12

Note to self: fucking yowch! It hurts, oh yes, it hurts! Now I remember pain: pain was exactly like this, only not so painful. Pain, I got your e-mail, I got your fax, I am not interested! Will you please stop calling me? What is up with pain? If I’d wanted pain I would have seen an acupuncturist, not a pharmacist, certainly not a toothless Canadian hair farmer with a sideline in prescription pills. That dickhead dealer sold me bogus drugs! Why is everybody always trying to rip me off ? Please, God, get this painful hunk of luxury off me. Oh God.

No God. There can’t be a God. God wouldn’t take a brilliant concept like Homo Sapiens and fuck it up with Pain. Only Nature would be so retarded, so cruel.

Hello, God? Can you hear me? This is Marv Pushkin calling. Yes … that Marv Pushkin. And I’m a big fan of yours as well. So, if you do exist, could you please consider dropping whatever important bullshit you’re doing and getting your holy kiester down here to rescue me and my car? Look, whatever you need, I’ll take care of it if you’ll just airlift me out of this forest, I’m a wealthy guy, I’ll give money to Mother Theresa, or the Ronald McDonald house or whatever. Whatever the fuck you want, penitence or I’ll pray or shit I’ll go door to door with the stupid magazines and talk about how you changed my life! I was dying under a car and now I’m out from under a car and not dying, that would be miraculous to me right now and I wouldn’t mind lecturing on that, I could use PowerPoint, I’ve got a real talent with PowerPoint, I’m like a PowerPoet. Owww, just help me get out of here NOW and we’ll work out the details back at my office, or shit we can do it at your office, on a mountaintop, in a manger, wherever you say, you’re the Man, you’re in the driver’s seat, I’m prepared to be flexible but please please please. Look at me, I’m praying here. Marv Pushkin is praying, so make it snappy with the miracles please!

Please!

Please?

Asshole! I knew he didn’t exist. Oh, my torture has a

first name, it’s ow ow OW OW OW! I’ve got hot needles all the way up my spine and I’m freezing and there’s a dozen ticks burrowed into various parts of my ass, laying eggs and tending their new lawns of my butt hair. I’ve got itchy bug bites on my eyeballs, my teeth won’t stop twitching, my mouth is dry as a double-absorbent diaper, I’m so thirsty I’d drink gasoline.

Not That I’m Complaining! ASIDE FROM THESE MINOR ISSUES, EVERYTHING IS JUST GREAT!

Except, did I mention the hallucinations? The Rover keeps melting, collapsing, vibrating, turning blue, advancing and receding. In a different time and place I probably could enjoy that, have sex to it, but then I keep seeing things in the corner of my eyes. When I turn to look, well, who knows what I see since I can’t even focus my eyes properly but it sort of looks like tiny ground squirrels in hospital scrubs running around with scalpels and saws. I am inclined to doubt that they are real. I mean, of course they’re not real. Give me a break, I’m not nuts.

I bet God does exist, and I bet he’s a sick sadistic prick who created the world just to have something small and defenseless to poke. Maybe that’s why animals eat people and people eat animals, and justice is so fleeting. Maybe God is laughing at me: my suffering, my pain, my “problems.” Maybe my reality is God’s Reality TV. That would just about explain all this.

Fuck you, God, I’m leaving. I’ve got to. I’ve got to do it somehow. I’m getting out of here with as much of me as I can carry. So long God … hello Leatherman Super Tool! You I believe in. You are made from only the highest quality hardened stainless steel, using advanced computer aided manufacturing technologies. You never dull, rust or snap. With you I could disassemble a car, or a rifle, or a TV set. Today we will disassemble a Marv. But first, tourniquets. I have already snipped my sleeves, so just a simple tug … here … whoops, slippery … this should just rip right off … whoops, dammit. Tool, where did you go? Where’s my tool? Tool? It was here, I just dropped it, it’s got to be here next to me, I can hardly feel anything but it’s obvious it’s here, where is it? Back off, squirrels! It’s mine, where is it? It’s here! It’s got to be here! WHERE IS MY TOOL?

GOD DAMN ASSHOLE SHITFUCK PIECE OF CUNT WIPING TAIWANESE TECHNOLOGY WHERE THE COCK FUCK DID YOU GO YOU PIECE OF STINKING ASS CRAP GOD DAMMIT I NEED YOU TO SAW OFF MY SHITPIECE MOTHERFUCKING CORNHOLING CUNTWIPING LEGS, OH DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT, OH GOD IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS — ah, here you are. Sitting on my leg. Now then …

Now then … the saw.

Deep breath. The saw. The legs. For instance: the left leg.

How to do this?

Like … so?

Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuckshit. Ow ow ow. Nope! Wrong. Not like that. That’s … that’s maybe not going to work. Hell, I didn’t think I could be any more in pain, let alone any more bleeding. Dammit! I could do this! If it wasn’t for the pain, I’d be free! Oh man, oh God, oh Jesus … this is not as planned.

But what’s that sound … hello! Look who’s come to join the party? If it isn’t everyone’s favorite stinking mammal, Mister Jesus H. Bear, huffing and puffing and ambling home at sunrise like he hasn’t been mysteriously absent for the last day and a half.

Where you been, M.B.? Out partying with your bear pals, I suppose. Didn’t even have the courtesy to phone home while I was up all night worrying about you. Well, why don’t you just fuck off back to wherever you’ve been pleasuring yourself. I have some important neurosurgical business to attend to and I don’t appreciate your snarky back-seat commentary. It takes a light touch, presence of mind, it’s a delicate business and you make me nervous when you stare, so please just give me a half-hour of Marv time. Come back later and I’ll leave you out some breakfast.

Don’t you speak English? Go, A, Way. Shoo! Mush!

Mister Bear, what are you staring at? Nothing to see here, please move along. Sure, I was stare-worthy once, I was something to see, I was Marv Ascendant, not any more. I stink, I’m sick, bloody and bug-bitten. I wouldn’t eat me if I was the last piece of meat on earth. I’m dying, and I hurt like bullets. Satisfied?

Mister Alaskan Black Bear, mister Ursus Americanus, I don’t even get you. You are supposed to be largely herbivorous. You are supposed to prefer nuts, berries and bugs. Is my name Herb? Do I look nutty to you? Why are you doing this to me, Mister Bear? Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?

That was your cub I ran over in the Rover, wasn’t it? Can you smell his blood under the front fender? Is that why you’re angry? You can tell me.

I’m sorry. Really, I apologize. But that’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it? Kill and/or be killed, day in, day out. Someone’s always killing your children these days. You can’t let it get you down. All the other animals in the forest have predators, how would you deserve a free pass?

No … no it’s not your forest, you don’t own the forest. We’re all co-owners of This Condo Earth and we’ve got to share. We’re all in this together, am I right? Interconnectedness of all living things, et cetera. I’d expect a bear like you to understand new-age granola concepts like that.

Yes, I know you were here first, but we’re here now, and we’re not going away. People don’t go away. Only Nature goes away.

What do you mean? I have tons of respect. Tons! I love this place. Humans adore nature, that’s why we come out here to hunt. We wouldn’t hunt animals we didn’t respect, would we?

Oh, look who’s calling who stupid. What’s your B.A.T. score anyway?

Smelly? Oh, now the pot of bearshit calls the kettle smelly! Hah! Go sniff yourself in the mirror sometime.

Hey, hey Mister Bear: I think it’s great that you’ve decided, finally, to open up and share your feelings with me but — no, let me finish — but I sure wish you would have brought some of this up before you chewed my fucking legs off. Maybe we could have, you know, torn down the walls between us, had a weep-in, become spirit siblings, all that would be great for a guy who still had some legs. But right now I’m afraid I’m just a little bit low on sympathy for your bear problems. Ow.

Well yeah, I said I was sorry. But imagine how I feel! This sucks, this hurts, this is torture! You’re actually torturing me.

Yes! OK! Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry! Don’t I look sorry? Isn’t that good enough for you? It was an accident! I didn’t park on top of your son and eat his feet, did I?

Oh please. If I taste that bad, why’d you eat so much of me? Hmm? You know, don’t bother to answer. Just forget it. I’m sick of talking to you. You don’t understand what’s going on here. You still think this is the forest primeval and you can slaughter any old hunter who happens along without fear of reprisal. Don’t you realize what you’ve bitten off ?

They’re going to take you down, Mister Bear. When they find my carcass under this Rover and they realize there’s a dangerous man-eater loose out here, a hunt will be called, and the humans will come, hundreds of loud, stinking humans with their guns and their dogs and their helicopters and their gasoline burning vehicles. They will mow you and your family down in just reprisal, and that’s not my fault Mister Bear, that’s yours. All the other animals have learned not to hassle the Man. You hassled the Man, now the Man’s going to hassle you.

Alone? You wish. Loneliness is obsolete. Haven’t you heard? Oh but you don’t have the Internet up here yet, I keep forgetting. Poor, disadvantaged bear. Let me give you the rundown: basically, we live in a global village now, we can transport anything to anywhere instantly, all life is deeply and magically intertwingled, all places are connected, and so every place on earth is slowly but certainly becoming more like every other place on earth. The deserts will get a bit more foresty and the forests will get a bit more deserty. I’m sure you’ve noticed how the winters haven’t been as cold as they used to be. Thank us later. Likewise, the wilderness will get more highways and the urban centers will get nicer landscaping. The polar bears are swimming south, the koala bears are climbing north. The property developers are beating a path up here to deflower the last virgin stretches of undeveloped property, while lumber and seafood floats away to Japan in crush-proof canisters. That’s the power of the global market: if someone in Taiwan wants a bear hide for their executive lav, market forces will suck it toward them with magnetic strength. But don’t worry, because Capitalism is a fair God, a good God, it uses its magic power to make everyone rich, perhaps even bears.

Mister Bear, quit crying. This is nothing to be sad about. Change is good. There’s a bright, exciting future waiting if you can just get with the program and find a seat on Capitalism’s magic bus. Sure, maybe there won’t always be a forest here, but on the other hand if you have any more cubs they’ll have great new options. They’ll be able to travel. If they can learn certain skills they could be pack animals, or golf caddies, or they could guard the estates of the wealthy, or perform in movies, or there’s the circus or they could be pets, maybe, if they could be declawed and detoothed and maybe drugged or something. Or listen, even better: I bet the U.S. Army could really use some mean, tough, strong, do-or-die kind of vicious killer bears like you and your family. Bear Squadron! You could go to Iran and fight terrorism!

Terrorism? You know, the guys who hate our freedom?

Wow, you really don’t get any news up here, do you? Okay, terrorism is … well, it’s hard to explain, but you’ll know it when you see it — when they invade your homeland and threaten your way of life!

No, no, no. Not me, not us, totally different people. With turbans, and really long fuzzy beards. If you see anybody sneaking up here with turbans and beards, you be sure and eat them right up, okay? Trust me, they’re delicious.

Shit. Mister Bear, I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. If you could get to know me you’d see I’m really not a bad guy. I’m sorry about your son, not that it makes a difference. But I have to ask you a favor, Mister Bear, because I am going absolutely nuts. From this pain. I move my eyeball, my thighs throb. Just talking hurts, just thinking hurts, just living. Everything hurts and all I want is for it to stop. I’ve got a low, low threshold of pain. If you were torturing me for information I would have long ago told you everything you wanted to know and everything you never cared about and I’d be making up new exciting facts just to please you. My brain’s boiling, my hair’s screaming, I’m so thirsty and hungry and cold, and I can’t make my hands move, and I just want to die now. All I want is to die and I can’t even do that by myself. That’s the favor. Can you help a brother out?

Look: it’s okay if I die. Because I’m going to live forever. Somebody’s going to find me eventually, find this wreck, and they’re going to piece it all together, everything that happened to me. My story will live on. Marv Pushkin the man may die, but Marv Pushkin the story, Marv Pushkin the book, the docudrama, the action figure … the world will know. And the world will care, and the world will spend money on that care. They will love me when I’m gone, they’ll put fucking statues of me in major metropolitans areas. Marv, Last of the Puskins. Master of Men. Battler of Bears. The Fallen One. The Hero! If they really care, then they’ll clone me, yeah, I may die but they’ll clone me later. Death is temporary when you’re rich, and I’m going to be the richest dead man who ever lived, because I’ve got the greatest story ever sold! So it’s okay. Everything is going to be fine. I just need something for the pain.

Mister Bear, whatever else you may think about Homo Sapiens, know this: when a person sets out to kill a bear they try to do it quickly. We call that Being Humane. Do you grasp the concept? Are you humane, Mister Bear? Can you help out a guy who’s farther down on his luck than perhaps any Homo Sapiens has ever been? Please?

If I lean my head out this way, can you reach my neck?

Oh c’mon, please?

What’s the matter? Do you hate the sight of blood? Too squeamish to kill a little pink human in cold blood? Are you paralyzed by bear ethics? Come on, kill me! You know I’d do the same for you!

Why … what do you smell?

A sudden loud explosion — fur and bone and brains flung across the clearing — the crackle of a rifle blast echoing off the trees. One side of Mister Bear’s face hangs open in dripping, bloody tatters. Hunkered low to the ground, panting and spraying blood. He looks at me through bloody eyes: angry, confused, sad, afraid.

But not dead.

He climbs back on his feet — with an ancient roar of pain, he bounds toward some hidden enemy —

Another explosion! … he drops again to the ground, shot through the heart.

Growling, crying, choking, he rises again to his feet and faces his executioner. Stands motionless, about to topple, blood streaming from him in puddles on the ground —

Like a buck he springs! Sails through the air in a furious lunge! He screeches —

They shoot him one more time.

He drops. And dies.

Who shoots him? Hello? Who’s there? Who shot my bear? Rangers? Hunters?

Grizzlies.

Oh dear. Here they come, a sleuth of them, ambling on all fours, done up in orange vests and porkpie hats. This is weird, this is bad, this is new dimensions in bad weirdness. One grizzly approaches the corpse of Mister Bear and prods it carefully with the shotgun tip. Bears with shotguns. This is very bad, this is a real problem now. Oh hell, they’re all over. They’ve got me.

“Mister Pushkin! Marvin Pushkin! Can you hear my words?”

I’m dead. Go away. I’m not a threat. Look at me, I’m so dead. You never saw such a dead, dead person. I’ve been dead for ages.

“All right, stretcher over here. He’s still breathing. Call in the helivac!”

I’m not breathing god dammit, I did not breathe you cheating bear, get your filthy trout-laced paws away! Oh shit, it’s bears bears bears. Now they’re OW OW OW don’t move the Rover! No! Get away! I know Bear Survival Tip Number Three! I’ve got a Super Tool! Paws off !

“Woah! Mister Pushkin, take it easy! We need to … Sam, we got a non-cooperator here.”

Fucking bears! I hate you! I have had it up to here with being pissed on and parked on and snacked on and poked and prodded by bears. You’ve had all of me you’re going to get. You, with the gloves, you want my knife? Here! Ha! The claw’s on the other foot now sucker! You think you’re so smart because you can balance on your hind legs —

“Yowch! Sam, he cut me! Gimme two tourniquets, stat! And, and six inches of gauze. Shit.”

— dress up like Smokey Bear and shoot guns? Dance on a ball and juggle salmon? You’re not fooling anyone. You think you’re going to take over just like that? Drive our cars —

“Sedative! 300 ccs of Klonopin, in the orange box with my kit over there … ”

— wear our clothes, imitate our voices like big furry parrots. But that’s not what makes a Homo Sapiens, not even close. Get away!

“Hey Mister Pushkin, it’s O.K, calm down, we’re getting you out of here, just … Sam! Hurry up with that shot!”

I’ll fucking cut you! I will, I’ve got claws, sharp sharp sharp! Human beings will always beat you because we’ve got civilization on our side. Cut one of us down and a hundred more will spring up in his place. We’re organized, we stick together. We’ve got the shoulders of giants. You’ve got berries and nuts. You’re nothing! God made you to be shot! By us! Get off, off, no! OWW! Fucker! I’ll bite you for that! Let go! Let go of me! Insolent Yogi bath mats! No!

“Here, pry his fingers. Mister Pushkin, you could still die if you don’t quit — ”

What’s that? Oh Christ no, don’t tell me the bears have a helicopter. It can’t be! They’ve got guns, trucks, radios, clothes, helicopters too … how long have they been planning this? Is this war now? The terrorist bear invasion finally happening? No, it’s impossible: bears are stupid. YOU ARE STUPID. Jesus, look out, it’s a chopper full of bears! They’ll crash, they’ll explode, they think the joystick is a Slim Jim! I’m not going up there, it’s pure death, no!

“Cinch him up, he’s jerking around still. Tell Evergreen to break out some plasma and keep him strapped. Ugch, that ain’t pretty … ”

No! No! Let me go! I want my car! I’m dizzy, I’m sick, I’m thirsty, I’m dead, I have botulism! Don’t eat me! Oh the sky is too bright and the wind is too loud and the rope is too long, but here comes the chopper, chop chop chopping up Marv Pushkin, to sell my meat on the bear market. Hah! Badda bing! Oh, I crack myself up, I crack up, I’m cracking, I’m going through the windshield with my positive mental airbag, I’m positively fucked, oh please, just cut the rope, cut it, I can’t, I’m at the end of it, my rope, ha ha! I’m so funny I’m so finished I’m so fucked, don’t you know? Don’t you get it? That’s the difference, mother-bearfuckers, that’s why you’ll always lose because a bear couldn’t tell a joke to save my life.