The Bear in a Muddy Tutu

by Cole Alpaugh

  “What do you make of this?” Bagg whispered, offering up the taffeta.

  “Fuck if I know.” The cop bent down, about to squeeze through the jagged hole in the screen.

  “Wait.” Bagg grabbed the cop by his black leather belt with his left hand. With his right hand, Bagg reached for the doorknob and pulled the door slightly ajar.

  “Right.” Gates straightened up, took the doorknob and slowly opened the door.

  The building had two rooms. The front portion was divided in half, with space on the near side for golfers to place orders, while orders were taken from the other side of a high counter running the length of the room. At the far left side was one of those hinged countertop doors you saw in bars that the employee lifted and ducked under.

  Against the wall behind the counter was a grill, with huge steel vents disappearing into the ceiling. It was hot, and the smoke from charcoal-black pieces of what was probably old meat was silently being sucked into the vent. In the middle of the back wall was an open doorway leading to the kitchen and prep area.

  The cop looked around, blinking, as both men let their eyes adjust to the dark room. Gates then stepped inside in big, slow, almost comically arcing strides, as if stepping across a river on rocks a little too far apart. He held the gun at arm’s length, the barrel darting from spot to spot in quick, twitchy motions.

  The first section of the front room was clear. No wild bears whatsoever.

  “We gonna keep goin’?” Bagg asked, and the cop, who’d seemed frozen, jumped a bit at his voice. “This bear’s awful quiet for being crazy rabid.”

  “Shhhh,” Gates hissed. “C’mon.”

  The pair ducked under the counter; Gates had his gun darting and dancing again, while Bagg wished he’d packed a flash. It was too dark in here for a good photo of a thrashing, crazed bear.

  “Look,” Gates whispered, pointing the gun down to a greasy wet spot on the linoleum floor. Bagg noticed that the gun was shaking and the officer’s hands were glistening with sweat.

  “You hear that?” Bagg asked, as a low uneven rumble seemed to come from the next room where the food was prepared. They were hunkered down below the grill, about five feet from the kitchen doorway, listening.

  “It sounds like snoring,” Bagg said.

  “No, it sounds like a bear,” Gates answered in a sharp whisper, spittle flying from his mouth. “Now, shut up and stay behind me.”

  “Still sounds like a snoring bear,” Bagg repeated under his breath, as Gates edged forward. Bagg had gotten a look at the cop’s too-wide eyes, which showed mostly white. Talk about crazy rabid.

  From the arched doorway to the kitchen, the two men stood side by side, shoulders pressed together. One was armed with a gun; the other, a Canon T90 single lens reflex camera with a short zoom lens, not recommended for indoor use unless used with a flash. Bagg could feel the heat radiating off the cop. It felt like a sick heat, the kind that comes from someone with a really high fever, or someone who has a bad infection deep down inside.

  * * *

  Gates spotted the bear, semi-hidden and waiting for its opportunity to pounce. He pinned the end of the Glock 9mm sight on the beast across the room, and suddenly the newspaper guy crowding him in the doorway became invisible, or wasn’t there at all. Instead, Gates could sense his father’s eyes, could hear the condescending laugh meant to show off for his asshole friends.

  Officer Gates could feel his heart trying to burst out of his chest, and his mind slipped back to the first time he’d ever hunted, his father kicking him hard in the leg when he didn’t get out of bed right away. He’d been ten years old and it was opening day of deer season. He had been forced to climb up a ladder formed by two-by-three boards nailed to a tree trunk and sit shivering in a stand. Gates remembered being frozen to the bone, miserable and wanting to leave. But he had been stuck sitting on an upside-down bushel basket on a platform his father had built years before, some twenty feet up in the tree’s crotch. Gates had been peeing over the side when a big eight-point buck came walking along the game path that his dad had built the stand above. He reached for the Browning twelve gauge his father had given him, brought it up to his shoulder in slow motion, and pointed the barrel down at the buck.

  It was a clear shot. The young Gates stood with feet spread at shoulder width, the stock tucked tight in his armpit, and locked the sight onto the front left shoulder of the deer. Gates’ thumb clicked the safety off, and his delicate index finger curled around the trigger and began squeezing, easy, just like he’d been told. But something was wrong. The harder he tried to squeeze, the less his finger wanted to react. He began hearing his own breathing—like somebody out of breath was standing real close—and his heart began to thump. The boy’s wrist shook and rivulets of sweat broke out on his cold forehead, stinging his eyes, as the shaking spread from his right arm to engulf his entire body.

  At some point, the deer looked up at the human in the tree, huffed once, and danced off into the woods, white tail flashing a mock surrender. Gates was left there shaking, unable to put the gun down, unable to do anything.

  “You shouldn’t have made fun of me like that,” Gates told his father, but he was no longer up in a tree stand, looking down on dead, frost-covered leaves. Gates wasn’t a ten-year-old anymore; he was an officer of the law, sworn to protect and serve. He was an important man.

  “You better just shut up and pull the trigger ’fore you wet yourself.” He heard his father's voice as if he was there; then his father laughed that awful, mocking laugh. “You sorry little sumbitch couldn’t drop a deer, but you expect to take down a bear? You’re a goddamn laugh riot, boy!”

  Gates held the gun out toward the bear but couldn’t quite steady the barrel. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he had to keep wiping them clear with his shoulder.

  “Pull the trigger, you little fuckwad!”

  “Shut up!” Gates screamed. On that cold morning in the woods, his father had walked up to him, laughing and pointing at his son shivering in the tree stand, the deer long gone. The boy stood on the crooked pieces of timber, the muscles in his arms cramping, not yet able to lower the shotgun. His father laughed because he’d forgotten to pull up his pants when the buck walked past; he still had his little pecker out in the cold. It was just a coincidence that his father used the same path as the deer and stood in the line of fire. Gates remembered being tempted to try the shotgun trigger again.

  “Put the gun down,” Bagg said.

  “Pull the trigger!” Officer Gates shouted, and it was somehow his father’s voice. But his hands shook even harder, and the sweat poured into his eyes even worse.

  “Pull the fucking trigger, you little fuckwad!” he screamed, but his finger refused to follow orders, and his arms and entire body quaked in a violent struggle between muscle and brain.

  “It’s wearing a tutu!” Bagg shouted into the cop’s ear, shoving the torn piece of muddy pink material he’d removed from the screen door into the cop’s face. Pink, Gates thought, the same color his father’s white long johns had once turned when his mother tried to wash out spatters of deer blood. His father smacked her good and hard for that. He’d screamed that it looked like a fucking tutu and to throw them in the goddamn trash. “The bear is wearing a fucking tutu! It’s some kind of pet!”

  “I have to,” Gates tried saying, but his jaw muscles were locked just as tightly as the rest of the muscles in his body. The lenses of his thick glasses had fogged over.

  “Put the fucking gun down,” Bagg screamed at Gates, who stood dripping sweat, the muscle cords in his neck twisted in a painful spasm as he fought the Glock’s trigger and the mocking voice of his father.

  “It’s just trying to hide!” Bagg shouted directly into Gates’ ear, but there was no change, just more tremors from the man’s outstretched arms.

  Officer Norman Gates had become a deadly statue, frozen somewhere between a humiliated ten-year-old boy in a frigid tree stand and a pathetic man unable to squee
ze the last ounce of pressure needed to finish the job and stop the unrelenting voice in his head.

  Gates sensed the sudden motion next to him but was helpless to react. There was a flash of black, a glint of light reflecting from the glass lens, and he recognized the object as the reporter’s camera just as it struck him in the side of the head, stopping his father’s jeering voice.

  Chapter 17

  Graceful Gracie woke up in a dark place and was at first relieved to be done with the terrible dream. But then she smelled the acrid cleansers and remembered she was hiding from the screaming cars that hunted her.

  When she heard human voices behind her, Gracie cringed and closed her eyes. She tried to wiggle a little farther into her hiding place, but she was already in as far as she could go.

  Even with the harsh-smelling cleansers, Gracie could clearly smell one of the men hunting for her now. The entire cabinet had been invaded by his odor. It was metal and oil, and full of heat. It was an electric smell that burned inside her nostrils. It was a heavy reek that cut through the air like a snake, looking for something to hurt. It was the bad, bad smell of the bad man who had trained her to dance.

  “Help,” Gracie murmured in her bear language. “Please help me.”

  At the sound of shouting and frightening commands, Gracie tried pushing even deeper into her hiding spot, her claws scrabbling against linoleum and wood. The awful reek became worse and then there was a heavy thump, followed by what sounded like someone falling hard onto the floor. Had one of the men turned on the other? Had they fought over who had the privilege of coming in for the kill? Gracie began to cry, weeping big bear tears as her nose became stuffy despite all the ammonia under the sink.

  One man approached, taking short steps toward Gracie. She cringed, squeezing her eyes shut in anticipation of kicking or whipping, of the terrible beating to come. Instead, the man stroked her fur, fingers running gently across the old scars made by the man who had taught her to dance.

  “It’s okay, girl,” the man cooed. His fingers found a good spot. “I’m not going to hurt you. You can come out of there if you promise not to eat me.”

  Gracie stopped crying but couldn’t stop shaking. She wanted to be back in her cage more than anything in the whole world. She missed her smelly drunk man so bad it hurt. If Gracie had paid attention to what the roustabouts had been watching so intently on television one night last week, she’d have been trying to click her heels together three times, repeating the “no place like home” line over and over.

  Gracie startled at the touch of this new man and tried to wedge herself deeper into the cabinet. But all the bark had gone out of his voice, which was now low and soothing. The man put his hand on her left leg, making long strokes along her trembling side and flank. But Gracie wasn’t sure. What had happened to the other one? She thought she could still hear him breathing, but it sounded like he was making snoring sounds from down on her level. Gracie was confused, but the stroking was really nice and helping her to relax a little. Oh, god, being touched was good. She wanted to believe this new man wasn’t going to hurt her if she came out. But if staying put made him keep rubbing her like this, maybe she’d never come out.

  “C’mon, girl, c’mon outta there,” the man said, still rubbing Gracie’s quivering hind leg. “That cop is going to wake up soon and I don’t think he’s going to be in such a good mood. You have to help me, girl.”

  Not eliciting any sounds remotely menacing, the man moved forward on his knees and squeezed his arm farther into the cabinet to rub behind Gracie’s head, gently coaxing her. “It’s safe to come out, girl. C’mon.”

  Gracie decided to budge. The old bear tried to get a grip on the linoleum floor with her back paws, but they kept sliding. The man started pulling behind her left shoulder so that she was able to push away from the back of the cabinet with her front paws.

  “That’s a girl,” the man encouraged in his human language. “Here we go!”

  Gracie emerged from the acrid darkness in a sitting position. She looked down at her ruined tutu and the tears began to well up again. The stress had made her very emotional. But this man sitting next to her seemed to think everything was going to be okay.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, girl,” he was saying to her.

  Gracie looked beyond the man’s shoulder to see the one who was sleeping. She eyed the gun still attached to his fingers. Gracie knew about guns. The bad man who trained her to dance had used one on her. It spit little steel balls at her that stung like bees. Human cubs also used them to pop the colored balloons to win stuffed animals. She didn’t like the sound of guns or bursting balloons. There was nothing good about guns.

  “I need to get you out of here.” The man looked around the food prep room, maybe hoping for an answer to leap out at him.

  The man showed his hands to Gracie the way she’d seen new people introduce themselves to the mutt circus dogs. Gracie leaned forward and sniffed, then licked the man’s right palm. He let her lap his hand with her long, scratchy tongue. He reached around behind her ear for a gentle rub and Gracie melted forward into him, nuzzling and sniffing his armpit. “That’s a girl,” he told her. “You might be big, but you don’t have any teeth, do you?”

  From behind them came a single low groan.

  The man pulled away from Gracie, keeping his left hand on her head, and struggled to his feet. “We have to go right now.”

  Gracie thought this new man tasted just fine and liked the sound of his voice. She let him lead her away from her hiding place. She was careful not to step on the gun or the sleeping human. She stopped to take a quick sniff at the spot on his head that leaked blood but decided it wasn’t a bad wound. She had sniffed much worse.

  Gracie followed the new man past where she’d scarfed down the yummy hotdogs, stopping to take a few quick licks of tasty grease she’d missed before. But this new man wanted her to keep moving and tugged her by the scruff of the neck just the way her good man did. She was a little nervous about going through the door where she’d heard the bad cars approaching, but it was all quiet now. She could hear birds jabbering away.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” the man said in human, tugging again at her scruff.

  Gracie looked around at this outside world she hadn’t had a chance to see much of before. The barking animals were gone except for their meaty scent. Two human faces looked out at her through windows in the back of a shiny, red and white truck. She’d seen those trucks come to the circus and take away hurt humans before. Those two faces were nothing to worry about. The bad car was there, but it was quiet and the flashing lights were dark.

  The new man led her to a strange little truck and made a great sweeping motion with a zipper that opened up a back window. He swung open the back door and clicked a lever to get the backseats to lift forward, then patted a spot for her to climb up, just like when her good man wanted her to get inside her cage. Gracie knew this meant they were leaving, going someplace far away, and that made her very happy.

  But Gracie’s muscles were too sore from the swim and the escape from the barking animals. She got her two front paws up, but that was all she could manage.

  “I can’t,” she said in bear to the man, looking over her shoulder apologetically. “I can’t get up.”

  The man seemed to understand. He knelt down behind her and put his shoulder into her rear, pushing and grunting. There wasn’t much room, but Gracie’s big old body fit sideways as the man swung the back door closed.

  The man rubbed Gracie’s ears for a moment and she lunged at him with her long tongue, catching him across the lips when he started to pull away.

  “It’s going to be all right,” the man told Gracie, and she tried to lick his face again. He stroked her head once more and then walked around to the driver’s side door and hopped in. Adjusting the rearview mirror, the man started the little truck and drove, slowly at first, then sped up as he turned out onto the smooth road.

  Gracie lean
ed out the back, craning her neck as far as she could around the side, hoping to catch the wind in her nose and flapping lips. She loved driving, and this truck was much faster than the big one that hauled her cage. It was very green here, and the sun flashed and flickered behind the tall trees. There were a million smells along this road, both old and newborn. She closed her eyes and huffed, pretending she was flying.

  Chapter 18

  Bagg and Gracie sat in the Jeep in a back corner of a McDonald’s parking lot sharing a bag full of fish sandwiches and skinny French fries.

  Gracie lounged over the folded down rear seat, drooling tartar sauce and bits of roll.

  “You have a pretty big appetite for a ballerina.” Bagg fed her a handful of warm, salty fries. “My little girl was a ballerina for a while.”

  Gracie gummed the fries and made mewing sounds for more.

  “Then came soccer and she gave up her dancing career. She was about four when her mom and I called it quits.”

  Bagg pulled the lever on his seat and let it recline so he could give the bear a sip of vanilla milkshake.

  “Her name is Morgan.” Bagg tried to steady the cup as Gracie’s tongue greedily lapped at the shake. “I haven’t seen her in a really long time. It seems like forever.”

  Gracie nudged the shake cup away, eyeing the bag of fish sandwiches.

  “Her mom and I had joint custody.” Bagg unwrapped another sandwich for her. “I only got to see her every other weekend. That seemed like the worst thing in the world at the time. I kept having to say goodbye to her for twelve days, you know? I didn’t think it could get worse than that. But it sure did.”

  Bagg fed Gracie the rest of his own sandwich.

  “One Friday night, they just didn’t show up. It was supposed to be six o’clock on the dot. That’s how it was written in the court order. But then it was six fifteen, then six thirty. I kept waiting, but I think I knew right away she was never coming.”