The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair

The Bear as Symbol

Dust settled around the pickup which had just skidded to a halt in front of Judd Carlton’s garage. Old Mitch Biter looked up from his perch, fanned at the settling particles, coughed a bit, and spat. Darnell Aimes climbed out of the cab and limped toward the men at the open garage door. He pointed west at the yellow-orange sky and said, “See that?”

Mitch Biter spat again and mumbled, “Sun sets every day.”

Darnell turned to observe his truck. “Can’t that baby move,” he said.

“Sure does move,” said Mitch.

Judd nodded, scratched at his mop of gray hair.

“Got me a 351 Cleveland V-8 in that boy.”

The men had heard it all before.

“Jamie put it in there,” Darnell said and he fell silent.

“Shame about Jamie,” mumbled Mitch.

Darnell nodded. His son Jamie had died years earlier when the brakes of his semi failed on a stretch of mountain freeway in Idaho. He shook it off and turned to Judd. “You got a headlight switch for me?”

“Came in today.” Judd stepped away into the garage and returned with the part. “Three bucks.”

Darnell paid him and left, drove toward the colors in the sky which he liked so much. He whipped up the hill to his tiny house and spun the truck in tight circles, making doughnuts. “I’m strip-mining,” he shouted, then went into the house. He found his sister Clomer sitting in front of the television in the front room. He didn’t say anything to her, he just grabbed his.357 Magnum from the mantel and stepped out onto the porch where he sat on his rocker. The rocker was worn and squeaked a little when he moved it with a steady rhythm back and forth. His pistol was in his lap. Dusk turned slowly dark. He spent most of his hours in this position. On occasion he would fire at people who wandered into his vision. Then a sheriff’s deputy would reluctantly come to call.

“They want to take my land from me,” Darnell would tell the deputy.

“And who’s they?” the deputy would ask.

Darnell would look at him like he was stupid and reply, “Why, the homosexuals.”

The deputy would hold out his hand and ask for the gun which would lead Darnell to leveling the barrel at him and pulling back the hammer. The deputy would then leave.

Darnell had never seen what he called a homosexual. Old man Wooster down the hill fancied boys all his life, but he “weren’t no homosexual, he were just funny. Harmless.” But homosexuals were not harmless. “They’re out to ruin this country. They’re after my land.” Jamie had on several occasions tried to explain to his father that old man Wooster was indeed a homosexual, but Darnell wouldn’t hear it. Jamie told him what Wooster did with certain other men. Darnell said, “Hell, Jamie, I know that. What fool don’t know that? But that don’t make old Wooster no homosexual.”

His sister Clomer lived with him. Clomer had been married to Ricky Tellsy who had been more or less the town drunk of Coy, Arkansas. Ricky had been, up to the time of his death, the most educated person in town, having obtained a master’s and gone halfway through a doctoral program in sociology. “Just attempting to isolate and define a few parameters,” he would say and stagger on past people in the street. “Ain’t he just about the smartest drunk you’d ever want to meet?” folks would say. They encouraged their children to spend time with him.

Ricky died and Clomer was forced to retire from her job at the county utility company. That’s when she went to live with Darnell on his six acres just west of town. Most nights she’d watch television while Darnell rocked and watched the sun sink behind the hills.

Morning came and Darnell pulled his legs out of bed. He sat facing the window and the trees outside. He put on his trousers and boots and went to the kitchen. He sat down to a breakfast of Clomer’s doing.

“I can’t eat these sausages,” Darnell said, pushing a link across his plate with his fork.

“Why not?” asked Clomer.

“Look at ’em.”

Clomer leaned forward and examined the meat. She was damn near blind, legally she was, but Darnell wouldn’t understand this. If she wasn’t walking into walls, she wasn’t blind.

“Squintin’ up like that won’t help you see nothing,” he said. “This meat ain’t cooked thoroughly.”

“I cooked it for a good long time, Darnell.”

“High heat or low heat?”

Clomer fell back into her chair and sipped her coffee. “There was a flame. That’s all I know.”

He pushed his plate to the center of the table.

“Ricky wouldn’t eat pig neither,” Clomer said. “Said it wasn’t healthy. Used to say — I can hear him—’Religious restrictions on the diets of middle eastern peoples were founded in legitimate considerations of health.’ Damn, that man could talk.”

Darnell frowned. “Often, I thought Ricky was one of them homosexuals. But when he married you I knew he was only stupid.” He stood and started away.

“Where are you going?” Clomer asked.

“I’m going to sit guard for awhile.” He stopped and turned to her. “When you’ve a mind to, cast an eye out back.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything that ain’t a tree or a chicken.” He went into the front room and took his pistol from the mantel. On the porch, he sat and rocked and stared off into the woods and down the dirt drive. He looked for a while at his pickup, recalling the first time he’d driven it after Jamie dropped in that souped-up engine. It had been parked at Judd Carlton’s garage. He had barely touched the gas and truck kicked out like a shot. Shame about Judd’s dog. “Can’t that baby move,” he muttered.

After some time, Clomer was at the screen door. “Darnell, something fuzzy out back.” He didn’t look at her and she went on. “Too tall for a chicken. Trees don’t move.”

He pulled himself up. “Then I guess I’d best come have a look.”

“I wish you would.”

“Weren’t no person now?”

“Awful fuzzy.”

They walked through the house and into the kitchen. Darnell stood, looking through the screen of the back door while Clomer screwed up her face and peered out the window over the sink. A couple of hens dashed across the yard. “Somethin’s got the gals nervous, all right,” Darnell said. He flipped open the chamber of his revolver, observed the shells, slammed it shut.

“There it is,” said Clomer.

And there it was, stepping from behind the shed, a black bear four feet high. Darnell cocked his weapon. “It’s a bear, Clomer.”

“Oh yeah,” she said as if the knowledge had helped her to see more clearly. “You gonna shoot him?”

He let the hammer forward to rest. “I can’t shoot him, Clomer. He’s a sign.” He turned away from the door. “I’ve got to wrassle him, knife-fight him.”

“With all due respect,” said Clomer, “that don’t sound like the swiftest of ideas.”

Darnell sat at the table. “Nonetheless.”

“The critter’s leaving,” Clomer said. “Getting away.”

“He’ll be back.”

“He was right big. What I could see of him.”

“He’s got to be wrassled, knife-fought.”

Clomer tried to call Mavis Johnson on the telephone. Mavis’s husband, Ed, answered. “Well, hey, Clomer.”

“Hey, Ed. Mavis in?”

“Why, sure she is. You know, Mavis don’t get out like she used to. Bad legs. I’m takin’ the phone to her now. We got us one of the princesses with a long cord put on so Mavis won’t have to get up. She has so much trouble with her legs. Well, here’s Mavis.” Then, away from the phone, “It’s Clomer Tellsy calling. I mentioned your legs.”

“Clomer?” said Mavis.

“Hey, Mavis. How your legs?”

“They’ll do. Don’t heed Ed; you’d think they was his legs.”

“I’m calling to tell you that there’s a bear over here.”

“Where’s Darnell?”

“He’s up front. He says he plans to knife-fight the thing.”

“You don’t say. Don’t that beat all?”

“I just called to tell you.”

“Where’s the bear right now?”

“He’s gone back off into the woods,” said Clomer, “but Darnell is certain he’ll be back.”

“Well, my my my.”

“I’d best be off now.”

“All right, Clomer. Thanks for calling.”

Soon, word was all over Coy about how Darnell Aimes intended to engage a bear in hand-to-hand mortal combat.

Judd Carlton said, “Darnell, you can’t be serious.”

Darnell looked at the man’s feet; the rest of him was down under a Buick. “Oh, I’m serious, all right.”

Mitch Biter was in the garage along with young Randy Volker. Randy couldn’t swallow it; it bothered him something awful. He paced, shaking his head and laughing.

“I’m taking a knife with me,” Darnell said.

“Good move,” mumbled Mitch. “Need something.” He tried to spit his tobacco juice out the door, but it just dribbled down his chin and made the stain on his white shirt wider.

“An old coot like you,” Randy said, “wrasslin’ a bear?”

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

“Hell,” said Judd, rolling on his creeper from beneath the car, “why don’t you just run him over with your truck.”

“When are you going to forgive about that dog?”

Judd went to his tool chest. “It’s damn silly if you ask me.”

“How big is the bear?” asked Randy.

“Oh, he’s a big ‘un. Five feet, at least.”

“Why not shoot him,” the youngest asked.

Darnell straightened his back and looked out through the door. “Can’t do that.”

“Can’t do that,” Mitch echoed, tried to spit.

Darnell tossed Mitch an annoyed look which went unnoticed, then said, “I think the thing was let loose on my land. They’re trying to scare me off.”

“Now, why would they want to do that?” Judd asked.

“Hell, if I know,” said Darnell. “Maybe the highway’s comin’ through. They got their reasons. Maybe they want to build one of them malls, full of boo-tiques.”

“Man’s got to have a fight,” mumbled Mitch.

“Well, this is one I’d like to see,” said Randy.

“Ain’t nobody goin’ stop you from comin’ out to take a peek.” Darnell took a deep breath. “Reckon the beast’ll be back tomorrow morning.” He took his time walking to his truck, his head held high. He tore out in the vehicle, kicking up a wake of dust which settled slowly on Mitch and Randy who had stepped out to watch him leave.

The town of Coy was one which rallied behind its citizens in any endeavors, and the pursuit of premature and imbecilic death would not go unobserved. Aside from Judd, Randy and Mitch, there were Ed and Mavis Johnson (bad legs and all), Deke Bumgardner, Raff and Rufus Winslow, and Pixie Hayes along with her seven kids and one on the way. There were others. They were all in the kitchen, lining the walls, crammed in between the counter and the refrigerator, huddled around Darnell who just sat at the table sharpening his Case knife with a whetting stone. It was a hot day. They drank lemonade and sweated. An hour passed.

“That bear ain’t comin’,” said Randy.

“There he is,” said Mitch and a hush fell over the room.

There was no pause. Darnell stood and marched past the bodies out into the yard, knife in hand.

“Man has no sense of drama,” complained young Randy.

“Ricky would be appalled if he weren’t dead,” said Clomer. “He would say that violence was a form of deviant sexual sublimation or something like that. Of course, then Darnell would kill him.”

Everyone was crowded at the doors and windows. Darnell stood in the middle of the yard, shouting obscenities at the bear, the blade of his knife reflecting the sun back at the spectators. The bear approached. Darnell faced the animal and they moved slowly in a circle, studying each other.

“Oh, my my my,” said Mavis Johnson.

“You children turn away, don’t look,” Pixie Hayes said, but the kids watched.

The bear took a swipe at Darnell with a paw, but the old man leaned away from it, then lunged forward with his blade and drew blood from the bear’s shoulder.

“What’s happening?” asked Clomer.

“I don’t believe it,” said Randy. “He got in a lick.”

“He’s doin’it,” Judd said.

The bear feigned a move left and caught Darnell circling around against it He picked the man up, hugged him, and threw him down hard.

“He’s down,” said Ed Johnson.

Darnell pulled himself up. Shaky, he took a couple of wild swings at the beast.

“Well, I’m impressed,” said Rufus Winslow.

The bear got a hold on him again and threw him down in the same fashion.

“He’s down, again,” said one of the Hayes children.

“Course he is,” mumbled Mitch. “Gotta be a damned fool.”

“What’s happening?” asked Clomer.

Darnell Aimes was buried on the edge of his property. Some people claim they’ve seen him up on that ridge at night, his knife in his hand, looking for that bear. Clomer says she hasn’t seen a thing. No one doubts this.

This story originally appeared in Callaloo, Number 27, and is reprinted here with the permission of the editors of Callaloo.