Andrew and Art

by Emery C. Walters

  “Nah, not this bear hero! I like bears.” Art was turning red. It wasn’t that hot in here. I guess he didn’t like talking about gay guys. Whew! “I like hunting them! I almost got attacked by one once.” Art cleared his throat and fanned himself.

  Gag me, or something, what came out of my mouth next but, “I don’t remember if it was John Agee or Janes Cheever who said they slept…with…him.”

  “One may have and the other wrote about it,” Art said, and this time, I realized he was blushing.

  My mouth fell open.

  Art recovered. “I studied history and literature in college. I know I don’t look like it. I know I look like a refugee from an Army-Navy surplus store, though I usually just get my clothes at the local Savers, big thrift shop. I’m just going to spill stuff on it, you know, clumsy manly stuff like bear guts and blood.”

  Nice recovery, I thought. What the hell else could we talk about that would be safer? “What is your interest in history then, local?”

  “Archaeological aspects of history, like the fabled giants. Local historical giants. If there were any. But I’ll tell you, I was out digging once and found some really odd bones, looked human but were way too big, you know? I showed them to my professor, and they accidently got lost. Weird, huh? Since then, I’ve always wondered. That’s how I started in on historical photographs and, of course, found one with the same last name. As did you.”

  “We have a lot in common,” I said.

  “I think so,” Art replied slowly, his eyes not leaving mine.

  A little unnerved, I babbled, “Most of our convict ancestors went to Australia, though, ha-ha. You know, the thieves, whores, queers, and smugglers.”

  Art shifted uncomfortably. There, I’d tested the gay waters, and once again, he’d become uncomfortable, I thought. Gotcha!

  But, boy, was I wrong. He looked up at the attic, then at me, then over his shoulder at the door. He pulled his chair closer to me and bent forward.

  “That’s not really cocaine up there,” he confided. “It’s a new type of chicken feed I invented. I had to smuggle it in from Canada because I couldn’t afford the shipping or exchange rates.”

  I almost laughed, but I restrained myself to just rolling my eyes quite far. You can hurt yourself doing that, especially if you don’t raise both eyebrows, which I did not.

  “Seriously!” he said loudly. “It’s true! Do you want to try some?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No! You watch me eat some, and then how the chickens love it. You’ll see! Nobody is crazy here.” Of course, he had to spoil that by crossing his eyes and twitching his head several times. “Just because my mother and father were first cousins, like yours.”

  I watched that idiot, well, okay, my idiot, my crazy idiot, climb the attic stairs and come back down, weighted under several sacks of the white shit I thought I had hidden so well. The chickens went crazy, okay, so we had crazy beings present. They squawked and tried to climb up him, and the smart ones, if there are any, tried to fly up and sit on the sacks. He dropped them on the floor and ripped a bag open. The chickens dug in, and so did he.

  “Yum, yum, good!” He chewed with his mouth open like a ten-year-old kid brother.

  That got me. I’d never had a sibling younger than me, and it cracked me up. I realized that, at this particular moment, I could probably rub his head with my knuckles or give him an Indian sunburn or make him hit himself and…but I was laughing all the same, which, I realized, had been his intent all along. And I realized that wasn’t all I could do to him, nor was it all I wanted to do to him. Uh, oh. Was it even possible to consider it? Or would I wake up dead if he even suspected what I was thinking?

  When we calmed down, I asked, “Is your family going to miss you? Your wife, kids, girlfriend?”

  “Don’t have any. Are yours?”

  “Ah, no.”

  Well, that wasn’t much help was it?

  “So a stud like you has no girlfriend? How the hell did they not snap you up?”

  Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. Finally, he got out, after what seemed to be great difficulty, “Did you ever take a chance of a mattress?”

  “Ahhhh, um, so tell me what books and movies and photographers do you like. Since we don’t have any here, we could tell each other our favorite parts or something.” Oh, God, I’d let myself in for it. Everything I liked was by Oscar Wilde, Tom of Finland, or James Lear. Yeah, like that wouldn’t give things away, but wait, maybe he’d never heard of them and by the time he could look them up, I’d be long gone. Right?

  “Oh, yeah, uh, Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden was one of my earliest and most favorite photographers!”

  I’d never heard of him. I decided I’d throw one back at him. “I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”

  Bugger me! Art got excited and said, “Yes! The one where none of the gay characters killed themselves before the end of the movie! I loved that!”

  Oh. Shit.

  Art pulled his chair even closer, and we started on our third beers. I was getting a little warm, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He put his hand on my knee. “Would you like to recreate some of the Tom of Finland pictures with me? Just for fun?” He blinked his eyes and licked his lips.

  “Stop toying with me! I admit nothing!” I exclaimed, spilling my beer dramatically and leaping to my feet. This can’t go on! And the bastard was laughing.

  Then he stood up and took my arms. “I don’t know if you hate me or not, but I like you. I really do.”

  I realized I didn’t hate him. In fact, parts of me wanted him. Parts of me really liked him, too.

  “I’m really sorry,” Art said quietly. “I didn’t realize how this situation might affect you, or any other normal person. Here you are, stuck in a tiny cabin with a half-crazed maniac twice your size who could probably break your neck as easy as…”

  He must have seen my face go ashen. If I hadn’t been afraid before, I was now.

  “Shit, I’m sorry, I do everything wrong. Small wonder nobody likes me. We were having fun, and now I’ve ruined it. Like I usually do. Damn it!”

  I was watching a grown man, strong as an ox, start to cry, right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it, but I did, because I wasn’t exactly star social material either. In fact, I’d always wondered if I was autistic or something. His tears were real, though, and he was shaking.

  “I’ll try to get out and get help tomorrow. I can make some snowshoes or something. I should be back in…oh, that’s probably worse, leaving you here all alone, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to be alone here, now that you’re here.” With that, he spun away from me, wiping his eyes with his back turned, as if I couldn’t see him. I realized he didn’t want to appear weak in front of me.

  “I have never been afraid here before in my life, or anywhere else, really, but all I’ve ever had to take care of was my sister, when we were kids, and after she died, well, just chickens. She always loved her chickens. I thought they’d bring her close to me. I haven’t killed too many yet, you know?”

  When he turned back to me, I was done for. He was shaking. Now it was my turn to take him, and lead him to a seat. I took him to the couch, and we sank down on it together.

  “What happened to your sister?” I asked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “She died in her sleep. She was older than me but had Downs, and we were always concerned about her. Finally, one New Year’s Eve, my parents had a chance to go out to a party together. They’d gone out before but had always had a nurse or professional babysitter come in. I was fifteen. I thought I could handle anything that came up.

  “I read her favorite story; it was The Little Red Hen, and got her drinks of water and tucked her in. She liked that. She said, “I love you forever, Bubba,” and I thought she went to sleep, so I went back downstairs. I’d been invited to a party, too, that night, for the first time, and my crush was going to be there. So, of course, I was somewhat resentful, you know? But that’
s how it worked out. Nobody else was available. And my parents took a chance on me.

  “Well, you can see where this is going. I heard a noise that seemed unlike her and went upstairs. The more stairs I climbed, the more afraid I got. In the light from her Little Pony nightlight, she looked peaceful and asleep. I almost turned to go. Almost. But I didn’t.

  “Long story short, my parents blamed me. Hell—I blamed me. And it all went south from there. And now because I’m a mix of a terrible sense of humor and a huge need to take care of those whom God, or life, puts in my path, I’m fucking things up again, and I’m not even sure how.”

  So what did I, the smart one (for a change, ha-ha.), do? I kissed him. I closed my eyes and went in for the big one, right on the lips. And I put my hand around his neck and rubbed a hollow spot behind his ear. When I pulled back, before I even opened my eyes, I said, “That’s my secret fear. That you’ll know what I am and throw me out. I just wanted to give you something important, and the knowledge of who I really am, on the inside, where I hide. It’s all I have to give. Usually, it’s tossed back. That’s up to you.”

  The way he was looking at me, from eye to eye, from heart to heart; from secret hidden inner place to secret hiding spot, gave me my answer.

  That night, we slept together in the bed, both naked and not cold at all.

  * * * *

  We spent the next few days backing up to what one usually does when they meet a stranger: getting to know each other. The what do you do, where do you work, where do you come from, kind of thing. I was still not sure if he was gay or if this was just a convenient time and place and I was the only one here, but I really should have known. He just wasn’t comfortable being out, even during sex.

  I really didn’t know if this was going to be a happy for now or a happy forever after kind of thing, but mostly I was okay with whatever it was, either way. I lived so much in the moment at that time. And why not? We were so snowed in, and apparently nobody was looking for us at all. I had my hopes and dreams, and he featured in all of them. I kept telling myself not to fall in love, that just finding love or whatever we had in the present, in the now, was enough and all I could ask of the universe. It all could have been so much worse.

  My bear hero indeed. And that happened a few days later.

  We’d made love, fed the chickens, eaten breakfast, and needed to bring in more wood, but first we sat together on the couch, talking.

  “I’m so sorry about your sister,” I said. “That’s sweet about the chickens.”

  “I wrote a short story about it for my English class the following year. I turned eighteen before he handed them back; and the day I did, my Dad turned me out. Just—poof—out you go! No warning, except I kind of expected it, and I had an older friend at the time who took me in. Funny thing about that night, though, the night she died? If I’d gone to the party like I’d wanted to, I probably would have left with my crush, and both he and the boy who went with him died when they were hit by a drunk driver. So it was like my sister saved my life or something. I never told my parents that. They didn’t mind hurting me, but I’m not the kind to hurt others on purpose. Enough of that happens by accident.”

  Here he gave me a squeeze. It felt like an apology, but I felt like I owed him one more.

  “This older guy, my mentor sort of, helped me get into college, and I wanted to study farming so I could raise chickens, you know? But he steered me into bio-engineering, and that’s how I took an interest in making better chicken feed. Pretty funny stuff when you think about it.”

  My eye was caught by a sudden increase in the snow falling outside, and the howling wind came down the chimney and made me shiver. Sitting with Art, knowing his story, made the idea of being stuck here a lot more bearable and even, possibly, quite pleasant.

  “But what about you? I’ve been doing all the talking, and I still don’t know anything about you except you’re an artist with the camera! Have you captured my best side yet?” Art lifted his chin and turned so his profile was toward me.

  All the ribald comments I could make ran through my mind, and I resisted saying any of them. In the past, I hadn’t minded hurting other people on purpose, but maybe if I tried, I could give that up, or at least limit it to just other drivers when I was on the highway.

  Suddenly, I felt shy. I’d felt stupid and angry and offended, and now I just felt shy. Where had that come from? But he was such a manly man, such a bear of a man, with such a history, and I was, well, what was I? Not much. I’d drifted away from my family. All my older brothers were married with children and lived near my parents, so they were all involved with grandchildren and dance recitals and little league ball games. Maybe I was the daughter they had wanted but never gotten. I felt like I had disappointed them all, anyhow.

  “I grew up in a small town in Michigan. We had tornados and football games and picnics at the lake in the summer. Dad took his boys hunting. My mom had claimed me as her baby, which was a mixed blessing, as I got to dabble in the arts and music all I wanted. They drew the line at ballet, though, but I had to learn something, so I took up karate. It was that or let my brothers kill me, right?”

  Art rubbed my head affectionately. “Nobody in our family went to college, but some mishap occurred and I had a scholarship, so I did go. By that time, they were happy to ship me off, because it was obvious I was never going to bring a girl home, take one to the prom, and/or get one pregnant. I don’t think they thought any farther than that, that I might be one of them, or else they just never wanted to bring it up with me in case it was true.

  “I ended up teaching some of the arts at local high schools and community colleges, so I had a busy schedule, and I loved it. I took this semester off, so I don’t think anyone will be missing me until after New Year’s. I guess that’s good and bad both.”

  I looked sideways at him. He looked so sweet and thoughtful. I wasn’t expecting what I said next, but, “You know something I’ve never told another soul? I slept with a professor to pass a course. There. I’ve said it. If you don’t hate me, I’ll feel a ton better.”

  “Hate you? I was admiring your courage and daring!” He playfully punched me. “You’re a braver man than I, Gunga Din.”

  “Better man,” I blurted then blushed. Who was I to correct this sweet man? “Sorry,” I said quietly.

  He laughed. “Or the Yardbirds. Or Charlie Brown. Who cares?” He grabbed my knee and started running his hand up my thigh. Of course, a chicken had to join us.

  “I’m going to go get some more wood,” that unfortunate double-entre was me.

  After Art got done laughing, he fumbled around, looking for his jacket, but I was already out the door. I was embarrassed, but it had been funny. The things a person could say, unless they watched every word. I closed the door behind me and stood on the porch, watching the snow belt down, screaming around the corners as if it trying to eat me. It smelled funny outside, not crisp and pure like it had been, but like something had died. Weird. And then I turned around…

  There was a huge bear not six feet behind me. He hadn’t noticed me yet, but, of course, I had to scream, didn’t I, or shit my pants or something. I may have done both. Anyway, it turned and glared at me, snuffled a couple of times, and then stood up. Up and up and up. I knew I was going to die. I grabbed the closest piece of wood I could find and held it in front of me like a fucking baton, like I was getting ready to twirl it. I knew I should have grabbed it by one end, but I’d only been able to grab it by the middle. It was a miracle any of my brain cells had been working that well.

  It’s funny, well, funny-peculiar, not funny-ha-ha, but I could sense every touch of the wind on my skin, every lift of my hair in the wind. I could see every individual snowflake whirl in front of me and to my sides. I swear I could almost see behind me, I was so hyper-aware. I figured the next thing I’d see would be that white light, and then all my dead grandparents would be welcoming me to Heaven, or somewhere.

  The bear had terrib
le breath. I guessed he’d been eating something dead. That made me laugh. Dead, ha-ha, and he’d probably killed it himself first! And I’d be dessert. But not if I could help it with my trusty, wood baton.

  The bear came at me, and I ducked. That’s what we did in karate. It worked. The thing missed me, but he was pissed. I didn’t think I could take its paw and use it as a lever like in karate; that sounded like a big nope to me, like trying to turn a paving machine or steam roller to the side by blinking your eyes at it. Nope nope nope. But here it came at me again, and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t even duck because I couldn’t move. I was going to die.

  But then, thank God, there was Arthus, bear hero of Welsh legend. Behind me, beside me, and then in front of me. (How the hell did he do that?) I think he screamed Welsh curses and shook his finger and called the bear a bad boy, but who knows? I was too terrified to know what was happening, still holding my log in the middle and wondering how I could help.

  Then the cavalry arrived. All the fucking chickens came flying out the door and flew into the bear’s face. I think. What do I know? I was busy screaming and grabbing at Art, trying to pull him to safety and finally shifting my grip on my log so I could swing it right. I may have had my eyes squeezed shut, I’m not sure. But there were a couple of loud thumps and bangs and yelling and grunting, and then the bear ran off. Just like that. Poof! Gone. Ran away on all fours. And Art was holding me, and I think we were both crying or maybe one of us was laughing, but it wasn’t me.

  I know he pushed me inside and grabbed some more wood, carrying in a pile of it while I stumbled across the room and slipped into the outhouse, shutting the door behind me not for privacy for my shame, but to put one more barrier between me and the bear.

  After a while, Art tapped on the door and asked, “Are you okay? Please come out. I need some hugging right now. That was way too close. Are you okay? Please be okay.”

  He sounded like he was going to cry, but I was already bawling and wouldn’t have been able to hear him over my own sobs. So I opened the door, and we fell into each other’s arms, and you know how that sort of thing ends.