The Bear Comes Home

by Rafi Zabor

  "Look at this face," said the Bear, indicating his own. "Is this an expression of positivity and good will or what? You want to leave now or come into the club and hear us finish up our fifteen-CD set?"

  "I'd like to hear you play and then if everything can be arranged we can spend the night together and start out tomorrow morning," Iris said.

  "It's beyond perfect," the Bear told her. "I'm so glad to see you. Come on inside and I'll play a beautiful set for you, special."

  Later, she would remember very little of the Blue Note: a large place with high walls of midnight blue, and the guys in the band coming up to her all smiles. "Hi," she said, and involuntarily laughed. Months back, at the rehearsals in Shady, all their affection had been for each other, with some left over for the Bear and no essential mind paid to her at all—she might have been a piece of talking furniture. Now she felt an unmistakable warmth of affection swarming down on her from these three young men as they surrounded her at the table. Was this because of the time and the miles and the music, so that she was a sideline beneficiary of their affection for him—or was her link with the Bear such an amusing sexual idea? Finally their obvious sincerity relieved her of this distress. "... delayed two hours at Kennedy," she said, "but a very nice flight after that, thank you."

  "Rondo hold up a 7-Eleven on the way back from the airport?" Linton asked her.

  "Who?" But Iris didn't find out who Rondo was. The Bear stretched out his arms and hugged his band all in one. Bostic affected to collapse beneath the weight of the embrace.

  "Ain't they terrific?" the Bear asked her from between Garrett's head and Linton Bostic's.

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  There was a momentary blur, and then the Bear noticed four Tibetan monks in orange robes seated at a table behind him. "I'm sorr}^ were we crowding you?" the Bear asked them. "No?" and then the Bear looking down at them while they grinned up at him.

  "Whea you 2ihfi'om" a roundheaded monk with short black hair, golden skin, and a wonderfully open smile asked the Bear finally.

  "New York Cit^, trailing clouds of gloryV the Bear told him. "You?"

  "Tibet," the monk answered.

  "Oh yeah? Wliat part?"

  Iris was surprised to see the tableful of monks get the joke right away and break up laughing. They must have been around awhile.

  Speaking of which, it seemed to her that just before the Bear departed for the stage—he had his arm around her and was being obnoxiously expansive— the monks registered her conjunction with the Bear and exchanged rapid parenthetical words in Tibetan between themselves on the subject: offensive, and once the Bear left they smiled and nodded hello and best regards at her too much.

  At the time, Iris was intent on getting ahold of Jones, who seemed to be fussing at details between the hp of the stage and a booth along the right-hand wall at the rear of the club, to which a skein of shielded black cables led.

  WTien the band began their set with a shuffle blues that sounded half-familiar. Iris was able to wave Jones over. "I hope you're coming down to Santa Fe with us," she said, pulling him nearer by his wrist so that he would not run off.

  "Of course," he said.

  "Good," she nodded. "It's such a comfort to me."

  Jones put a theatrically sincere look on his face and bent to hug her awkwardly around the shoulders. "You're getting your daughters back," he said.

  "I hope I am."

  "Hey, the Bear's great in a rescue. Don't worry. We'll do it. It'll be a blast." '

  "This isn't going to be a picnic," she said. "It might not work out. You don't know Herb."

  "Don't worry, kid. We got him covered."

  They just didn't get it, did they?

  Later, after a three-set night that had been well received by the audience, the moon was heading down and the mountains were a jagged line of script rising against the stars as Rondo drove Iris and the Bear north out of Boulder on two-lane blacktop to the campground. Garrett and that pretty redheaded

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  barmaid followed them in an old Volvo. Iris only half listened to the Bear telling her that Rondo would take them to Santa Fe and back for two hundred dollars. And should he take the extra week at the club or not?

  "WTiy not decide when we get back?" she advised.

  Perhaps five miles north out of town they turned left on a dirt road that led them into the lap of the mountains, the bus jouncing over the irregularities of the way. Iris went forward to look through the windshield: peaks swam up the sky swallowing ranked stars and the declining quarter moon as the bus drew into their shade. Iris shuddered. No. It will work, she thought. It has to.

  "Almost there," Rondo said.

  She felt the Bear's paw Hghtly on her shoulder and she moved from under it. "It's beautiful here," Iris said.

  "This is where I've been staying since we got to Boulder," the Bear told her. "The best layup I've had the whole tour. Usually I sleep outside. There's the gate."

  Iris saw something indistinct to left and right as the bus passed through.

  "It's a campsite supposed to be closed right now while they do some kind of work on it, but Rondo here picked a lock or two and found the right people to pay off—"

  "Heh heh heh," said Rondo thickly, and Iris heard gravel under the tires as the bus swung left and eased ever so gracefully—he really did have a touch at the pedals. Iris thought—to a stop, and Iris saw the Volvo pull up alongside the bus on the right.

  "Home sweet home," said the Bear.

  Rondo explained that he was leaving them the keys in case they wanted heat or cold or whatever the fiick, excuse me ma'am, and he'd see them, was eleven in the morning too early? cause let's figure six hours down to Santa Fe and what time did they want to get there? Okay, see you at ten. You know what time it is now? Okay, bye.

  The Volvo tooted twice in farewell, arm of Rondo waving from a rear window as the taillights swung away.

  Iris and the Bear stood outside the bus, letting the silence resume. Something yipped way off, and when Iris heard leaves rustling she looked left and was just able to discern a spaced planting of young aspens, silver leaves aflutter in starUght and the aura of a last-quarter moon down behind the jag of mountains.

  "What do you think?" asked the Bear.

  "It's a lovely spot. This is a campsite. We're in a parking lot. Why isn't anyone else here?"

  "Rondo didn't say. Are you complaining?"

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  i.

  They made love in a bunk in the back of the bus so quickly and in such a fever the intensity^ startled them all the way through. Afterwards the Bear started laughing.

  "Miat?" Iris asked.

  "It was hke being electrocuted, only in the nicest possible way," he said, and she laughed \ith him. After awhile they went outside again, Iris lightly wrapped in a topsheet.

  "Look}' thar," said the Bear, and they stood awhile watching frequent streaks of starfall race down the outspread wings of night: it was the meteor-shower time of year, and this was an ideal sky to see it in: a fine dust of hght, seminal wash of materia prima behind billions of bright particularities. Down here among the aspens, other constellations flickered, reconfigured, reappeared: fireflies out courting. "There goes another one," said the Bear, pointing up at a meteor streak quickly followed by another a few degrees down the sk'.

  "I stood outside the house and watched them in Shady before I flew out," Iris said. "But what a sk' you have here. Bear. Clearer. So many stars."

  "You think it's mine?"

  "Have I been mistaken in you? Don't you own all this?"

  "Huh? Miat? Excu—" said the Bear, then by unaided starfight saw Iris' smile. "Wliy d'you always tease me?"

  "Because you're easy," Iris said.

  They went back inside the bus because in fact it was getting a Httle cool, wasn't it, and when they made love a second time it was with a gentleness and a deic2Lcy of consideration neither of them could remember haing felt before. Almost f
ike a farewell. The Bear switched off the Httle light.

  "I never knew it could be Hke that," Iris' voice said in the dark, then she laughed. "I don't beHeve I said that."

  The Bear laughed with her but added, "I didn't either."

  They were quiet awhile, each remembering favorite details. "I've never understood," the Bear finally told her, "why anyone would experience tristesse after."

  "We don't. I don't. Do you?"

  "WTiy would I? Listen, tell me about what's happening with your daughters. Do you want them back on general principles or is something bad happening down there?"

  "Both. They don't say much, but I was always afraid that Herb would crack up, even in his strong days, and now I hear it in my daughters' voices and I'm sure I hear it in his. I'm afraid for my daughters. Bear."

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  "Don't worry, kid. We're gonna rescue your kids from the Ogre."

  "This is not a fairy tale."

  "Oh yeah? Look at the company you keep."

  Iris' was voice serious, level: "I know I'm taking them back. I've seen it."

  "Are we talking precognitive flash here?" the Bear wanted to know.

  "T wouldn't have the strength to do it if it weren't for you. I don't mean your coming with me now, although that's important, believe me. I mean that without vour influence . . . Without the strength you've given me I wouldn't have dared to tr^ I want you to know that, whatever happens."

  "What could happen? We'll get your kids back and we'll live happy ever after. You're doing a good thing. But would you mind if I ask a simple question? Why didn't you tell me? Why nothing for months at home and then all this fine fine fine on the phone? Why such total secrecy?"

  "I wasn't sure I'd have the strength until the plane actually lifted off for Denver. And I didn't want to get into a, what should I call it, thing with you about it in advance."

  "Miat thing? I'm with you all the way on this."

  "I didn't want you pushing me into it either, if I wasn't sure it was right. I had to be sure, myself. Do you remember telUng me that you'd give me your self if you could? I think that's what you've done, and I'm grateful."

  "I don't think that's possible," he told her. "It's all you and it's great."

  "You're so undiscriminating. And you can't take a compliment."

  "That's true. Can I turn on the light?"

  "Do we have enough blankets to keep us warm if we sleep outside?" Iris asked him. "If we stay here the bed's too narrow and we'll have to hold hands across the aisle. I would rather sleep in your arms."

  "We can take two of these mats outside and some blankets, besides which we have our love to keep us warm. Not to mention the usual bearskin rug."

  "This is still so strange," she said. "Let's go."

  In the early morning the Bear watched her walk pink and naked—such a nice little tush—on the grass, then among the aspens. Neither of them had managed much sleep that night. They'd done a lot of stargazing and listening to the wind. Before first light they dozed off, but the Bear, moved by his usual worries of being discovered in inappropriate relation to the known world, woke with a start not long after, and this pulled her awake before he had a chance to watch the sweetness of her sleep.

  They'd washed up a bit in the bus's small facility, and he had given her a clean toothbrush from his bundle since she had forgotten to pack one. Now she was walking tiptoe through the morning dew as the Bear watched her

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  from the stepwell. The sight of her hke this—a sprite whose walk was so Hke a dance there was no difference—conformed to some essential notion he had always had of her: he almost expected to see her bend to sip a breakfast of dew from a grassblade or a leaf extended her by some solicitous aspen. Her refinement was so extreme that despite all the dinnertable evidence day to day he half-thought she really did sustain herself on something as barely material as stray condensation or the rain. Ridiculous thought. The Bear watched her walk lightly on the tidy grass between the aspens, behind her the mountains soaring up in dark green drama to greystone crags, and the Bear knew that this image of her, at this moment, was inscribing itself on his memory and would remain as long as he did. Look at the grace of her step. Wings might sprout from her back at any moment.

  But she was strong enough to come out here and get her daughters. He was proud of her.

  The Bear heard an approaching engine and looked back along the dirt approach road east. "Come back to the raff—" he called before remembering that he'd heard the phrase somewhere lately—where? "Iris!" he called. "Visitors! Guests!"

  The Bear squinted up the road. Two cars coming, a minivan he hadn't seen before . . . and last night's Volvo. Had the whole band come out to see them off?

  Iris dressed in the bus and watched the group of them in the parking area through the tinted windows as she smoothed her white blouse and checked the zipper on her jeans: the band, the Bear, Jones, two sleepy waitresses beside the idling cars, and Rondo peering over toward the bus. Iris didn't think anyone had seen her naked.

  The Bear and his band were exchanging a series of embraces so hearty and intense that the implied degree of male bonding almost frightened her: she had to remember that the fear issued from her thoughts of Herb and what might happen when she confronted him. The Bear and the band were innocent.

  She shpped her shoes on, checked herself a last time in the narrow insufficient mirror, and when she came carefully down the stepwell she was surprised to see that it was Linton Bostic who trotted over and turned up toward her—she was still on the last black rubber step, hadn't quite come down to earth yet—his handsome young face and brilliant smile. "We all want to wish you luck on this one," he said. "Me, I'd hke to come along and help you out, but everyone tells me no, the Bear and Jones and Rondo got it covered. How you doing?"

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  "I'm touched," was all Iris could find to say.

  Linton extended his long, loose-jointed right arm and steadied her way to the ground. By then everyone was surrounding her with good wishes, and Iris didn't clear her head of the general clamor of farewell until the bus had regained the blacktop south and Jones was rustling two large white paper bags open. Iris smelled something good.

  "We decided to come out early" Jones was saying. "xMaybe we shoulda called—why didn't we call? I forget—but Rondo did a time-and-motion study and threw the Ching, and maybe you should make a pot of coffee. I know I'd hke some, and look what I brought."

  Jones had brought, complexly wrapped in paper, bagels loaded with cream cheese and onions and tomatoes and especially lox from the New York Deli back in downtowTi Boulder, one each for himself and her and four for the Bear plus a couple extra with cream cheese only just in case. She and the Bear competed awkwardly at the coffee machine and dropped the brewing papers twice, but they got it settled and the bus was steady south.

  "Fantastic breakfast," said the Bear, before popping another bagel in.

  "We got a long day ahead of us," Rondo said from the wheel. "Can we hear some music?"

  The Bear was wise enough to give the man a dose of country.

  X'Vlien it came to country music. Iris divided it simply: there was Willie Nelson and there was ever}^one else. This wasn't Willie Nelson but she could live with it. The coffee was good and she poured herself another cup, and it was almost home Hfe with the Bear again: she watched the Bear ingest half a bagel in one mouthful and remembered that this was his personal favor to her, his version of being dainty: usually he liked to eat them whole. The cream cheese frothing out the sides of his jaws made him look rabid any\ay.

  "There it is," said Rondo, pointing left when they were ten minutes south of Boulder, and they bent to look at an expanse of low dun buildings about a quarter mile distant on the plain behind a series of protective fences. "Rocky Flats."

  "Where they made plutonium triggers for H-bombs," Jones explained. "Now they're cleaning the place up. As if, heh heh heh, they could."

/>   "Yeah, that's the place," Rondo brayed from his seat, and turned toward them while still driving. "Radioactivity all over the place out here. That's why that campground you stayed in was all closed up. All this country's lousy with waste." Rondo laughed while hauling the bus back into lane. "Lousy with the shit all over."

  The Bear and Iris stared at each other for a long moment, then decided that one night's dalliance there in her case and a week in his could not possi-

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  bly have been sufficient to . . . especially since neither of them had sipped the local water—a lucky thing, since if not for everyone's early arrival a mutual, possibly impassioned dip in the stream at the edge of the parkland would have constituted an irresistible temptation.

  "Bear?" Iris asked him, staring at his far. "You haven't been bathing in that stream, have you?"

  The Bear shook his head no. "Someone must be looking out for me," he said.

  They hugged the line of mountains as it veered off south and west, although here and there the prospect seemed to crumble into less dramatic statement, and once or twice the road was drawn away from them by some lesser territorial imperative.

  Iris declined most conversation and watched the landscape pass. The more that did pass, the less she watched it, her mind trying to get a fix on what lay ahead. Suppose it proves impossible to get Aim and Trace out of there without Herb calling the police? There she'd be in a bus with a talking bear and two young girls over whom she had no legal right of custody. On the other hand, who but the Bear could help her? She had gone about this in what had seemed the only way available. Suppose it was precisely the wrong way—what then? Perhaps the Bear had not helped her to be brave but only foolish. It can't be. It can't be that way. She had to get her daughters out of there. The rest was irrelevant. She didn't want revenge on Herb, did she? But what if she had gotten it wrong?

  In her conscious mind Iris did not believe in paybacks, still less in revenge. She believed in moments, their authenticity or more often their lack of it. But what kind of moment was this? Iris didn't, in her conscious mind, believe in wellmade lifelong dramas with a coherent skein of consequences and redemptions, but deeper down she felt intensely, and wanted to feel convinced, that if she could safely retrieve her daughters from what she knew was a dangerous situation with Herb, it might just save Tracy and Amy from a chaos they had done nothing to deserve, and begin to redeem the defining failure of her life.