[The bear] was wise to the ways of the forest and crafty when it came to the ways of man; when he'd forced the window of the restaurant, a look of extreme concentration had come into his beady eyes, not unlike the look Arthur Bramhall had while seated at his typewriter.
-- William Kotzwinkle, The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Bears and bullshitters: Pickings are slim for both
By Patrick O'GradyThe fork, a Rock Shox SID 100, was a wish-list item for a September week of mountain biking with some old newspaper pals who have rediscovered the joys of cycling. One of them spent his rebate on a whole new bike, which tells you much about how well journalism pays.
The firearm, a Marlin 1894CP .357 Magnum carbine, became a must-have after a smallish black bear tried to climb through a living-room window while I was sanding the rough edges off some fresh lies in the office. The 7.62x39mm Ruger carbine and .357 Smith & Wesson revolver were out of reach in the loft bedroom, and I didn't think the .22 semiautomatic leaning against a nearby wall would have much of an effect beyond stimulating the bear's appetite for cynic marinated in bile.
Get Him, Booboo, He's Bluffing. Actually, I don't want to shoot the local bears with any of these weapons, regardless of caliber. They were here first, they eat an occasional Boy Scout, and they don't vote Republican. Mostly, I just want to be able to instantly generate the kind of thunderclap a bear might associate with God pegging bolts of lightning at him. Send him scampering off to a Realtors' picnic, or into some tourist's Winnebago.
It's not as if the bears really want to climb through our windows, after all. If they've been acting a bit like Hunter S. Thompson at an open bar this summer, it's because of a late freeze that snuffed the nuts and greenery they favor. With winter and naptime approaching, it's small wonder that they're doing Attila the Hungry numbers on campsites, noshing at trophy-home dumpsters and burgling mountain houses occupied by free-lance layabouts who have also been finding the pickings slim of late, thanks in part to the permafrost that's been giving the bike business the shivers.
While bills have been arriving as regularly as bad news about Schwinn-GT and Mercury, my paychecks slowed to a glacial pace in early August. One outfit was paying two months or more after publication, a bit of cash-flow sleight of hand familiar to unemployable word-wranglers with a working knowledge of the English language and a distaste for cubicles. Then another's computer got cross-wired over a pair of similar invoices, shrugged its silicon shoulders, and issued only the smaller of the two, a snafu that didn't get resolved for a couple of weeks.
Nuts and greenery both, gone at a stroke. I felt like climbing in someone's window and growling.
Yo, Chris Robin, Where's My Freakin' Honey? A bear that becomes too aggressive about getting what it needs is treated more harshly than a housebreaking crackhead, or even a contributing editor. Captured once, it will be tagged and turned loose in some other location. Caught a second time, it will be killed.
Happily, there are strong customs against summarily executing free-lancers demanding payment for services rendered. So I e-mailed and telephoned editors, publishers and presidents, who spoke with number-crunchers, spreadsheet-twiddlers and book-cookers, and before long, most of the blockage had been cleared; the money pipeline started to flow once again. That's why my rebate went for a new fork and smokepole, instead of food, drink and that hefty Tacoma payment.
Hey, maybe it's an omen. After a hot, dry start to summer, it's been raining here almost every afternoon and evening, and Custer County looks like Vancouver's North Shore, only with fewer tattooed velo-scribes crashing gratis freeride bikes. The game warden says he's seen a few acorns, some friends have spied currants and wild strawberries, and I know at least one guy who's bought a bike from an IBD recently.
Maybe it's finally payday, and nobody will have to get shot.