The Thin Bears of Summer (A Short Story)

THE THIN BEARS OF SUMMER
I’d always believed myself to be aggressive and unrelenting like the thin bears of summer that ravage and forage trying to curb their insatiable appetites that consume them following a long season of fasting. I’ve seen the bears roaming around in their sagging black fur, grabbing everything in sight to stave-off that hallow feeling of hunger. We had one come into our apple orchard once and devour Butch, one of our prized hunting dogs, as it tried to chase the bear away. Now I’m here alone, fasting and hoping to rot away in my small cave. I want to show my capturer who is stronger. I want only to leave this sick bastard to his bottomless hell.
I saw him—more than once, too. That’s what irritates me the most. I should have known it was me he was after when I caught his beady eyes devouring me on those occasions. He was scrawny, boney, unable to handle direct eye contact—eyes darting away as if looking for something other than me. Now I know it was I, only now it’s too late.
Groggy hunger laced threatens to take me back into slumber, as I wonder why he chose me. How does one go about selecting a victim, I question, succumbing to a deep yawn. He’s not looking at me, so I survey him to look for a clue. He is anti-social in his behavior. His hair is matted and greasy, his fingernails ragged from biting them—nails that always have a thin line of embedded dirt showing through. I wonder where he lives—surely not here in this dark dingy hovel.
How are you to know the signs or evil in someone unless you’ve spent time with him? He must not have anybody close to him, because if he did they’d probably have him committed.
He caught me looking at him. He knows I’m judging him. I see him squirm until he tells me never to look at him again. He now ties a sour-smelling soiled thin-striped dishtowel around my eyes. My pleasure, I think while enjoying the smirk that I hide from him. If only his odor would dissipate, I’d erase him entirely.
I couldn’t really afford the apartment, but it was in the middle of Manhattan. It felt so New York after twenty-four years on an apple farm near Walla-Walla, Washington. I was willing to suffer the consequence: eating meals from McDonald’s, day old bread from the store and over ripe fruit. The big box stores provided cheap meals, too, like boxed macaroni and cans of vegetables. It didn’t matter. I was living in Manhattan. I’d watch myself in the reflection of huge business-front windows as I walked to work—unable to afford public transportation—admiring my savvy wool suit and smart leather briefcase—a graduation gift from my attorney-uncle—and, I reveled at the sound of the soft click of my thin leather patent heels striking the Manhattan sidewalk. Never mind my meager salary—I knew it could only go up. I had to start some place. I had talent and had easily passed the New York bar exam. I’d crash through that glass ceiling, with my goal of a partnership in a prestigious law firm once I got a little experience under my belt.
I’d actually caught him twice. That’s what’s so damn disturbing. Once had been near the office and the other so near to my apartment. There could have been other times and now I wonder how long he had really been watching me and what he was thinking as he lie in wait. The coward. His dirty fingernails make me want to puke. He’s weird. I don’t even want to know anything about him. I refuse to talk to him. He won’t get the satisfaction of knowing I’m afraid. I’ll just wait, like I waited for Manhattan. Watching my mother struggle as a farm wife, working side-by-side with dad, raising four kids and then struggling just to get me through college, made me want to succeed and sit at a desk with the world at my doorstep. I can’t remember the last time she bought make-up, had her hair done or bought anything special for herself. How selfish I’ve been. Things will be different for her once I’m a partner.
It’s funny; I’ve never been really hungry. Food was always abundant on the farm. I thought Mom was being overprotective warning me about big cities and their weirdoes. How’d she know? She’d only lived on a farm. She read mystery novels for her nighttime entertainment, and I thought she took them too seriously. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders—well, some times. My judgment wasn’t good this time.
I couldn’t remember drifting off to sleep. It seemed like hours had passed, but I had no concept of time—it was always dark in my closet. I could leave only when my capturer came back and opened the door, allowing me to roll out into the room.
Before I had been blindfolded, I noticed there were no mirrors in this place. I could hear church bells in the distance occasionally, and I tried so hard to remember the sounds of Manhattan and the sound of bells. If I could just know where I am. Why doesn’t he have a telephone? That alone is abnormal. Nobody knows him. Nobody calls him. What does he do all day? How does he pay for this horrible apartment with no artwork or carpet, and very little furniture? All I can remember is the sound of traffic in Manhattan—unending, noisy, horn-honking traffic. I don’t remember church bells. Where am I? God, I want the noise of Manhattan. Why doesn’t anybody hear me banging when I know he’s not around.
When he told me to take my clothes off, I thought he was joking. He didn’t fit the profile of a sex pervert. I told him so—that was my second mistake. He must have been ridiculed all thirty or forty years of his life—I really couldn’t tell his age. That’s when he started making me swallow the pills. I couldn’t fake it. I tried. Parking the pill under my tongue or on the inside of my cheek—between my gums and cheek, only pissed him off and he’d double the dose and I wouldn’t wake up for several days. When I did, his odor became mine and I’d vomit because it made me sick to think of his dirty hands on me.
I can feel the bandage on my shoulder where he deliberately cut me. It hurts. I wonder if I needed stitches. Will I survive to worry about a scar on my shoulder? Will I need plastic surgery? Will I live through this? If I could just free my hands, I know I could escape.
I’ll change my strategy. I’ll find out everything I can about him. See if I can find something redeeming, to use against him. I try, he tells me to shut up. I try again.
Now, he won’t let me talk. If I talk, I have to take more medicine—medicine that induces vomiting. He’s nasty in his torture. That’s what he enjoys, he tortures for kicks. I wonder what he gets out of it? He transfers the torture of his miserable little nothing life to the torture of others by making them weak and defenseless.
I wonder if the cherished houseplants I’d bought—using money that would have bought a month’s supply of boxed mac and cheese—lasted more than a week. I had left the window cracked that morning, so it wouldn’t be too hot, but the plants weren’t hardy. Oh, what does it matter? Will I ever see Manhattan again? Smell it? Taste it? See myself in the reflection of the big business-front windows?
I can still feel the pointed cold steel tip of the blade he held to my back, when he took me by surprise. I knew better than to empty my trash late at night—but the place was so small and by mid-week the choice was clear, either I had to go or the trash had to go. If only I had waited until daylight, I know someone would have been around to hear my screams. The gash from the knife was painful and my healthy blood spilled so fast it was soaking my clothing and I could feel it. I worried that he might be thinking of murdering me, and so I decided to cooperate. Maybe I’d get lucky and someone outside the building would see that I needed help. It didn’t happen. Even on the subway. He made me wear a hat and hold my head downward so I couldn’t see where we were going. The tape he put on my shoulder burned and pulled and I could feel the wetness of my blood as the tape turned cold in the night air.
His calmness unnerved me. He has more experience in his line of work than I did in mine. I wondered what made him tick, why he wasn’t ordinary, and if there was really such a thin line between sanity and him. I don’t even know his name or where he lives or anything about him. Silence is all I know. I don’t even know what he does to me, though I can sometimes guess. He makes me sick. He’s so damned meticulous about everything he does. He’s like a watchmaker, who has to deal with the tiniest of details only he tinkers with the small stuff of kidnapping, torture and rape. He can’t even stand himself, so he drugs me so I can’t see how nasty he is and what he looks like beneath his shabby clothing. Does he fashion himself a prince or a wild lover? Does he pretend that I’m overwhelmed with desire for him? He’s sick. He never looks at me. He knows he’ll see repulsion on my face.
He rigged a drinking bottle with a long straw, like the ones I’d seen serious bike riders wearing on their backs while peddling around Manhattan. Mine was tied to a bedrail and when I was let out of my cage, I could drink. Oh, how I wish it were tied to my back as I peddled around Manhattan.
At first he tied me to the bed, where I spent the first week. Every day was the same. I’d eat, drink, use the bathroom, then return to my bed, swallow his rainbow pills and wake up because of the hammering pain in my head. That is, until I worked my hand free from one of the ties and was almost untied and ready for my escape when he walked in the door. I wondered if it were a test, ordinarily he wasn’t home early.
Now I spend my days locked in a closet, a very small closet. I no longer know how long it has been since my capture. I thought it would end in my death relatively soon afterward. I’ve lost track. I feel like a bear in hibernation. I’m lethargic, tired, drugged and don’t want to eat. I want to sleep. I want to forget that I am a slave, a sex slave for a depraved animal who knows that if he didn’t drug me, I’d take him, I’d squash him, pulverize him and rid the world of his uselessness.
I want to go home, home to Washington. I want to hear the chickens’ soft greetings, the lowing of the cattle and bleat of the sheep. I’ll sleep now. Winter will soon be over and then I’ll be hungry and I’ll ravage and eat. My mind culls through the bounty of food, the smell of the floral damp air of summer and I hear the click, click, click of my heels on the sidewalk.
I hear the gasping sobs of my mother and feel the rough hands of dad rubbing the back of my hand while holding it between his. He says nothing.
I feel like I’m in a spiral. I saw a movie once where a spiral spun around as someone lost consciousness. This time, though, I heard the muffled sounds of people I love. My only thought is that I’ve gone. My refusal to eat has killed me. I’m no longer going to be the subject of my capture’s fantasy. I don’t feel pain.
The swirling spiral makes me sick and I want to vomit and I try to put my hand to my mouth but I feel restrained. I hear my mother’s voice again. But she’s not crying, she’s yelling. What is she saying?
I hear the soft voice of a woman. Within seconds I drift calmly, floating like a feather. The last I remember is the sweet smell and feel of sheets against my skin, crisp. I feel something warm around my cut shoulder and it doesn’t hurt any more. Yes, I think, I’ve died. I’ve heard it’s like this.
Time passes and I have no thoughts.
I hear my mother’s voice, once more. The blindfold is no longer on. But, I’m so confused. I want to open my eyes, but I don’t want the feeling of comfort to end.
“Rosie. It’s me. Open your eyes.”
I obey. It’s real. “Wha—”
“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.” I see the tears fill in her eyes and see them spill in a steady stream down her cheeks, and she never takes her eyes off me—she looks deeply into my eyes, she knows. She feels my pain.
“It’s over.” She says, draping herself across my chest and sobbing against me. I let her and I lift my left arm, the one free from the IV tubing in an attempt to console her. It’s then that I realize that my father’s large rough hand, now trembling, is holding onto me—just as he did when I saw small and he was afraid I’d somehow get loose from his grip and dash into the street. The lines were deep on his face and his blue eyes dark with worry. I was his first born, his pride and job—the new generation to leave the hard labor of farming, he’s said to me one day.
I hadn’t been the only one. His DNA match met found on seven other of his victims.
Someone had heard my weak pounding. The building had been abandoned and boarded up, but an elderly homeless man had entered to get out of the cold a few nights ago. He was well known on the cop’s beat, and the cop often gave the man money for hot coffee on a cold night. The cop never doubted the man’s story. As soon as his backup arrived, they found me. This time, someone was lying in wait for my capture.
He won’t hurt anyone again. He hung himself in jail. I’m grateful to not have to relive the ordeal through a trial. I’m also grateful for the caring way of a man I didn’t even know, or I too would have wound up dead.
I don’t empty trash or walk streets at night. I don’t live in Manhattan any longer either. I took the Washington bar exam and passed it. I have a small office in Walla-Walla and I send a check every month to a post office box on the outskirts of Manhattan to a kindly old man—a man who saved my life. He’s no longer alone and with the extra money I send, he’s able to live on his social security and is no longer homeless.
Living near my family has provided the ability to take as many opportunities as I can to pick mom up and take her to lunch, the beauty salon or whatever she wants to do.
I cannot forget what happened to me, but I can be grateful for my freedom and life—a thought that comes to me as I gently rub that small scar on my shoulder. I long for the day when women are no longer objectified but instead treated with respect and equality. My talents as an attorney are now directed toward that end. I’m hoping that the glass ceiling I break will be one that benefits all women—not just me.
I should also say, I enjoy picking apples during harvest—just for fun.