This Is Bear Country

            My friend Caroline is a dentist. She owns all the tools and rents from some people down the street who own this little spot on the side of a bank. She's been a dentist since before I met her, so she was a dentist before she was a friend.

            Her little shop opened up about seven years ago, about the time my niece and her dog died. See, they were both the same age, and it isn't ever okay to let a small child the same age as a dog be in charge of one. My brother and his wife learned that the hard way, but you live and you learn and you move on and make use of what you know.

            So Caroline meets all kind of people. Dentists, believe it or not, live a very social life. After they get done poking at teeth all day they sometimes go to a bar or so to mingle, even when they have a family back at home. This isn't a necessarily dirty mingling, but they mingle and they do it well — just like a cowboy smoking one of those cigarettes. Sometimes dentists even have a dentist-only mingling at one of their houses, which is usually when someone wants to show off something new without seeming conceited.

            At one of these little minglings, the one where Sharon Rawsburg invited everyone over for some croquet and fried pork chops, Caroline broke her ankle. Caroline knows the surname of every molar and the layers of skin involved with gum care, but she is as dumb as a dead bat when it comes to fibulas or whatever ankles are made of.

            Here she was, trying to walk it off. Paige, her friend that helped her start her practice and whose husband drinks until he's supersaturated, ran to her side and tried to calm her. Caroline, however, would have none of it and just laughed and laughed. See, Caroline has always had a pride that swelled up when it shouldn't. She's even her own dentist.

            Paige, in her blue and purple knit sweater, tried putting her arm under Caroline's arm in an attempt to help. But Caroline snapped at her as if she were a mosquito trying to suck her marrow:

            “Get offa me, Paige. I don't need your damned arms around me. Not now.”

            Not now? people would whisper to one another. You think they got some lesbianing going on?

            Turns out they did. But, see, Caroline was unabashed by the turn of events and of her ankle and pretended to make pretty the situation. She laughed, her face red with signals from her brain, and continued on with the night, unafraid of the truth that lay beneath her socks. She busted her ankle quite badly and walked it into a stump that night and now stuffs one of her shoes with the sock she should be wearing.

            Sometimes the dentists go golfing. They don't invite Caroline because she — like a bear on a tree — marks the ground so much that the dentists are unwilling to jeopardize their memberships over one person's pride.

            Since Caroline's been kicked out of golf club, she's been hanging around my living room a lot more lately. See, it's prime golf season — I guess the grass is the right height and the ground isn't too lumpy — so most of her socializing should take place beyond the gates of the Palmetto Country Club. Instead it's executed by her at my house.

            One afternoon I came home and, lo and behold, Caroline was surveying the perennials on my front porch that I invest so much time in pruning to perfection. Not only was she looking at them, she was rearranging them based upon her opinion of superior colors.

            “Caroline!” I said at her, “What're you touching my flowers for?”

            “Hell, I'm not touching your flowers. I'm just moving them.”

            This puzzled me.

            “Still. They're not your flowers so don't touch them. Anybody ever teach you to not touch a man's flowers? What do you want, anyway?” I was unlocking the door at this point.

            “Oh, nothing,” she said.

            “Sounds about right,” and the door opened. Being the gentleman I am, I said “Would you like to come in?”

            “Oh God yes. This weather's been hell on my hair. Can you believe the humidity lately?”

            There really wasn't much humidity. Caroline's hair has always been boisterous and full, like what I imagine a sheep in a flood to look like.
            "Do you mind if I leave my shoes on?" she said.
            "That's fine," I said, setting my jacket down on the back of one of the stools at the counter. "Would you like something to drink?” I set my keys and bloated wallet — full of receipts, mind you — next to the sink, where they always are. She hovered around the kitchen, poking at my mail.

            “Well, are you having anything? I'll have what you're having.”

            I handed her a glass of water and started the stove. Tonight was lasagna night and frozen lasagna doesn't cook itself.

            “Can I tell you something?” she said, wanting to tell me something.

            “Sure. Tell me something.”

            “Do you remember Jodi? Jodi, the girl you dated who had asthma?”

            “Yeah. I remember her.”

            “Well, Jodi was Scottish. You remember that?” I nodded. Why the hell would I remember she was Scottish?

            “So, you see, Jodi and I used to go to the bar a lot. This was before Pat's was around. God, must've been only four years ago? Well, anyway, we used to go to the bar a lot. We'd get trashed, plastered beyond what you'd believe. You wouldn't believe it.”

            I set the timer and put the meal in the oven.

            “So, you see, we'd go out night after night. Jodi could hold her liquor but I would have a hard time keeping up. This was why I had to sell my son's turtle after he moved out. It's not like I got a lot of money for it — it was a turtle! You can catch those near the park — but I didn't like having to be home for it. I don't like having to be home for things. You know?” She took a drink.
            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah. Too much pressure. Hell, way too much pressure just to keep that damned thing alive. All I did was drop lettuce in there and dump a glass of water over those stupid rocks, but I didn't even want that. What if that thing died? It was already older than it should've been but I would have been responsible if it just rolled over and shriveled up. I didn't want that on my shoulders. Not now.”

            I was thinking about was how great the cheese would taste nuzzled between a slice of pasta and ground beef when I noticed her glass was half empty. I filled her another.

            “Thanks. Lord knows I need this, especially with the weather out there.”

            “Don't mention it.”

            “So, Jodi and I would go out. Most nights it would just be us and whoever else was out there. A lot of the time we'd find a couple of nice young men and play pool with them. They'd order us something to sip and we'd sip. Sooner or later we'd be walking to their cars, laughing at someone's stupid joke about tits and whatnot, and then we'd find ourselves somewhere else. Next thing you know we'd wake up in some house with shitty blinds and a T.V. on mute. We'd find some cereal and wander off together, getting picked up somewhere and brought back to our cars. You know, not once we got robbed, would you believe that?”

            “Really? Not once?”

            “Nope, not once. And you know the chances of that? Hell, one in a million, I'd bet.”

            She talked until the timer on the stove interrupted her.

            “—oh! Damn. Thing's already done, huh?”

            I put on my kitchen mittens and delivered the bubbling lasagna from the oven.

            “You're like a doctor, handling and cradling that meal like you do. You know, for school, we had to practice on people who really couldn't afford regular care. We'd get volunteers in who really needed their teeth cleaned a good two to three years earlier. Sometimes I'd be afraid to use the explorer because I could see through the enamel. Surprisingly, only half of them would be due to meth — the other half would just be lazy people with no one to kiss. You could always tell the people who used to use meth because their gums were dried up and the scabs. God, let me tell you about the scabs—”

            “Hey Caroline—” I said.

            “You know, that reminds me of when I was at Sharon's that one night. I know, I know, you weren't there, but I think you'll get a kick out of this. See, someone — I forget who, really — was getting more ice from the freezer. It was one of those big deep freezers that go in your garage, you know? So someone was pulling ice out from the freezer and I could tell they were having a hard time because ice is slippery and all that. So I grabbed my gloves from my coat pocket in the closet near the door and rushed to help them out — you know, give em the gloves and whatnot — and, as I was walking down the stairs into the garage, someone's hellfire boots were sitting on the steps. Could you believe that? Someone just left their damned boots on the steps. Little things, too. I wouldn't expect anyone to have that small of feet, but someone there did.

            “Well, anyway. I tripped over those boots and landed there against the wall. Glad that was there to catch my fall, because I was due for a long tumble at the rate I was going. Paige ran up to me but I was doing just fine standing there so I told her thanks but everything's alright, just a little trip. Everyone looked at me and then I said, 'Boots are made for the snow, not the stairs!' and everyone got a kick out of that. Those gloves didn't end up fitting whoever it was getting that bag of ice out, so I just slipped em on and did it myself.”

            “Yeah. So, Caroline, I don't mean to be rude here, but I was sort of planning on getting around to reading while I ate.”

            “Oh, of course. Don't let me bother you. You know how I get with stories.”

            “Yup,” and then I scooped some of the food onto the plate. I love the way it stays tethered to the tray, holding onto the rest of the meal with a thousand arms of string like it was the last thing that mattered to it on earth.

            “Well, it's been real nice. Thank you for the drinks. I'll see you tomorrow.”

            I led her to the door and we said goodbye. I went back to the kitchen and filled myself a full glass of milk. I had the knife and fork on the plate, so I took it and headed into the living room. I sat down on my green reclining chair and turned the T.V. on. The news was next and then a pleasant night. I took the first bite of the lasagna — God, that crumbling cottage cheese and melting flavors mixing together. Perfect.

            Behind the blinds, Caroline changed the flowers.

I've Heard Stories

Her coat was on the floor, crumpled up behind the wooden rocking chair.

I heard of crimes, she said. I heard that there are crimes out there that we cannot even imagine, simply because of how they aren’t part of this world and we can’t feel or see them. I heard of these crimes.

He nodded, feeling the carpet and her locked gaze.

Yeah. I heard of these crimes. One crime is where someone loves so much that they lose themselves. They lose who they are and then they become an apparition in lieu of their lover’s life. They’ve essentially committed suicide. It isn’t that they essentially did, it’s that they did. They gave themselves up to some higher order that might not even exist. This person they love, that person might not even exist in the way that they think they exist.

She licked her lips and readjusted her position on the couch. The couch was her father’s before, and now it is still tattered and used.

See, she said, they might be completely different than the person who loves them believes they are. This person, this person that lured someone, wittingly or unwittingly, to give up their ghost for them, might live an internal life completely contrary to their expressed life. The way they live—the things they do and say—might be a lie. They might be lying to themselves or trying to convince themselves that they are one way, but they might be a lie. And they, a lie, let someone sacrifice themselves to a lie. Who do you think is worse?

What do you mean who do I think is worse?

Who do you think is worse? The person who lied to the world and reeled in a susceptible soul or the fragile capsule of lost thought that found meaning in an idol the sculptured out of a hint and chose to devote themselves to.

You shouldn’t say themselves. It’s ‘his or herself’.

Is it? I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I don’t know that stuff. You know that.

It’s okay.

You know? I think it’s both of their faults. Who’s worse? I can’t ask that question because those people are both so real to me that I can identify with both. So does that make me a contradiction?

Make you a contradiction? No. You’re you. If you were a contradiction, you wouldn’t be you. You’d be you and you.

I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t really know. But isn’t that interesting that people consider it a crime to devote themselves to much to an image that they lose who they were?

People always do it.

I suppose they do. But so willingly?

What else should they do? Live without purpose?

No. They should find purpose.

They did.

Yes. But they should find purpose elsewhere.

She coughed and stood up. Do you want any water? She said.

No. He said.

I’m going to get some water. If you want water, you should tell me. I’ll get you water.

It’s okay. I don’t want any water.

Okay, she said. She went into the kitchen and saw a bowl in the sink. She opened the cabinet and took out a cup. She set it underneath the faucet and turned it on, filling her cup. She drank from the cup and poured the rest into the sink and set her cup inside of it.

You forgot a bowl in the sink, she said around the corner.

I know. I haven’t done it yet.

It’s okay. I wanted you to know. I’m just going to take care of it quick, while I’m here.

Okay, he said. He picked up the remote and turned the television on.

She picked up the bowl and a rag and poured soap on it. She turned the water on and waited for it to get hot. She then splashed the rag and washed the bowl and rinsed it out. She dried the bowl off and put it in the cabinet and walked back into the room.

So what do you think? She said.

Tell Me How

She lifted the cup to her lips, sipped, closed her eyes, and died. She closed the book.

“Alan? What do you think of the end of this book?” she said. “Alan?”

Alan was sitting at the table in the kitchen, his back facing the living room, studying a crossword puzzle through his reading glasses. Pushed towards the middle of the table was his plate, littered with a near meatless bone from his steak and a crumpled napkin. In his right hand was a pen, near it a glass half full of wine.

“What’s that, dear?” he said, straightening his back.

“The book I’ve been reading, the one I’ve been telling you about, with the young man and the orphan girl who had amnesia that loved each other.”

“Oh yes,” he said, “The book.”

“I just finished it. Imagine that. Three nights!” she looked up from her place on the sofa to the back of Alan’s head. “You need a haircut, Alan. It’s thinning, and when it gets long you look bald. But you aren’t bald.”

“How’d the book end?”

“Oh yes. After she finds the boy asleep in her bed, after they got into a fight and she left his house and he went looking for her and went to her house but she wasn’t there, she picked one of the cups up that he poured that was sitting on the bedside and drank, because it smelt like wine. But she didn’t know that he poisoned one of the cups and mixed them around so that he might or might not kill himself because he was so sad because of her. She thought it was just wine and was tired from driving around crying.”

“So she killed herself?” Alan wrote something on the paper.

“No, no. She didn’t kill herself. I mean, she died because of what she did, but she didn’t kill herself. Saying she killed herself sounds like she tried to kill herself. It was more of, what do they call it when someone accidently kills someone else, like a pedestrian or---“

“Manslaughter?” he said.

“Yes! Manslaughter. It’s as if she manslaughtered herself. She accidently hit herself with her car. Imagine that, Alan, she hit herself with her own car. Could you imagine hitting yourself with your own car and dying, but all on accident?” She said. “Alan?”

“Yes dear?”

“Could you imagine that?”

“Killing myself---“

“Manslaughtering.”

“Manslaughtering myself? With my own car?”

“Yes! That just… could you imagine it?”

“If I tried, dear, yes. Yes, I could. But I don’t see much stock in that.”

“Imagine how she felt! Imagine how she felt when she walked in front of her car. But, well, she didn’t start her car. She wasn’t driving her car. He was driving. He filled the glasses. And left them out. So isn’t it like he was driving down a hill or something and turned the car off and let it keep going?”

“Hmm?” he filled in another line and then erased it.

“Yes. He left the glasses out. He didn’t put the brake on. He manslaughtered her. He didn’t mean to, though. That’s why it’s manslaughter. Right, dear?”

“I would suppose so.”

“Yes. Imagine how he felt when he woke up and saw her lying there! She had no idea what happened, just lying there. I wonder if she thought anything when she closed her eyes. I wonder if, when she lied there, being dead, she relived anything. Do you think that’s what death is like Alan?” She said. “It’s like reliving life, moments?”

“Dear,” he sat up in his chair and slowly turned his body, resting an arm on the back of the chair, “I love you.”

“Alan? I love you too, but do you think that’s what death is like? Reliving things? I wonder if it all stops or repeats or just is. Maybe time freezes, but it doesn’t get old. Like a painting,” She said. “Alan?”

“Dear,” Alan looked at her eyes, then the book in her hand, and then turned back around, pushing his glasses back up to the top of his nose. “I think life is like that.”

“Oh now, Alan. You always have that way about you. Sometimes you just keep on with your ways, thinking things are one way when they are really one way another, or another way. Sometimes I wonder if you yourself think you’ve always been like that, because I remember, just a while ago, you weren’t like that. It seems like a week ago, but I know it wasn’t a week ago because your hair wasn’t gray. I think you’re very handsome with gray hair, Alan.” She smiled, looking at his hair. “Alan?”

“Yes,” Alan said, then coughed. “Yes dear?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “Well, Alan?”

“Yes dear?”

“Will you look at me? I want to see how handsome you are.” She said.

Alan took his glasses off, turned around, smiled, and looked at her.

“Alan? Are you crying?”

“Yes. I am.” Alan carefully stood up and slowly began to walk towards her on the sofa.

“Dear? Come and sit by me. Talk to me. I always talk to you, but I never let you talk. I need to start letting you talk more. I know you have stuff to say, even though you never want to talk about any of it, but I’m sure there have been times when you’ve wanted to say something but haven’t been able to because I’m over here, talking when I should be letting you talk.”

Alan smiled and slowly eased himself onto the sofa, she holding his arm with support.

“So how do you think he felt when he woke up, seeing her there?”

“Oh, I bet he was sad. He didn’t want it to happen. Nope, he didn’t intend for her to drink it. He loved her, and chased her, even though she wasn’t there, he knew she was going to go there after she got done going wherever else she went. He missed her and didn’t want to lose her. I bet he was sad when he lost her. I know he was sad. Who wouldn’t be sad?”

“I would be.” He put his arm around her. She leaned in on him.

“Oh, I know you would be Alan. I would be if I lost you, too. But I bet he felt really bad because he caused it. He, even though he didn’t mean for it to happen, caused it to happen. Do you think he went to jail? I bet they would have sent him to jail.”

“I bet they would have tried, but eventually understood.”

“I don’t know if they would understand. Maybe if he showed them how truly sorry and sad he was that he did that. I bet that would have shown them. He would need to prove that he loved her and wanted to be with her forever. Think he wanted to be with her forever?”

“I think he---“ Alan cleared his throat. “I think he did.”

“Yes. These two belonged together. I don’t think it would be fair to punish him for something he didn’t mean to do. Especially when losing her was punishment enough. Would you agree?”

“Yes.” He said. “Dear?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She looked up at him. “I love you too.”

They stayed there, she with her eyes shut, Alan fixed on nothing in the distance.

“Hey. Hey, dear?” He said, lightly nudging her with his shoulder.

“I’m awake, Alan. Yes?”

“You never really did tell me how the story ended. I mean, you told me about it, but I would like if you’d read the last line.”

“You should read it, my eyes are sore.” She said, closing them and leaning on him.

“I would, but I left my glasses at the table.”

“Okay, okay.”

She sat up, brushed her thin silver hair behind her ears, picked up the book, opened it to the last page, and began to read.v “’He was lying there… you could tell he had been upset… he…’ here.” She said, “‘She lifted the cup to her lips, sipped, closed her eyes, and died.’”

She closed the book.