SWELL

by Corwin Ericson

  “I thought your question was ‘where.’”

  “My question is give me the package,” she said sharply. “And your answer seems to involve sitting on my patio wearing my ex-brother-in-law’s jammies and drinking beer.”

  I remembered reading an article about the island nation of Singapore. Evidently it’s plagued by pajama-clad old duffers shuffling aimlessly around the city. I could do that. I decided to look for a pair of my dad’s old flannels when I got back home. I’d probably need slippers. Mini’s robe was a chin-to-ankle affair; I couldn’t tell what she was wearing underneath. I wondered what her sister had worn to bed. And what was that out just beyond Mini’s little harbor? I could almost see a bulge in the dark water. I thought of Angie’s bottom rising up from the small of her back like the swell of a wake.…

  “Orange! Sampo!” she shouted.

  I guess I’d drifted a bit. I was tired of the whole thing. “It’s late, Mini.”

  “When’s the last time you saw early?”

  I’d seen too much early recently.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In Bed with the Beargroom

  Iwas very impressed with Mini’s guest bed. It was vast and clean. It was almost too plush to pass out on. Almost. I had been dreaming about a woman the size of an island when I was woken by the bed sagging as someone crept in.

  “Hey,” I said, woozy, but ready for the right Bombardier sister. Before I could turn to face my bedmate, Snorri flung his arm over me, drew me in tightly and spooned me. Snorri was old yet bandy and well preserved by sea salt and maybe something bacteriological in his old milk. He nuzzled my hairline at the back of my neck and muttered what I assumed were Finlindian sweet nothings, while he flooded my nostrils with the reek of old milk gone even older. As I felt him draw up his harpoon, I slipped down out of his hold and onto the floor. He reached across the bed for me slowly, and I saw that he was still asleep. I regarded him from the floor. He was a goaty Silenus intent on my business. I don’t know how that brought me to compassion. Maybe seeing the man in his primal state helped me see him as someone who hadn’t learned how to be lonely yet.

  After I slapped him awake and asked him all the questions one might want to ask an invading Snorri, I joined him in bed and we sat up with the comforter drawn up to our chins, drinking restorative beer and talking as the night gave up its ghost. He apologized for groping me and said that Mineola had told him to go mind his own business when he’d proven too drunk and pestiferous to sleep with her. He couldn’t mind his own business, though, and in a stupor, wound up pawing me. I wanted to ask him about the sampo gift that Mini told me he was supposed to receive. I wanted to ask him about Waldena, counting coup, about Mini’s big cash-out scheme, but he wanted to talk bear.

  “I was a beargroom, Orange, and my bear left me. That’s not supposed to happen.”

  I knew very little about the Finlindian practice of marrying bears. I did know that I wasn’t supposed to know about it. It’s an important mystery of theirs. Probably very sampo. I was prepared to listen honorably and not understand as the groggy satyr told me the story of how he had gone from bear to whale.

  “My colleagues in the Council didn’t know what to do. A bearbond is supposed to be for life. It’s sacred. Finlindian beargrooms have had to deny their bears before for reasons of history and intolerance and the sometimes bad bear, but we didn’t know what to do when the bear herself dissolved the bond.”

  “What happened?”

  “We both liked the old milk, and she had been so wise and tolerant over the years.” Snorri swallowed the lump in his throat and sat up straight.

  “Did you know that I wasn’t always a whaleherder? In my youth, I fought with the Forestbrethren. I lived in the snow and woods for years, fighting the Nazis and Soviets. Many of the Finlindian young men had gone to sea to escape the war. To stay behind meant conscription in one evil army or another. We who took to the woods had to adapt, to let the cold and the snow shape us, to join the creatures who were there before our ancient ancestors.

  “Finlindians—all the Northern Indians—had always been close to our whales, but it was the bears who showed us how to become whalers. It was the bears who taught us about our homeland and how to defend it from the wolfpacks.”

  “Most of us fought and lived alone. That’s the way of the forest predator. We were hunters of men, as horrible as that is. The Nazis thought we were yokels at first. Actually, before they decided they wanted to annex Finlindia, we almost passed muster as models for their master race. There seemed to be a lot they liked about our hunting culture, but they turned to the Aryans instead. Wrong Indians. Later, the Germans and the Soviets said we were barbarians, demons even, as they lost more and more of their men to the forests of the Northern Indies.

  I arranged my pillows so I could give the beargroom my full attention.

  “Farther north on the tundra,” continued Snorri, “where there were no forests to hide in, Northern Indian resistance fighters blended with the elk and reindeer—the best shepherds are barely distinguishable from their herds. Antlers are much deadlier when wielded by a primate, let me tell you.

  “The Forestbrethren weren’t demons or rubes, of course. We were savage because the forest is savage. We fought their dogs, their soldiers, even their slaves. We had to fight on the forest’s terms, not mankind’s.

  The house was dark and still except for Snorri and I. We’d been speaking in hushed tones, but as his tale grew bloodier, a bur of ancient hatred grew on his voice.

  “One day during the war, I was napping in a tree when I heard Nazi hounds running down a bear. Soon, an enormous brown, a great queen sow of the woods, burst through the brush and snow and stopped to make her stand at the base of my tree. The hounds were hot on her, and the Germans weren’t far off. I could see dog gore and blood on her fur. She didn’t have time to climb, I could tell. She growled and then surprised the hell out of me. Two of her cubs were with her! At her signal, they dashed up into the tree and joined me. I waved quietly to the cubs and we all waited together for the fight.

  “In moments, the dogs were throwing themselves at the bear. She stove in dog ribs with hammer blows from her massive fore-paws. She took hounds in her mouth and shook them like salmon. Their limbs were flung off their body from the force. Soon she and the snow around her were bloody red. For each dog she bust asunder though, another one got in a bite. And she was exhausted from running to save her cubs. She was slick with gore and draped with steaming dog entrails and still holding her ground when the human beings arrived.

  Snorri’s voice dropped down to a sinister whisper. “There were five Nazi soldiers tracking her. When they got to us, they let go the hounds they’d kept leashed. The bear simply brushed them all aside with one swipe. A hound was tossed all the way up to me and landed whimpering in a crotch. I slit its throat.

  “The Nazis howled in rage and astonishment. They were already too close to the berserking bear to use their long rifles. She charged them and they fumbled at their holsters for their machine pistols. The cubs and I each picked a soldier. We leapt out of the branches and tackled them. I gutted, then slit the throat of one, then another. The cubs were unwilling to finish off theirs but had battered them insensible,” he said, proud of the cubs.

  “We had melted the snow with the blood of our prey. I heard the remaining injured hounds baying nearby. They would attract attention soon. The cubs were attending their mother, whose belly was gushing blood from bullet holes. She moaned her death song as her cubs licked her face. I was washing off her fur with snow, and the cubs were grieving, when the rest of the dogs attacked again. One cub managed to run up a tree, but the other was ravaged by the war dogs.”

  He paused, as if he were having a silent moment for the lost cub, then patted me on the chest. “Our bond began then, as we watched the dogs kill her family. That first winter I had to carry her in my shirt as I tracked and killed the invaders. By the next winter, she could tow me on my skis.

>   “This cub grew up and became the bear I married,” he said, with incongruous brightness. “But before then, we had something of an unconventional relationship—though, I think the war made all of us break many rules and taboos. Normally, a beargroom gives up something like soldiery to live contemplatively in the woods with his mate, to be an example for both peoples to learn from. But, like I said, it was the war and nobody was going to live contemplatively for some while. The cub was young, and I didn’t have a home to bring it to. I did not think at all at first that I would marry this bear.

  “She stuck with me through the winter, growing and growing. We fought side-by-side and sought warmth and shelter together. By that summer, she was bigger than I.”

  Snorri paused again and turned to me as if he expected questions. I finished my bottle of beer and said, “Your big bear-bride?” as a prompt.

  “In summer, the Forestbrethren bands and single hunters gathered together to feast and exchange information. At the camp, some beargrooms thought it unseemly that I was with such a young bear and felt it was sacrilege that we were fighting partners. I was supposed to take care of my bear, not to expose her to such evils as we fought. They had left their bears behind and pined for them. I could not disagree with them, yet this was a war to defend our very culture, and I felt we all had to make adjustments.

  “The Beargroom Council met there at the summer camp to consider our relationship. When they heard my testimony about how my bear and I had met and joined forces, they understood that I had no choice; that I had been chosen by the bears and that I must marry my bear and make things right. So, of course, I did in a beautiful ceremony attended by all of the men of the camp.

  “Well, that war ended, and slowly, we Forestbrethren emerged from the woods to rejoin the world. I had no family to return to. I had no land to work. I went to working at a whale ranch on a fjord as a whalehand, work that came to take me out to sea several times a year. My bear stayed behind, of course. Over time, she was blamed for killing some of the ranch’s dogs, and the owner of the ranch told me that he could no longer accept the honor of hosting such a noble warrior.

  “We moved inland, back to the forest, where I hoped she would be happy. Many others had moved to the forest as well, and they were disturbed by having such a beautiful and powerful creature among them. I couldn’t always be there to explain that her taste for blood and old milk had come honestly, since my work as a whaler and cultural ambassador had me traveling across the Atlantic to these very shores, often right to Bismuth, where the ancients began their journey across the Arctic. I cannot help but wonder if we would still be together if I had been there more for her.

  “One day, I returned to my home in the forest and found my bear was gone. Her housekeeper said she’d become unruly and violent. Members of my council felt that I should not have left her alone as often as I did. I wish now I had cared more for her, maybe brought her on my travels. She never did get to see many of her own kind, and, in her loneliness, she drank more of the old milk than I ever did. Maybe I should have stayed in the forest with her. I didn’t know then that my calling would be on the waves and not among the trees. I just heard on my way over to Bismuth that another beargroom, a man I’d trusted with my life, had been feeding her for the past few months and that she’d been seen hibernating in his barn. Maybe, as soldiers sometimes find, my bear and I were better battlemates than housemates. We loved to wrestle, I can tell you that.”

  At that, Snorri crossed his arms and gripped his shoulders hard in an auto-bearhug. He stifled a sob. I waited a bit and watched him squeeze some of the despair out of his body. “What was her name?”

  Snorri barked a short bitter laugh. I had forgotten myself and asked a very rude question.

  “Sorry, I forgot.”

  “That’s OK, Orange. I know in your culture it means that you care. Sometimes I called her Honeypaws.”

  Snorri relaxed his grip on himself and closed his eyes. I thought he had fallen asleep, but after a minute or so he continued his story. “That was all a very long time ago. When I met her I was nearly half your age now.”

  “You still miss her, huh, guy?”

  “I don’t know what it is. Sometimes a little bear cub wanders into your memory and that’s all it takes. . . it keeps an old man humble, I suppose.”

  I couldn’t really square Snorri with humble, but I saw his point: Your suffering isn’t done yet. I almost wanted to smooth out his eyebrows and tuck him in. His tale was told and my night was over. Long over, actually, it was late in the morning, and I could tell the house had been up for a while. I went downstairs with my head zooming. I felt like the wedding guest in the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” stunned by the sailor’s harangue.

  “Snorri still up there?” asked Angie.

  “He just dropped off.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “He just climbed in with me. We were talking.”

  “You two are pretty cozy,” she said, making it sound like a warning.

  “We kept a harpoon between us.”

  She gave me a dubious smirk, but I think it was meant more for my entire perplexing and annoying gender than just myself or Snorri. Or our harpoons.

  Mineola joined us. She looked fantastic and absurdly well composed. “I just did my bit for CNN this week. I’m not sure when they’re airing it.”

  Her sister asked her what it was about.

  “Keeping your clicktrail clean and hard drive hygiene in the workplace. Boilerplate stuff.”

  Moira and Angie were itchy to go; I supposed I’d better get on to talking with Mr. Lucy. Mineola supposed that was a very good idea.

  At the dock, I marveled at the enormous fake Christmas trees that were Mineola’s antennae. Standing there right next to the other white pines, they looked outrageously artificial. That’s how it’s done, though—an array of fake trees lets you tell everyone else what to do and stay invisible yourself.

  Just as we were ready to cast off, one of Mineola’s bristle-headed goons shoved a clipboard into my hands. “You’ll need to read and sign this, Sir.”

  “What’s this?”

  “The standard non-familial binding non-disclosure statement.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, you will. Sir.”

  He was preparing to talk into his sleeve when Angie told me to just hurry up and sign it. “Everyone has to.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “The slow boat to Guantanamo, knowing Mini,” said her sister. “Just do it, we have to get back.”

  I signed. Thusly I sold that much of my soul to the sauna of Gaiety.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Yankee Circumciser

  When Angie took us back to Bismuth on her boat I saw the Wendy’s Mom moored in the island’s harbor. Mr. Lucy must have been out and back already. We cruised by her, but nobody was on board. We get a couple of seals in the harbor now and then in the summer. One paced us back to Angie’s berth, even rolled onto its back and waved at us. We waved back. It was an auspicious welcoming, even though I knew it just wanted fish. I resolved to give Rover an entire can of tuna when I got back. I was even looking forward to the smell of it on her fur when I finally got to sleep in my own bed.

  I didn’t know how to leave it with Angie. But her usual busy self took over as soon as we got past the breakwater. She even told the seal to hurry up. Moira was on the phone with I don’t know how many other girls, renegotiating her ETA. There was no place for me in their schedule. Angie surprised me when she pulled me close and whispered: “We’re going to have a nice little supper all our own soon Mr. Whippey,” and gave me a full-bore kiss.

  I was smiling to myself as I rode to the Lucy’s on the back of a pick-up full of traps and lines.

  Wendy wouldn’t open the screen door for me. “He’s in his shed,” is all she’d say. I went around back. Mr. Lucy’s shed was older than Mr. Lucy. That’s not unusual for a house around here, but the houses were built to
last. Sheds and shacks were made out of leftover building materials and boat parts. Most of the aging Bismuthian fishermen spent a majority of their dry time in their sheds, resolutely not repairing them.

  Sheds are inevitably full of the ass-ends of things and stuff banished from the house. They hold unquantifiable amounts of the useless detritus of island life that isn’t quite used up yet. The real secret to an island shed is that it’s as full of sentiment and ghosts as an old toy chest. Island geezers aren’t necessarily toughing out the frigid winter out there—sometimes they’re weepy with memory, unable to look past the old paint cans they used to paint their dory so long ago.

  Mr. Lucy’s shed smelled like a sampling platter of toxic leftovers. As most of them do. I’d been on board with him enough to recognize his own particular brand of reek. I saw him before he saw me. He was in the open doorway, taking the sun, and reading a book. He looked small there and oddly professorial in his black plastic frame glasses. He closed the book, took off his glasses, and gave me a good slow squint. Then the churl spat, or tried to, anyway.

  “You’re an asshole, Orange.”

  “Could be.”

  “Waddayawant? Run outta seagum?”

  “I got to talk to you.”

  “Done talkin’ today. Took my teeth out already.”

  I looked past him into the gloom of the shed. I couldn’t tell if it were a boat or a coffin that I saw inside.

  “What did you tell Waldena?”

  “That North Indian bitch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothin’.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, unsure of how to press him further.

  Mr. Lucy laughed, or at least it seemed that way. With his poor lip control and no dentures he could have been gargling his Irish Russian.

  “Where’s the package?” I asked him fair and square.

  He laughed some more and even gave his knee a slap. “You come here just like her—‘Where’s the package old man!’—Ha! She shows us a picture on her telephone! It’s you sitting there all grouchy in Ely Pond!” His laugh went from a gargle to a serious rearrangement of the phlegm in his lungs.