapped the water and scooped. Bo wondered if she knew instinctively to fish, if there were fish worth catching, and as he wondered, she forked a large glittering carp with her claws, watched it flop on the shore. Then, she seemed to smile as she tore into it.

Bo could only stare at this, the pink wetness sinking into her paw fur. Bo turned back toward the lean-to, worry rising again that they might be seen. He whistled low and insistent. Bear was up in her nest before he got
back himself, curled in a ball. He wondered if she was faking sleep, trying to trick him, but she did not move from her bed again until night had fallen, and then she had to prod at him, he’d slept so deeply. Bear stood on her back legs and scented wildly. Bo jerked to his feet trying to see through the night and foliage to what she might have heard.