Help! A Bear Is Eating Me! (13 page)

Mister Bear, quit crying. This is nothing to be sad about. Change is good. There’s a bright, exciting future waiting if you can just get with the program and find a seat on Capitalism’s magic bus. Sure, maybe there won’t always be a forest here, but on the other hand if you have any more cubs they’ll have great new options. They’ll be able to travel. If they can learn certain skills they could be pack animals, or golf caddies, or they could guard the estates of the wealthy, or perform in movies, or there’s the circus or they could be pets, maybe, if they could be declawed and detoothed and maybe drugged or something. Or listen, even better: I bet the U.S. Army could really use some mean, tough, strong, do-or-die kind of vicious killer bears like you and your family. Bear Squadron! You could go to Iran and fight terrorism!

Terrorism? You know, the guys who hate our freedom?

Wow, you really
don’t
get any news up here, do you? Okay, terrorism is … well, it’s hard to explain, but you’ll know it when you see it — when they invade your homeland and threaten your way of life!

No, no, no. Not me, not us, totally different people. With turbans, and really long fuzzy beards. If you see anybody sneaking up here with turbans and beards, you be sure and eat them right up, okay? Trust me, they’re delicious.

Shit. Mister Bear, I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. If you could get to know me you’d see I’m really not a bad guy. I’m sorry about your son, not that it makes a difference. But I have to ask you a favor, Mister Bear, because I am going absolutely nuts. From this pain. I move my eyeball, my thighs throb. Just talking hurts, just thinking hurts, just living. Everything hurts and all I want is for it to stop. I’ve got a low, low threshold of pain. If you were torturing me for information I would have long ago told you everything you wanted to know and everything you never cared about and I’d be making up new exciting facts just to please you. My brain’s boiling, my hair’s screaming, I’m so thirsty and hungry and cold, and I can’t make my hands move, and I just want to die now. All I want is to die and I can’t even do that by myself. That’s the favor. Can you help a brother out?

Look: it’s okay if I die. Because I’m going to live forever. Somebody’s going to find me eventually, find this wreck, and they’re going to piece it all together, everything that happened to me. My story will live on. Marv Pushkin the man may die, but Marv Pushkin the story, Marv Pushkin the book, the docudrama, the action figure … the world will know. And the world will care, and the world will spend money on that care. They will love me when I’m gone, they’ll put fucking statues of me in major metropolitans areas. Marv, Last of the Puskins. Master of Men. Battler of Bears. The Fallen One. The Hero! If they really care, then they’ll clone me, yeah, I may die but they’ll clone me later. Death is temporary when you’re rich, and I’m going to be the richest dead man who ever lived, because I’ve got the greatest story ever sold! So it’s okay. Everything is going to be fine. I just need something for the pain.

Mister Bear, whatever else you may think about Homo Sapiens, know this: when a person sets out to kill a bear they try to do it quickly. We call that Being Humane. Do you grasp the concept? Are you humane, Mister Bear? Can you help out a guy who’s farther down on his luck than perhaps any Homo Sapiens has ever been? Please?

If I lean my head out this way, can you reach my neck?

Oh c’mon, please?

What’s the matter? Do you hate the sight of blood? Too squeamish to kill a little pink human in cold blood? Are you paralyzed by bear ethics? Come on, kill me! You know I’d do the same for you!

Why … what do you smell?

A sudden loud explosion — fur and bone and brains flung across the clearing — the crackle of a rifle blast echoing off the trees. One side of Mister Bear’s face hangs open in dripping, bloody tatters. Hunkered low to the ground, panting and spraying blood. He looks at me through bloody eyes: angry, confused, sad, afraid.

But not dead.

He climbs back on his feet — with an ancient roar of pain, he bounds toward some hidden enemy —

Another explosion! … he drops again to the ground, shot through the heart.

Growling, crying, choking, he rises again to his feet and faces his executioner. Stands motionless, about to topple, blood streaming from him in puddles on the ground —

Like a buck he springs! Sails through the air in a furious lunge! He screeches —

They shoot him one more time.

He drops. And dies.

Who
shoots him? Hello? Who’s there? Who shot my bear? Rangers? Hunters?

Grizzlies.

Oh dear. Here they come, a sleuth of them, ambling on all fours, done up in orange vests and porkpie hats. This is weird, this is bad, this is new dimensions in bad weirdness. One grizzly approaches the corpse of Mister Bear and prods it carefully with the shotgun tip. Bears with shotguns. This is very bad, this is a real problem now. Oh hell, they’re all over. They’ve got me.

“Mister Pushkin! Marvin Pushkin! Can you hear my words?”

I’m dead. Go away. I’m not a threat. Look at me, I’m so dead. You never saw such a dead, dead person. I’ve been dead for ages.

“All right, stretcher over here. He’s still breathing. Call in the helivac!”

I’m
not
breathing god dammit, I did not breathe you cheating bear, get your filthy trout-laced paws away! Oh shit, it’s bears bears bears. Now they’re OW OW OW don’t move the Rover! No! Get away! I know Bear Survival Tip Number Three! I’ve got a Super Tool! Paws off !

“Woah! Mister Pushkin, take it easy! We need to … Sam, we got a non-cooperator here.”

Fucking bears! I hate you! I have had it up to here with being pissed on and parked on and snacked on and poked and prodded by bears. You’ve had all of me you’re going to get. You, with the gloves, you want my knife? Here! Ha! The claw’s on the other foot now sucker! You think you’re
so
smart because you can balance on your hind legs —

“Yowch! Sam, he cut me! Gimme two tourniquets, stat! And, and six inches of gauze. Shit.”

— dress up like Smokey Bear and shoot guns? Dance on a ball and juggle salmon? You’re not fooling anyone. You think you’re going to take over just like that? Drive our cars —

“Sedative! 300 ccs of Klonopin, in the orange box with my kit over there … ”

— wear our clothes, imitate our voices like big furry parrots. But that’s not what makes a Homo Sapiens, not even close. Get away!

“Hey Mister Pushkin, it’s O.K, calm down, we’re getting you out of here, just … Sam! Hurry up with that shot!”

I’ll fucking cut you! I will, I’ve got claws, sharp sharp sharp! Human beings will always beat you because we’ve got civilization on our side. Cut one of us down and a hundred more will spring up in his place. We’re organized, we stick together. We’ve got the shoulders of giants. You’ve got berries and nuts. You’re nothing! God made you to be shot! By us! Get off, off, no! OWW! Fucker! I’ll bite you for that! Let go! Let go of me! Insolent Yogi bath mats! No!

“Here, pry his fingers. Mister Pushkin, you could
still die
if you don’t quit — ”

What’s that? Oh Christ no, don’t tell me the bears have a helicopter. It can’t be! They’ve got guns, trucks, radios, clothes, helicopters too … how long have they been planning this? Is this war now? The terrorist bear invasion finally happening? No, it’s impossible: bears are stupid. YOU ARE STUPID. Jesus, look out, it’s a chopper full of bears! They’ll crash, they’ll explode, they think the joystick is a Slim Jim! I’m not going up there, it’s pure death, no!

“Cinch him up, he’s jerking around still. Tell Evergreen to break out some plasma and keep him strapped. Ugch, that ain’t pretty … ”

No! No! Let me go! I want my car! I’m dizzy, I’m sick, I’m thirsty, I’m dead, I have botulism! Don’t eat me! Oh the sky is too bright and the wind is too loud and the rope is too long, but here comes the chopper, chop chop chopping up Marv Pushkin, to sell my meat on the bear market. Hah! Badda bing! Oh, I crack myself up, I crack up, I’m cracking, I’m going through the windshield with my positive mental airbag, I’m positively fucked, oh please, just cut the rope, cut it, I can’t, I’m at the end of it, my rope, ha ha! I’m so funny I’m so finished I’m so fucked, don’t you know? Don’t you get it? That’s the difference, mother-bearfuckers, that’s why you’ll always lose because a bear couldn’t tell a joke to save my life.

13

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward and back.

Forward, back.

Forward, freeze.

Back.

The bear problem … it’s out of hand. Way out of hand. They’re in the cities, they walk the streets, they drive the cars, they talk on the cell phones. They act like people, and it’s funny but I think they think they
are
people. And they think they can fool Marv Pushkin. That’s how dumb they are. They think they can skin a human being and wear him like a leisure suit over their flea-bitten bear bodies and I won’t notice the difference. But the smell betrays them. I can smell them a mile away.

Forward and back.

This whole zoo reeks of bears. Polar bears push clipboards and carts around the halls all day. Koalas change the sheets. Pandas peer in at me through that mirror on the wall. Oh yeah, nice mirror! You think I’ve never heard of two-way glass? Bears are so naive.

Forward … back.

But positivity wins the day. Check out my new ride! The luxury automated 2007 TDX-5 Freedom Throne, by Zipper, with executive option package and motorized tilt. They really call it that, a Freedom Throne. Bear humor. The big, particularly ugly and stupid panda who calls himself my Case Coordinator tried to snowjob me that the Freedom Throne was a gift from Image Team. Like there’s still an Image Team, like there’s still Ups and Veeps in the Merch building. That’d be nice. No, it’s all ursine squalor now: frolicking in the board room, shitting on the floor of the executive lav, chewing on the Aeron chairs, urinating on the PowerPoint projector.

Forward. Back.

Why haven’t they eaten me, you ask? Excellent question. Obviously I’m tasty and well-seasoned. Clearly I possess the tangy flavor bears crave. But I think they want something else from me. Information. They lock me up, they ask me questions, they put tranquilizers in my food, and now they give me this Freedom Throne. It’s part of some elaborate Good Bear/Bad Bear program they want to run on me.

But we’re keeping it positive, right? Chin up! So — check out the option package! Servo-adjustable lumbar support, very nice. Walnut armrests — classy! Integrated Fecal Management downstairs — surprisingly useful. Three wheel independent drive train really grips the linoleum. Watch this:

Forward … back!

Man, I can do that all day. It’s relaxing, it helps me think. In my previous crappy chair my wrists and shoulders would get sore from the leather straps, and I got thumb-blisters. But this chair’s got neoprene-coated teflon comfort-restraints — I hardly feel them! And with just a flick of this little force-feedback joystick, I can go anywhere in this eight by ten room.

Forward. Back. So easy.

Well, no, it’s no Range Rover … thanks, I
know
it’s no Range Rover. Range Rover doesn’t even
offer
Integrated Fecal … oh just shut up. You don’t exist, at
all
. That’s what I hate about you. You think I
wouldn’t
rather have my Rover back? Plus my feet, my legs, my knees, my Aeron chair, my wide-screen condominium, my luxury department? Fuck you! I’m a prisoner here! I’m just trying to, you know, look on the bright side a little? Maintain a positive mental attitude? A Can-Do attitude? Have you heard of Can-Do? Is fucking-off a thing you Can-Do? Why don’t you give it a try? Oh, sorry, I forgot, you can’t even fuck off because YOU DON’T EXIST. Boo hoo for you hoo. That’s actually fortunate for you, because if you did exist I’d drive right over your asshole foot. I’m not taking any shit from any voices in my head today. I, Marv Pushkin,
do
exist, and soon
I will
fuck off
.
Far, far off from this place I will fuck. I will escape.

My plan? Nothing, no, not yet, no plan as such. I’m still, you know, feeling out the situation. Exploring the options. I’m keeping them interested; I cooperate but I don’t talk. Every day bears come and try to convince me they’re not bears. (Not going to happen.) They pretend to be my friends, and insist they want to help me. (Help me down their throats, maybe.) And they keep asking me if I want to go home.

But that’s not where I want to go. The bear who ate Edna is waiting for me there.

I’ve had several visits recently from the bear who ate Edna, who now wishes to be called Edna and wears Edna’s skin like an ill-fitting maternity garment. I am trying to be cordial with this bear, for two reasons. First of all, this bear ate Edna. I appreciate that. It’s the only thing that went right on my whole vacation. For that I am grateful. Secondly, this bear seems to call the shots here at the zoo, at least regarding me. For instance: my Case Coordination Panda asked what I wanted to eat on Thanksgiving and I told him: nuts and berries. He really didn’t like that. He refused to bring nuts and berries. I’m sure he wanted them all for himself. But when I brought this issue up with The Bear Formerly Know As Edna, she raised a good bear ruckus, growled and snorted at Doc Panda and the nearby polar bears, probably bit somebody, and now, whaddya know! I get nuts and berries every Sunday. Clearly, keeping Edna the Bear fooled is key to my escape plan.