The Devil Never Sleeps (16 page)
Read The Devil Never Sleeps Online
Authors: Andrei Codrescu
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350-pound black bear named No Neck walked all the way from the Florida Panhandle across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana until he got to Baton Rouge. That's the longest walk any recorded bear ever took, and he would have kept walking on to the Atchafalaya Basin where about three hundred black bears live. No Neck was apparently looking for a mate, and the word must have been out among Florida bears that the Atchafalaya Basin community had possibilities. There are so few bears left, they must sense each other in the empty air: The bear frequency must ring with the poignant signals of their dying. No Neck himself had been living in relative contentment in the Apalachicola National Forest until he was caught raiding beehives, arrested, and moved to the Eglin Air Force Base. Now why would anyone arrest a bear for eating honey? That's like arresting a bird for flying. So No Neck, finding himself under arrest, lonely, and distressed by the silence on the once-crowded bear frequency, decided to take off for the Atchafalaya. He walked past shopping malls, where there were once forests, he walked through suburbs where once there were bears, he passed by houses, highways, McDonald'ses, gas stations, and TV towers. He was spotted along the way by people amazed to see him walking like that. He stopped for nothing, accepted no rides, and kept on going. If he had any doubts about his purpose or his eventual destination, we will never know. The wildllife authorities tracking him were ready to help him cross Highway 55, but in the end they decided to bring him down near Baton Rouge. They shot him with a tranquilizer dart and took him back to the Apalachicola National Forest where he'd been arrested in the first place. He might have been allowed to make it to the black bear community in Atchafalaya, but it was feared that the heavily industrial and populated shore of the Mississippi would bring him in conflict with rifle-toting humans. No Neck knew where he was going but so did we: his ear was tagged, his lip tattooed, and he had an electronic collar. Back in his forest, No Neck may be too dispirited to raid hives. He probably doesn't care that he set a bear-walking record. He's still lonely, and at night he dreams of strange towering shapes that broadcast to humans in frequencies he cannot and doesn't care to access. But that's how we heard his story and that's all that we will ever know. His bear frequency is inaccessible to us.
350-pound black bear named No Neck walked all the way from the Florida Panhandle across Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana until he got to Baton Rouge. That's the longest walk any recorded bear ever took, and he would have kept walking on to the Atchafalaya Basin where about three hundred black bears live. No Neck was apparently looking for a mate, and the word must have been out among Florida bears that the Atchafalaya Basin community had possibilities. There are so few bears left, they must sense each other in the empty air: The bear frequency must ring with the poignant signals of their dying. No Neck himself had been living in relative contentment in the Apalachicola National Forest until he was caught raiding beehives, arrested, and moved to the Eglin Air Force Base. Now why would anyone arrest a bear for eating honey? That's like arresting a bird for flying. So No Neck, finding himself under arrest, lonely, and distressed by the silence on the once-crowded bear frequency, decided to take off for the Atchafalaya. He walked past shopping malls, where there were once forests, he walked through suburbs where once there were bears, he passed by houses, highways, McDonald'ses, gas stations, and TV towers. He was spotted along the way by people amazed to see him walking like that. He stopped for nothing, accepted no rides, and kept on going. If he had any doubts about his purpose or his eventual destination, we will never know. The wildllife authorities tracking him were ready to help him cross Highway 55, but in the end they decided to bring him down near Baton Rouge. They shot him with a tranquilizer dart and took him back to the Apalachicola National Forest where he'd been arrested in the first place. He might have been allowed to make it to the black bear community in Atchafalaya, but it was feared that the heavily industrial and populated shore of the Mississippi would bring him in conflict with rifle-toting humans. No Neck knew where he was going but so did we: his ear was tagged, his lip tattooed, and he had an electronic collar. Back in his forest, No Neck may be too dispirited to raid hives. He probably doesn't care that he set a bear-walking record. He's still lonely, and at night he dreams of strange towering shapes that broadcast to humans in frequencies he cannot and doesn't care to access. But that's how we heard his story and that's all that we will ever know. His bear frequency is inaccessible to us.
Small devils wear horns of garlic and, as they grow older, they learn to love food and drama. In
Still Life with Mozzarella,
the immortal garlic performs in a Garlic Farce. (Amy Weiskopf)
Still Life with Mozzarella,
the immortal garlic performs in a Garlic Farce. (Amy Weiskopf)
Botero's devil, growing with tenderness, revels in the glories of the flesh right over our housetops, which, magically bewitched, have turned into slices of cheesecake.
(Fernando Botero,
Devil and Woman
. Art Resource, NY)
Devil and Woman
. Art Resource, NY)
Actors in a sexual drama involving a complex and amused Cabalaâthe oranges of Jerusalem meet the swamp actors of New Orleans.
(Amy Weiskopf,
Merlitans and Satsumi
)
Merlitans and Satsumi
)
The skull authorized any debauches, whether intellectual or carnal, because it was a reminder of the transitory nature of life. Drinking from a skull was
de rigueur
for bonvivants, and using skulls for candleholders was a cliché of student life that persists to this day. The Devil is fond of tradition.
de rigueur
for bonvivants, and using skulls for candleholders was a cliché of student life that persists to this day. The Devil is fond of tradition.
(Amy Weiskopf,
Vanitas with Skull
)
Vanitas with Skull
)
Poor St. Anthony! Swollen from his hallucinations like a madman from drugs, he must suffer the full repertoire of the pagan monsters that once walked the earth in freedom, but which are now mere tools of the Christian Devil.
(Matthias Gruenewald,
The Temptation of St
.
Anthony
. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
The Temptation of St
.
Anthony
. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
The Devil wears glasses to better study God's creation in order to enslave and destroy it. Children, beware: excessive reading, excessive study, excessive curiosity, and excessive gazing lead to excessive interiority, which leads downward to Hell, not upward to the simplicity of Heaven. In Cambodia, people wearing glasses were killed because they were suspected of being teachers, polyglots, and readers or, in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, Devils.
(Joseph Thaddaeus Stammel,
A Devil Wearing Eyeglasses.
Erich Lessing /Art Resource, NY)
A Devil Wearing Eyeglasses.
Erich Lessing /Art Resource, NY)
The poet sleeps because he has put in a full nightshift of delighted and wicked work. In the light of day, he is saved from the wrath of Judgment only by the loving brush of his mate.
(Alice Henderson,
Poet Sleeping
)
(Alice Henderson,
Poet Sleeping
)
The Devil's favorite bar in New Orleans has hours as rich as those of the Duc de Berry. Working the night shift here, the author has accumulated a number of indulgences good for the better sections of Hell (see Fra Angelico).
(Kerri McCaffety, Two interior shots of Molly's)
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