Bear Necessity

by James Gould-Bourn

  The approach was something like a dancing version of a game of Telephone, but instead of the message getting lost or scrambled as it so often did in the children’s game, here the process had the opposite effect, taking something complex and making it simple without losing any of its value. Krystal had taught Danny a lot since she’d reluctantly agreed to help him, but her teaching skills often left as much to be desired as his ability to learn. She wasn’t always able to deconstruct her experience in a way that Danny could digest, which led to frustration on both sides as Krystal grew impatient and Danny grew more flustered and more prone to making mistakes. Will, on the other hand, was able to explain everything to him like an eleven-year-old. Because of this, and combined with the skills and knowledge that Danny himself had accrued over the last couple of months, the two of them were able to iron out almost every crease by the time Krystal returned a few hours later. She watched them undetected from the corner of the room while they worked their way through the routine, and only when the music stopped and she started applauding did they realize they weren’t alone.

  “That, fellas, was smoother than my lady bits,” she said. “Looks like your new teacher here has been doing a much better job than I have.” She winked at Will, who smiled shyly.

  “What do you think?” said Danny.

  “What do I think?” she said. “I think I’ve been wasting my bloody time this last couple of months, Danny, that’s what I think. You never needed me. All you needed was this little mover right here.” She gently nudged Will in the ribs. “I guess we’re going to have to split that prize money three ways now. I still get half though, obviously.”

  “I hope it’ll be enough,” said Danny.

  Krystal shrugged. “You can give me more if you like,” she said.

  Danny rolled his eyes. “I meant the performance,” he said. “Do you think it’s enough to convince the judges?”

  “If it isn’t, I really don’t know what will be,” said Krystal. “Not unless…” She trailed off, suddenly lost in thought.

  “Unless what?” said Danny.

  Krystal nibbled her bottom lip and stared into the middle distance. “Where are those couches?” she said.

  “What?” said Danny.

  “The ones that Fanny chucked out, where are they?”

  “In the alley opposite the club, why?”

  “You’ll see,” she said, heading for the door. “Follow me. I have a brilliant idea.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Danny was a little disappointed when he first set eyes on the stage. He’d spent the last month imagining some kind of setup akin to that of a U2 concert, with huge television screens and speakers the size of small apartment buildings; but when he visited Hyde Park the day before the competition to get a feel for what to expect, the venue he encountered looked more suited to a Punch-and-Judy show than the Battle of the Street Performers so boldly advertised on the flyer he’d carried around in his wallet for the last few weeks. The only battle that Danny could foresee taking place was the battle he was going to have trying to perform his routine without falling off the laughably small stage that the crew were still in the process of building. It wasn’t just the stage that hadn’t been finished either—at least, that’s what Danny hoped, because if everything else had been completed, the audience would have a few battles of their own, like how and where to go to the bathroom when there were no toilets, or how they were going to see the stage when there were no lighting rigs to speak of, or how they were going to find the event in the first place when there were no banners, posters, or advertisements.

  Wondering if he’d somehow missed the competition and if the stage construction he was currently witnessing was in fact deconstruction, he fished the flyer from his pocket to reconfirm the date of the event. Seeing that it was indeed scheduled for tomorrow, he folded up the flyer and frowned as he watched the crew taking yet another cigarette break.

  Danny’s disappointment began to subside when he thought about it later that evening. The size of the venue didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the size of the prize. He’d happily perform in a supermarket car park just as long as the ten grand was still up for grabs. Also, as much as he liked to imagine himself rocking out to the deafening chorus of thousands of screaming admirers, he wasn’t even confident about performing his act in front of Krystal and Will, never mind a huge crowd of strangers. The smaller the venue, the smaller the crowd, and fewer people equaled fewer things to worry about, which meant his mind would be free to worry about all the other stuff instead, like the grim repercussions of losing the competition, for example, or the angry rash on his inner thigh that wouldn’t go away no matter how much talc he applied, or the actual level of brilliance of Krystal’s “brilliant idea.” Danny wasn’t convinced that it was even a mildly good idea, let alone a brilliant one, but with only one day to go before the competition and with the plan already fully integrated into his routine, it was too late to change anything now. And anyway, he reminded himself, at least there wouldn’t be many people to see him screw up if things didn’t go according to plan. He took some comfort in that thought—or he did until he, Krystal, and Will arrived at Hyde Park the following night to find thousands of people gathered around a stage much bigger and considerably more intimidating than the one he’d watched being lazily constructed just twenty-four hours ago.

  “I thought you said it was tiny?” said Krystal, nodding towards the huge rectangular platform that rose from the crowd.

  “It was!” said Danny as he looked at the massive lighting rigs that now loomed ominously over the stage.

  “This place is awesome!” said Will, his eyes flickering from the strobes and halogens that flashed and panned from the trusses and towers. And Danny had to agree. It was awesome, almost terrifyingly so. In fact, it was so awesome that he wondered if perhaps another event was taking place in the park simultaneously, an event more worthy of the beer tents and food trucks and the various television crews that were trying to report their respective pieces to camera, while handfuls of excitable revelers pulled faces and made masturbatory hand gestures behind them. It was only when he neared the stage and saw the huge BATTLE OF THE STREET PERFORMERS banner draped over the front of it that Danny realized, with a swell of pride and a tsunami of fear, that this was indeed the right venue.

  “This way!” shouted Krystal. She pointed towards a large tented area enclosed by a fence and guarded by several men who looked like they’d killed the original guards and stolen their uniforms to avoid being caught and returned to whatever prison they’d recently broken out of.

  “ID,” grunted one of the men blocking the entrance, who appeared to be composed largely of biceps. His biceps had biceps. His triceps had biceps. Even his head looked like a bicep. Danny handed over his street performer’s license.

  “Name?” said the man, turning the card over in his hand.

  Danny frowned. “It’s right there on the card,” he said, tapping the license.

  “Your stage name,” said the man wearily. “What’s your performance called?”

  “My performance?” Danny looked at Krystal. Krystal shrugged. “God knows what,” he said.

  “Nope, sorry,” said the man.

  “Sorry?”

  “You can’t have that.”

  “I… can’t have what?” said Danny.

  “God Knows What.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t have God Knows What,” said the man as he scanned the clipboard in his hand.

  “I can’t have God knows what?”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “Wait, so you don’t know what I can’t have?”

  “What?”

  “If I can’t have God knows what, then what you’re basically saying is that you don’t know what I can’t have.”

  The man stared at Danny like he was a crossword puzzle on the back of a cereal box.

  “What are you on about?” he said.

  “Me?
What are you on about!” said Danny, unaware that a small queue was forming behind him.

  “Christ almighty,” said the man, the biceps on his biceps beginning to twitch. “Listen to me very carefully because I’m not going to say this again. You can’t call your act God Knows What. We’ve already got a religious rock band called that, got it? So you’re going to have to think of a different name.”

  “Pandamonium!” shouted Will. Everybody looked at him. “Get it? Panda? Monium? Pandamonium?”

  “That’s not half bad, actually,” said Krystal.

  “Pandamonium it is, then,” said Danny.

  “Whatever,” said the man. He scribbled the word down and grabbed a rubber stamp, which he brandished like a murder weapon. Danny reluctantly extended his arm, and the man mashed the back of his hand with such force that the letters VIP would have been visible even without the ink. After stamping the hands of Krystal and Will with a tenderness he hadn’t shown Danny, he stepped aside and allowed them into the performers’ area.

  “Cubicle twenty-seven!” he shouted as they slowly made their way down the long corridor that ran through the center of the tent. There were countless small canvas partitions identified by numbers above the doors. A few of them were zipped shut, but most were open to reveal various performers in various stages of rehearsal. Some Danny recognized from the park, like the nut juggler, the chicken man, and the human statue, who might have been practicing or who might have simply been sitting very still. Tim was also there, strumming his guitar and twiddling the tuning pegs while Milton sat on his shoulder in a fetching lime-green V-neck sweater; but for every familiar face he passed there were countless other people that Danny had never seen. There were jugglers, there were clowns, there were unicyclists. There was a juggling clown on a unicycle. One cubicle contained a skinny old man wearing a white T-shirt with a Jack Russell’s face on it, the same Jack Russell that was sitting on a chair opposite and barking every time the man paused his toothless rendition (in both senses of the word) of “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls.

  Another man sporting a tuxedo at least three sizes too small for him was standing behind an upturned hat situated in the middle of a table.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to his imaginary audience while he wiggled his fingers mysteriously, “I will now pull a rabbit out of this hat!”

  He plunged his hand into the top hat and fished around for a moment before delving deeper, first up to his elbow and then up to his shoulder. Pulling his arm out, he crouched down, peeked beneath the tablecloth, disappeared under the table completely, and then emerged a minute later looking flustered and slightly disheveled.

  “Shit,” he said, tugging a red handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopping his brow, unaware that several other handkerchiefs had also been dislodged and were now dangling from his pocket like a string of Tibetan prayer flags.

  “Here we are,” said Krystal, pausing outside number twenty-seven. The canvas walls fluttered as she unzipped the door and entered the tiny cubicle.

  “Well, this is cozy,” said Danny, sitting on the foldable chair in the corner, which took up about half of the floor space. “I can barely stretch in here, never mind practice.”

  Ivan’s head appeared around the door.

  “Room for one more?” he said, forcing the others into various corners as he joined them in the cubicle.

  “Ivan!” said Will.

  “Hey, Ivan,” said Danny. “How did you get in here?”

  Ivan turned around to reveal the word CREW written across the back of his black T-shirt.

  “Did you just murder somebody? Tell me honestly.”

  “No murder,” said Ivan. “eBay. I buy long time ago. Is useful. One time I get into Michael Bolton concert for free because of this T-shirt.”

  “You snuck into a Michael Bolton concert?” said Krystal, looking at him like he’d just attempted a drunken backflip and failed.

  “As a test,” said Ivan, trying to sound nonchalant. “You know. To test T-shirt.”

  “Ivan, this is Krystal, my dance teacher. Krystal, Ivan.”

  Ivan shook her hand, which disappeared in his.

  “My dad saved his life once,” said Will, nodding at Ivan. “Didn’t you, Dad?”

  Krystal and Ivan stared at Danny. Krystal looked doubtful. Ivan looked dangerous.

  “What?” said Danny with a nervous laugh when he saw Ivan’s expression. “Liz told him that, not me!”

  “And who told Liz?” said Ivan.

  Before he could answer, Mo appeared in the doorway, much to Danny’s relief.

  “How did you get past security?” said Danny, pressing himself against the wall as Mo insisted on entering the cubicle.

  “I said I had special needs,” he said, tapping his hearing aid. “Works every time.”

  “That’s not a lie,” said Will. “You do have special needs.” Mo thumped him in the arm.

  “Malooley?” called somebody from the corridor. A second later a man arrived wearing a T-shirt like Ivan’s.

  “That’s me,” said Danny.

  “And me,” said Will.

  “And him,” said Danny.

  “Congratulations,” said the man, consulting his clipboard. “You are officially the last act of the evening. I’ll give you a shout when you’re up.”

  “Last!” said Danny once the man had gone.

  “Last isn’t so bad,” said Krystal. “I mean, yeah, sure, you’ve got to sit here and wait until the end of the show, getting more and more nervous while your confidence slowly trickles away until you’re a complete emotional wreck. So from that perspective, then yeah, it’s bad.”

  “Is this supposed to be motivating?” said Danny.

  “I ain’t done. Last also gives you an advantage. See, the judges are going to start forgetting all them other acts the moment they’re finished, right? But you, you’re the last thing they’re going to see before they make their final decision. You’ll still be fresh in their minds.”

  “And if you screw up, then you will also be fresh in their minds,” said Ivan unhelpfully.

  “Thanks, Ivan,” said Danny and Krystal together.

  “Good luck, Mr. Malooley,” said Mo. “You’re going to rock!” He made two sets of devil’s horns and wiggled them at Danny.

  “What’s that noise?” said Krystal. Everybody went quiet and listened as somebody spoke into a microphone outside.

  “It’s the show,” said Will. “It’s starting!”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Good evening, Hyde Park!” said a man in his sixties who hobbled onto the stage to the sound of tepid applause. His face was almost as creased as his suit, and he mopped at his brow with a handkerchief.

  “Are we all having fun?” He held the microphone over the audience.

  Everyone mumbled in stale acknowledgment. Somebody shouted, “Wanker!” and a few people laughed, but the host shrugged it off like a man whose entire life had been spent being called a wanker by someone or other.

  “Well, if you’re not, you will be soon because, boy, do we have a lineup for you tonight! We’ve got dancers and DJs, mimes and musicians, jugglers and gymnasts, artists and acrobats—you name it, we’ve got it. Each one of tonight’s contenders will be competing for the grand prize of ten thousand pounds, which will help the lucky winner get off the streets and start to rebuild their broken life.”

  A murmur rose from the crowd as people exchanged puzzled looks.

  “You know,” continued the host, “when they canceled my TV show a few years ago—Two Short of a Threesome, I’m sure you all remember it—I ended up living on the streets, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I had to do a lot of crazy stuff to survive. Stuff I’m not proud of. But I’d just like to clarify right here and now that despite what certain newspapers reported, I never, ever sold my body in exchange for methamphetamine. It’s important you all know that. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that living on the streets is damn hard, as all of tonight’s performers k
now, and so—”

  A lanky man with shaggy hair ran onto the stage and delivered a note before scuttling off again.

  “Fan mail,” said the host. Nobody laughed, which made his own laugh sound somehow worse than the silence.

  Removing a pair of glasses from his breast pocket, he put them on and read the note.

  “Okay,” he said, “so even though a lot of them might look homeless, I’ve just been informed that as far as we know, tonight’s performers actually live in houses and some even have proper jobs. Sorry for the confusion there. Maybe forget everything I just told you. Except for the whole selling-my-body thing. Which, let me remind you, was a complete and utter fabrication. Anyway,” he said, checking his watch, “the show’s about to start, but before we get to the opening act, I think it’s time we introduced tonight’s celebrity judges!”

  Two men and one woman who were sitting at a table in front of the stage appeared on a giant television screen behind the host.

  “We have Dave Davidson, otherwise known as Tricky Dicky from Channel Five’s hit TV series Oliver Twisted.”

  A middle-aged man wearing a white shirt, dark glasses, and more fake tan than a Hartlepool hen party waved as the crowd cheered.

  “In the middle we have Sarah Buckingham, hard-talking presenter of the award-winning docu-series Get Off the Dole, You Dirty Scrounger.”

  A slender blond woman in a black suit appeared on the screen. She looked like she’d tortured animals as a child and still thought about it on a regular basis.

  “And last, and also least, we have the producer of several popular TV series and the executioner of at least one of them, namely Two Short of a Threesome. Ladies and gentlemen, please start slow-clapping for Martin Gould, the man who ruined my life!”