The Bear of New York

1888

The Port of New York City

The boy stood, overwhelmed and terrified, as the docks in front of him swarmed with people and an overpowering smell of fish, horse manure, seaweed, tobacco and sweat.

He had rarely left his rural estate in the Catskill Mountains, save for a few visits to relatives in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Growing up, he had received endless love and attention from his widowed mother and from the blithe, doting farm hands who paid him attention when his mother was nearby.

Here, in the port of New York City, he stood dumbfounded at the spectacle and sheer intensity of people yelling, jostling and cajoling.

He began to realize, for the first time, that others might not take interest in him or even care for him.

More alarming, he began to realize that he did not know how to take care of himself. He was, for a moment, paralyzed with fear.

These people do not know me, he thought.

Would they even care if I was hurt? Would they try to hurt me?

The faces of each passersby began to take on a disquieting, sinister aura. As if each person harbored a secret wish to harm him.

What if I screamed at the top of my lungs, he thought. Then, he began to laugh. The simple act of thinking about taking an unexpected action gave him more comfort. He felt, even momentarily, that he was in control.

His mind wandered through the possibilities.

What if I stand here and do nothing at all. Would anyone notice? Maybe a stranger will think I was a lost statue and take me home.

Exhilaration replaced his initial terror. He knew he could, at the very least, get someone’s attention in the midst of the mammoth, centerless, rudderless chaos.

But, seconds later, exhilaration returned to fear.

Where’s mother, he thought.

He looked frantically, not yet tall enough to see through crowds.

His attention was caught by a yellow and blue dress and the nearly identical yellow parasol of his mother. After the relief of seeing his mother, he shifted to the object of her preoccupation.

His mother, and a group of nearly twenty other adults he did not recognize, were all fixated on the same object.

Standing in the middle of the throng was a tall man, near his mother’s age as far as he could tell, with dark, intense eyes and a long moustache. He had never seen a man so muscular, even amongst the farm hands. He stood nearly a head taller than most men.

Dressed entirely in black, he reminded the boy of a bear. The similarly was confirmed when the boy noticed the other reason for his mother’s attention.

Next to the man was an actual bear.

With his sleek black fur and charcoal eyes, only his pale brown snout distinguished the bear's color.

The bear was seated in a steel cage, large enough to allow him to move in a circle, but little else.

The boy moved closer to the cage and noticed, to his disappointment, that the bear looked dejected and docile for a creature with such a fearsome reputation.

The bear cautiously sniffed the air and shifted nervously on his haunches, but did little else.

It was the bear’s ears, like small black tea cup plates perched on the heavy skull, that made the boy finally smile.

He was tempted to approach the cage, but instead reached out for his mother’s hand. She returned his grip, almost by reflex. The boy looked up, expecting to see his mom’s warm smile looking back at him, but she continued to stare in the direction of the bear and the man.

Seeing her attention fixed on others intrigued him. I wonder if my mother sees the bear’s ears the same way I do, he thought. When he looked up at her, though, he noticed she seemed more intrigued by the man.

The Dinner

The passenger steam ship that carried the boy, his mother, the man and the bear, and nearly a thousand others from New York to Liverpool was less chaotic than the docks, but the level of activity and the closeness of other passengers still unnerved the boy.

He was confused as to why he and his mother were even heading to England. Something about an elderly relative, but he did not know who.

Soon, after only a few days onboard the ship, his “what if” daydreams became more anxious.

What if the ship sank, who would save me? Could I swim back to New York?

What if my mother died on the passage to Liverpool, would anyone know I was alive? Who would take care of me?

What if the Captain asked my mother to keep me on board to serve as part of his crew? What if my mother agreed?

What if the bear broke free of its cage and ate me?

He was relieved when his mother told him he would need to wear his suit that evening.

He adored wearing a suit, feeling like his mother’s friend and companion rather than her child.

“We are going to eat at the Captain’s table tonight, you man,” said his mother. Leaning down with a beaming smile, she added that the man with the bear would also be dining with them.

At dinner, the boy was disappointed to learn that the Captain’s table included not only him, his mother and the man with the bear, but also eight other passengers. He felt consigned, yet again, to watch events unfold in front of him.

He ate quietly, listening to the conversation unfold over and above him while the room swirled with the smells of cigar smoke, champagne, perfume, laughter and whiskey.

Though he had difficulty following the entire conversation, he soon realized that the man was a bear wrestler, traveling with his bear to perform a series of highly anticipated wrestling matches throughout the United Kingdom.

During a pause in the conversation, the boy blurted out to the man, “how do you wrestle bears?”

Without a hesitation, the man’s dark eye glanced down at the boy. He smiled, cocked an eyebrow and said, “badly and quickly”.

The table erupted in laughter at the man’s immediate and self-effacing humor.

The boy was confused. A bear is terrifying, he thought, and the man is the bravest man alive to wrestle one for fun.

“Will the bear escape and eat me,” he asked.

“Do not fear, young man, he is safely caged in a room designed especially for him”, said the man. “Frankly, he travels in better comfort than most of passengers”.

The table, save perhaps for the Captain, laughed again at the man’s good-natured response.

For a brief moment, the man and the boy’s mother were caught in each other’s gentle gaze.

The man was flush and felt an electric tinge in both his shoulders.

Somewhat taken aback by his own reaction, he looked down and noticed the boy’s obvious shy confusion.

“There is a secret,” he said, “which I will tell you, my brave young man, if you promise not to disclose it, even to your mother.”

The boy nodded, though he was confused as his mom could clearly hear the man.

“His front teeth and front claws are removed”, he said. “He is still dangerous, believe me that bear is as strong a three men, but he is perfectly safe if one knows what one is doing.”

“What a brave man,” said the boy’s mother “don’t you think, son?”

“Madame,” said the man, “as I understand it, you must tend to a farm and raise this fine young man on your own. You are the brave one, not me, I assure you”

His mother smiled in a way the boy had not seen. It was not her typical, beaming, happy smile. This time, she lowered her eyes as if the smile was reserved only for the man.

When mother smiles for me, he thought, they are the same smiles she gives to everyone. Her smiles for the bear man are only for him.

The Deck

After dinner, the mother walked the decks of the ship, enjoying the sting from the cold air and salt-water mist.

She had left the boy in their room, seeking peace and a reprieve from his sweet but constant demands for affection.

With an empty, dark ocean in front of her, her mind turned to the dark-eyed bear wrestler.

At first, she was simply intrigued by his size and the almost thoughtless confidence in his demeanor.

He would be wonderful at the farm, she smiled to herself.

But it was his gentle, self-deprecating humor that had captured her attention. And his eyes. She imagined his eyes, dark and roguish. Someone directly out of the romance novels that occupied her quiet moments.

Turning around, she was disoriented when she realized she was facing those same eyes, directly in front of her.

“I am sorry,” said the man, “I didn’t mean to disturb you”

“Of course not”, said the mother, “you must be good at walking in silence if you wrestle bears”.

He laughed and turned to look at the sea.

“The night is beautiful on the ocean, is it not?” he said. “It looks black and sleek, much like my bear’s pelt. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I immediately saw that similarity. I am hardly fit to be a poet”.

As he spoke, the ship shifted position as it passed abreast of a wave. The woman, surprised, fell directly into the man’s arms.

For a moment, the man held her tight. She was alarmed to be held this closely to a man she did not know, feeling his hot breath, the smell of whisky and this powerful arms.

Then, just as suddenly, the man let go and stepped back.

The woman looked up. Even through the pale, sulfur lights of the deck, she could tell he was blushing.

“I am so sorry”, he stammered. “That was rude, I…”

“Please, you caught me from falling. I assure you, I am fine”.

The man, clearly relieved, smiled and said, “you are too kind…perhaps I could take the boy off your hands tomorrow”.

“Oh, you gem of a man,” said the women, immediately regretting how earnestly she sounded to be relieved of her son.

In the shadows, the boy, who could not sleep without his mother’s presence, had watched the entire conversation unfold.

Mother seems interested in leaving me with the man, he thought.

She called him a gem. She never called me a gem.

What if the man would train me to wrestle the bear?

The thought of becoming a bear wrestler restored his confidence.

What if I visit the bear tonight? I could let him out of his cage. He seems so harmless. He seems..nice. We could wrestle and he would always let me win.

What if…

The Ocean

The man’s concentration was on anything but the task in front of him. The memory of the woman’s eyes, a winsome mixture of grey and green, took precedence over securing and feeding the bear.

Distracted, his mind continued to wander to the memory of capturing the bear in northern New York State. He had hired a local Mohawk guide who said little during their tracking excursion save for what the man considered to be quasi-religious nonsense. A legend of a magical bear and three hunters that formed the Big Dipper in the night sky.

He opened the door to the large storage room, subconsciously expecting to see the sleek black animal sitting in a gentle pose that always reminded him of a tubby old man sitting by a fire.

He drew a breathe of the stale air, staggered to realize the bear’s cage was open.

His thoughts of beautiful widows and cryptic Mohawks were quickly disbanded.

He looked frantically, peering into the darkness of the storage room.

He moved his hand slowly to the wall, feeling for his training rope and, if necessary, a small pistol.

Too late, he saw the bear running out of the shadows towards him. Driven by fear and the intensity of freedom, the bear charged through the man rather than at him.

The difference in the bear’s perspective meant nothing to the man. For all his years wrestling the bear in front of throngs of people, the man was too shocked by the bear’s actions to offer the slightest resistance. He simply tumbled backwards onto the deck as the bear barreled past him.

The surprise quickly wore off and the man refocused his energy on capturing the bear. The increasingly poor night weather had kept the passengers away from that part of the deck, but the man knew he had seconds before a potential tragedy, or at least significant embarrassment, would occur if the bear was spotted walking on the decks.

The man quickly reached back into the room to grab his training rope. Turning, he noticing the bear had paused at the end of the deck, confused by his surroundings.

He approached the bear from behind and, in one quick movement, fastened the bear’s harness to the training rope he held in his hands.

He secured the rope around his left arm, looking to harness the bear to the nearest pillar. He could then lure him back into his room with food, much as he had done in the wilderness of Northern New York many years ago.

The next actions happened so quickly, the man did not even offer a sound.

On the deck above, unnoticed by both the man and bear, a drunken couple clinked champagne glasses in a private celebration.

The bear, startled by the noise, sprang from the deck and into the ocean below.

The man, attached to the bear by his left arm, was pulled by four hundred pounds, descending without obstruction into the dark waters.

It was the shock of the cold water, rather than the actions of the bear, that caused the man to feel as if every ounce of air had left his lungs.

He looked up as the ship passed out of the range of his voice. His body, already stricken by the cold, froze in place.

No one had seen him fall in the water.

He looked about him. Aside from the lumbering, sulfur and grey behemoth steaming away from him, he was surrounded by utter darkness. The sea and the sky held no distinction, they were simply part of the same black shadow that he quickly realized was about to swallow him whole.

Then he noticed the bear.

The terror of being stranded, alone, freezing in the dark waters, shifted to the realization that the bear was swimming directly towards him.

In his last few seconds of life, he had no moment to pause and reflect on the bear’s actions.

He only knew, in those last moments, the force of four hundred pounds of terrified bear as it tried to climb on his shoulders.

The man struggled to shift under the weight of the bear, only to resurface directly in front of the bear’s maw.

The bear, inches from the man, emitted an overwhelming odor of rotting meat and panic. Then, without even looking at the man, the bear’s gummy, toothless mouth grabbed hold of the man’s lower jaw and, in one motion, ripped it off.

The man, already in shock from the water, was unable to stop the flow of water pouring directly into this lungs.

Only his instinct to survive gave him the energy to tread water and keep his face above the waves.

The bear, reacting to the turbulence next to him, swam back to, and then over, the panicked man.

The man began to suffocate from the bear’s dense, wet and rough fur as it clogged his nose and what was left of his mouth.

In that last second of life, the man could not help but think, how the hell did the bear get out of the cage?

It was his last conscious moment. The bear, now swimming directly over the man, used his face for leverage as his back paw ripped out the man's right eye ball.

Lungs filled with water, one eye missing and no lower jaw, the man sunk to the depths of the North Atlantic.

On the surface, the bear swam out into the ocean. His jet-black fur the perfect camouflage against the starry night sky.