Ghost of Spirit Bear

by Ben Mikaelsen

  Afterward, Cole wanted to stop by Garvey’s.

  “Can’t that wait?” his mother asked.

  “No, I want him to see what happened, too. He’ll be proud I didn’t fight back with my fists.”

  Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the drive of Garvey’s small home near the Interstate. Garvey was working in the yard but threw down his rake when Cole climbed from the car holding his ribs, blood still smeared on his cheeks. “What the devil happened to you?” Garvey exclaimed, running over.

  As Cole explained, Garvey examined his face and bruised ribs. “Did Keith do all this to you?”

  Cole nodded. “I told him he’d better kill me ’cause I was pressing charges. And I did. We just came from the police station—that’ll teach him to mess with me.”

  Garvey let out a slow breath. “He’ll leave you alone now only because he’s afraid of you.”

  “Good,” Cole said, “’cause I had no other choice.”

  “You always have other choices,” Garvey said.

  “How would you have kept from getting beat up?” Cole shot back, frustrated. “And don’t say, ‘I’ll figure it out.’”

  Garvey shrugged. “Some days are just bad days. When bullies corner you, you’re having a bad day—not much you can do about changing that.” He shook his head slowly. “What’s important is if you behave in a way that preserves your dignity and helps make tomorrow better.”

  “I did that!” Cole snapped, feeling his smoldering anger grow.

  Garvey closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. “Filing charges used the same tool the bullies used—fear.”

  Cole threw his hands in the air. “Nothing I do will ever satisfy you! I’m not supposed to fight with my fists. Ms. Kennedy didn’t like us using the cell phone. Sitting down didn’t help. Now I’m not supposed to use my head.”

  “Nobody has the right to do this to you. Nobody! Cole, it’s okay that you filed charges. All I’m saying is that you have other choices. There are times you fight with your fists—that’s called violence. There are times when you lie down—that’s called pacifism. What you guys did with the cell phone worked, but that was trickery. And sometimes, like today, you fought with a threat—that’s fear. But there are other choices.”

  “Like what?” Cole could feel his anger taking over. “You’re just messing with my head.”

  Garvey reached out and tapped Cole’s chest. “Try fighting with your heart sometime.”

  Cole pushed Garvey’s hand away. “What? Send Keith flowers? Give him a kiss?”

  Garvey winked. “You’ll figure it out,” he said.

  “You talk big!” Cole shouted. He clenched his fists, wishing he could knock the smug look off Garvey’s face. “You don’t have any more answers than me! Why don’t you try and—”

  Cole’s mother grabbed his arm. “It’s time for us to leave now,” she said, tugging him forcefully toward the car.

  Cole pulled away. “I’m okay,” he said, trying to shake off his anger. Glancing back, he saw disappointment in Garvey’s eyes.

  Chapter 7

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Sunday, Peter convinced his mother to let him hang out with Cole.

  “What happened?” Peter exclaimed when he saw Cole’s puffy lip and swollen eye. “A truck hit you?”

  Cole explained all that had happened. “You should have seen the look in their eyes when I told them they would have to kill me,” he said.

  “What if they had killed you?” Peter asked.

  “They’d have gone to jail.”

  “That wouldn’t help you much.”

  “They would never really kill me.”

  “You don’t know that,” Peter argued.

  “Now you’re sounding like Garvey. Everybody criticizes what I do, but nobody has a better idea.”

  “What did Garvey say to do?” Peter asked.

  “He wants me to give Keith flowers and kiss him,” Cole said sarcastically.

  “Really? He said that?”

  “Not exactly, but he said to fight with my heart.”

  “So take your heart and throw it at Keith,” Peter said, grinning. “Maybe he’ll get a concussion. The blood will splatter all over, and your heart will bounce around on the ground beating, and—”

  “Okay! Okay!” Cole interrupted. “Hey, Peter, yesterday I sat in front of the mall and became invisible.”

  “Like on the island?”

  Cole nodded. “And remember how we sometimes saw the Spirit Bear appear and disappear? Well yesterday, I opened my eyes and found that old homeless guy staring at me across the parking lot. I looked down for just a few seconds, and when I looked back he was gone.”

  “That’s weird,” Peter said. “I was thinking about that old guy, too. His carving looked so real and it wasn’t even finished yet. I wonder where he learned to carve.”

  “There’s lots of things about him I wonder about.”

  “So, where can we go today to be invisible?” Peter asked.

  Cole glanced down the street thoughtfully. “Just for the fun of it, let’s try someplace really noisy again—like in the park.”

  “Sounds good,” Peter agreed, starting out excitedly.

  Cole eyed his friend as they walked. Getting slapped and kicked by Keith could easily have taken Peter back into depression, but he was hanging in there.

  Reaching the park, they picked a comfortable patch of grass under a big Norway pine. Nearby, teenagers laughed and shouted, throwing a Frisbee. Parents called to their children. A baby cried nonstop, and two barking dogs kept chasing each other.

  “We’ll go so far into the quiet of our minds that we won’t even hear the sounds,” Cole said.

  “Okay,” Peter said doubtfully, closing his eyes.

  Cole did the same, breathing in deeply.

  At first, random thoughts bombarded him, so he focused and imagined the Spirit Bear standing on the shoreline of the island. He imagined a drop of rain landing on its white fur and then slowly running down the side of the big animal until it finally dripped onto the ground.

  Cole almost let the thought end there, but then he drew in another breath and followed the raindrop as it soaked into the soil, wetting the root of a tree. Slowly the tree absorbed the moisture, drawing it upward through the trunk until it reached the branches and leaves. Gently the wind absorbed the moisture and carried it to the sky to help form another cloud. Soon, another drop of rain fell from the sky, landing on the Spirit Bear.

  Another Circle was complete.

  Cole slowly opened his eyes and looked around the park, half expecting to see the homeless man again. All he found was noise and commotion, but he felt calm.

  Peter’s eyes were already open. “You were gone a long time,” he said. “What were you thinking about?”

  “About rain falling on the Spirit Bear,” Cole answered. “How about you?”

  Peter shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anything ’cause dogs were barking and the baby kept crying. I wanted the dogs to go over and bark at the baby.”

  The second week back, things grew worse. The school’s crowded stairwells and dark narrow hallways were like a madhouse with kids slamming lockers, shouting, shoving, and tripping one another. As usual, most of the teasing and bullying was ignored by the teachers.

  Keith and his bunch mimicked Cole’s injured right arm by purposely hugging an arm in close to their waists as they passed him in the hallway. Alex pretended it was an accident when he bumped Cole hard with a shoulder and tripped him.

  In study hall, Keith approached Cole’s table. “Hey, you turd!” he growled under his breath. “You didn’t have to press charges just because I shoved you a little. What a weenie.”

  Cole pulled up his shirt to show the large bruises on his rib cage. “You call this a little shove?”

  “My parents are all bent out of shape,” Keith said. “You drop those charges or I swear I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what?” Cole interrupted. “Kill me?
”

  Leaving, Keith gave Cole’s chair a hard shove.

  Cole knew he and Peter weren’t the only ones bullied. Midweek, he noticed some football players teasing a student with Down syndrome by using baby talk to her face. He also spotted four girls following the thin girl he’d seen teased the first day of school. Fear haunted the girl’s eyes as her tormentors mimicked her every move.

  Something else kept weighing on Cole’s mind. Finally he had to do something about it. Thursday, when Peter met him after school, Cole excused himself. “I need to be alone,” he said.

  “Can’t we be alone together?”

  “I’m going to go see my dad.”

  “For real?”

  Cole nodded.

  “Does he know you’re coming?”

  Cole shook his head. “I’ll tell you how things go.”

  Peter waved good-bye, and soon Cole was on the bus headed downtown to his father’s office.

  “Well, hello,” the secretary said when Cole walked in. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Let me check and see if your dad’s free.”

  “If he’s not with someone, I’d like to surprise him,” Cole said.

  Hesitating, she motioned Cole toward the closed door. “Okay, go on in.”

  Cole nearly chickened out. He knocked cautiously, then turned the handle and eased the door open far enough to poke his head inside. His father sat behind a large desk, wearing a suit and tie. At first he didn’t look up from his work. When he did, surprise and hostility showed in his eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Cole entered and closed the door behind him. “I just came to see you.”

  His father rocked back in his chair. “So what do you want from me now?”

  “Nothing, Dad, I just wanted to know how you’re doing. I haven’t seen you since last year.”

  “How did you expect me to be doing? Your mother won custody of you with her abuse charges. Social Services is all over me, the divorce cost me a mint, and my business is half what it used to be.”

  “Is that all that’s important to you?” Cole asked. “The money and your reputation?”

  “What else is there? I gave up on you years ago.”

  Cole wasn’t sure what to say next. Listening to his father, he felt like he was standing on a train track with a freight train barreling toward him. “Dad, this isn’t about anybody’s money or reputation. It’s about you and me. It’s about our family.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have a family anymore, thanks to you.”

  Cole’s voice trembled. “I’ve been a real jerk, Dad, but I’m trying to make things right.”

  “It’s too late for that—you and your mother already messed up my life.”

  “Mom filed charges because you drank and got violent. You started hitting me really hard.”

  “You deserved a good spanking.”

  “Getting drunk and hitting someone until he bleeds isn’t a spanking,” Cole said strongly.

  “Keep your voice down,” his father said, glancing toward the door. “So why are you really here?”

  Cole swallowed the rush of feelings that threatened to flood his eyes with tears. “Dad, you never wrote me a single letter while I was gone.”

  “Wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “You don’t know that! Being on the island changed me,” Cole said. “You have to believe that. We all make mistakes, but maybe things can be different now.”

  Cole’s father stood, towering over Cole. His voice grew cold. “You get something through your dim-witted skull,” he said. “I don’t buy your act for one second. You haven’t changed—you’ve never fooled me. I don’t need you barging into my office causing any more problems. I’m busy now and have a lot to do, so unless you have something else to say, you need to leave.” He motioned toward the door.

  Cole started to go, and then turned back. “Dad, one more thing.”

  His father sat down heavily. “What now?”

  “Mom quit drinking and is doing great.”

  “I’m so delighted,” his father said with thick sarcasm, examining some papers he had picked up off his cluttered desk. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, tears welling up in his eyes. “Dad, I miss you.”

  His father refused to look up.

  Cole didn’t want his father to see him cry so he rushed from the office and out onto the street. He blinked again and again in the bright sun. He had been such a fool to come down here. What had he expected—that his father would hug him and say he loved him and missed him?

  Suddenly Cole felt empty inside. “Stupid! You’re so stupid!” he mumbled to himself as he waited for the bus that would take him home.

  Chapter 8

  FRIDAY, COLE ARRIVED at school early and found the doors still locked. He hung out near the steps, apart from several other students who stood around the ratty bulldog statue, sneaking smokes.

  The sound of a skateboard clattering down the sidewalk caused Cole to turn and look. He squinted into the bright morning sun. Skateboards weren’t allowed on school grounds but nobody enforced the rule. The skater was only a dozen yards away when Cole realized it was Keith.

  At that same instant, Keith spotted Cole. Kicking faster and laughing loudly, he changed direction, aiming straight at Cole. At the last second, Cole jumped aside. Keith swerved, too, but a wheel caught a crack in the sidewalk and sent him headfirst into the steps with a sickening grunt.

  The students standing near the bulldog laughed as Keith writhed on the steps, holding his face. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. Cole could see broken teeth and torn skin. Keith pulled himself down onto the sidewalk, then he collapsed and rolled onto his back, coughing and gagging on his own blood.

  Cole hesitated, then rushed to Keith’s side. He knelt down and pulled Keith’s head over so he wouldn’t choke. The students crowded around, but their laughter had stopped. “He’s hurt—get help!” Cole shouted.

  A couple of students ran toward the school.

  “Someone call nine one one,” Cole shouted.

  A girl pulled out her cell phone and called as Cole held Keith firmly. Keith opened his eyes, glanced up, and their eyes met, then he closed his eyes again, grimacing in pain. Blood kept flowing from his mouth and nose.

  “You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” Cole repeated, as more students gathered to gawk. It reminded Cole of when he had been mauled by the Spirit Bear. He knew the feeling of being helpless. What if Keith was dying? It was weird, but for a moment Cole felt as if he were holding himself.

  Finally several teachers came rushing across the lawn as the sound of a siren wailed toward the school. A red and white ambulance pulled into sight, lights flashing, and drove up on the sidewalk. Two paramedics jumped out and rushed to Keith’s side. One took his pulse while the other checked his eyes and looked into his bloodied mouth.

  “I’ve got his head now,” said the paramedic, allowing Cole to stand and back away. They placed a big plastic collar around Keith’s neck and strapped him to a backboard, then lifted him carefully into the waiting ambulance.

  Covered with blood, Cole watched the ambulance pull away. The office secretary approached him. “Are you okay?”

  Cole nodded.

  “Thanks for helping,” she said. “Go home and clean up. I’ll have you excused from class until you get back.”

  When Cole arrived home, his mother still hadn’t left for work. Coming from her bedroom, she spotted Cole, his T-shirt covered in blood. “Oh no!” she cried. “Did Keith do this to you again?”

  “Keith wrecked his skateboard.”

  “Where are you hurt?”

  “This is all his blood,” Cole said. “I helped him. I held his head until the ambulance came.”

  “You helped him?”

  “Someone had to.”

  All day, rumors of Keith’s accident spread. After Cole returned to school, kids kept asking him what had happened.

  “I guess he could
n’t stop,” Cole repeated.

  “Did you make him fall?” one student asked.

  “No,” Cole replied firmly, haunted by the memory of Keith’s scared eyes. He wondered if this accident would make Keith realize how foolish he was being.

  When school finally ended, Cole stopped by the office to ask about Keith.

  “He was admitted to the hospital,” the secretary said.

  “The one near the Interstate?”

  She nodded, raising an eyebrow.

  “Thanks.”

  Peter caught up to Cole as he headed out the front door. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  Cole didn’t feel much like explaining, but he didn’t want to hurt Peter’s feelings either. “I’m going to the hospital to check on Keith.”

  Peter wrinkled his forehead with a puzzled look. “Why are you doing that?” he asked. “He tried to run you over.”

  “I’m just going to see if he’s okay.”

  “You’re weird,” Peter said. “I hope he hurt his brain! Can I go with you?”

  Cole hesitated and then nodded. “Sure.”

  “Maybe we can go someplace afterward and try to be invisible again,” Peter said.

  Cole nodded but was lost in thought. The hospital was nearly a mile from school, and he doubted he would be allowed to see Keith when they got there. He still wasn’t sure why he was going.

  When they arrived, Cole asked for directions to Keith’s room.

  “Are you family?” the duty nurse asked.

  Cole shook his head. “Just friends.”

  Peter frowned at Cole. “Friends?” he whispered. “Like mud.”

  The nurse motioned down the hall. “Room three fourteen. He’s in bad shape, and his family is with him.”

  Cole hesitated outside Keith’s room. He found himself more afraid of facing Keith in a bed than on the street with his gang. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. Taking a deep breath, he walked in.

  Keith’s parents were standing beside his bed. They turned and greeted Cole and Peter when they entered. “Thanks for stopping by,” Keith’s mother said.