Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories

by Terry Bisson

  DeCandyle was there, handcuffed to my ex’s boyfriend. They had let him come as the next of kin.

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “She was his wife,” my ex said as she led me to her cruiser so she could drive me home. “Student marriage. Separated but never divorced. I think she ran off with the Jap. The one he killed first. See how it all fits together? That’s the beauty of police work, Ray.”

  * * *

  The rest of the story you already know, especially if you subscribe to the National Geographic. The story was a Ballantine Prize nominee: the first pictures ever from the other side, the far realm, or as Shakespeare put it best, the Undiscovered Country. DeCandyle even made it into People magazine:

  The Magellan of the Styx

  Speaks from his Prison Cell

  and my gallery show in New York was a huge success. I was able to sell, for an astonishing price, a limited edition of prints, while donating (for a generous tax break) the paintings to the Smithsonian.

  My ex and her boyfriend picked me up at the Raleigh-Durham airport when I flew back from New York. They were getting married. He had checked under the studio but found nothing. She was pregnant.

  * * *

  “What’s this I hear about your fingers?” my ex asked when she called last Thursday. She no longer has time to stop by; a country woman cooks for me. I explained that I had lost the tips of two fingers to what my doctor claims is the only case of frostbite in North Carolina during the exceptionally mild winter of 199-. Somehow my touch for painting has gone with them, but no one needs to know that yet.

  It’s spring at last. The wet earth smells remind me of the grave and awaken in me a hunger that painting can no longer fill, even if I had my fingers. I have painted my last. My ex—excuse me, the future Mrs. William Robertson Cherry—and her boyfriend—excuse me, fiancé—have assured me that they will send a driver to pick me up and bring me to the wedding next Sunday.

  I may not make it, though. I have a silver shotgun behind the door that I can ride like a rocket anytime I want to.

  And I hate weddings. And spring.

  And envy the living.

  And love the dead.

  Are There Any Questions?

  WELCOME.

  I’m glad to see you all looking so alert, so eager, so prosperous this morning. I promise you that at the end of our little talk and tour, you’ll be even more eager, and potentially more prosperous, because you didn’t come here to be entertained. You came here to get in on the ground floor—and “ground” is a good word for it—of the most unique investment opportunity since the opening of the American West.

  So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, as my grandad used to say. We’re here to talk about something people don’t usually like to talk about. Even though there’s plenty of it around. Last year, in 1999, the average family in the New York metropolitan area produced 157.4 pounds of it in a week. This comes to 645,527 cubic yards of it a day, or—uncompacted—an Empire State building every 16.4 days or a truckload every six and a half minutes.

  What in the world is he talking about? Well, we all know, don’t we? You there, madam, in the second row. I can see your lips forming the very word itself

  But you’re wrong.

  I’m not talking about garbage. Not anymore. I’m talking about real estate. I’m talking about land.

  “Land,” my granddad used to say, “is the only surefire investment there is, because God’s not making any more of it.”

  He was right about it being a surefire investment. But he was wrong about why. Because even though God’s not making any more of it, we at Eden-Prudential are. But I don’t have to tell you folks that. That’s why you’re here.

  I see some of you are getting your calculators out. Good. Let’s look at those numbers again—11,987,058 cubic meters of solid waste, and that’s what we can collect, process, transport, and place in a month, can, in the right hands, translate to a quarter acre of beautiful mountain view property, or sixteen feet of ocean front. Notice I say “in the right hands.” That’s where Eden-Prudential comes in. Even as you and I speak, EP’s trucks are running and EP’s barges are under sail. We have four fleets of 138 trucks apiece—all independent contractors, by the way; real mom ’n’ pop types—operating from our catchment and processing center on Staten Island. Every eighteen minutes sees five trucks dispatched, three to south Jersey, and two to Montauk; all working around the clock to make America not only more prosperous than ever, but a little bit bigger. And more valuable.

  But enough poetry. Let’s talk opportunity. What area produces the most solid waste in the world, per square mile of already existing land? The New York metropolitan area. And what area contains the world’s most valuable real estate? Or to put it another way: Is there any other place in the world where land is in such short supply and where people are so willing—not to mention able—to pay for it?

  Again, you just can’t beat the New York area.

  A surplus of garbage. A shortage of land. Put those two facts together in the right equation, and you come up with what we at EP call IP, or Investment Potential. But it was only potential, and potential only, until the invention of the Eden Land Developer, the solid-waste transformer that turns ordinary garbage of any kind, shape, or origin into quality, consistent, durable real estate.

  If you will be kind enough to take one of the foil-wrapped souvenir samples Miss Crumb is passing around the room . . . Go ahead, open it. It’s going to make you rich. Don’t be afraid of getting your hands dirty because you won’t. Does it look like dirt? Not with that attractive gold color, it doesn’t. It’s Eden Earth. Go ahead, sniff it. Taste it if you want to. My great-great-granddad was a farmer, God rest his soul, out in Iowa, I think it was, and he never judged a piece of land without putting a piece of it on his tongue.

  No takers. Well, I understand.

  You can take my word for it: What you hold in your hand is a piece of solid waste that has been not only recycled but reconstituted, not to mention eye- and odor-enhanced, to make an earth that is the equal to, and in many ways actually superior to, the earth that the Earth itself is made of.

  Do I see eyebrows lifting?

  Well, try to crumble it. This cookie doesn’t crumble. Dunk it—it’s water-resistant and therefore it doesn’t turn into mud. You’ll notice it doesn’t soil your hands or stain your shirt. Its epoxy polymer additives mean that smells and stains are locked in, and that once we put it in place it stays there—it doesn’t dry up and blow away like the Great Plains in the dust bowl, or wash away like the beaches of Long Island in a hurricane. Eden Earth is real estate, in the true, biblical meaning of the word, not ephemeral dirt and dust that is dependent on every caprice of Nature.

  But people who know Real Estate—and I can see that you are all professionals in the field—know that the value of land depends on its location. We at Eden-Prudential not only collect and process Eden Earth by the tons every day, we truck and barge it to the areas where people want to be. The locations people are most hungry for and most willing to pay big money for. We’re creating the kind of real estate that is in short supply and high demand.

  A home in the mountains. A home by the sea.

  Eden-Prudential is making America grow, with two areas currently under development. In the no-longer-barren Pine Barrens of south Jersey, our environmental designers are right now putting the finishing touches on an attractive range of small mountains called the Crestfills. Miss Crumb, could we have the first video please? The magnificent peak in the background is Eden Peak. It soars to an elevation of 2,670 feet, almost a thousand feet higher than any other mountain in New Jersey, and over half again the height of Fresh Kills Peak on Staten Island.

  Eden Peak’s lovely summit is a nature preserve. If you want to see the breathtaking view from the top, as we’re seeing it here on video, you’ll have to park your 4x4 and walk up one of our beautiful nature trails—the first trails, I might add, that were planned and built along
with a mountain, not added as an afterthought.

  Of more interest to yourselves, as brokers and developers, are the winding drives along the crest of Atlantic City Ridge, so named because it overlooks the light of that great capital of chance only forty-five minutes away by car. The three planned neighborhoods here—Eaglefill Estates, Hawkfill Glade, and Baronfill Manor—will be open to the public in October, and sold through selected brokers only. Our hope is that you will be among them.

  The foundation for another quality ridge is even now being laid to the west, nearer to Philadelphia.

  There will be those who will want to live in the Crestfills year-round, but for most these will be vacation homes, hideaways for busy executives who want to lay aside the world’s cares and communicate with nature. And here in the Crestfill Mountains, nature is at its best. Your clients will hear birds singing winter and summer. They are drawn to the Crestfills not only by the pleasant pine scent, renewed monthly, but by the fact that the mountainsides are warmed several degrees by the gentle internal action of Eden Earth as it ages, making the Crestfills a unique and precious winter wildlife sanctuary.

  These pine-covered slopes, with their cunningly spaced “rocky” outcrops—there’s one right now—were created by a team of environmental designers who spared no expense, even dropping fill from container-copters to create those hard-to-reach spots that give wilderness areas their special appeal. Free-range deer and even an occasional bear roam the rugged slopes. There’s a deer now. Put it on “pause,” Miss Crumb, and let’s have another look. How many here are old enough to remember the original Bambi? How many took their children to see it? Their grandchildren?

  Me too.

  But suppose your clients and prospective buyers dream of a home by the sea? What if Fire Island, Cape Cod, and Nantucket are the kind of names that fire their souls and loosen their checkbooks?

  How does Bayfill Island sound to you?

  If we may, Miss Crumb, let’s cut away to our second video, and another type of paradise—a rocky, fogbound New England-style island of the kind featured in so many romantic movies. How many of you have dreamed of the opportunity to buy and sell summer homes on one of these exclusive sites? Well, hang on—your dreams are about to come true.

  Bayfill Island lies at the opening of Long Island Sound, between Montauk and one of the older glacial debris islands, Block Island. It is by comparing Bayfill with the rather run-down—geologically speaking—islands in the area, that you can best understand why we say Eden Earth puts standard earth to shame. Large areas of Nantucket Island are carved away by the ocean waves every winter—valuable real estate becoming silt and sand in the ocean deeps. Not so on Bayfill Island. Since Eden Earth is both salt- and water-resistant, it stands firm against the weather. Large areas of Martha’s Vineyard are swamps and marshes, filled with vicious insects. In contrast, there are no wastelands on Bayfill Island, where all the land is dry land and rain runs off as clear and clean as when it fell. Large areas of Block Island are out of sight and sound of the ocean, drastically lowering property values. On ingeniously S-shaped Bayfill Island, every property is oceanfront property; there are no “cheap seats” in the house.

  But enough poetry. It’s time to go and see for ourselves. Ms. Crumb has just signaled me that Eden-Prudential’s chartered airbus has arrived to take us on our tour of the two sites. We only have to walk a block to board. As you leave the office here, we’ll be crossing the East Thirty-Fourth Street Extension. Watch your step; the ground is still a little springy.

  Are there any questions?

  Two Guys from the Future

  “WE ARE TWO GUYS FROM THE FUTURE.”

  “Yeah, right. Now get the hell out of here!”

  “Don’t shoot! Is that a gun?”

  That gave me pause; it was a flashlight. There were two of them. They both wore shimmery suits. The short one was kind of cute. The tall one did all the talking.

  “Lady, we are serious guys from the future,” he said. “This is not a hard-on.”

  “You mean a put-on,” I said. “Now kindly get the hell out of here.”

  “We are here on a missionary position to all mankind,” he said. “No shit is fixing to hang loose any someday now.”

  “Break loose,” I said. “Hey, are you guys talking about nuclear war?”

  “We are not allowed to say,” the cute one said.

  “The bottom line is, we have come to salvage the art works of your posteriors,” the tall one said.

  “Save the art and let the world go. Not a bad idea,” I said. “But, mira, it’s midnight and the gallery’s closed. Come back en la mañana.”

  “¡Qué bueno! No hay mas necesidad que hablar en inglés,” the tall one said. “Nothing worse than trying to communicate in a dead language,” he went on in Spanish. “But how did you know?”

  “Just a guess,” I said, also in Spanish; and we spoke in the mother tongue from then on. “If you really are two guys from the future, you can come back in the future, like tomorrow after we open, right?”

  “Too much danger of Timeslip,” he said. “We have to come and go between midnight and four A.M., when we won’t interfere with your world. Plus we’re from far in the future, not just tomorrow. We are here to save art works that will otherwise be lost in the coming holocaust by sending them through a Chronoslot to our century in what is, to you, the distant future.”

  “I got that picture,” I said. “But you’re talking to the wrong girl. I don’t own this art gallery. I’m just an artist.”

  “Artists wear uniforms in your century?”

  “Okay, so I’m moonlighting as a security guard.”

  “Then it’s your boss we need to talk to. Get him here tomorrow at midnight, okay?”

  “He’s a her,” I said. “Besides, mira, how do I know you really are, on the level, two guys from the future?”

  “You saw us suddenly materialize in the middle of the room, didn’t you?”

  “Okay, so I may have been dozing. You try working two jobs.”

  “But you noticed how bad our inglés was. And how about these outfits?”

  “A lot of people in New York speak worse inglés than you,” I said. “And here on the Lower East Side, funny suits don’t prove anything.” Then I remembered a science fiction story I had once heard about. (I never actually read science fiction.)

  * * *

  “You did what?” said Borogove, the gallery owner, the next morning when I told her about the two guys from the future.

  “I lit a match and held it to his sleeve.”

  “Girl, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.”

  “He wasn’t carrying a gun. I could tell. Those shimmery suits are pretty tight. Anyway, when I saw that the cloth didn’t burn, I decided I believed their story.”

  “There’s all sorts of material that doesn’t burn,” Borogove said. “And if they’re really two guys from the future who have come back to save the great art of our century, how come they didn’t take anything?” She looked around the gallery, which was filled with giant plastic breasts and buttocks, the work of her dead ex-husband, “Bucky” Borogove. She seemed disappointed that all of them were still hanging.

  “Beats me,” I said. “They insist on talking to the gallery owner. Maybe you have to sign for it or something.”

  “Hmmm. There have been several mysterious disappearances of great art lately. That’s why I hired you; it was one of the conditions in Bucky’s will. In fact, I’m still not sure this isn’t one of his posthumous publicity stunts. What time are these guys from the future supposed to show up?”

  “Midnight.”

  “Hmmm. Well, don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll join you at midnight, like Macbeth on the tower.”

  “Hamlet,” I said. “And tomorrow’s my night off. My boyfriend is taking me to the cockfights.”

  “I’ll pay you time and a half,” she said. “I may need you there to translate. My español is a little rusty.”

  * * *


  Girls don’t go to cockfights and I don’t have a boyfriend. How could I? There aren’t any single men in New York. I just didn’t want Borogove to think I was easy.

  But in fact, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

  I was standing beside her in the gallery at midnight when a column of air in the center of the room began to shimmer and glow and . . . But you’ve seen Star Trek. There they were. I decided to call the tall one Stretch and the cute one Shorty.

  “Bienvenidos to our century,” said Borogove, in Spanish, “and to the Borogove Gallery.” Her Spanish was more than a little rusty; turned out she had done a month in Cuernavaca in 1964. “We are described in Art Talk magazine as ‘the traffic-control center of the Downtown Art Renaissance.’ ”

  “We are two guys from the future,” Stretch said, in Spanish this time. He held out his arm.

  “You don’t have to prove anything,” said Borogove. “I can tell by the way you arrived here that you’re not from our world. But if you like, you could show me some future money.”

  “We’re not allowed to carry cash,” said Shorty.

  “Too much danger of Timeslip,” explained Stretch. “In fact, the only reason we’re here at all is because of a special exemption in the Chronolaws, allowing us to save great art works that otherwise would be destroyed in the coming holocaust.”

  “Oh dear. What coming holocaust?”

  “We’re not allowed to say,” said Shorty. It seemed to be the only thing he was allowed to say. But I liked the way that no matter who he was talking to, he kept stealing looks at me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Stretch, looking at his watch. “It doesn’t happen for quite a while. We’re buying the art early to keep the prices down. Next month our time (last year, yours) we bought two Harings and a Ledesma right around the corner.”