There Will Be Bears (3 page)

Driving down the street, Gramps says, “Okay, just this one time.”

He flicks his turn signal and takes a right onto Shady Lane, toward the hills, the warehouses, the highway, and the old water tower.

Gramps pulls in front of the only gas station on Shady Lane. It has bars on the windows and cameras perched on the roof. We walk in, a bell chimes, and I casually check myself out in the security monitor.

I head for the fridges lining the back wall. I scan through the selections until I find the red can with the insane cartoon bird. RoadRunner Energy Drink. It’s got ginseng, taurine, caffeine, and my mouth is watering just thinking about that sour tingle on the insides of my cheeks.

I don’t want to think about Brighton. I mean, I knew him long before Mika and his football friends. I met him in first grade when Ms. Virost sat him next to me, and oh, my God, he had the most ridiculous booger in his nose.

Heh. I remember him picking his nose, then he showed me the booger on his fingertip.

“You want to eat it?” he said. “It’s got vitamin B.”

“Gross.” I got out of my seat.

“The B stands for
booger
!”

He started chasing me around the desks like we were in an intense game of duck, duck, goose. I wailed like a girl as he wrestled me to the ground.

“Eat my booger!” he said, and back then he had a full-on British accent.

“Never!” I cried like a determined soldier in an already lost battle. I was using all my strength to fight off this disgusting kid beneath the chalkboard, but he was one of the stronger first-graders that played T-ball.

Soon we were inseparable. We’d ride our bikes to the water tower every day after school. We’d climb to the top and eat snow, or talk about stupid stuff, or see how far we could throw rocks. I pretended I was a grizzly named Pizza Bear defending America from the invading Gorlaks. Bright was my trusty sidekick, Booger Bear 5000.

No one else would talk to him because he was the new kid with a funny accent. He worked so hard to sound American so everyone would stop calling him a wiener. But I didn’t care. He seemed cool enough.

I hand the cashier my drink and a bag of Skittles. Gramps puts a bag of peanuts and a huge beer on the counter, which is odd because I haven’t seen him drink in years. The cashier puts his stuff in one bag and mine in another. His eyebrows are narrowed, as if Gramps is a creeper giving candy to some random kid.

“Have a good night,” the cashier says.

When we’re out the door, I say, “What was that guy’s deal?”

“Don’t mind him.”

As we’re driving away, the guy gets on his cell phone. Oh, my God, is he for real? He’s actually calling the police.

I pop the top to my drink. It’s tart and eye-opening and strawberry flavored. I say, “Some of the kids at school think it’s weird that we hang out.”

“Do
you
?”

“Nah, I love it when you take me to the Tavern. You got skills when it comes to the ladies.”

We drive beneath the highway overpass, and on the other side, the water tower appears at the top of a hill. It’s different coming here without Bright. It’s abandoned and dark, and the metal looks cold.

I say, “Maybe you could teach me some of your pickup lines.”

“You got a girlfriend?”

“No. But there’s this girl named Karen in my choir class. She just moved here from Texas.”

“A Texas girl, eh?” Gramps parks his truck past the broken gate and the barely readable No Trespassing sign, in a bunch of weeds growing from the abandoned parking lot. There’s a little bit of wind, and the air is heavy, as if it wants to snow. “I met myself a girl from Abilene once, before your grandmother. Dorothy McCoy. Must have been fifty-nine years ago.”

“What should I say to her?”

“You just need to be yourself.”

That’s horrible advice. Be myself? If any girl saw the things I do when I’m alone — when I’m
really
myself — she would never date me. I get excited when I scrape my elbow, because that means in a week I’ll have a scab to pick. And if I had the money, I’d get a one-hundred-gallon aquarium and just go to town. Newts, live plants, discus and angelfish, and maybe a small school of neon tetras and a sucker fish to keep everything clean.

I walk to the ladder and grab the bottom rung, but then I let go. For a second I imagine climbing to the top the way me and Bright used to. But that part of my life when we protected the world from the Gorlaks is over. Bright’s voice is deeper now, he’s got peach fuzz above his lip, and he makes out with Mika outside of Ms. Hoole’s class all the time. He’ll never throw rocks with me again.

Gramps sits with his back to the rusted metal, his beer in a brown paper bag by his side. His skin and clothes are yellow from the lights. And he looks sad, the way he shells his peanuts and stares at the ground.

“Everything okay?” I say.

“Oh, I’m fine. Just don’t tell your father I was drinking and eating peanuts tonight.”

I sit by his side in a patch of dead grass. “Why can’t I tell him that?”

“I’m supposed to be watching my sodium.” He twists open his beer and gulps it down as if he’s dying of thirst. He wipes the foam dribbling down his chin. It’s just . . . this isn’t right, the fact that he’s drinking in front of me.

“Is something on your mind?”

He belches. “Nothing you ought to worry yourself about.” But with his grim, rumbling tone, I can’t help but worry. He takes another swig and says, “Your grandmother was very proud of you, you know.”

He’s trying to change the subject.

“Proud of me? I was nine when she died. Why? Was it because I made some fierce macaroni art?”

I laugh. Gramps does not.

He says, “She was so proud of you because you didn’t care.”

“Huh?”

“You were friends with all the other kids in your preschool. You didn’t care who they were; you just wanted to play KerPlunk.”

“So what was it like when you were a kid? Was everything in black and white and did kids wear suits and ties to school? Were you not allowed to play KerPlunk?”

I finally get a laugh out of him, but it isn’t very rewarding when it’s followed by an outburst of tears. There isn’t anything more horrifying than an old man crying. It’s just something Gramps doesn’t do. He didn’t even cry at Grandma’s funeral. He simply put a rose on her coffin before they lowered it, then walked away with a poker face.

Something must be really wrong.

He looks at me with his eyes all red and says, “I’m glad we’re going to have one more trip together, just you and I.”

The wind dies. A few flakes of snow drift down like ash. What does he mean? Is he dying?

Even though I’m right by his side, he’s never looked more alone.

Headlights appear at the end of the road beneath the highway overpass. I picture the Grim Reaper in the driver’s seat, his sickle sticking out the window, coming to take Gramps away.

He jumps to his feet and hides his bottle and paper bag in the dead weeds.

We get in the truck and he pulls past the gate in reverse. That’s when I see the car blocking our way. It’s a Ford Crown Victoria. It’s white. It has a spotlight next to the rearview mirror and lights on the roof.

Gramps lowers his window. A cop shines her flashlight into the truck.

“Evening, officer,” Gramps says.

She says, “A little late to be out in this part of town, don’t you think?”

“I was taking him to his friend’s house, but we got lost.” Gramps points his thumb at me, and I offer a wave. His voice is a pitch higher than usual and it sounds fake, like he’s trying to pretend he’s not nervous.

“We got a phone call this evening; guy at the gas station said he wanted me to check you out. He said you were hanging out with a young boy and purchasing alcohol.”

“Yes, officer. This is Tyson. My grandson. The beer — obviously — was for me.”

“Have you been drinking tonight?”

“No.” He pauses like he’s choking. “Well, only the one.”

“Have you been drinking
and
driving?”

“No!” he squeals. I’ve never heard Gramps sound so . . . pathetic.

“Would you mind stepping out of the truck?”

“Absolutely, officer.”

I remain still, drinking my RoadRunner and trying my hardest to act like everything is perfectly cool and normal as he goes through a sobriety test. But this is so messed up.

Another cop car appears behind the first. A minute passes and Gramps has his finger touching the tip of his nose when someone taps on my window. I lower it.

“How’s it going, son?” This cop rests his arms on the windowsill and looks around inside.

With a mouthful of Skittles, I say, “Good.”

“Mind if I see your beverage?”

I hand it over and he smells it. “You’re going to be up all night drinking this stuff.”

“I got a test tomorrow.”

Gramps returns. He struggles to put on his seat belt, his breathing uncomfortably heavy.

“Did you get a ticket?” I ask.

He makes a wheezing cough from deep in his lungs. “I blew under the limit. You doing okay over there, Mr. Pizza Bear?”

I want to ask him what’s going on, but there’s no need. He’s sick or dying and he doesn’t want to tell me. He restarts the truck, then gives me this disgusting happy look, like I can’t figure out the obvious.

I breathe in the dry heat from the vents.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s all good.”

Gramps pulls into the driveway and the cop parks next to us. She walks with us to the front door.

The porch light turns on, and Dad appears, half awake.

“What in the heck is going on?”

With a hand on my shoulder, the cop goes, “Are you the father of this young gentleman?”

“Yes.”

“It seemed a little late for these two to be driving to Shady Lane.”

Dad’s eyes get wide. He clears his throat and says, “Officer, thank you very much for escorting them home.”

To my surprise, Dad doesn’t ground me. He just says he needs to have a talk with Gramps, so I go to my room. I take my slimy little newt from his aquarium, plop down on my bed, and put him on my chest to roam around. But he just sits there, his little green head perked up, staring at the wall.

I sigh.

“Hey, there, Jar Jar Newtingston. Did you have a good day?”

Jar Jar wanders up to my neck, his cold body tickling my skin. I place him on my comforter and pet his head with my index finger.

“Did you eat all your newt food? You’re looking a little skinny, you know.”

Jar Jar is getting dry. I put him back in his tank, and he hurries to take a soak.

“Sorry about that, bud.”

I stumble onto my bed and grab the book Gramps gave me —
Grizzly Bears of Northwest Wyoming
. I open it to the introduction:

I yawn, my eyelids heavy. It’s three a.m. and the RoadRunner is beginning to run its course. I’m exhausted after all that pruning today. I flip through the pages.

My alarm goes off before I realize I’d even fallen asleep. It’s six thirty.

Oh, no, Jar Jar’s light is still on! I must have left it on all night.

I check the thermometer.

Eighty-five degrees! Oh, crap. Everyone knows that the sustainable water temperature for a newt ranges from seventy-two to seventy-six degrees. Above or below that and they could . . .

I tap on the glass. His motionless body sways in the water. I take him out, and he doesn’t move. He’s dead.