Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!

by Mykle Hansen

  Is it really my fault? I wouldn’t be so obsessed with money if there wasn’t so much great stuff for sale. I blame society. And this story of mine, this ordeal under this car versus that bear, is going to net me seven figures, easy. I bet the Disney Channel snaps it up for one of their nature specials. Should I settle for seven figures? I wouldn’t start there, but could I settle there? I think not. There’s going to be all the collateral as well, the books and cartoons, plush toys, Happy Meals, that stuff ’s worth a lot. But if we could piggyback the Say No To Bears campaign onto a Disney nature special, I might be willing to settle for seven figures. Because nobody reaches kids like Disney. Disney owns kids. Disney and I could do crazy things to kids.

  But that’s assuming that the Rover lawsuit settles early out-of-court, so my neurosurgeons are getting paid. That’s the important thing: I want the best treatment. I want the Tiger Woods of Neurosurgery working on my feet. I want —

  Shh!

  Someone’s coming!

  5

  I heard it. If you were real you would have heard it too. Someone stepping through old twigs and undergrowth, someone coming through the trees, they are coming to save me they are coming RIGHT NOW! All right! About fucking time, too! I’m trying to yell HELP but my voice is a little stuck. But I hear it.

  It’s not just me. Mister Bear hears it too. He’s up on all fours now, waving his nose in the air and growling low from deep in his hairy guts. I’m yelling OVER HERE and no sound is coming out of my mouth. I’m screaming BEAR! Can they hear me? I’m so close! Why can’t I speak? I can cough at least. Cough cough cough! COUGH!

  Mister Bear is scampering away. Is that his fear-scamper or his hunger-scamper? I’ve got to make some kind of signal. I’ll rap this empty beer can against the tailpipe. Rap rap rap rap rap! Cough cough cough! Three coughs means I’M OVER HERE. Five raps means BEAR WARNING!

  Did I hear it again? Yeah! There, I heard it. Definitely coming closer, this is working, I’m a genius, rap cough rap cough rap rap rap! If I could just figure out how to scream … over here, yes! Follow your nose to the smell of human blood, gasoline, shit and fine Oxford leather upholstery. You are getting warmer. I hear you, you are getting very toasty. Hot, you’re hot! You’re on fire, baby! I see you! Over on my right, at the edge of the clearing, peering in! You are down on your hands and knees, carefully checking for predators. You must be a Forest Ranger. You are wearing a large fur parka … and a furry hat …

  No you’re not. You’re a bear. Another fucking bear. A second, separate, extra, additional fucking bear.

  Great! You know I almost ran out of fucking bears for a second there! I was down to just the one fucking bear, and when he ran off I didn’t know how I was going to meet my fucking bear requirements, my being attacked and eaten requirements, my savage predator from hell requirements. But three cheers for Alaska, they’ve got 24-hour hot fucking bear delivery.

  Note to self: Nuke Alaska.

  Now this new bear is standing up, I can’t even see his head from under here. He’s big. A grizzly, this one. Big and brown. Quiet, though, not an asthma sufferer like Mister Bear. He’s looking around, he’s sniffing, he sniffs the car, does he sniff me?

  He sniffs me.

  I’m going to take an OxySufnix now.

  He’s coming on over. Shit, he’s just enormous. Smelly, too. He’s sniffing the ground but his head alone is so large that I can’t see the top of it. I wonder if I have another Spicy Chorizo Jerky Twister in this box.

  Now he’s going around behind me. Where is he? What’s he doing?

  No! He’s peeing on the Rover! Goddammit, I think I might actually be losing my placid inner balance here. Squirt squirt squirt, I hear the stream hitting the mudguard and dripping on the ground, and surprise! It reeks, utterly, of bear.

  Fucking bear the second: you may rule nature but this Rover is mine. It is my castle and my kingdom, and you shall rue the day you urinated upon that which is Mine. Come on over here and try the Spicy Chorizo, you stupid fat northern handbag.

  I wish I had some poison in my pillbox, something really deadly like botox or botulism or sarin that I could dose a Slim Jim with and feed it to the bears. I read that raw meat can develop botulism just by being left out for one day. I’ve been left out two days; maybe my legs will develop botulism and Mister Bear will be poisoned by them.

  The big brown furry fuckwad’s over on my left now. His paws are so much larger than my head. Toes the size of my hands. He’s got some reach.

  C’mere you … what bear can resist Texas Pete’s Spicy Chorizo Jerky Twister? Here, I’ll unwrap it. There, I’ll toss it where you can see it.

  He’s interested … he’s nosing it. Mmm, aromatic isn’t it? Smell the chorizo. Taste the sulfites. Feel the burn. He’s licking it … yes, eat the jerky! Yes! He’s eating it! Sucker! He’s chewing the whole thing, he’s gnawing it up good. Hah! He’s swallowing it. He’s licking his big bear lips and his huge bear teeth.

  He looks like maybe he wants another one.

  Great. Welcome to Marv’s Alaskan Bear Bistro and Snack Bar. I’ll be your maitre’d and entree this afternoon. I’m sorry sir, there are no tables available under the Rover, but please allow us to seat you in the Leg Room. Please do not enter the kitchen while the chefs are hiding. No, honestly sir … no, these snacks are reserved! Why do you want Slim Jims when there’s perfectly good Leg of Marv over there? No! Get away! Cough cough! Rap rap!

  Hey, what was that noise? An animal, a scream. A bear scream from way over there. Jesus, I’m parked on the bear freeway.

  But no, I’d know that asthmatic voice anywhere … it’s good old Mister Bear himself, back from the 7-Eleven with Slurpees and a video. And just like that, Big Brown is backing off from my snack box and stepping away from the vehicle.

  Mister Bear, could it possibly be that I’m glad to see you?

  Now they’re back behind my head where I can’t see. But I can hear the growling and smell the bear whiz. I smell a bear fight.

  There they are, on the left. Big Brown — oh shit, now that I see them side by side he’s twice as big, easily — he’s advancing on Mister Bear who’s backing slowly away … now he’s stopped, he’s on his hind legs, snarling like a jet plane taking off underwater, scrunching his bear face into a wrinkled, toothy scowl. And now … he leaps! Straight through the air and right at Big Brown and they’re wrestling like cats!

  Bear fight! Bear fight! Bear fight! Oh, this is incredible. I have to get a shot of this with my phone, where’s my phone, here it is. Shit, they’ve stopped. C’mon bears, fight some more. Over to the left a little.

  Oh jeez, the blood. Mister Bear took a hit there, right down the shoulder. But Big Brown got clawed in the face, oooooh … the eye. The former eye.

  Big Brown’s backing off … he’s turning … he’s walking away. Mister Bear charges at him, screeching and snapping, and Big Brown scurries into the forest like a frightened Papillon. Ladies and Gentlemen … it’s Mister Bear in the first round!

  Incredible. I’m tingly with extreme-sports-feel. Wow. Did you see my bear kick that other bear’s ass? That other bear that was twice my bear’s size? My bear is awesome. Mister Bear, you’re a madman! You’re a monster! You saved my snacks! You’re my hero! Mister Bear, do you want a beer? Let me buy you a beer. Man, you have got to be the meanest, baddest and most omnivorous bear in all of Alaska! You are king, Ichiban, number one! You wear the belt, you pose with the swimsuit models. Woo-hoo!

  Hey, I said that! Hey, I’m saying this! I can say! Mister Bear you have not only vanquished our common foe, you have also cured my laryngitis. Is there no limit to your awesome power? Are you sure you don’t want a Bud? Here, I’ll open it for you. Interested? No? Okay, I’ll have one. Do you want a Slim Jim? No? Here, this one isn’t spicy, it’s Country Turkey and Cheese. Not interested? Well, is there anything, anything at all I can get you?

  Oh … you want that?

  Yes, of course, I forgot … you’re eating me.<
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  Well all right, go ahead. I already wrote off everything south of the axle. Let’s just — OUCH! Let’s … let’s make a deal: I’m all yours from the knees down, but please, after that, at least try the Slim Jims. After that you’ve got to stop because the rest of me is not sitting under a car, and I suspect the pressure of the axle on my legs is acting like a really expensive luxury tourniquet, I think that’s why I haven’t yet bled to death. But if you eat me on this end I’ll bleed like crazy and not only will that be impossible to get out of my brand new suede hunting attire, but also I’ll die. And I’ll be dead and we won’t have this special relationship of ours any more. You’ll be all alone out here with no one to eat or talk to. And I’ll start to go bad and develop botulism, and then you’ll die from eating me after I’ve been left out too long.

  We’re not so different, you and I. We both dominate. We both kick ass. We both have excellent taste. You are eating me, for instance, and I would eat you, too. I will eat you. Don’t forget, I’m still going to win. But you are a worthy opponent, Mister Bear. I salute you. In a different time and a different place I’m sure we would have been great friends.

  6

  Oh science, oh technology, oh medicine and pharmacology, how much do I love you? Let me count … OxySufnix, Percoset, Anctil, Smarmex: you take the pain away and bring me cool fluffy clouds and ultimate smoothness. Performil, Septihone, Winnerol: you remove my doubts and confusion and give me clarity. Sombutol, Codeine, Abnap: you tuck me in and turn out my lights. Ritalin, Rapidol, Viagra, Crystal Methedrine: you put my pedal to the metal. There’s no feeling I ever wanted to feel that the alchemists of modern pharmacy don’t already have a pill for. Drugs, I’m so glad you’re here with me. I couldn’t do this without you. It was very smart of me to stock up on you in Vancouver, where you are available so cheaply and without a prescription.

  Of course I have a prescription. I’m not some twitchy pill-popper. I have several good doctors telling me to take this stuff. That’s how I know they’re good doctors. Edna dragged me one time to see this bad doctor, a real quack, who tried to prescribe me some analysis, some deep probing of my past, some couch time. I told this doctor, Hey Doctor, do you know who I am? I’m Marv Pushkin, and I’m stunningly important! Do I look like I have time to lie there in the greasy indentation left on your fake leather couch by the fat asses of a hundred depressive clients of yours, telling you private details from my fabulous life? You wish! If you don’t have a pill for whatever you’re diagnosing me with, then maybe you should diagnose me with something else, something more physical and real and less effervescent and psychological and gay. I’m not paying $100 an hour to sit around un-medicated in your office and weep — boo hoo hoo — about my funny urges and my goofy outbursts and my wacky, zany, nutty “problems.” If I’m sick, I have an illness, not a “problem.” Nobody has “problems” any more, they have pills for that now. So give me the pill or tell me who will.

  So the pain pills, obviously, are for my pain. What pain? I haven’t felt real painful pain in years. Pain, to me, is like an unsolicited e-mail from my nervous system, trying to sell me something I’m not even slightly interested in. I might read it if I’m bored, otherwise I trash it with a single click. Right now those e-mails are really stuffing my inbox, but I’m ignoring them.

  I remember the bad old days of pain, pain that hurt. I had these headaches, sure, once upon a time. That was some real pain. Do you imagine being eaten by a bear is painful? Imagine instead if a tiny rodent, a rat with long teeth and sharp scratching claws, woke up in the center of your brain and started burrowing its way out your face. Imagine pain you can hear, crawling around inside your skull with every twitch of your eyebrow, searing the inside of your head like acid. Imagine your head is one big tooth, and it’s got an abscess. Oh yes, it was bad, but now it’s good, oh yes. I can hardly imagine pain now. I’m so over pain, thanks to OxySufnix. OxySufnix, I owe you a beer.

  Then there was that other problem, the one that quack doctor wanted to apply couches to. I wasn’t depressed or anything, I was just great. I had been taking the OxySufnix for six months and life was good, I was high on life, life and OxySufnix. I mean, I’m even better now, but really I was fine then. I felt excellent, so excellent that one day, carried away in general enthusiasm, I playfully emptied my 9mm Glock 19 all over the house and did a lot of damage, shot holes in some fairly valuable possessions, burned some stuff, I just went, I went, I went, well not nuts. Never went nuts. I felt just fine, I enjoyed the heck out of the whole process. I just wanted to blow off some steam, see, and I did exactly that, but in retrospect I admit I blew a little too hard. The glass shower stall, the mirror, I got fairly scratched up. (Thank you OxySufnix for blocking the pain.) I guess when Edna got home I was not looking my best. Fell off my usual tip-top condition, I guess, and I had bled all over the new white Venetian shag carpet among all the other damage, and Edna, dammit, got all hysterical and called an ambulance, and that really pissed me off. I mean, how humiliating is that? For Christ’s sake Edna, just drive me to the hospital and leave the paramedics out of our living room, would you? But no, not Edna, she needs everything dramatic. A frustrated actress, you see. So Edna locked herself in the bathroom and dialed 911, and once you dial 911 they just don’t stop coming: cops, firemen, paramedics, lawyers, gossip columnists, they swarm in like flies and track blood all over the Venetian shag, and if you happen to be holding a pistol for any reason — I was merely trying to get the bathroom door open so I could calmly explain to Edna what an utter cunt she was being and what happens to people like that when they fuck around with Marv Pushkin — then they, the nice home-invaders who are ruining your rug, get extremely tense and rude with you, and then if you try to relax them by putting down the pistol they all of a sudden tackle you and manhandle you and Taser the shit out of you, treating you like a fucking criminal in your own fucking luxury condominium!

  Looking back on it now, I think that was the beginning of the end for me and little Miss 911-Dialing Driveway Snatch. She rode with me and two cops and two paramedics to the hospital, and because she knew she was in trouble, serious trouble, she toned down the hysteria a bit when they took her official statement, leaving out some of the unofficial, off-the-record statements I had made in the heat of the moment which might have been misconstrued. Me, I got a lot of stitches, a lot of bandages, and then for two days I got Observed.

  But of course they had to let me out after 48 hours, because I’m not crazy. And if I was crazy I’d be the kind of devious super-crazy who can still convince shrinks that he’s not crazy. And that’s just what I did. I had the blond doctor with the Nazi spectacles, Dr. Plank, eating out of my hand. Oh Doc, the pressure I’ve been under at the office! (Hah.) Oh, society’s rigid expectations! (Guffaw.) I’ve realized I need to sit down and re-evaluate my life. (Hardy har har.) And when Edna came to visit, I laid it on so thick I almost choked to death on my own acting. Edna … baby … please don’t leave me … I need you so bad … what a monster I’ve been … please help me to get better … I love you. I love you! (Chortle!)

  But meanwhile … the awkward truth is I don’t know why I did it any more than anybody else does. I did it for kicks, the fun factor, the pure fucking blast of shooting stuff up indoors, watching it explode when you point at it, being the sweet angel of annihilation, dealing judgment to appliances and furniture. Sure, I enjoyed the heck out of myself, but afterwards I kind of wished I hadn’t shot my brand-new flat screen LCD cinema display TV, because I had been enjoying watching porno on it. And why did I shoot up my ivory and teak minibar? All that perfectly good scotch, and all those national league football mascot shot glasses I collected in college, all destroyed. And above all, why did I shoot up my Camero? I loved that car, and when the guys at the shop said it was totaled, from nothing but ten or twenty bullets out of a little nine millimeter Glock and a few swings with a putting iron, when they told me that buying a new Camero would be way cheaper than fixing mine, that was when
I realized I, Marv Pushkin, had made a Mistake. And I didn’t know why. So I went back to the blond doctor with the Nazi glasses, and told him I wanted some pills to help me never do anything like that again.

  And man, that doctor changed my life. I know it sounds corny, but with Performil and Septihone, I simply feel great all the time. It’s that good. I always know what to do, and I always do it. I have no more fear, no more uncertainty. I am brave and wise and quick and clever. Nothing bothers me. No storm can ripple the mirror-like surface of the pond of my mood. If there’s one thing in life I can’t live without, it’s the two-pill combination of Performil and Septihone. The Winnerol is really more recreational, I get those from one of the custodians in our building, really a very nice wetback, he’s got a little side-job dealing various pills. Sometimes I take a Winnerol when I have to meet with particularly lame clients, ‘cause it significantly decreases my boredom with their shitty products, their retarded ideas and their agonizing PowerPoint. And Ritalin is great for deadlines. But Peformil, Septihone and OxySufnix, that’s my trifecta of feelgood.

  I hope I took enough. Truth be told, I’m not totally certain what I’m taking right now because my vision has gone a little bit blurry. Which is normal, of course, with this much OxySufnix. And it’s dark again, and I spilled my stupid pillbox. It just slipped out of my fingers while I was opening it, and now all these pills are lying in the mud beside me and honestly they all look about the same when you can’t see anything. Except thankfully the OxySufnix comes in a square tinfoil blister pack, even J. J. Armes could find those, even if he was blind. So, block that pain … and I’ll just take two or three of these other ones and hope for the best. If I feel bad, I’ll take some more.