The Bear Went Over the Mountain Read online

  The bear gazed in fascination at the dancers. Couples glided past him, their bodies separating and entwining with the sensuality of summer in the forest, the males aggressive and the females suggestive as the rhythm of the music drove them on.

  Zou Zou led him to the floor, into the big-band Latin sound. She knew the steps, her lead was strong, and the bear was drawn into her movements. His own steps were tentative at first, but then the ancient ability of the dancing bear surfaced. He heard the slower pulse within the music and took the lead. His steps were dainty and carefully measured. His huge barrel frame had a peculiar majesty and suddenly he was the focal point for the band, for they realized he had it. The other dancers soon became aware that an original talent was on the floor, with a style that was commanding, yet easy, almost indifferent.

  “Hal, I had no idea—” Zou Zou had never had a partner so elegantly understated. He moved with such dignity, his slow grace broadcasting itself to the other dancers, who watched him with appreciation. His nimble turns, executed on such bulk, were enormously sexy. Zou Zou saw the other women eyeing him. He didn’t need to posture or project an attitude; his authority declared itself discreetly and was much greater for it. In summers past, on the forest floor, he’d strutted, his roar shaking the trees. Somehow this made itself felt in the maneuvers he executed now, to the trill of the trumpets and the beat of the drums. One of the other dancers said to his partner that he recognized this guy, that he was an Argentine tango master who loved to eat; one of those giants who knew how to live. And these New York dancers, as fiercely competitive as any in the world, accorded him the greatest honor—they gave him room, so he could shine.

  When the dance ended, the bear and Zou Zou made their way toward their table, through a shower of compliments which left no doubt as to the esteem in which the bear was held. Zou Zou, being in possession of him, came in for comment too, something that’d never happened to her on a dance floor. Hal Jam was becoming more to her every moment. Their casual affair had taken on a significance she hadn’t anticipated. She suddenly knew that he was going to break her heart and she even knew how, through that reserve he always kept, which she now realized was bolstered by an immense dignity. All of this was what made him the writer he was, and she understood, with a jolt, that on the dance floor just now she’d seen his enormous capacity for self-expression. His appearance on the literary scene was no accident; he was a natural, as Hemingway had been. And as with Hemingway, his celebrity was inevitable. This coming fame would only distance him from her, and the irony was that she would help to create it.

  Arthur Bramhall sat with Vinal Pinette and Gus Gummersong in Gummersong’s shack. Pinette’s dog was lying in the yard, watching a chickadee pecking seeds from Gummersong’s feeder. From across the frozen field came the sound of a chain saw, whining like a large metallic bug. Bramhall, like the dog, was gazing at the bird, and like the dog he experienced the fleeting mental image of having the bird in his mouth and crunching on its tiny bones.

  “Something very peculiar is happening to me,” he said to Gummersong and Pinette.

  “What you need,” said Gummersong, “is to move in with a woman. Nothing like a woman to change a man’s outlook.”

  The sound of the chain saw stopped. The air was still, except for the chirping of the chickadee.

  “But look at my arms,” said Bramhall. “They’re enormous.”

  “They have bulked up some,” said Pinette.

  Bramhall put his hand around an iron stove poker. “I feel like I could bend this over my head.”

  “I’d ruther you wouldn’t,” said Gummersong politely.

  Bramhall listened to the scurrying of a mouse beneath the floor of the shack, and the rhythmic slither of the snake that was stalking it. The mouse bit daintily on a morsel of grain. The snake bit deftly on the mouse.

  “Homer seems to be done cutting,” said Pinette, gazing out across the field at an approaching figure.

  Homer strolled toward the shack and peeked in at the door. “S’pose I could get a lift into town, Vinal?” he inquired nonchalantly.

  “Sure enough, Homer. Where you bound for?”

  “Thought I might visit the hospital,” said Homer, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. In the handkerchief was a toe. “Ran the chain saw through my boot.”

  “What’d you plug the wound with?” asked Gummersong.

  “Pine needles and sap.”

  “The very best,” said Gummersong. “I’ve seen some dandy mutilations in my day and pine needles and sap was al’uz what we stuffed them with.”

  “I’d been meaning to buy steel-toed boots,” said Homer sociably as they walked across the yard toward the truck. “But one thing and another come along, and I just never did.”

  “Doesn’t pay to rush into a purchase,” said Gummersong.

  They climbed into the truck, Homer and Bramhall up front with Pinette, and Gummersong in the open back with Pinette’s dog. As the truck bounced over the dirt road, Homer laid his precious bundle on the floor and turned to Pinette. “How’ve things been with you, Vinal?”

  “Can’t complain,” said Pinette. “And yourself?”

  “Oh, pretty good,” said Homer, apparently not counting the recent severing of his big toe. Listening to the two men, Bramhall felt something in himself that echoed their stoicism. It was brand-new and seemed to come from his feeling of animality, an acceptance of life as the beast accepts.

  The truck roared along the winding country road. A river kept pace with them, sparkling on their left. Homer probed the tip of his boot. “Bleeding ’pears to have stopped.”

  “Pine needles and sap,” said Pinette, nodding. “I wounded a bear one time, and that son-of-a-whore plugged his wound with pine needles. And I never did catch him.”

  “A bear is cunning,” agreed Homer.

  “One stole Art’s suitcase.”

  “That a fact?” asked Homer with interest. “Get anything valuable?”

  “Not very,” said Bramhall, who felt that in the lost-objects category, Homer’s toe far outweighed his novel.

  The truck hit a hole in the road and all three men bounced up in their seats, striking their heads on the roof of the cab. “Bad job on the road this year,” said Pinette. “The patching tar just didn’t seem to hold.”

  “There’s a way of putting in that tar,” said Homer sagely. “You got to clean the hole good, and then you got to layer your material.”

  A rapping came on the back window of the cab. Bramhall turned. Gummersong was signaling for them to stop.

  “What the hell’s he want?” asked Pinette.

  “He’s pointing to the side of the road,” said Bramhall.

  “Probably wants to stop for a soda can,” said Pinette. “We’ll catch it on the way back.”

  Gummersong continued to shout above the roaring of the truck. He was struggling to keep his balance as he pointed toward the road. Finally he yanked off his boot and pointed at his big toe, then pointed to the road again. Bramhall looked down at the floor of the cab. “Excuse me, Homer, but where’s your toe?”

  Homer reached down, then peered around, under the dash and under the seat. “Appears to be gone.”

  “Gone?” inquired Pinette.

  “I guess she went out through the floorboards,” said Homer with unchanging placidity. “You got a few good size cracks down here, I see.”

  Pinette pulled the truck to the side of the road, turned around, and called back to Gummersong. “Where’d we lose ’er, Gus?”

  Gummersong leaned forward around the cab, pointing. “Just by that there hydro pole, the one that’s tilting.” Gummersong, for whom the side of the road was as familiar in all its details as his own face, kept a trained eye out as they drove back along the road. “There, on the edge of the pavement.”

  Pinette eased the truck to a stop, the front wheels of the truck on either side of the toe. “Go get ’er,” he said to Gummersong.

  Pinette’s dog leapt out of t
he truck ahead of Gummersong and dove under the front bumper. He snapped the toe up in his jaws, chewed it twice to get the flavor of the thing, and then swallowed it.

  Nice and tangy, he remarked to himself. Just a hint of salt in it. He came out from under the bumper, tail wagging.

  “Vinal,” said Gummersong, “your dog et ’er.”

  “Et what?”

  “Homer’s toe.”

  Pinette flung open the door and jumped down. The dog looked at him proudly, having handled the incident well, he thought.

  “You stupid son-of-a-whore.” Pinette slapped his hat at the dog, who darted quickly aside. Bramhall and Homer climbed out of the truck.

  “He et your toe, Homer,” explained Pinette contritely.

  Homer looked at the dog. The dog’s tongue was out, his tail still wagging. He was unused to this much attention and, lowering his head between his paws, he began barking enthusiastically.

  Homer gave a resigned nod. “Thought it was a wiener, I s’pose.”

  Now that you mention it, said the dog, it did bear a striking resemblance.

  “So,” concluded Homer, his voice as matter-of-fact as it’d been all along, “that puts the finish to ’er.” He reached out and patted the dog in an absentminded way.

  “Dogs do love a wiener,” said Gummersong.

  We do, said the dog. We thrive on them.

  The publishing party for the bear’s book was held in a downtown warehouse that’d been gutted to house the newest, hottest disco. The walls were brick with exposed electrical conduits. Brick pillars supported the cavernous interior; catwalks on four sides formed balconies; posters of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe hung behind the bar, while living legends moved about on the crowded floor. The bear’s frowning face with its suspicious, beady eyes was on the latest GQ. There’d been interviews in Publishers Weekly and The Village Voice. Advance raves were already in from several magazines, along with enthusiastic quotes from distinguished writers welcoming Hal Jam into the inner circle.

  The bear had personally chosen the food for the party. The buffet table was covered with pies and cakes. Other refreshments included pitchers of honey and maple syrup. On every table were Michel Guerard’s slender chocolate leaves and Gaston Le Notre’s delicate French caramels, selected by the bear from Bloomingdale’s Au Chocolat Shop. He’d also insisted on bringing his Venus lamp, which stood among the pies and cakes like a strange fetish.

  Bettina sped about in the crowd, spilling drinks and arranging photo opportunities. She clapped Boykins on the back. “We’re slam-dunking tonight, Chum. We’ve got shots of Hal with Dr. Ruth and Henry Kissinger, and who else matters in this world?”

  Professor Kenneth Penrod of Columbia talked about the decline of literature, and his rival, Samuel Ramsbotham of NYU, talked about the decline of Kenneth Penrod. “Penrod places too much emphasis on the writer,” said Ramsbotham. “Any real study of contemporary literature begins with those who teach it. The teacher is the key, for it’s the teacher who creates that all-important entity, the reader. It’s not that I consider myself of any importance. I don’t mind admitting I’ve learned most of what I know from my students. It’s a radical view, but what are the students saying? What are they reading?” Professor Ramsbotham’s students were reading what he made them read and first on the list were the anthologies he’d edited, for which he received a royalty check every six months. “What I think I’ve detected,” he said sotto voce to the bear, “is a new kind of reader. Simple in his taste. Bored with conventional narrative and looking for work with strong visual content. I think we’re going to see an end to the traditional novel, with all its self-referential mania. What do you think?”

  “Whipped cream,” said the bear, ladling a healthy portion onto a slice of pecan pie.

  “My point exactly,” said Ramsbotham. “Why take basic human experience and churn it up into something else? Very nicely put, Jam.”

  The music throbbed, and the bear nodded happily whenever anyone picked up a sweet. My party, he said to himself proudly. Going off without a hitch. He held a caramel up to the light. Everything a piece of candy should be. He popped it into his mouth, and the tips of his fangs gleamed. Most bears couldn’t handle an evening like this. They’d probably tense up and bite someone.

  His guests found him an unusually modest host, more concerned with their enjoyment than his own. “He doesn’t play the Great Writer at all,” remarked a young woman from Women’s Wear Daily.

  “All these pastries are suicidal,” said a young woman from Esquire. “I just had two thousand calories in one bite.” They were standing with the gold-tinted plaster Venus between them, unashamedly overweight, beads of illuminated oil dripping down around her voluptuous hips.

  “I think he’s trying to tell us to drop our ideal of the starved body.”

  “For that alone, he should get the National Book Award.” The young woman from Esquire took a piece of chocolate cake.

  “I hear he’s involved,” said the woman from Women’s Wear Daily, nodding toward Eunice Cotton.

  “But is he really involved with her? I heard they were just friends.”

  “I suppose it’s hard to tell. I mean, she’s such a weirdo.”

  “We should be so weird.”

  “Well, that’s true. Four best-sellers in a row. I can’t read them myself.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Angels in Bed was amusing.”

  “Did you think so? I thought it was like having sex with a heating pad.”

  The bear came by, pleased to see females eating chocolate cake. Human females, in his observation, didn’t take advantage of the wonderful range of sweets available to them. He turned, responding to a light tap on his shoulder, and saw a slender young woman in large eyeglasses holding a microphone toward him.

  “Carmen DaCosta, WFMU. What writer has influenced you the most?”

  The bear shuffled uncomfortably for a moment, paw in his mouth, then pointed to the only writer he knew—Eunice Cotton.

  “Eunice?” she asked, turning off the microphone. “That’s kind of odd, coming from a literary heavyweight. I like Eunice’s books, they’re fun, but do you take them seriously?”

  “Pastry,” said the bear, trying to return the conversation to the essentials.

  “That’s what I always felt. But you’re implying they’re more than that?”

  “More sweets.” He struggled to clarify. “Sweets are good.”

  Carmen pushed her glasses up onto her nose with her middle finger. She had a quick mind, made even quicker by the high levels of sugar now in her bloodstream. “I think I see what you mean. Eunice’s sweet pop angels are a balance for the bitterness of the nineties?”

  The bear nodded, his mouth stuffed with marzipan. I’m fielding questions well today, he said to himself.

  “And you don’t mind admitting you can learn from pop philosophy? That’s very refreshing, Mr. Jam. I hate literary snobbery myself. I mean, why should I feel guilty if I read a book of Eunice’s and it gives me a nice gooey feeling? So what if she pushes all my buttons? It’s healthy. Tell you what, can we get together for a longer interview? When it’s quieter?”

  Bettina stepped in. “I bet Hal hasn’t told you how much he admires your show, Carmen. Shall we set up an in-depth interview for tomorrow?”

  The two women walked off together and the bear gave a small sigh of relief. When humans talked to him, his mind seemed to skid to a halt. I’m still a little insecure, he said to himself. With time, it will pass. He imagined himself chattering brightly to people, making all the quick human sounds of conversation. Bound to be a break-through soon, he told himself. I’ve only growled a few times all evening.

  “Are you writing a new book?” asked a voice at his elbow.

  The bear shook his head. “I can’t find one.”

  “It’ll happen,” said Alice Dillby, a young editorial assistant at Cavendish Press. She wanted very much to be helpful, and her enthusiasm was fueled by the excitement of the
party and the honey circulating in her system. “What do you think your problem is?”

  “I’ve looked under every tree.”

  “But you have something you’d like to write about, don’t you?”

  “No,” said the bear.

  Alice gazed at him with admiration. What she loved best in a man, and seldom found, was modesty. That was why Hal Jam had such tremendous presence, because he carried himself without pretense. “You’ve really lived,” she said.

  “In a cave.” He sipped at his honey, undisturbed by his confession, as he now knew that people always heard things differently from the way he meant them. He found it strange that he was the cause of this huge celebration, he a bear. I made all this happen, he said to himself, because I was in the right place at the right time. Opportunity came along in a briefcase and I grabbed it. I’ve never looked back.

  She sensed he was trying to teach her something important. “A cave?”

  “In winter.”

  “You’re talking about Plato? His myth of the cave?”

  “Cozy cave. You dream.”

  “Yes, yes,” assented Alice ecstatically. “We accept the dream in the cave instead of our real, true self. Who of us really lives out our ideal?”

  Alice’s voice began to blend with the other voices at the party. The deep spaces of the disco buzzed, and the bear’s ears rotated forward, as if toward impending danger. The current of his happiness switched to fear. Lights flashed on Alice’s skin, turning it neon white and red, causing her somewhat toothy face to pulse aggressively.

  “… like to take your photo with the mayor, Mr. Jam, please …” He was jerked away from Alice, and a flash went off. The buzzing grew louder and the space that held it deepened in a terrifying way … humanity … humanity … a bear’s only enemy.