HELP! A Bear Is Eating Me! - Mykle Hansen [10]
And that might be the beginning of an unlikely but long and lasting friendship, the kind of friendship one might eventually parlay into film rights. But then again probably not. Because I’m a busy guy and he smells like wheat grass juice, and if I tell him how I killed the bear that ate my feet he might get all liberal and indignant on me, and when hippies weep it’s just embarrassing.
But still, he can give me some pointers in the early stages, as I learn to operate my new bionic feet, to walk and run and leap in them, to kick Wagner with them, to cross them up on my desk as I stretch out in my Aeron chair after a long day of creativity and delegation. I bet I could be a bad-ass kung fu master with my lightweight rock-hard titanium super feet.
I just have to somehow make sure they don’t graft negro feet onto me. I wish I had a Sharpie, I could write WHITE FEET ONLY PLEASE on my arm or some place on my body where neurosurgeons would see it. My forehead, even. Just in case. Just in case I’m not conscious when they rescue me.
Which they definitely will do. Soon!
Look, don’t get me wrong: negroes have excellent feet. Amazing feet. Look at Jesse Owens! Michael Jordan! (Actually it could be kind of cool to have Michael Jordan’s feet, if I could have them certified and really prove to people, “Hey, these aren’t just any negro feet, these are Michael Jordan’s!” Imagine the cachet of that.) And even if they just gave me the feet of some semi-famous pro or college basketball playing negro I’m sure they’d be excellent feet in the practical sense, not inferior in any way, not funny smelling. My concern is purely an aesthetic one. I just want to match. I’m a man who takes care of himself, who works hard to look good at all times. Having negro feet would be like walking on to the tennis court of life in black socks, every day. It’s beyond faux pas — it’s well into freakshow. I wouldn’t even know what box to check on the census any more. I’d be an other, a mixed. I’d be a decline to state.
Who was that detective with the claws instead of hands? Mister Claw? No … J. J. someone. J. J. Arms. Yeah, there’s a super-cripple for you. How did he lose his hands? Bears, probably. I wonder if he’s still alive, fighting crime, solving mysteries, stabbing bad guys in the face with his claws. I could be just like that only I’d use kung-fu high-kicks on bad guys and save my hands for getting freaky with Marcia from Product Dialogue, in a tender erotic embrace on the bear skin rug in the executive bathroom.
I hope Marcia isn’t along when they come to rescue me. I’d hate her to see me like this. Mauled, mud caked … and yeah, one of the many awful smells you smell is me. I have soiled my wool hunting slacks and my Calvin Kleins. It had to happen, didn’t it? I’m at peace with it, but I don’t want Marcia to see me this way. I am not looking my sexiest right now. So not sexy. The image of me, steeped in blood and shit and Slim Jim wrappers, trapped and … humiliated, really, by that dumb bear … If Marcia sees me like this she’ll never call me Daddy again.
4
I wonder if my darling Edna and Marcia from Product Dialogue have warmed to one another in my absence. They sure were frigid on each other in my presence. They didn’t say a word to or about each other from Seattle to yesterday. I had them both in the Rover from Anchorage to Camp Image Team, with Edna attempting to navigate in the shotgun seat and Marcia sitting in the middle of the back seat, where the rear view mirror gave me an excellent view of her independent front suspension absorbing the off-road shocks. Marcia was quiet — one of her many luxury features. Edna was not quiet. She moaned and complained and worried and told me I was doing it wrong, whatever it happened to