The Two-Bear Mambo

We were at Hanson's house watching the National Geographic special. Hanson and Charlie were drinking lots of beer. Leonard was nursing one, and I was having a Sharp's nonalcoholic beer. I'd given up drinking because I thought it was stupid and expensive and not very healthy.

Beer, however, didn't hurt Hanson's and Charlie's feelings.

Charlie said, 'Actually, Marve, my man. Them bears are neither on, nor in, the set. Those bears fucking is recorded on videotape or something. Then they play it back so we can see it. You see those trees? That grass? It's spring there behind them. That means those bears could have done this fucking a year or two ago. Anytime really.'

Hanson wasn't paying attention. He took another drink from his can of Schlitz, said, 'Can you believe that shit? I was a kid, they wouldn't show two dogs one behind another for fear you might think one was gonna mount the other. And now, right there, in front of God and everybody, two bears doing the mambo.'

'That's kind of a sexy angle too,' Charlie said. “Only thing

we're missing here is a diagram showing us the inside of the girl

bear's ass, so we can see the boy bear's dick swell into a knot.

They do that, I think. Like a dog.”

Not being specialists on bear's dicks, none of us responded. We didn't want to look like fools.

The bears on the special finished up the mambo, as Hanson called it. Neither of them lit a cigarette, but they both looked fairly satiated. The camera cut to a guy in khakis. He was talking about bears as he walked. The guy came across a pile of bear shit in the woods and you'd have thought he'd found a fifty-dollar bill. He whisked that shit around with a stick and told us about the health of the bear that had left it. In fact, he told us everything about that bear but its blood type and hat size. I was impressed. I know how to track in the woods, know most of the species of trees and bushes, and can tell some basic things about critters from their stool, provided I have the urge to stir their shit around with a stick. But this guy was remarkable. It just looked like a pile of bear shit to me, but here he was seeing all kinds of stuff in it.

I wondered if you went to college to learn about bear shit.

The bear show was pretty good, but I got to admit, I burned out on it. I think decoding bear shit was about as far as my interest in bears went, and I felt uncomfortable at Hanson's house. I kept fearing Florida would come in. It was bad enough there was plenty there to remind me of her.

It wasn't any specific thing, it was the way the house looked. I'd never been in Hanson's house before. We mainly insulted each other at the police station and bad hamburger joints, but it was apparent there had been a feminine hand at work here. And not Hanson's mother.

Florida might still have her apartment, might not stay here all the time, but from the well-decorated Christmas tree to the way objects were laid out on the shelves, the house spoke as much of her as it did Hanson.

And there were little clues. For instance, I seriously doubted the books in the shelf on aerobic dancing and how to make love to a man were Hanson's, though you can't be sure about something like that.

I did observe, however, that all around Hanson's chair it looked like the city dump, but a little less organized. It was littered with cigar butts, ashes, junk food wrappers, and beer cans. When we came in through the kitchen, I noticed, while kicking a plastic bag of spoiled celery out of my path, that it appeared as if the place had been blown about by a tornado. I know I don't keep a greasy frying pan full of molding scrambled eggs upside down on the floor or leave my refrigerator door open when I'm out of the house. And most everyone agrees the floor is a bad spot for celery.

I tried not to let old-fashioned ideas about women and kitchens get into my thinking, but they did. I knew Florida. She wasn't a classic housewife type any more than she was a classic women's lib type, but she wouldn't have let the joint get like this. Even if it was confined to the kitchen and around Hanson's chair.

I couldn't imagine Hanson, slob that he was, allowing the place to get this bad either, unless his head was somewhere sad and distant.

And earlier, hadn't Charlie made some crack about Hanson going around as if a weight was tied to his dick? Then there was that lamp-throwing business. That seemed a little intense even for Hanson.

And inviting us over to his place to watch a National Geographic special? That was too nice. That wasn't the Hanson I knew. And why hadn't he mentioned Florida? Was she visiting relatives? Caroling?

I began to suspect he and Florida had broken up, and a sense of warm well-being flowed over me before it was replaced by a warmer sense of shame, because secretly, I had been hoping me and her might get back together. This was a somewhat bitter and wistful sort of thought that came and went from time to time, and truthfully, I was glad to feel it go. Hanson was an all-right guy, and Florida and I had taken our shot and it hadn't hit target. She had decided on Hanson, and I reckoned it was best all around. I knew it was over for me and her, and always would be. But I couldn't help remembering her soft honey-brown skin and the way she moaned when I gave her pleasure, the way her legs moved, the smell of her. I couldn't forget her smile and the razor sharpness of her thinking. And, of course, I couldn't forget she was kind of an asshole.

I asked about the bathroom, and Hanson pointed it out. I had to go through the bedroom to get there, and as I went, I looked at the bed. It was unmade and the covers were thrown back and it smelled of sweat and perfume. Chanel No. 5. Not Hanson's brand. He was an Old Spice man. The rest of the room looked in good shape, except there was a pile of Hanson's clothes on the floor at the right-hand side of the bed.

The bathroom was clean and orderly except for toothpaste and whisker hair in the sink. Hanson had made a kind of pig trail from the kitchen to his chair to the bed to the bathroom, leaving the rest of the joint neat and clean.

When I got back from the bathroom, Leonard was still on the couch, but he had the book that told how to make love to a man. He was turning it at an odd angle.

He said, 'I didn't know you could do that.'

'Maybe you can't,' Charlie said. “That's man and woman stuff.'

'Homosexuals are pretty smart,' Leonard said. “Sometimes we improvise. “He put the book in his lap. “Figures. Me and Raul are broke up, and here's something nifty we could have tried.'