Bear v. Shark

by Chris Bachelder

  Hold on, I got another call.

  92

  The Museum of Las Vegas Secession

  It’s on to the Museum of Las Vegas Secession, remember, that huge and impressively amusing educational complex. But it’s hard for the Normans to get very excited about the museum, what with the Event looming in the near future.

  It seems that the thousands of other people at the museum feel the same way. People are nervous, on edge. Everyone is just wandering around, killing time, waiting.

  Who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?

  I mean, think about it, if a bear (with a normal-sized head) and a shark had a conflict that they could not settle peaceably . . . who would win?

  I’d eat broken glass for a ticket, I would.

  The Virtual Water Park is fun because you don’t get wet for real.

  The Original Gambling Monkey is pretty amazing. He plays blackjack and poker, mostly. But here’s what they never tell you in the ads: The monkey is a terrible gambler. He almost always loses, it’s like he doesnt even understand the rules or the purpose.

  The World’s Largest Billboard is immense, to be sure, but a bit of a letdown. It’s not as big as it looks on the Internet. Pictures can lie.

  Mr. Norman holds Curtis’s hand as the family walks around the museum, which is a nice thing that he hasn’t done in a long time. Curtis walks slowly and a bit unsteadily, staring straight ahead. He seems to be getting much better. He eats cotton candy and rubs some of it in his hair. Not once at the museum does he run off or get lost or get shot.

  There is a petting zoo with a toothless, sedated bear with glassy eyes and tangled fur. It lies on its side taking shallow breaths while the children poke it. There is also a shark, apparently, but it won’t come out from behind a plastic rock.

  Mr. Norman leans down to Curtis and says, “You ready for tonight, little man?”

  Docents in animal masks make children run and cry.

  He (Mr. Norman) says, “You think the shark will get what’s coming to him?”

  Curtis doesn’t say anything.

  Matthew says, “No way, Dad.”

  A sign says, “The brave men and women who settled this country came here seeking a better way of life.”

  A sign says, “Coming tomorrow: Bear v. Shark II: A Historical Perspective.”

  A man on a pay phone says, “You fucking promised me youd have the detonator.

  Matthew says, “Sucks you have to wait for history.”

  93

  Oral Vacuum

  There is a shark out there in the ocean called a cookie-cutter shark. Isistius brasiliensis. Even though it is pretty clearly an Internet hoax, I’m going to assume that it’s real, as I assume American astronauts landed on the moon, as I assume Greenland exists, as I assume the biological experts in Chapter 88 really have their Ph.D.s. Call me gullible. Ive seen Internet pictures of the cookie-cutter shark. This is not a pretty animal creepy eyes and a godawful mouth but still, it doesnt look like some terror of the deep. Not the great white, the so-called man-eater, not 50 feet long like the whale shark. Its cigar-shaped, eel-like, about 50 cm in length, max. (As any decent dashboard will tell you, thats about 20 inches long.) And cookie-cutter shark is such a harmless name, a fun name, even, who doesnt like cookies?, my friends and I love them, except heres the thing: do you know why it’s called that? What this shark does is attach itself to some much larger creature, sometimes another shark, with its thick, suctorial lips and long, sharp teeth, and then it spins hard in order to rip out a cookie-shaped plug of flesh from the larger animal. This plug is sometimes referred to as a flesh cookie. Cookie-cutter sharks have very strong basihyals (see above) and mighty rectus cervicis throat muscles in order to create a powerful oral vacuum. A recent theory suggests that the cookie-cutter sharks markings trick other, larger fish into thinking it is a very small fish. When the larger fish attacks this very small fish, the cookie-cutter turns and lunges at the lunger, using the larger fishs forward motion to help rip out the plug of flesh, the cookie. I might add that at one site there is talk of cookie-cutter sharks cratering the sturdy sonar domes of nuclear submarines.

  So say you’re a big fish. This seemingly harmless creature with the fun name lies to you, assaults you with a powerful oral vacuum, and then makes a hole in you forever.

  Damn right it’s a metaphor.

  94

  Big Afternoon

  Tell about the Big Afternoon leading up to the Big Event.

  Five hours, four hours, three hours, two hours . . .

  Slow down. Use some striking images, some poignant details. What’s the weather like?

  Sunny. Hot. Hot as . . . I don’t know.

  What else?

  What’s to say? I’d skip it if you’d let me.

  I won’t let you.

  I know.

  Tell it.

  I don’t know, a nap. Yes, a family nap. Boy, they sure are tired, those Normans.

  C’mon.

  It’s true. It’s really true, now that I think about it.

  Boring.

  So.

  Boring is bad.

  Not all of life can be so entertaining.

  What about art? What about novels?

  Depends.

  Tell about Curtis.

  He’s asleep like the others.

  Somethings wrong with him. Theres a problem here. Theres a crisis, a conflict.

  We’re adopting a wait-and-see attitude.

  What’s going to happen to him?

  I, like sharks and most other fishes, cannot see the future.

  They’re all asleep.

  Yes. Well. Mr. Norman isn’t asleep. He can’t sleep. He keeps looking over to see if Curtis is still breathing.

  And is he?

  Breathing?

  Yes.

  Yes.

  Boring. But outside, on the streets of Las Vegas, it’s like a big party or something, right? People tailgating and drinking and celebrating and getting ready. A festive, jubilant atmosphere. Some fights breaking out between bear and shark factions. Right?

  But see, that’s the thing, it’s not a party. Nobody is out on the street, almost nobody. It’s hot and bright and empty out there. Kind of creepy. People are lying low, staying quiet. It’s never like this in Las Vegas, but today it is. It just doesn’t look right. You need people to make this place look right. Without people, it looks.

  Deserted?

  Worse than deserted. Egregious. At BvS: The Theme Park there are no lines. It’s never been easier to ride those upside-down rides. There are three people on The Mama’s Den and maybe three more on The Unlevel Playing Field. They’re all screaming with their hands in the air like you’re supposed to, but you can tell their hearts aren’t in it. One might say that a pall has descended.

  Hey you’ve got your religion and I’ve got mine.

  Of course.

  Family nap and empty streets.

  That’s what I’m saying, yes.

  No wonder nobody reads anymore. So what should I do the rest of the day?

  I don’t know, flip through a celebrity magazine or watch a sporting event.

  I can’t. I’m too antsy and restless about tonight.

  Oh well.

  Hey, would you care for a flesh cookie?

  No thanks.

  Didn’t someone die one time on The Mama’s Den?

  You’re thinking of Goldilocks’s Nightmare. The guy was too tall and his head just.

  Say, who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?

  Stay tuned, I reckon.

  95

  The War of Nature

  A free, crowded, and eerily quiet shuttle ride down to the Darwin Dome.

  These are common folk on the shuttle, the lottery winners. Their T-shirts are loud and brash, but their faces are blank, even grim.

  Grim, with one hour remaining before Bear v. Shark II: The War of Nature. What gives?

  Mr. Norman wonders if his face is grim. And if h
is face is grim, does that mean he’s feeling grim, too? He intentionally makes a grim face, and then thinks about how much work it took. If it was relatively easy to make a grim face from his regular, ground-state face, then maybe his face was already pretty far on toward grim, and thus maybe he is feeling grim. If his face had to go a long way to make a grim face, then maybe he is the opposite of grim, happy or something.

  Step One: Make a grim face.

  Step Two: Measure the difference between regular face and grim face.

  Step Three: Determine your emotional state.

  Mrs. Norman says, “Honey, what are you doing?”

  This isn’t easy, and it really isn’t as scientific as it seems. There’s room for human error here. Subjectivity creeps back in.

  Curtis sits in his father’s lap. Under each of his eyes is a shiny blue crescent of bruise. Blue and shiny, like an insect’s wings. Back at the hotel Matthew swore he heard Curtis say something, some words, not English words, really, but an utterance of some type. The child is coming around.

  If you are faced with a bear in a threatening situation, remain calm and still. Sometimes playing dead works. The last thing you want to do is run away. Bears are fast.

  A T-shirt says, “Real men have coarse, thick fur.”

  Another T-shirt says, “Hibernation is for pussies.”

  Grim faces.

  Darwin, the nineteenth-century scientist, says, in the penultimate sentence of his On the Origin of Species, Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

  Civic Leaders and Captains of Industry say, “I don’t much care for Darwin on origins, but I like what he has to say about competition.”

  And there it is, folks, the Darwin Dome, brilliant in the August sun. A cathedral and a crucible.

  The shuttle driver, an anarchist with some vague cult ties, says, “Well, here we are.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Isn’t it something?”

  From his father’s lap, Curtis stares out the bullet-proof shuttle windows at the desert arena.

  The dictionary says dome means house of God.

  96

  Bear v. Shark:

  The Index

  abortion

  Adams, Grizzly

  Agassi, Andre

  American ear, broad, flapping

  American Vacation

  announcement, public service

  Antichafe Flap, patented

  Aristotle

  Ark, Noah’s

  Asians,

  Astroturf

  Atlanta, Carolina

  atmosphere:

  festive and jubilant

  foreboding

  grim

  author’s apartment

  Babble Blocker

  baby, lost

  back to you, Brock

  Backacher, Chris

  Badchildren, Chris

  Bandleader, Chris

  Barthelme, Donald

  Barthes, Roland

  bears:

  Bear Killer

  cabaret

  churlish

  fur

  head, large

  head-lugged

  head, small

  hibernation

  invisible

  meat

  milk

  paws

  pipin’ swords

  porn

  running downhill

  sark

  slippers

  speed

  swimming

  syrup, love of

  teeth

  verbs

  Bear v. Shark:

  I

  II

  III

  action figures

  Blues No. 3

  Breakfast Cereal, The

  Classic Game of Strategy and Entertainment, The

  cone, the

  essay, the

  How to Talk to Your Children about Bear v. Shark

  index, the

  insider’s story, the

  license plates, personalized

  logo, the

  novel, the

  On Ice

  origins

  parties

  preface, the

  question, the

  quiz, the

  rising action, the

  Tale of the Tape, The

  Talk Radio

  Theme Park, The

  T-shirt

  bees, killer

  birds, fake

  bivouac, scenic

  Blackletter, Chris

  boards:

  bill (see also Jesus) dash

  bombs

  boot, cowboy

  boy:

  crippled

  drowning

  breakfast:

  analytic

  Continental

  on a stick

  brother-in-law, my

  Buffalo, Baltimore

  butt, perfect

  ’Bye, Dale

  cake, chocolate

  Calvino, Italo

  carrots, wavy

  chinchilla

  chlorine

  Cleveland, New Orleans

  cockfights

  Comedy, Situation

  context, pseudo

  cookies:

  flesh

  ginger

  costumes, furry

  cricket, dead

  cults

  Curtis’s knees

  Darwin, Charles

  Darwin Dome

  Debate, Ten-Second

  delay, seven-second

  democracy

  Denver , Minnesota

  depression

  desire, refracted, despot, beneficent (see boards, dash)

  dew point (see weather)

  disaster, passenger train

  disciples, the

  disease:

  cancer

  Dutch Elm

  freshwater

  gum

  dog:

  Last Folksinger’s

  wiener,

  Dorfman, Ariel

  Dutch, the

  earplugs, complimentary

  Edison, Thomas

  electronic equipment, fake

  entertainers, homeless

  entertainment exhaust

  experts

  eyes:

  funny

  weird

  face, grim

  feelings, palpable

  fisherman, well-read

  Florentine, banana

  Folksinger, Last

  Food Marts

  footage:

  interesting,

  stock

  fork fork fork

  French and Indian War

  Freud, Sigmund

  Frost, Robert

  Frozen Dinner Rolls, Insta-Bake (see Curtis’s knees)

  Gambling Monkey, World’s Original

  gardener (see Dutch, the)

  gas, inert

  gaskin

  ghost

  gills, bleeding

  Goldilocks’s Nightmare

  grace, shredded

  Green Bay, Seattle

  Green Paint

  guarantee, four-minute

  Guard, National

  guy:

  from other booth

  from Pump

  hair, unwanted

  hand:

  invisible

  of the diligent

  HardCorp

  Hart, Owen

  hash, canned

  Hernia Soda

  hoax (see Internet)

  hoboes

  hockey team, U.S. Olympic

  hogshead

  Hollis, Rev.

  Holmes:

  Oliver Wendell

  Sherlock

  hookers

  hoosegow (see prison)

  horse, pommel

  human spirit, triumph of

  Huxley, Aldous

  ich

  Indianapolis, Dallas

  Internet

  irony />
  Jacksonville, Cincinnati

  Jesus:

  on a billboard

  on the Darwin Dome

  join join join

  jokes

  judge, TV commercial

  jump, Curtis

  Kansas City, San Diego

  King, Martin Luther

  knitting, electronic

  knock, knock

  knot:

  Accordion

  Gordian

  Gordon

  granny

  Guardian

  koan

  Las Vegas

  lawn, chipped and faded

  lawyer, lady

  license plates, personalized

  Lindbergh, Charles

  Link, Breakfast

  linoleum

  Lloyd

  Lloyd’s mother

  Look past the violence, Jack

  love, flood of

  marble, lucky

  Meredith, Dr. Sara

  Miami , Chicago

  microcoils, interlocked

  Mindy’s ex-boyfriend Nate

  mockery

  Moody, Rick

  Moore, Lorrie

  moralism

  motorists, drunk

  mouse:

  dead

  foolhardy

  Munson, Rev. Marty

  Museum of Las Vegas Secession, The

  Namath, Joe

  nausea

  neon

  Net Nook

  New England, Arizona

  New York Giants, Philadelphia

  nine yards, the whole

  noggin, bump on the

  oriole bolus

  outing, father-son

  pains, fruitless

  Pants, Sexy

  parlor

  Personality, Television

  Petty, Richard

  pillow:

  cordless vibrating

  UnPillow

  Planet Peanut Brittle

  plumbers

  police

  polls, recent

  porridge

  Postman, Neil

  posture

  Princess Adelaide

  prison:

  cabbage

  Las Vegas

  sex

  Pynchon, Thomas

  racehorse

  Razor, Ockham’s

  rhetoric

  Richards, I. A.

  Round-Eyed Sons of the Knightly Order

  sandwich, dick

  satire

  Saunders, George

  scrotum, underneath the

  sequitur, non

  sex (see prison)

  Shakespeare

  sharks:

  belly

  bite radius

  cookie-cutter

  dogfish