Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (19 page)

“This is Katie Rhine, reporting from the new restaurant BJ’s that recently opened in Seafare. Standing with me is a young man who is part of the group protesting the opening of the restaurant, claiming the chain has slid by USDA practices in the food that they prepare. His name is Tyson Thompson, a nineteen-year-old attendee of Dartmouth College, who is originally from Seafare. Tyson, thank you for being with me today.”

“Thank you for having me,” I say with a smile, realizing I’ve lowered my voice until it sounds like I smoke at least nine packs of cigarettes a day. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I can’t stop it. “It’s a pleasure to be here.”
For fuck’s sake, stop talking like the Marlboro Man with emphysema!

In the background, the hippies and Kori are walking in a circle. The hippies are chanting “
HEY, HEY, HEY, BJ’S! HOW MANY ANIMAL FRIENDS HAVE YOU KILLED TODAY?
” I don’t think a single one of them was alive when Vietnam occurred, and I told them not to use it. Obviously, they ignored me. Kori is blowing big pink bubbles with her gum and looking coolly amused. She waves at me with an overexaggerated waggle of her fingers, and all I can think about is how I shouldn’t be nervous about this. I’ve been interviewed before. I’ve spoken in front of people before. I can do this. I’m not worried.

“Tyson, can you please tell us why you’re out here today?”

I smile again at Katie Rhine, so wide my cheeks hurt, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to translate onto the screen as me looking like some kind of serial murderer and Katie is my next victim. Add in the fact that Ms. Rhine does not seem to know what moderation is in the use of her perfume (it smells like I’m getting punched in the face by a floral shop), and that I have for some reason started sweating in my armpits and the back of my legs (it could be that it’s warm outside, or it could be the fact that I just realized I am on local TV and literally
dozens
of people could be watching me right now), and all I can think about is that random deodorant commercial where the woman grabs her boss’s ass by accident, thinking it’s her boyfriend. When the boss turns around, a look of horror dawns on the woman’s face and the announcer asks if
you’ve
ever had
stress sweat
, and it tickles me in a way that I can’t quite explain and so I’m trying to hold the laughter back, trying to keep from snorting, because if I do, then I’m going to have to snort Katie Rhine’s
Eau de Parfum de Floral Rape
, and it’s going to mix with my
stress sweat
, and I’ll
never
get the smell off me and at
least
twenty seconds have gone by on
live
TV and I
still haven’t answered her question,
and holy horror of all horrors, I am thinking just like my
brother
—

“Tyson?” she asks me, an edge coming in to her perky TV voice.
You better start fucking talking right now, you vegetarian nightmare
goes unsaid. She’s very good at the subtle context, this Ms. Rhine is.

“Yes?” I reply, and my voice is so deep now it sounds like I’m grunting at her. I have so much stress sweat, I’m pretty sure it looks like I just climbed out of a swimming pool.

“What is going on today that you’re protesting BJ’s? What do you hope will happen?”

The beach hippies began to chant something different: “
DON’T GIVE US NO JIVE! WE KNOW YOU’RE SKINNING THEM ALIVE!
”

“Exactly that,” I say, trying to regain control. “BJ’s and their corporate owners are notorious for their horrifying slaughter practices, so much so that they’ve been fined repeatedly and have been almost forced to shut down on several occasions. They also created a despicable and unsafe work environment for the employees.”
Good, that was good
.

Katie nods as if that was the most interesting thing she’s ever heard anyone say ever anywhere. “And what exactly happens in these meat and sweatshops?”

Sweat. Stress sweat. Oh my God, that commercial is so fucking funny. I bark out a weird hiccup thing of laughter and sweat drips into my eye, forcing me to blink it away, and I look like I am barking and winking at the camera, and this is going so well, and I am
not
like Bear. I am
not
like Bear.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to not wink into the camera anymore. “I wasn’t laughing at you or those poor slaughterhouse workers. I was laughing at the deodorant commercial.”

I am
exactly
like Bear.

“The deodorant commercial?” she asks me, and I see her producer waving at her, mouthing,
Abort! Abort!

“It’s… ah. Funny. Stress sweat. That’s why I am sweaty.” I smile at her in an attempt to control the situation. “Don’t grab your boss’s butt, you know?”

“Excuse me?” she asks, and dear
God
, did she
bathe
in that perfume?

The chant changes behind us: “
DOG AND CAT! MINK AND RABBIT! THEIR FUR IS THEIRS AND NOT FOR JACKETS!
”

What does that have to do with
hamburgers
? I will never use hippies ever again. DEAD! is dead to me!

“They don’t cook dogs and cats,” I say hastily to Katie Rhine. “If that’s what you’re thinking. Or mink. Or rabbits. Well, actually, I think one of the higher-end BJ’s serves rabbit. But I could be mistaken. In that case, it would be true.”

The protest behind us changes again. I don’t think the beach hippies understand the point of chants. “
CHINESE FUR TRADE IS FULL OF GREED! WE WON’T TOLERATE YOUR BLOODY DEEDS!
”

“The Chinese are involved with this?” Katie asks, her eyes going wide as if she can already picture being handed the Pulitzer. “The Chinese slaughter dogs and rabbits and serve them at BJ’s?”

“No!” I grab the microphone in her hand and pull it to my face. She squawks as I look directly into the camera and grunt, “The Chinese do not kill dogs and rabbits and serve them at BJ’s. That is not what happens.”

In the moments when all hell is breaking loose, when it seems like the world is crashing down and things are blowing up in your face, the absolute worst thing you can do is think to yourself,
Well, this can’t possibly get any worse,
because God or Whoever is watching over us will hear your thought and say, “Aha! You shouldn’t have thought that, you stupid mortal! I am about to fuck up your day a whole lot more!”

So, naturally, hearing the chanting behind me, swimming in my own sticky stress sweat, holding the microphone so close to my mouth it probably looks like I’m going to eat it, Katie Rhine pressing up against me with her perfume that smells like she is blossoming from the inside out, I think to myself,
Well, this can’t possibly get any worse.

The next moment is caught on camera. One of the hippies, so caught up in the rush of protesting (justifiably so; he’s a beach hippie, and I think they don’t see much excitement), so high on life (and also probably on a mixture of weed and shrooms smoked out of the hollowed core of an apple), so enchanted by the chants (which have now switched to “
YEAR OF THE DOG, MY EYE! HOW MANY MORE ANIMALS HAVE TO DIE
?”), that he picks up a large stone from the parking lot, a pretty thing with a quartzite strip. I have time to think,
This is about to get worse
, as he pulls his arm back as far as it could go.
This is about to get a whole lot worse
, and then he heaves that pretty rock through the front window of the home of the HeartSlammer. The shattering of glass is so impressive that it seems to be the loudest sound to have ever been created in the history of the world. It’s followed almost immediately by the loudest silence to have ever been created in the history of the world.

“Righteous,” one of the hippies whispers. I think her name is Morning Star. Or Sun Leaf. Or Beach Vagrant. I don’t know. All I know right now is that she turns to the rock-thrower and jumps into his arms, wrapping her legs around his hips. She starts kissing him all over his face, and I swear to God, her tongue goes up his nose for a moment. “That was so
righteous
,” she breathes between the long licks of her tongue bath. “I can’t wait to get back to the tent, Cornflower. I want you to stick it in me so bad. I want babies.”

Oh, Jesus. Fucking hippies.

Cornflower (whose name undoubtedly is really John and is probably a former CPA) grins at her, a dopey stoned smile that shows yellow teeth. “I’m going to put six babies in you,” he promises her as she licks his eyeball. “We’ll get high and I’ll give you a whole
clan
of babies.”

For a moment, I think about Bear and Otter’s predicament, and I wonder if Cornflower and Beach Vagrant would be willing to part with one of their stoned hippie babies so two loving homosexuals could have him or her. I don’t ask because I’m afraid they’d say yes right away and nine months from now, there’d be a knock at the Green Monstrosity and a child left on the doorstep in a basket made of hemp and smelling of patchouli.

Goddammit. I really need to find more supporters whose idea of a good time isn’t playing a guitar around a low fire, singing John Lennon or Britney Spears (trust me: you ain’t heard
anything
until you’ve heard a stoned hippie singing “I’m A Slave 4 U” with reworked lyrics that describe how it feels to drop acid and save Mother Earth from places like Walmart and McDonald’s—it’s life-changing. Kind of).

“Shit,” I mutter right into the microphone so those at home watching the live TV can be incensed by yet another thing on this magical day. Katie just stares at the window, her jaw dropped, her cameraman continuing to film everything. “This is so going to end up on YouTube.”

The door to the restaurant opens behind us, and I turn, expecting someone from BJ’s to come running out, screaming they’ve already called the police, that we were
so
dead, and who the
fuck
did we think we were? I’ve already opened my mouth to offer some kind of apology, to say
anything
to not get the cops called (already imagining the look on Bear’s face when he gets a call that I’ve been arrested again) when who should walk out but a cop.

The sun is in my eyes, but I can still see the Seafare Police Department uniform tightly wrapped around a massive hulking body. My stomach begins to tingle slightly as I raise my gaze up that body, the thighs like huge slabs of granite, the utility belt wrapped around a tight waist. My mouth goes dry as my eyes drift over the chest (
Hello there, Officer,
I think.
Please arrest me. I’ve been very, very bad
), to the arms (
They
have
to be fake! No one has arms that big!
). I shield my eyes from the sun so I can get a good look at this overgrown and overfed guy who is going to ruin my afternoon (and obviously provide at least a good six months of spank-bank deposits—don’t look at me that way. Trust me when I say I’m not a Kid anymore). He’s big, bigger than a man should have any right to be. He might be the biggest man in all the world, for all I know.

That chin, square and chiseled. Those rough cheeks, covered in a day’s worth of black scruff. Mouth in a thin line, the barest hint of teeth underneath. Black hair, clipped short. Mirror shades. He removes the sunglasses and those eyes… good Christ, those blue eyes. Those knowing eyes. They say more than any one person could with an infinite amount of words. Too bad I can’t understand any of it.

Oh, fuck
, I think, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I am in so much trouble.
I barely notice when the hippies take off running.

For the first time in almost four years, I hear that voice, so filled with gravel. That voice that has never healed, broken for as long as I’ve known him. That voice that at one point meant everything to me. He says only a single word, but in that word is a lifetime of memories and the earthquake that hits is almost enough to tilt the ground beneath my feet.

“Tyson,” he says.

“Dominic,” I breathe.

Where Tyson Gets Arrested

H
AVE
YOU
ever been handcuffed by someone who you’d thought at one point was the love of your life (how naïve, that), sat down on a sidewalk next to your best friend, who is also handcuffed and staring at you murderously, and wondered just how life got to this point? But you know, really, it’s not your fault at all, because the blame is totally and completely resting on the beach hippies, and you swear on all you have that if you ever get your hands on the members of DEAD! you’ll strangle them until their eyes glaze over. While you plot these revenge fantasies in your head (“How apt, Cornflower and Beach Vagrant, that you belong to a group called DEAD! because that is what you soon shall be!”), you also wonder if you can find some way to make sure your older brother doesn’t find out about this little… infraction… because your older brother has a propensity to… overreact… about every single little thing, even if it was all the beach hippies’ fault. And while you’re sitting with the metal cuffs pinching your skin (did he
really
have to tighten them
that
much?) worrying about your brother and plotting DEAD! deaths, it probably also doesn’t help that a reporter who smells like she ate 1-800-FLOWERS is trying to interview you, pushing the microphone in your face and asking if destruction of property is the best way to get environmental messages across, and just what
did
the beach hippies mean when they were shouting about Chinese mink cats?

No? Never been in that situation?

Lucky you.

“No comment,” I mumble, wondering just what shade of red Bear’s face is going to turn this time. It’s been a while since he’s been crimson. Or possibly beet. Either way, this can’t possibly end well.

Yes, I’m nineteen years old and able to think for myself.

Yes, I’m terrified of what my older brother is going to say.