Burly Tales

by Steve Berman

  He caught himself almost wanting to be discovered, to be captured in those massive paws. And then what? He breathed silently through his mouth, willing the disturbing images away.

  Mr. Medved of the unpronounceable name thrashed about briefly, perilously close to flinging an arm over Auren.

  Auren’s heart leapt into his own mouth.

  The oblivious bedmate settled into a comfortable position and relaxed. His breathing slowed, and he began to snore lightly.

  Auren moved a fraction closer to the mattress edge, froze again, waited. There was no reaction from the other side of the bed. He repeated the process a couple of times, until he had one foot extended toward the floor. With breath held and fists clenched, he slid out of the bed, crossed the shadows that lay between him and the door, turned the handle as quietly as he could and burst out into the moonlight. He didn’t look behind or slow down until his feet touched the ground, and he ran faster than he would have believed he could, to the safety of his back door.

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” he gasped. “I thought I was going to die.”

  He checked the view cautiously from the corner of his window, as if someone might be looking back at him. But no lights went on next door. There were no shouts of discovery. Everything was quiet.

  Auren scooped Bear up and held him under his chin. “I was so scared,” he said. “That must have been the craziest thing I ever did. Even crazier than last night. I am losing my mind. Bad enough that I’ll probably end up living with my parents. What if they had to come and bail me out after I got cuffed and hauled away for trespassing?”

  But once his heart stopped thumping, a smile stole across his face.

  “I got away with it, though. It was really kind of an adventure. It was wild. And if the police come around—well, I’ve been here all night with my cat. Wasn’t I, Bear? You’d testify for me, wouldn’t you?”

  Bear struggled free and jumped down. “Nawrr,” he said grumpily.

  Auren thought that if a cat could have shrugged, he would have.

  Auren slept uneasily, buffeted by dreams of escaping from dark spaces into wild forests full of unseen life, dreams in which his body burst its bonds and ran through the night unhampered, dreams of massive paws and thick furred limbs, of wrestling, tumbling, pressing close, of snuffling and tasting, of heady scents of musk and honey. He woke up tangled in his blankets, sweaty and disheveled.

  Taking a quick shower to clear his head, he knew what he had to do: finish packing, then make a last-ditch effort to find another apartment. If nothing turned up in the next day, Auren would have to bite the bullet and call his parents. Even that seemed better than waiting for Drew’s junior cousin and friends to arrive.

  One final loose end remained.

  “This key,” he said, waving it at Bear. “This is what got me into all this trouble. It got me thinking about that house next door. It’s all your fault, you know.”

  Bear stared at him meaningfully, his pupils wide and dark.

  “I’m going to return it for sure this time, and then I can forget this whole thing forever. I won’t be gone long this time—I promise.”

  He watched from the front window until the burly, confident form of Chandrakant Asvala strode down the driveway, got in his car, and departed. Only then Auren dared walk past the front entrance of the house and around to the far side. As he hoped, Auren found the entrance to the only apartment he had not yet visited. A short flight of steps led to a second-floor porch and a door with a mailbox beside it, neatly labeled ART BRUNO.

  Auren pressed the antique brass doorbell, half-hoping no one would respond. Then he could put the key in the mailbox and return to his own mundane problems. He tried to repress the thought that he might, instead, try the key in the lock, and if it fit, walk in. But that possibility was deferred as he heard steps, the rattle of the knob, and the door opened.

  The powerful, well-proportioned man before him filled the door frame perfectly.

  “Mr. Bruno,” Auren blurted. “I’ve just come to—”

  “To ask about the carriage house?” the man said. “Listen, I’m just about to have breakfast, so—”

  “I’m very sorry.” Auren hastily reached for the key. “I won’t take up your time, then.”

  Before he could take it from his pocket, the man stood aside and gestured for him to enter. “Not at all,” he said. “I was about to say, ‘Come on in and sit down’. We can talk about it over coffee.”

  Brushing past him through the doorway, Auren felt the other man looking him over. Mr. Bruno’s smile widened appreciatively, as if he liked what he saw.

  Auren felt himself blushing. He wasn’t used to such looks.

  With a hand on his back, Mr. Bruno guided him to a seat at a cheerful kitchen table. The chair he offered was a generously built captain’s chair, the polish gleaming but mellow, the wide seat cushioned. Substantial and comfortable, it suited Auren perfectly.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “No, but—”

  Mr. Bruno held up a hand to stop Auren’s protests. “Can’t make good decisions on an empty stomach.”

  He handed Auren a bowl of oatmeal to match his own. He poured coffee and gave his own cup a warm-up. “There you go. Help yourself to brown sugar, cream, raisins—however you like it.”

  The bowl steamed appetizingly. Auren poured cream and watched it swirl through the coffee’s perfect shade of darkness. He knew this was all a mistake, but after all, why not find something good out of a misunderstanding? He stirred melting brown sugar into the steel-cut oats and tasted them. With a chaser of hot coffee, they warmed him to his core.

  Mr. Bruno nodded approvingly. “That’s better. Now we can talk.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bruno. This is really good. But—”

  The other man laughed. “Please, call me Art. Just how old do you think I am?”

  Auren blushed again.

  “You’re the next-door neighbor, aren’t you?” Mr. Bruno...Art extended his hand across the table.

  For a moment, Auren paused before shaking it. A neat white bandage wrapped the knuckles.

  Mr. Bruno saw him hesitate. “Oh, this is nothing. I had a run-in with some wire fence the other day. It’s just about healed up now. I forgot all about it.”

  The man’s handshake, enveloped Auren’s hand in a strong grip that tested his own.

  “I’m Auren. Auren Capelli.”

  “Nice to meet you. So, does this mean you’re looking for a change of residence?”

  “I am, actually. But—?”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? We put out the word that we need a tenant for the carriage house in the back.”

  “Carriage house?” Auren hoped he didn’t look too stupid. He had never noticed there was a carriage house. He’d assumed it was just a garage.

  “Yes, and it’s important to us to find someone who fits in.”

  “Us?” Auren heard himself repeat, but couldn’t stop.

  “Yes, Chandra, Grish, and I have shared space for years now. We find we get along very agreeably, so we’d like whoever moves in to be the same.”

  “And you think—you think I might—”

  “I think you could be just the right person.”

  Something about Art’s big, easygoing grin made Auren feel so comfortable. He still didn’t understand how this could possibly be happening, but he didn’t want to do anything to mess up the impression.

  Still, he thought of his confused exit from Chandra’s apartment, and worried about what Art would think if that came up.

  “What about the others?” he said awkwardly. “Is that going to be all right with them?”

  Bruno smiled. “I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you. I think you already met Chandra. He spoke of having tea with ‘that nice young man from next door.’ He said you were a young man of great potential, but he was disappointed that you had to leave so suddenly. He’ll be delighted to see you again.”

  “But what about the oth
er one, on the third floor? Mr. Medved?”

  “Oh, you met him too?”

  “No, not really. Just saw him in passing. But he’s, um, intimidating.”

  Bruno laughed heartily, white teeth gleaming in his neatly-trimmed, brown beard. “Grish is a teddy bear when you get to know him. He’ll be glad to have the place occupied. He says he’s heard some prowlers recently.”

  Auren’s cheeks flushed, but Art’s eyes were twinkling. He put a hand on Auren’s shoulder.

  “If you’ve had enough coffee, why don’t we walk over to look at the carriage house and see if it suits you?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Now, where did I put that key?” Art mused. His gaze landed on the key rack by the door. He put his hand in his pocket. He frowned, uttering a little growl of puzzlement.

  Oh my god, I never told him, Auren thought. Why do I keep forgetting?

  “Actually, I came to see you about this.” Auren held out the key. “I found it by the dumpster. I wondered if someone had thrown it out by accident.”

  “That’s it,” Art said. “It must have fallen out of my pocket. You certainly have a talent for being in the right place at the right time.” He made no effort to take the key. “Keep it—that’s yours now. If you like the place.” He cuffed Auren’s shoulder in a friendly way, and let his hand rest there again.

  But Auren had one last question. He hated to ask, for fear the answer would be ‘No’, but he had to know. “Is the rental pet-friendly? I have this cat named Bear. He’s been with me forever, and he’s the best cat. I promise he never does any damage.”

  Art laughed again. “No problem. Us Bears have to stick together!”

  His hand still on Auren’s shoulder, Art guided him out the door and across the back yard toward the small dwelling behind the big house. The sun shone, and the grass smelled fresh and green.

  Auren felt the warmth of Art’s touch like the sun on his shoulder, shooting down his spine like fire. He never wanted Art to let go. For the first time since he could remember, Auren felt that everything was just right.

  Afterword

  Jeff Mann

  MOST WRITERS I KNOW ARE voracious readers and have been since childhood. My guess is that this is true for most, if not all, of the authors in this anthology, and I am no exception.

  I spent my earliest years in the mountains of western Virginia, in the grimy, odoriferous paper-mill town of Covington, where my mother worked in payroll at the Westvaco plant and my father taught at the local high school. Some of my earliest memories are of regular visits to the downtown library with Daddy. It must have been there that I first encountered fairy tales, for I have a vague recollection of checking out collections of such stories, volumes named after colors. A quick online search this morning, reveals that they must have been the twelve collections of Andrew Lang’s ‘Coloured’ Fairy Books, published between 1889 and 1910, with titles like The Blue Fairy Book and The Red Fairy Book. At some point during those Covington years, my parents must have introduced me to Hans Christian Andersen’s tales as well, for I remember reading “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen” out on our sunporch.

  My enjoyment of such imaginative fare—what today some might label fantasy or speculative fiction—continued when we moved to Hinton, West Virginia, in 1968, during the summer this Leo turned nine. I recall sitting out on the back porch of my maternal grandmother’s little house in rural Forest Hill, West Virginia, and admiring the illustrations while Daddy read to me from the Dover edition of Howard Pyle’s The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. I was especially fond of Merlin and his magics. Another favorite during that time was Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, where I developed a lifelong interest in gods, goddesses, monsters, and heroes. My first years at Hinton High School were devoted to yet more fanciful and fantastic fare—Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as comic books.

  Then came an important insight and a profound change. My sophomore year in high school, I spent my weekends ranging around the local woods and state parks with members of the Ecology Club, led by my biology teacher, Jo Davison. Eventually, Jo came out to me as a lesbian, as did two friends, “Bill” and Brenda, a couple. Spending time with them helped me realize I was gay. Nothing in my rural/small-town Southern Appalachian upbringing had prepared me for such an epiphany, but my sense of self-preservation surmised that any expression of my newly discovered sexuality would get me into big trouble, put me in danger, and alienate me from almost everyone I knew. How could I make sense of my intense, albeit unwelcome, same-sex attractions? In those days, there were next to no positive depictions of gays and lesbians in the media, in movies or television, certainly not in fantasy novels or comics.

  Books once more were the answer, albeit more realistic fare than fairy tales, fantasy, Arthurian legend, or European mythology. At that point in my emotional development, I needed to read about real gay men in the real world so as to learn how to navigate that world. Jo Davison lent me Patricia Nell Warren’s novel, The Front Runner, about the love affair between an Olympic track star and his coach. It gave me much-needed perspective on my sexuality, and Warren’s next two novels, The Fancy Dancer and The Beauty Queen, lent me role models after which I might forge a gay identity and a personal style, with the former book’s butch love interest, Vidal Stump, and the latter book’s BDSM leather man, Danny Blackburn. I also took to Mary Renault’s historical novels set in ancient Greece, which often included male characters attracted to members of their own sex. After graduating from Hinton High School in 1977, I fled my small mountain hometown to begin my undergraduate studies at West Virginia University, in the more simpatico and cosmopolitan city of Morgantown. In the same years that I was dancing and drinking in my first gay bars and having my first erotic experiences, I was devouring the works of the Violet Quill authors. Realistic fiction helped me make sense of myself and the gay community.

  It must have been during my graduate-school days at WVU that I encountered the poetry and prose of a lesbian writer, Adrienne Rich. In her essay, “Invisibility in Academe,” she says, “when those who have power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you, whether you are dark-skinned, old, disabled, female, or speak with a different accent or dialect than theirs, when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing” (from Blood, Bread, and Poetry). This statement made me understand more clearly than ever—as both a gay man and an Appalachian—the importance of what so many folks today refer to as representation, where members of minorities might see their experiences reflected in books, films, and other media.

  For years, Lethe Press has also published material catering to various subcultures within the LGBT spectrum. When I first discovered and identified with the Bear community in the early 90s, there was very little in the way of literature catering to us, but Steve Berman has certainly changed that. Lethe Press has published many volumes of fiction and nonfiction centered on gay Bears, including, thankfully, many of my own books. In fact, the first time I met Steve—on Royal Street in New Orleans during a Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, in the spring of 2008—I remember that our conversation involved a fiction project he had in mind involving the gay Bear community.

  Flip the numerals in sixteen, the age I came out, and what you get is my present age, sixty-one. Here we all are, having made it to 2021, and here’s the very first volume of fairy tales featuring Bears. How could I ever have imagined, back in the 1960s, reading Lang’s fairy books and the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, that in my middle age I’d be a bushy-bearded, graying “Daddy Bear,” delighting in these “burly tales” and writing an afterword to accompany them? What a pleasure to read stories in which I can see my own hairy, bearded and brawny self, ingenious retellings to which I can directly relate, narratives I don’t have to “translate” into gay experience, as I would have had
they been heteronormative like the vast majority of folk tales and myths.

  I’ve enjoyed every one of these fairy fictions, in all their variety and global range, and a few have even gotten me wet-eyed. The presence of shapeshifting stories certainly makes sense, as we Bears are often reminded that our fur, brawn, and maturity are far from the smooth, slender beauty-ideal of much mainstream gay culture, and, like some of these fairy-tale heroes, we must cast off the curse—in this case self-doubt—in order to come to terms with our bodies. Simply the title of “Bear” also suggests that we are more in touch than many with our animal nature, with its emphasis on physicality, passion, and immediacy. I loved the frequent and very familiar illustrations of erotic longing, courage, determination, and camaraderie, the way the stories so often celebrate both the gift of simpatico companionship and the excitement of erotic potential. Bears are renowned for being some of the most social and gregarious men in all the realm, and there is room in the heart for friends as much as lovers.

  When I teach creative writing classes, I often tell my students that there are two major reasons why I read as much as I can: first, to explore and learn about lives very different from mine, and second, to see lives like mine reflected in literature, allowing me to achieve what I call “the recognition click,” i.e., “I know how that feels! I’ve experienced that!” The former frisson gives us a sense of humanity’s amazing range and diversity; the latter frisson makes us feel less alone. In these fairy tales, gay bears might garner a bit of both.

  In 1938, J.R.R. Tolkien spoke about fairy tales at St. Andrews University in Scotland, a talk written partly in response to Andrew Lang’s fairy books. He later expanded this speech into a long essay, “On Fairy-Stories,” which appeared in his collection, Tree and Leaf. In it, he says that fairy stories can give the reader “a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” He continues, claiming that a “good fairy story…however wild its events, however fantastic and terrible its adventures…can give to child or man that hears it…a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art.”