MAN VS. NATURE:
When I got home from work, there was a bear in my living room.
I started out this morning with flying colors - the perfect harbinger to a terrible day.
Nay, I say - perhaps the worst day of all.
The coffee machine was broken.
My coffee machine.
Well, I thought, no harm done. None at all. I’ll have to stop at a medium-priced coffee shop on my way to work and force myself to a non-fat latte. Or a café au lait. Or something else French-sounding.
But I got pulled over. That's right, by a cop. And yes, my wallet had slipped out of my pants at some point in the mad rush of the morning. And, you're correct, I was late to work.
At work I found out that the program I've been working on for the last six months failed at the last second because of some miniscule typo that I somehow let through. It destroyed everything.
And it crashed the entire office network. Made the lights flicker. Everyone has to start over their projects from scratch. Which means that Melissa, the too-hot-to-be-a-computer-programmer I've been wanting to ask out, but never had the courage to, of course, probably hates my guts. On the plus side, though, it did make all the coffee and soda machines spew free beverages.
My mind being on other things, I ran out of gas on the way home, and had to push my brown Volvo six blocks to my apartment building where the elevator is broken.
I walk up four flights of stairs, slip off my shoes, lose my tie, and find myself face-to-face with the North American Grizzly.
He is watching a rerun of Sanford and Son.
I was never a boy scout. Never much for the outdoors, at all. I’ve never even really been camping or anything, so I’m pretty uneducated in the area of bears. I don’t know if I’m supposed to run or play dead or try to fight or offer him a Hot Pocket. Which I’m out of, anyway.
I notice that the bear, which is definitely not at all like Pooh, has very nearly destroyed my arm chair. I say very nearly instead of completely only because I could still tell what it was. The fabric was strewn about the room, along with massive amounts of foam and stuffing. Wood splinters covered the floor, and a larger piece of wood was stuck into the wall a few feet away. I realize that I don’t want to know why the bear hates my chair so much.
Well, hated my chair.
I’m also aware that he’s staring at me. I’m not sure exactly when his attention shifted from the television to me, but his black eyes are looking right into mine. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to look into his eyes or not. Neither of us move. I don’t know if I should move. This is very awkward.
I decide reason is the best way out of the situation. After all, if he can watch Sanford and Son, he can understand when I tell him he’s not welcome.
Or, at the very least, when I tell him that the food is off limits. Maybe we can order a pizza or something, later. But only if he doesn’t destroy any more furniture.
I break from his gaze, and turn, opening the door.
“Well, bear. It seems as though your little breaking and entering jaunt is over. I’d appreciate it if you would leave. Overstayed your welcome a bit.”
I look back at him. Is he mad? I don’t know if he’s mad or not. I can’t read bears very well. He just looks at me, then down at the door. Back up to me.
“Okay? So, go on out, and I won’t have to call the police.”
My voice shook a bit there, but in all, I think I’m doing a good job of staying authoritative. The bear, which I have named Opposite Pooh, or Opooh, at this point (considering his lack of whimsy and a bright red shirt), stands.
Oh, good, I think. It worked. He’s leaving.
He roars.
Maybe not, I think.
For the first time, I get a really good look at him. Opooh’s about three feet taller than me, and I’m a tall guy. Still, his height isn’t so much imposing as his overall size. I’m pretty sure he has to weigh about 900 pounds. He raises his paws and roars again. I notice razor sharp claws, at least half a foot long. This will not be good.
Not at all.
His fur is dark. Almost black. I thought bears were brown. He opens his mouth to roar again and it vibrates through the entire apartment. I wonder if the person living below me can hear it.
Someone bangs on their ceiling beneath me. They’re yelling something. Yeah, they can hear it.
“Listen to me, Opooh. I am a very important person. If you hurt me, many men will come for you. With guns. Lots of big guns.”
I don’t know if this plan will work. It seems risky, but it’s all I can think of.
“Do you understand ‘gun,’ Opooh?”
I make my hand into a gun. Raise it at him.
“Bang,” I say. “Bang!”
It was about then when he charged.
Maybe I shouldn’t have threatened him.
He’s on me faster than I could ever imagine something that big could move in such a small space, and his claws have ripped into my abdomen and shredded away most of my skin up into my right shoulder. I drop to the floor. The bear’s weight comes down on me and I can’t breathe, and he manages to catch most of my head in his teeth. His huge, powerful jaws close on me in a death grip and I can hear cracks and pops, panic filling my lungs and vomit filling my throat as I realize it’s the sound of my skull breaking. Blood is flowing down my face and into my clean carpet and I manage to get my hands wrapped around his snout, fingers in his nostrils, and I’m pulling as hard as I can and he’s relenting somewhat, but only, I think, because he wants to get at something not as hard as my skull. I punch at his face wildly and my ring catches his eye, and I can hear something ripping. He bites down as I swing again and I can taste my blood and he crushes my right forearm in one bite, ripping away shreds of skin and leaving only bone and gristle and blood and muscle still attached. I keep fighting, and I realize that his eye is bleeding from my ring but I can’t swing again - I can’t even move my right arm. I tuck into myself and I can feel his claws ripping into my back, followed by an intense pain as he bites into my shoulder and a thousand tiny needle points pierce into my flesh. I’m screaming and choking on my own vomit and I can barely breathe and all I can smell or feel is his hot breath, disgusting, stinking breath on my face and it smells like death as he roars and grumbles and growls in my ears.
“No!” I scream, gargling through blood and guts and vomit, “No, Opooh!”
I find the strength and I start to kick into him, but I doubt he even feels it as he bats me from side to side, claws ripping into me over and over again. He throws me back and I hit a wall, lay on it, nearly blind with blood, sticky, my shirt sticking to the floor. My arm slams into the wall and the exposed nerves hit and it feels like my arm is on fire. I reach out to him with it and he catches it in his teeth one more time and pulls, and I can feel the flesh on my arm and hand pulling off like I’m wearing a long skin glove, exposing blood vessels and nerves and he’s coming again but I kick as hard as I can and hit him right in the snout, then once in his injured eye and he rears back and lets out a deafening howl.
“Jesus Christ, bear!!!!” I yell, “What the fuck is your problem?!?”
He leaps on me and bites down on my face, tearing away most of my cheek and breaking the bone that holds my eye in my head. My eye falls out of the socket and I can see myself, upside down, for a split second before darkness. I try to catch it but I’m rubbing my head and I can feel where my scalp is lifting off in back and I lose it and decide not to try touching my face again. I dry heave and realize that I’m very, very cold.
I pass out.
When I came to, the Sanford and Son episode had long been over, replaced with an episode of Judge Judy.
And Opooh was long gone.
I dragged myself to the phone.
It took 22 operations and the better part of two years, but the doctors got me looking like myself again. The bear had broken my ocular cavity and my right cheekbone, and ripped off the right side of my face. He had crushed my right forearm and skinned it, leaving permanent nerve damage. I can’t make much of a fist with my right hand anymore. It needed grafts and the bones had to be rebuilt. I had a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen, and most of my ribs were broken. The pops and cracks I heard while the bear bit my head were actually the sounds of his teeth penetrating my skull, leaving small cracks and holes all over. Stitches and plastic surgery fixed my nearly severed scalp. My face, on the other hand, needed to be rebuilt from scratch- metal and dead men’s skin, grafts from my thighs.
Sometimes I feel like a cyborg.
Which is pretty cool, actually.
I really don’t look all that different. My right eye is a little lazy. I have a mean scar down my face.
I didn’t make any of the national news outlets. No one believed it. Now I just tell people that I got into a bad car accident. Or a bad motorcycle accident, if a cute girl asks.
I’m back at work now. Same place. Not a programmer, anymore, though. Have trouble typing with my messed-up hand. They were pretty cool about the whole thing.
And I’m okay.
In fact, I think tomorrow I’m going to try and give Melissa a call. The too-hot-to-be-a-computer-programmer will probably say she’s busy. Or she has a boyfriend, or she doesn’t even know me, or whatever. But it doesn’t matter.
I’ll call.
