I worry I have always been the wrong kind of bear.
Alannah broke me so completely, I think, because for that night I was the right kind. I did not think of the past or future. I did not lumber or pine. I was calm, even sanguine.
Up in my rented attic, on my feral mattress on the floor, I was not offended when Alannah started to squeeze honey from the bear-shaped bottle onto my hairy underside. She laughed when she did, because she squeezed out more than she meant to, but I didn’t mind.
That’s perfect, I roared.
Or I think I roared. I cannot say for sure if I made a sound. I was so happy. The happiest bear in Minnesota at that moment, I was sure. My happiness increased when Alannah started licking off the honey, sucking too.
The feeling would be unknown to humans. To other bears, think of it like this: like finding the best salmon in the spring after a long hibernation, and the cold river water runs wild through your legs and the first bite of fish is like biting into the juicy heart of the world.
We met online a week before, on a woman seeking bear website. This was a while ago now, back when everyone clicked around on a website and read about strangers, learned the things other online daters could not live without and composed a personal message, and waited.
I would have waited blue moons for Alannah, who did not believe in the afterlife.
Looking for someone who believes in the sublime here-and-now called Nature, as she wrote on her profile.
Being a bear, I do not have the luxury to unbelieve, but I appreciated her passion. More so, she was good looking, and I am bound by evolution. A reply came the next day.
Most I met in Minneapolis were like Alannah. Private school graduates with natural eyebrows unhampered by the ideology that cursed Midwestern girls raised to believe that sex, or thinking of sex, as Jesus warned in Matthew, would be enough to send a soul to a place of eternal burning.
Up in my attic, Alannah lifted her head.
Your bearness is delicious, she said between my furry legs, and the way she flipped back her curly hair when she returned to me was so beautiful, I felt my eyes smart with gratitude.
Earlier that night, we ate pho along the greenway, at a restaurant with framed pictures of koi fish on the walls. I hardly fit in the booth and my legs could not reach the floor. That embarrassed me when I sat down, but Alannah didn’t make things awkward.
They make these things so small, she said, coming over to my side. Near me, she smelled like an earthy soap I wanted to swim in.
Sorry, I said, using my paw to dab at the soup. I don’t get out much.
Oh my god, same, Alannah said and proceeded to slurp so loud that every other diner within earshot looked at us.
We are meant for each other, I thought but did not say.
We finished our soups with messy joy. We drank beers. Alannah buzzed about her four years at Skidmore. She said, and not in an annoying way, she majored in mixed media art. Like any other bear, I was more interested in her profile. Alannah had checked the box for casual sex.
You must not be from here, I said, impaling a can with my claw.
Alannah playfully poked my big side.
I bet you heard from every dude in the Twin Cities, I said.
Yeah, maybe, she said, smiling, but did not blush.
That’s why I liked her, that straightforwardness. I think now Alannah liked me because she could show me off to her curious friends. Later, I found her online. She was with another bear, a grizzly.
Our beers were done. I had chewed on the cans, I admit. Alannah was holding my paw, examining it, like she might understand me better that way. I was admiring her hair, like Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza. I know things after years of watching TV in the wild, spying on rich Minnesotans in their cabins. As payment for their intruding, I eat their food. I encourage other bears to do the same.
Honestly, Alannah said, I didn’t think the dudes here would be so provincial. I thought they’d be more cool, you know? I’ll have to take that part down.
And when Alannah said she would take that part down, I was hoping she was hinting that she would take her whole profile down. We sat in silence for a bit. She began to run her fingers through my fur, around my neck.
I thought but didn’t say, Please, never stop, as I had learned, by then, to hide my adoration. Too much early on meant the end. A text thread with besties and the conclusion that this bear is clingy. Thirsty, as it came to be known.
That would happen anyway with Alannah, but over pho things seemed different. Always, things seem different. What I have learned is that nothing changes.
We are what we are, Robinson Jeffers wrote.
Close to the truth of wild things, of man’s inhumanity, he has always been a favorite. Another favorite is Gerstler, who wrote about my kind. Not bears, I mean, yearners.
Well, I said in our booth, not quoting any poets but growling a little bit, to make sure Alannah knew what I was. Don’t let me fool you. I’m just as disgusting as those other guys.
Alannah laughed, and that was it. I paid for the pho and ran like an animal through the darkness, to my attic in the suburbs. Alannah drove to the frozen suburbs in her used Saab, brought the honey up from downstairs, where my game warden landlord lived with his Christian girlfriend, and started pouring, like she told me she always dreamed of doing.
Jeffrey Ellinger is completing his thesis in fiction at Columbia College Chicago. “Bear in Midwinter” is his first published story.
