The Bear Went Over the Mountain (8 page)

The bear lifted the silver lid covering his steak, and Zou Zou gave the waiter a fifty. “I’m grateful for your help.”

“Not at all, madame.” The waiter turned with a soft, discreet step, and the door made hardly a sound as he closed it behind him.

The bear was nibbling from the food cart. His panic was forgotten now, because he was eating, and because he was a bear.

Zou Zou stood beside him. “You had a nightmare. You woke from it suddenly and were disoriented. At Creative Management we’re used to working with disoriented artists. We understand the
pressures
that rise up inside a man like you. Hal—” She laid the CMC writer/agent agreement on the food cart. “—we’re in your corner. Let’s make it official, shall we, and put your mind at rest on that point? With CMC representing you, you’ll have agents who
care
for you.” She handed him the pen. “Just your signature, Hal, so you can feel more secure.”

With great slowness, the bear managed to sign his name, his brow furrowed as he gazed down at the slowly forming letters that spelled his human identity. When he’d finished the signature, he looked up, not without a little pride in his accomplishment.

“I’m so happy, Hal,” said Zou Zou as she saw the sea of diet shake receding from her; its billowing plastic foam would remain the business of other eager sea goddesses running the weight-loss industry, tridents prodding the too-plump backsides of humanity. She quickly folded the agreement back into her briefcase. “And now we can relax.” She put her arms around his neck. His intoxicating scent was like nothing she’d ever smelled before. “I usually don’t let this happen,” she said, pressing her body against him.

He sensed she wanted to repeat what they’d done earlier. She couldn’t know how difficult it had been for him to perform with her, how he’d had to imagine her covered with fur.

Vinal Pinette led the way toward the cookhouse of the logging operation, his dog trailing behind him, and Bramhall bringing up the rear. “The crew’s out cutting,” said Pinette, “but Ransome Spatt’ll be here. He’s the feller we want.”

Bramhall heard the far-off buzzing of chain saws, and then a nearer buzzing caught his ear, of a bee sailing past him. His jaws snapped, and the bee was imprisoned his mouth. He spit it out in horror, and the stunned bee fell onto a blade of grass, where it clung momentarily, using its legs to wipe the saliva off its wings.

Bramhall heard a splash of water and turned toward the cookhouse. A portly man in a gray sleeveless undershirt stood in the doorway, a dripping basin in his hands. “Why, Vinal Pinette! You old mushrat, how you been?”

“Still standing, Ransome.”

Bramhall and Pinette followed Ransome Spatt inside. Two large wood stoves were at the center of the room, with pots steaming on both of them. Pans of fresh bread and rolls were on a rough-hewn table by the window.
“Tear into them buns,” said Spatt, sliding butter and jam toward Bramhall. “It might be all you’ll get today.”

“Got a full crew?” asked Pinette.

“We do.” Spatt stirred six spoons of sugar into his tea. “But we could use an experienced man, Vinal. Teach these young Turks what it’s all about.”

“I’m into the book writing business now,” said Pinette.

“Didn’t know you was a hand for writing.”

“I’m providing the raw material,” said Pinette. “Art’s the writer.”

Bramhall nodded cordially, but he was still trying to deal with the fact that only minutes ago he’d nailed a bee midflight with his jaws.

“But all Art can think about is bears,” Pinette was saying, “so I figure that our book’ll have to be about bears.”

“Well, you come to the right person.” Spatt broke off a bun and sliced it carefully open. “I found my little bear cub in the woods out back. He’d got separated from his mama and was crying his goddamned heart out, so’s I moved him in here. He had a bunk right there behind the stove.” Spatt pointed with his knife. “We arm-wrestled that little feller every night right at this here table, and there wasn’t a man in the camp could beat him. Ain’t that so, Vinal?”

Pinette nodded. “And that cub weren’t but six months old.”

“The little son-of-a-whore loved ice cream,” said Spatt. “He’d sit there with a cone just like you or me and lick it all up with that big tongue of his. The ’spression on his face was something to see. Then at night when we was jawing, he’d sit where you’re sitting—” Spatt directed his gaze at Bramhall. “—and listen to the men talk.”

“I believe,” said Pinette, “he understood every word we said.”

“When you get to know a bear,” said Spatt, “you see how much brains they got.” He blew across the edge of his teacup. “Well, sir, one night his mama come for him.” He pointed toward the back of the cookhouse. “Started digging a hole underneath the floor. There ain’t nothing more dangerous than Mother Bear when she’s been separated from her cub. She’d have torn the foundation right out of the place to get in, so I opened the door to let the cub run join her. But do you know, the little son-of-a-whore didn’t want to go. He just stood there staring at his mama, and then he turned around and climbed back up onto his bunk, as if he had something important to do there.”

“He liked ice cream that much,” explained Pinette to Bramhall with a knowing nod.

“Well, Mama Bear wasn’t going to stand for that
nonsense,” continued Spatt. “She come right in the door and give us a look that said we’d better not mess with her.”

“We didn’t neither,” said Pinette.

“She lifted her cub up by the scruff of the neck and the little bugger whined to beat hell, but she dragged him outa there. He and Mama Bear went trotting off in the moonlight with Mama licking him and scolding him at the same time. And he looked back over his shoulder at all of us, as if he had plans for coming back.”

Pinette placed his big woodsman’s hands on the edge of the table and rocked in his chair. “I’ve knowed a fair number of animals in my day, and not one of them was as smart as that bear cub. Now, you take this dog of mine here—” He pointed toward the beast, who looked up at him guiltily, aware by the old man’s tone that one of his poorer performances was coming under discussion. “He broke into the feed room and ate a fifty-pound bag of chow in one sitting. Swelled up like a bullfrog, and was so stuffed he couldn’t even move his tail. Sorriest-looking rig you ever saw.”

The dog’s tail thumped now as he thought back with mixed emotions to the incident. Yes, he’d been rendered motionless from gluttony, and the gas pains had given him some bad moments for awhile, but on the whole the experience had been positive.

“Now, a bear’d eat that fifty-pound bag and ask you politely for another one,” said Pinette.

Spatt gazed toward the window ruminatively. “Bears are deep.”

“There ain’t nothing so deep as a bear,” agreed Pinette.

The bear took his time furnishing his apartment, because he wanted it to be in perfect taste. Light came from bubbling Lava lamps. A painting on velvet, of a trout, hung on the wall. The walls themselves were covered with a bright nursery paper depicting teddy bears playing with balloons. A beanbag chair, loosely molded to the bear’s shape, was in front of a big-screen television set. He was seated in it now, watching a cartoon. A brightly colored coyote being struck with a wrecking ball and flattened to a shadow on a wall was very much to his liking. He turned on the lamp beside him, which had beads of illuminated oil that fell in a shower around a gold-tinted plaster Venus. The bear was especially fond of this object. This was because he was a bear.

After watching television for a short while, he became uneasy. He went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was filled with pies and cakes. “Do I have enough?” He was still troubled by the instinct to hoard, which he fought down by telling himself, “I can get more,” and by reminding himself that the great thing about civilization
was that you could always go shopping. Just to steady himself, he opened the kitchen cupboards and looked at his stores of honey. Every shelf was filled with the golden nectar, and there weren’t any bees to contend with, another important advantage of city living.

He shuffled out of the kitchen and sat back down in front of the cartoon show. Now the coyote was being run over by a steamroller, his neck elongating as he tried to escape. The bear clapped his paws. “He won’t get out of
that
one!” But he did get away, and the bear gave an appreciative growl. Coyotes were tricky. They’d stolen food from him a few times. You have to bang them against a tree real hard, which knocks the wind out of them. Then they behave.

These flickers of memory sank him into reflection about the forest he’d put behind him. “I should go back,” he said to himself. But then he thought of his cupboard full of honey, and the web of forest reflections dissolved. He padded back to the kitchen and brought out a jar of tupelo honey. “This,” he said as he admired its amber beauty, “is what it’s all about.”

He was jarred out of this meditation by the ringing of his telephone. He spun around in alarm, his claws spread to strike. When he detected nothing but the annoying sound, he stepped slowly from the kitchen into the living room and cautiously approached the phone. It was a child’s phone in the shape of a pair of bunny rabbits,
back-to-back, their ears holding the receiver. It had appealed to him in the store when he’d purchased it, but now he looked at it suspiciously, his eyes narrowing, his first impulse to hammer it, because bears are never at home to just anyone.

The bunnies continued to sound, their eyes lighting up with each ring; in the store he’d been delighted with this feature, but now the bunnies’ eyes seemed to glow malevolently, on and off.

He removed the phone receiver from its cradle and set it down on the table. That shut the bunnies up, but now a voice was coming from the receiver.

“Hal, are you there? It’s Zou Zou …”

Female, thought the bear to himself as he stared at the phone.

“Hal, I’ve been calling you for days … Hal? Are you busy? Are you writing? I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

He sniffed the earpiece, trying to get the scent of her, but it was no-go. However, as the voice continued to speak, he managed to place it. It was the female he’d rutted with. Cautiously, he lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Hal, I know you’re there, I can hear you breathing …”

The bear felt the tiny voice spiraling down into his ear like a bee. He tapped the receiver into his palm, wondering if something might fall out of it, perhaps a tiny human female with pollen covering her legs.

“Hal, please talk to me. I’m back in Los Angeles and I’m trying to go about my life but I have to know how things stand between us.”

The bear set down his jar of tupelo and untwisted the lid.

“Hal, please tell me what you’re feeling. Do I mean anything at all to you?”

“Honey,” said the bear as he removed the lid and admired the golden beads that dripped from it.

“Oh, Hal, I knew we weren’t just a one-night stand. Hal, I’m prepared to make a complete commitment to our relationship. Do you feel that way too?”

“Sure,” said the bear.

“Hal, I’m so glad I called. If you knew how I’ve been oscillating here. Staring at the phone, afraid to call, afraid I might be interrupting your writing, afraid of so many things …”

The bear listened to the female buzzing in his ear. He listened for quite a long time, fascinated by the droning little sound. But finally he said, “Well, good-bye,” and hung up. He was pleased with the way he’d handled the telephone call. He’d been polite, but he’d said what was on his mind.

He picked up his honey jar again and tipped it to his lips. As the sweet ambrosia trickled over his tongue, he knew he was powerless against it.

“There’s the feller we’re looking for,” said Pinette, pointing through the window of his truck toward a skinny individual walking by the side of the road with a stick in his hand and a burlap sack full of empty cans on his back. The afternoon sun was on him, and his shadow was long and strongly etched on the road. “Gus,” called Pinette as he pulled his truck in beside the man. “Hop in.”