The Bear: A Novel Read online

  I am in the black. And I am mad at Daddy. He is shouting and pushing and both those things are naughty and I wonder if he is getting in trouble from Momma. When Momma gets mad she doesn’t yell. She looks at me and she lets the sad drip up from her heart through her veins and into her eyes. Her eyes send the sad into my eyes and then it drips back down into my heart and makes it feel like a ball. But not a ball that bounces up high—one that is squishy because it needs Daddy to put in air. I won’t ask Daddy to pump my heart because I am so mad. I can’t see him anymore. It is so so dark. I don’t know if my eyes are open or shut. I think they are shut and I put my finger to see. I can feel my eyelid. After I know then I open my eyes and it looks exactly the same. My eye feels sad.

  Momma leaves a night-light on when it is too dark. I stick my hand out. All I feel is a smooth wall. I know how it feels and it is Coleman.

  The air goes whoosh and the light comes back from the sky. I see Daddy’s face. His eyes look like they are in a cartoon when a guy gets hit. Then I see Stick is in the air above me and he is coming down. His legs are curled up and his face looks like when he got stung by the bee in our backyard. He was in his high chair when he was a baby and the bee wanted his food. It ran into his forehead but the bee took the stinger away. Stick didn’t need a needle but his face went all red and it scrunched up into the middle. So now he maybe got stung by a bee and Daddy pushes him in beside me and I say “Hey” because there is not room and Stick’s feet are touching me. I try to push him away and Daddy gets even madder. He has snaky veins on the side of his neck under his skin and he yells so loud I cover my ears and hunch my shoulders up. I am bad. Very bad. Again. I didn’t wet the bed and I can’t remember what I did to get him so mad but I never really do.

  “Stay in there,” he yells and sounds sick. “Don’t get out.”

  Maybe Stick was bad.

  Daddy squishes us down and it gets dark again. I feel the air whoosh and a thump and a click. Coleman shuts his mouth. The air from Stick’s nose goes in and I almost can’t breathe. And then it opens a crack and I feel the cool air again and take a breath. I see Daddy’s fingers and a rock. The fingers put the rock at the side of Coleman’s mouth where he has no teeth and it sticks there and Coleman’s mouth closes down. There is a click from the metal tooth at the front of Coleman and Daddy is yelling at me not to touch the rock and that it is my problem rock. Coleman can’t shut his mouth all the way because the rock is there at the side. Daddy moves away and now he is yelling at Momma. She won’t like it. I stick my ear to the crack of Coleman’s mouth and I hear Daddy yelling.

  “The paddle…oh, my God.”

  He says God, not Jesus.

  We are inside Coleman. Stick’s toes stick into my leg and I don’t like it. There is not enough room for both of us. When we share a bed, Momma draws a line down the middle and no one’s toes are allowed over the line. I say there is a line and try to draw it with my chopper hand down the middle. I can’t draw the line without Stick’s bum leaking over. I kick him to get him on his side of the line and he cries and there is yelling and Momma is yelling back and Daddy is roaring and sounds like a lion with a big mane that shakes. I don’t like this Daddy that is shouting so much. I want the other Daddy back but he keeps yelling even though Momma isn’t. Momma doesn’t yell so I feel better. I like her quiet because that’s what she is.

  I push Stick with my feet for more room. It is too squishy in Coleman for us. Now his bum is in my face and I don’t want it there. His nose breath is hot on me and I don’t want it there either. I put my head up to put my nose by the crack in Coleman’s mouth. I can see the rock is stuck between Coleman’s mouth like a tooth on the side. I am not allowed to touch the rock. I put my nose up to the air so that Stick doesn’t hog all mine. I can hear huffing and it might be the new Daddy. There is a huff and a growl and I hear Daddy talking like he is sad. He keeps talking and his voice is quieter so maybe my daddy is coming back and there is a snarl and a growl and I don’t know what it is. I try to push my head up but my forehead is tall. It stands up from my eyes until my hair so I can’t make my eyes get right in Coleman’s mouth to see through his lips. I am glad that Coleman isn’t a whale with a big tongue that would suck me back. Whales don’t have teeth so we could get sucked in on a waterfall that was really just how the whale eats. The whale doesn’t want to eat us but he doesn’t know we are there because he has no ears on his head and won’t hear even if Stick cries. A whale doesn’t eat people he eats trees.

  Stick and I have to wait for trees to flow into the whale’s mouth. We sit in the middle. If a tree comes in and we catch it and maybe another then I could use a rope to tie the trees together to make a boat to float on top of. We could float out of the mouth when the whale was sleeping one day but then we would float back in by accident. But I can’t do any of my plan because Stick pulls my hair and I punch him back and I see that it is only Coleman’s mouth that we are in but I still feel shakes. There is no whale. Stick can’t swim.

  I can hear things outside Coleman. My ear is close to his mouth so I can hear more than the inside sounds of Stick’s nose and whining. Outside I hear a growl and a nose breath that isn’t Stick’s. It’s from a longer nose like Snoopy’s. He is a dog that lives next door and usually he is behind the fence and he barks at Stick and me when we play with a ball. At first when I met him I got scared because Snoopy is big. His name was wrong because he didn’t look like he does in the TV. He is black and tall and inside his mouth there is black. He stared at me like I would be a good dinner or my arm is a chew toy. My momma said hello to Snoopy after a while and then we were friends. Now Snoopy gets in our yard and takes my ball but I share. Only with Snoopy not with Stick. Snoopy will run after my ball and bring it back again and again and again. He is the only person who will play ball with me for a long enough time because Momma only throws twice or one more time and then that’s all the times and I’m alone and that isn’t so good. And Stick’s hands are too fat to catch so Snoopy is the best. I can hear Snoopy outside of Coleman and it’s not Toronto but Snoopy came to visit near the cottage and maybe doesn’t like it because he growls. Mrs. Buchanan must miss Snoopy or maybe she came to see me too. Snoopy’s voice is low and he makes a woof woof woof. And I hear Daddy talking and I wonder why he has so much to say to Snoopy when usually he does not. Except for if Snoopy makes a poo and leaves it in our yard.

  4.

  Stick cries so much. I call Daddy and Momma and my throat feels like the deck at the cottage that gives me splinters in my foot. No one is coming. I don’t like splinters and I don’t want one in my throat. This is bad. This must be how we do time-out when we are camping. It’s not like a normal time-out in Toronto or when I am at the cottage. I don’t sit on a step or on the porch. Here I sit inside Coleman. But I haven’t talked and I stayed still and I was quiet for as long as the time-out and still Daddy won’t let me out. I try to stick my eyes out Coleman’s mouth but my forehead is still too tall. I see stars and the wind is not breathing. I call Daddy and Momma again and no one. I listen and I can hear other breath, not wind or Stick’s nose. The noises are Snoopy breathing. Mrs. Buchanan has given Snoopy a bone. I am not allowed to but Mrs. Buchanan lets me hold the bone out and Snoopy takes it. He does it gentle with his lips back so that I can see his teeth aren’t going to bite me and he keeps them far away from my hand. When he is done with the bone for his dinner he gives me a wet kiss on the cheek and I smile.

  Snoopy is eating the bone and I can hear the snap snap snap of his jaws on the bone. His nose is snuffling because he is a pig when he eats and doesn’t stop to breathe. I am supposed to stop to breathe even when I am so so hungry. Snoopy doesn’t stop because he is a dog. His teeth go scrape on the bone and I hear it pop. I think Snoopy has broken the bone and he’s not supposed to do that. It can get stuck in the roof of his mouth and he has to go to the dog hospital. It happened once but I wasn’t there. Mrs. Buchanan told me. Snoopy cried at the vet and got a needle to make him slee
ping so they could get the bone out. And the sounds outside crack crack snap and I know that Snoopy has broken the bone but Mrs. Buchanan is not stopping him. Maybe she is sleeping because it is nighttime for her.

  “Snoop,” I call out of Coleman’s mouth.

  He doesn’t listen. He keeps eating.

  “Hey, Snoop!”

  I say it louder. Behind me I feel Stick twisting. He puts a knee in my back but he is quiet and maybe having a snooze. I don’t want to wake him up because he stopped whining after so long.

  “Snooooopeeee,” I whisper.

  The chewing stops and I hear Snoopy sniffing.

  The sniffing gets louder. Snoopy is coming to see me. I stick my fingers out to say hello because I have one hand that isn’t holding Gwen. There is a bad smell. I pull my fingers in to plug my nose up because my nostrils don’t like the smell. Snoopy needs a bath. It smells like the rotting leaves under the cottage and when there were fish guts in the boat. Yuck. Snoopy comes and I see his big nose sniffing in the crack but his smell is wrong and it gives me the shakes and I don’t know why except the smell of fish. I don’t like fish to eat. The crack goes dark and there is hair coming in the crack. It is not like Snoopy’s. It is more prickly hair and fills up the crack and turns out the lights and I can’t see. And Stick starts to cry because it is dark and we get jerked. Stick pushes into me and I grab Gwen and Coleman shakes and it is still dark and I call Daddy. We shake harder and I hear huff and it stinks. I cover my mouth because I don’t want to breathe in the smell and Stick is crying and then I am too and we shake more and we flip. I roll back and my head goes clunk on Coleman. There is growling and a sound like Momma is making lunch and using the top of Coleman to cut apples with a knife. But it is not Momma because her hair is yellow and she always gives me a piece of apple first. It is louder and more like there are ten Mommas cutting apples but that is too many and they wouldn’t fit. And it is dark flashing on and off and I can see Stick on his side crying and I need Daddy because it isn’t Snoopy and I am not supposed to talk to strange dogs because we don’t know them. I’m on my back and Stick gets shoved into me but I don’t mind and I grab his arm and pull him and Gwen in and we cry and scrape scrape scrape. I see the fur and hear too much breath and squeeze Stick and Gwen and my eyes shut tight and we cry.

  My tears are gone when the scraping stops. Coleman stays on his back with the rock in his mouth. The black dog is not scratching Coleman. He goes back to his sniffing and huffing and then he starts cracking his bone. Stick and I are huddled in tight. Stick’s head is heavy like a bowling ball and it makes my arm go fuzzed and he snuggles in. It is so dark outside Coleman and no Daddy or Mommy and after a while I watch the lids of my eyes close down like jaws.

  5.

  I open my eyes and it is light outside Coleman now and I can see Stick’s crying face all red and squishy. He cries for Momma. I tell him to shush. He keeps crying. His belly is squishy too. It looks like a ball and is round like his cheeks. His face is like a bad tomato because he is crying so much. It is wet and he has snots all over his nose. It is very noisy inside Coleman because of Sticky and I’d like to get out.

  I call Daddy and Momma and no one comes. I try to have a peek outside. I can see a line of sky that is blue. The trees reach out and they don’t look like claws anymore. I put my hands over my ears because it is so loud from Stick crying and I squint my eyes too. It is still loud but I can see darker lines down my eyes. I open them and the lines are gone. I shut them and they come back. The lines are attached to my eyes. I touch and they are my eyelashes. I thought they were skinnier but they look furry. In the mirror there are a lot of eyelashes but with my squinty eyes there are gaps in between. I can still see out. The tree branches look furry not like claws. Like the needles are the eyelashes of a tree. And they are furry in the same way. When I squint. It is too loud and my hands on my ears barely block all the noise.

  After a while Stick’s crying stops and I take my hands off. Stick is only breathing through his spit. He is curled up on his side of Coleman and just staring at the blank wall. It is hard to lift my head so I put it back down and listen. I hear nothing except then I do. I hear a sniff.

  The sniffing is closer. I think of the black dog I saw through the crack. I don’t think Snoopy is here. Snoopy would listen and be nice. Mrs. Buchanan would call Snoopy because she doesn’t like him to be very far away. I hear more sniffs and I don’t hear Mrs. Buchanan. I think it is the black dog and I feel scared. I was scared of Snoopy too. The black dog might not be bad. I keep my fingers away from the crack because you are not supposed to make your fingers look like carrots.

  The sniffing is close and something bumps Coleman. He wiggles and then stops. Sniffing and another bump. The black dog’s nose comes to the crack. It is wet so the black dog isn’t sick. It is big. It looks shiny like the chair at my grandpa’s house. Grandpa loves to sit. He says his “old bones” need a chair and there is a handle that I pull on the side. I am only allowed to pull the handle when Grandpa is ready for his legs to kick up. My grandpa is very nice when I do things his way and so I do. The chair is black and sometimes the cleaning lady rubs a cloth on it so much that I can nearly see my nose. Not my real nose but like a shadow of my nose. Rose. That is the cleaning lady. She smells like lemons and wears an apron that I think should have lemons too. Instead it is pink flowers that are more floaty. Rose came after my grandma died and my grandpa missed her so much he got Rose to do her jobs. When I pull the handle on the chair a small toadstool appears from the bottom of the chair and picks up Grandpa’s feet until he is lying down like a bed. Except it isn’t a bed. It’s a black chair. Shiny and smooth with dimples. Like this nose.

  The nose sniffs and I watch the nostrils go in and out. Stick is quiet and I only hear him make a small squeak but I don’t want to lift my head because the nose is looking at me. It keeps breathing in my air like it’s saying hello like Snoop does. Except it’s not hello. It’s more like who are you? I don’t want to talk and I keep my head flat and I feel Stick is moving like he is trying to get away. There is nowhere to go inside Coleman. Stick is wiggling and I want him to stop. I push to get him over more on his side again. His head comes up near mine and our feet are curled together. The nose keeps sniffing around the edge of Coleman’s mouth and I take my hand and put it over Stick’s mouth like when we hide from Daddy. Not enough to make Stick mad or tight so he can’t breathe but I don’t want the black dog to know us. Stick’s stomach sucks in like he is going to scream and he changes his eyes to look at me. I say shh and I can feel his lips flap open to yell at me but his eyes blink once and he is quiet. I put my hand on him and we are quiet and we watch the nose sniff sniff sniff.

  The rock is still stuck in the side of Coleman’s mouth. The front of Coleman has the metal tooth that Daddy pushed in to make us stay. The nose finds Coleman’s metal tooth and pushes on it. The nose lifts up and a big tongue jumps out. I see a black lip and a tooth that is very white and long. The fur is a little bit wet and there is pink juice on it. I once had a juice box with tomato juice at a party. That was sneaky. Usually it would be apple or orange or fruit juice and this was tomato and I did not like it at all. I spat it out and Daddy said it was a mess. But he wanted me to put the mess in my stomach and that was gross. So I did spit and I said sorry but I didn’t think sorry. The black dog has tomato juice on his jaw and some of it paints onto Coleman’s white lip. The tongue comes out and licks the juice and keeps licking like Coleman has yummy things stuck on his mouth.

  The teeth open and I see the sides scrape along the edge of Coleman and I see little bits of Coleman turn into metal splinters. The black dog is making grunts like it is uncomfy or maybe mad. He is chewing on Coleman like he was a toy and I grab Stick in because I don’t like looking at the teeth. There is one that is really long and I start to shake. And the tooth is scraping and ducks under the metal clip and catches there. The tooth is like a hook and Coleman shakes and Stick screams and I think maybe I do to
o. The fur in the crack snaps back and the tooth isn’t a hook even though it tries to be. It comes right back and the mouth pushes and tries to get hooked. It pushes in and fills us with its smell. Bad bad breath. Like rotting stink. The hamburger that Momma forgot in the fridge and only found when it was brown with green fur. Like that except with black fur. Stink. The tooth comes in and looks like a sword and tries to hook. And Stick screams and I can’t stand the noise and the stink and my foot is there so I kick.

  I hit the tooth and my foot is ouch and I put my foot back in a ball. There is a yelp. A low growl. The stink gets less. We hear sniff sniff sniff and less sniffs. I keep listening and the tooth is not in the crack. The nose isn’t either. I hear a scrape and a smacking of lips. The dog is chewing on something. Not Coleman but food that is closer to the lake. Like when I chew on chicken I hear scrape pop smack. The black dog is eating breakfast. It looks like Stick is listening too because his head is up nearer the crack and he turns and looks at me and lifts the front of his shirt up to wipe his nose.

  6.

  I want to get out of Coleman. We are not allowed to get out of Coleman. Daddy said. I sit still for as long as I can. I can’t anymore. Stick is wiggling.

  “I get out,” he says.

  “Daddy said stay,” I say in my Daddy grown-up voice.

  “Get out.”

  “Stay.”

  I turn my shoulder and I want to get out. “Daddy!”

  “Get out.”

  “DADDY.”

  “Dada.”

  “DAAAAAAAAAAAAADY!”

  Stick and I both yell. And I guess our throats hurt with splinters and after a while we stop. Then there are no sounds. The sky through the crack looks empty of everything. Only blue and one branch with fur. Even the black dog has gone away.