Bear v. Shark: The Novel

by Chris Bachelder

  Use your lobe, kids. Leave the Bear v. Shark scrap to the computer tie-guys. If someone you know wants to get hold of one of these beasty beasts or arrange a real fight, just walk away. Show ’em your bakery! See, the cockfights ain’t pipin’. And parents, it’s never too early to talk to your kids about the dangers of obtaining live bears and sharks, or pitting them against each other in a real duel. Zip, let’s keep Bear v. Shark safe, fun, and lawful. Yes, ma’am.

  Fricky-frack, hypes. See you on Tuesday nights.

  27

  Planet Peanut Brittle

  Don’t forget about the Normans.

  They’re taking a trip to Las Vegas. They’re making good time, too, by the looks of the billboards and retail centers whizzing past. Sometimes you have to tear down a big store and put a bigger one where the big one used to be. The bigger store holds more stuff.

  The family has traveled 194 American miles and Mr. Norman knows it.

  A billboard says, “Exit now for Planet Peanut Brittle.” There is a picture of a guy in a space suit walking across lumpy brown candy, giving a thumbs-up to Mission Control. The image is somehow both futuristic and nostalgic. Janus-faced: It’s the sticky treat for the new millennium, but it’s also the irresistible snack you remember as a child. The aftertaste of time. Our special ingredient is memory. Those PR wizards, they’ve done what nobody thought they could do: they’ve dusted off peanut brittle, updated it, refurbished it, made it appropriate for today’s hectic world. It’s not your granny’s recipe. It’s PB2K. They’ve made peanut brittle timeless, cross-generational. Peanut brittle is back, more relevant than ever, exit now.

  Mr. Norman exits. It’s good to be spontaneous on a trip.

  Mrs. Norman is playing an electronic knitting game. The way you win is to make a scarf or an afghan or a turtleneck sweater, except it’s not a real sweater you can wear. There is a cross-stitch cartridge, too. And one called Darning Mania!

  Mrs. Norman says, “Where are you going?”

  Brittle sticks, brittle logs, brittle rings.

  Mr. Norman says, “I thought we’d get some peanut brittle.”

  Matthew says, “What I’m saying is just try getting it out of your bicuspids.”

  Mrs. Norman looks up from her knitting game. She’s on Mittens Level. There is the sound of a clock and then the sound of smashing glass. Game over. With knitting, you hesitate, you die.

  Mrs. Norman says, “Larry, you know I’m allergic to peanut brittle. It makes my tongue swell up.”

  Mr. Norman says, “What?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “You know that.”

  Mr. Norman parks the SUV in the spacious parking lot of Planet Peanut Brittle. There’s a guy with a fin taped to his back handing out coupons.

  Mr. Norman says, “Well, we’ll get the kind without peanuts.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “No, it’s the brittle that makes me so sick. I’m allergic to the brittle. I’m fine with peanuts.”

  Mr. Norman turns off the car but keeps both hands on the wheel. He’s staring straight ahead. Sometimes he gets so tired.

  He says, “You’ve always been allergic?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Something in the brittle. My tongue just fills my mouth.”

  Curtis says, “Let’s see, Mom.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “It was a nice thought, though.”

  It’s brittle-rific.

  Mrs. Norman says, “Let’s go ahead and get some lunch while we’re stopped.”

  Matthew says, “Hey, how many bears does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

  Was Mrs. Norman a graceful water skier? Where is her birthmark and what is its shape? What really funny thing did she do when she was five? Does she like the pulp in her orange juice? Where was the honeymoon? What is the feel of your naked belly pressed against someone else’s? Quick, what grade is Matthew in? How is Curtis doing in school? Do the other kids like him? Just who are these people in the car with Mr. Norman and what makes their tongues swell? It’s 618 miles to Las Vegas, but then what? A bear, a shark, a level playing field.

  Mr. Norman rests his head on the steering wheel.

  He says, “Five.”

  28

  Darwin Dome

  Here’s what happened, essentially:

  HardCorp told Las Vegas that if the city didn’t build a 65,000-seat arena for “Bear v. Shark II: Red in Tooth and Claw,” the big show would move elsewhere. The corporation had gotten plenty of nice offers from other cities, including Los Angeles and Buffalo and Miami.

  Vegas officials crunched the numbers and figured out that the city could tear down three casinos, build the Darwin Dome for the big event, then tear down the dome and rebuild the casinos, and still come out in the black.

  Done deal, technically.

  The best tickets went to executives, politicians, military officers, movie stars, professional athletes and wrestlers, TV personalities, foreign dignitaries, puppet despots, models, gangsters, and game show hosts.

  Fifteen thousand tickets were available through a lottery. Over 21 million (21,000,000) people entered the lottery, and the lucky winners were given the opportunity to buy two tickets for $2,500 each.

  A handful of tickets were given away in Specially Marked Boxes of Sea-n-Lea Meat Snacks, void where prohibited, check package for details.

  And four tickets were given to the family of the winner of a national essay contest open to elementary school students. Students were to write a 250-word response to the question, “What does Bear v. Shark mean to America?”

  Curtis Norman of America, who had gotten chubby on Sea-n-Lea Meat Snacks, won the essay contest.

  29

  Some Jokes

  How many bears does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

  How many?

  Five. One to screw in the bulb and four to pick sharks’ teeth out of their asses.

  Knock, knock.

  Who’s there?

  Bear.

  Bear who?

  Bear with me while I kick this shark’s ass.

  An invisible bear goes to see the doctor and sits in the waiting room.

  The receptionist, who just happens to be a shark, says to the invisible bear, “I’m sorry, the doctor can’t see you right now.”

  Why did the chicken cross the road?

  To get a better look at the [bear or shark] ripping off the [shark’s or bear’s] head and feasting on its entrails.

  Hey, do you know what they used to call the Internet when it first became available?

  I give up.

  Get this: The Information Superhighway.

  30

  Ethos

  The sign says, “Ma’s Old-Fashioned Interstate Tavern.”

  Another sign says, “Bear and Shark lottery tickets sold here.”

  Another sign says, “If you can bearly stand the heat, then shark your car and come on in!”

  Mrs. Norman says, “This looks good.”

  The hostess says, “Four for lunch?”

  She (the hostess) says, “Smoking or nonsmoking?”

  She says, “Internet access?”

  The Normans follow the paw prints on the tile floor to their booth. Mr. Norman wonders what might be the best way to kill yourself. He saw it on a Television program. It was a contest.

  Mrs. Norman asks the waitress if Ma’s Old-Fashioned Interstate Tavern BearBurger is really made out of bear or if that’s just a cute name like the Sharka Colada.

  The waitress says, “I’ll go check.”

  A pop singer says, “Baby baby baby baby.”

  Thoreau says, “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas;”

  There is a Television mounted to the wall above the Normans’ booth. A reporter is on some busy city street, interviewing passersby. It might be New Orleans, maybe Lansing.

  Matthew plays handheld Bear Killer. The game says, “Beep, beep. Grrrrrrr.”

  He (Matthew) says, “I saw on the Internet that people get real bears and sharks to fight
.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Yes, I read about that. They’re called cock-fights.”

  Curtis, the youngest boy, raised on sugar substitute and embedded chips and digital enhancement, says, “What?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “They’re called that because male sharks and male bears are known as cocks.”

  Curtis says, “What do they call the women?”

  Mr. Norman stares at the Television. You could jump off something high, for instance. He says, “They say the shark almost always wins.”

  Matthew pokes Curtis in the neck. He says, “See.”

  Curtis says, “Ow.”

  The pop singer says, “Oooh yeah, don’t you feel it, baby?”

  The waitress says, “It’s just a normal hamburger.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “So it’s made from a cow?”

  The waitress, who sometimes cries for no apparent reason and who answers “strongly agree” to the question, often posed on psychological evaluations, “Do you often have feelings of despair and hopelessness?,” says, “I’ll go check.”

  Bear Killer says, “Tick tick tick tick.” Time is running out. See, if you don’t find the bear den, infiltrate it, and kill all three cubs with a big rock in a certain amount of time, the mother bear comes home and gores you with a halberd.

  The guy in the booth next to the Normans says, “I saw one cock-fight Web site that said the bear picked up the shark over his head and threw it into the audience, injuring five.”

  Curtis says, “Fricky-frack, hypes.”

  Matthew says, “Yeah, but that same Web site also said that the bear shouted, ‘I vanquish thee,’ as he threw the shark which I doubt very seriously he did.”

  Thoreau says, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”

  Mr. Norman looks down from the Television at the guy in the next booth over. The guy’s eyes look funny. The guy keeps glancing at Mr. Norman and making quick jerking motions with his head. Toward something, the dessert case or the rest rooms or the Zoloft Smoothie Kiosk (ZSK).

  Curtis says, “The Internet raises some thorny issues about credibility and ethos.”

  Everyone looks at Curtis, this preadult, this virtual madman. At his Keyboard he has taken countless lives, ain’t no thing, he has received outrageous sexual favors from CyberWhores with tits out to here, digital fucking machines born to pleasure Curtis Norman.

  Matthew (to Curtis) says, “Shut up, fag.”

  Mr. Norman knows that you would want to wait until after Bear v. Shark II, of course. You could electrocute yourself easily enough, it seems. There’s electricity everywhere.

  A woman on the Television clutching a bag of groceries tells the reporter that sharks are, like, 90 percent teeth.

  Curtis says, “It was on the Internet. Some professor had a Web site. He turned out not to be a professor, just a fisherman who reads a lot, but I think his point about ethos still holds.”

  The waitress says, “It’s mostly cow.”

  The Normans order BearBurgers. And Sharky Temples for the kids.

  Curtis says, “Can you pass the sugar substitute?”

  A guy on the Television wearing a bike helmet and a blood-soaked shirt says that bears are as fast as cougars.

  Matthew says, “What you have to remember is that a person who reads the Sunday New York Times gets more information than a French villager in the eighteenth century got in his whole lifetime.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Their whole lifetime.”

  The head-jerking funny-eyed guy in the next booth says, “Yes, but people are living longer now.”

  Mr. Norman, there was always carbon monoxide, says, “Where did you hear that information?”

  Matthew says, “Some show on French villagers. Turns out they had real problems with gum disease.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “The way I heard it was that a person who habitually reads newspapers knows more, in essence, than an eighteenth-century French person.”

  Curtis says, “The point is that it’s hard to know what to believe.”

  Matthew says, “No, the point is that there is a lot of stuff to believe.”

  Mr. Norman says, “Isn’t the point that you shouldn’t believe anything?”

  The waitress says, “Aren’t those all the same point?”

  The reporter on the Television says, “Back to you, Derek.”

  31

  Bear v. Shark: The Essay

  A REASON TO LIVE

  (by Curtis Norman)

  In today’s society there is a lot of bad news. Just for an example of this is tornadoes, assassinations, tainted food, and killer bees. Other examples are pollution, bad roads, heroin, teen pregnancy, and rabies. These problems aren’t anyone’s fault, most of them (like killer bees) are natural and can’t be controlled by human destiny.

  It can be difficult to be happy with all this bad news around. For instance, people are grumpy and many of them commit suicide. Men tend to choose guns and women choose pills. I say choose life!

  Bear v. Shark allows people to forget about their own problems and the troubles in the world and just be happy. Bear v. Shark gives people a reason to be excited about their day. Instead of sad about gang violence or a collapsing infrastructure people can be upbeat because they are happy. Their minds are on something else. Say, which side are you on? Are you for the bear or the shark? And what about those fins anyway?

  In closing, my gardener is Dutch and he doesn’t have a culture. But America is great because it has a culture and Bear v. Shark helps us have a culture.

  32

  The Fur Team

  The guy in the booth next to the Normans, the guy looking at Mr. Norman in a strange manner, eventually joins the family for lunch. He squeezes in beside the boys. He’s wearing an old faded black “Bear v. Shark I” T-shirt from the first event two years earlier.

  It (the shirt) looks like a classic. It looks authentic, though they sell them like that now, faded and threadbare. They do a nice job. It’s really hard to tell.

  Curtis notices the shirt. He says, “Were you there?”

  The guy nods. He says, “Third row. My uncle worked on the bear programming team. He hooked me up with the tickets.”

  Curtis says, “Too bad about what happened.”

  The guy says, “Yeah.”

  Curtis says, “Was the bear’s head really that small?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Curtis.”

  The guy says, “No, it’s OK.”

  Curtis says, “I read on the Internet that the Internet photos of the tiny head are an Internet hoax.”

  The guy says, “I read that too, but I was there and I have to say, the bear’s head was pretty small.”

  Matthew says, “Did your uncle hook you up again this time?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Matthew.”

  The guy says, “He got fired. HardCorp fired all the bear programming personnel, even though my uncle just worked on the fur team. That’s all he did, fur.”

  Matthew says, “The fur looked a little patchy.”

  Mr. Norman says, “Why is it that we can send a bear and a shark to the moon, but we can’t make a good razor for sensitive skin?”

  Curtis says, “Do you have a Web site?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “They did the right thing by just starting it all over again. Plus, it’s just so fun to have something to look forward to.”

  The crackling intercom says, “Has anyone lost a baby? There’s a tiny baby up here.”

  A pop singer says, “Oh my sweet angel, I can’t live without you.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “It’s the anticipation more than anything.”

  The guy says, “Listen, I’m not saying a normal-headed bear could take a shark, but this was just no contest.”

  Mrs. Norman says, “What does he do now?”

  The guy is kicking Mr. Norman under the table. He says, “What?”

  Mrs. Norman says, “Your uncle, what does he do now?”

  The pop singer promises to
kill his sweet angel’s husband.

  The guy says, “Oh, he shot himself.”

  33

  Patents Pending

  Possum v. Squirrel

  Owl v. Deer

  Squid v. Monkey

  Cow v. Mastiff

  Varmint v. Critter

  Scorpion v. Pigeon

  Blind v. Deaf

  Jew v. Puerto Rican

  Manx v. Mutt

  Spanish Moss v. Kudzu

  Hitler v. Elvis

  Toddler v. Snake

  Middle Manager v. Homeless

  Oliver Wendell v. Sherlock

  34

  A Shark Never Sleeps

  The guy from the other booth finishes his Shark Blood Soup, which is really a nice tomato basil.

  The crackling intercom says, “People, please check around your table to make sure you have not lost a baby.”

  Through the tavern’s TV-screen-shaped windows Mr. Norman can see the ceaseless interstate traffic, the Median Police with their lightning guns and their caged truck overflowing with hoboes. He can see the migrant workers putting up new billboards, the air-brushed women and their cleavage and their sexy shampoos, their sexy bug sprays, their sexy canned meat products for families on the go, who has time to cook these days, tastes like fresh meat, I couldn’t tell the difference, you won me over, I’ll try it.

  The waitress, who, yes, often has trouble sleeping, says, “Can I bring you all anything else?”

  On the Television an angry and tattered man with no good connections, no stock portfolio, no health insurance, no Internet provider, no sense of common decency, no chance of ever making sweet hot virtual love to the likes of the airbrushed hucksters who haunt the modern interstate, says to the reporter, “What?”