Bears in Detroit

Michigan in August is hot. The heat soars with the sun in the day and the humidity keeps it heavy and thick in the evenings. It was on one of those hot and heavy nights that I was attacked by Bears here in little Lake Orion Michigan. Lake Orion is a smallish town, almost rural with about 25,000 people hanging about on any given day. A stones throw from Detroit. On this night, I had closed the bar (as a bartender) at an Old Castle in a little wonderland of a place called Canterbury Village around 2:00 a.m. Many of the locals believe it’s haunted, as I do, and closing the castle alone in the wee hours of the morning a few times a week keeps my spirits high and alert.

Earlier in the day on my way to work, I realized that my rear blinkers were out on my 1981 Chevy Pick-up. At the time I thought since my drive home later that day would be pretty much a straight shot, I didn’t need to deal with it. So at the end of the night, as I pulled away, I realized all the lights in back of the truck were out. With this, I knew I was going to get pulled over on the way home, but as my alcohol intake is at a halt these days, I had no worries. I pull out of the Castle lot and begin my straight shot drive down Clarkston Road at 2:30 in the morning, and having just stopped at a traffic light, here is the much expected Officer right behind me. As I’m at a red light, I raise my right hand with cigarette smoke billowing appropriately from my nicotine stained fingers, and signal him with a short gesture that I’ll pull over to the right.

So with lights a-blare, I pull over, immediately get my license and insurance, and all that good stuff. The officer asks for the papers, if I've been drinking, and then proceeds to tell me that I must park the car off the road as it is a hazard to the --- what -- not one car or person within three miles. But I was actually OK with having to walk home at this point as no ticket given, it was a perfect summer night, and I actually thought the walk home would be good. So a goodbye to the cop, and as I had no cell phone (nor would I call and wake the kids anyway) I did not call anyone for a ride and began a five mile walk home. I walked a few blocks West down Clarkston road, (and let me give you a little lay of the land here) Clarkston Road, like most two lane roads out here in the burbs have no shoulders or street lights. The entire of Michigan is truly packed and loaded with trees everywhere, quite beautiful in fall especially, but even more so out here in Oakland county.

I reach a couple blocks of walking and decide that it will take about three hours to get home at this pace, and I remember that I have the keys to the company Catering Van (Jesus, God and all that's Holy; I know things have changed in my life when I have keys to a fish infested, stanky Catering Van, with a logo displaying an Italian guy wrapped in pasta named Joe Bologna).... so I turn around and begin walking the three miles back to the Castle. I get about four blocks now heading East back towards work, walking on the road, in the mud, on the frontage lawns of home owners that pay for big houses with tons of driveway, and of course I have about 500 dollars cash on me (All in 1s and 5s of course) in a green plastic type zipper jobby-doo of a bag that not only has a paper clip for the zipper handle, but reads "Support Your Local VFW Hall" stretched across the side, and this little baby is strapped across my tummy and the bag hangs down gently, but steadily bumping my "No, No Zone".

So here I am now six blocks East of my shit-ass truck, flumping down a dark, desolate road with the corner of the this death bag bumping into me with every step, and as I’m passing a school on my right, I see a small opening of what looks like it may be a half –ass sidewalk of dirt that I can get off the hard cement. I re-adjust my now slightly bruised “Central Area”, and continue on my way.

Right, so just as I pass this school I see this little anemic path of sorts and promptly bounce into it and get a good stride going, rearranging the bag so it is now gently, yet consistently bouncing off my bony ass instead of the “Frontal area.”

At this point in the long walk, on my right, in total darkness, there is a nature reserve that steeps back a couple of miles, leading to a small lake. To my immediate left is the treachery of Clarkston road that is now off limits totally for me as I am somewhat concerned that anyone that drives by at this time is either drunk, and will surely run me down, a ruffian of sorts from neighboring Pontiac that will duly relieve me of my money, or a friend of the cop that put me here, whom will surely ticket me for walking in the middle of the street at what is now closer to 3:00 a.m. So on the other side of "off-limits" Clarkston road is a lot of nothing as far as this story is concerned. A lot of shrubbery, grasses, trees of course, and an occasional home that’s 42 miles back from the road.

With a rush, as if I was just beginning to peak on a hit of X, every hair on my body stood at attention. I slowly, through emotion, not really as a response to any physical feeling, look to my right at the deep entries into the nature reserve, and just as I turned my eyes to what I know is miles of forest, but can’t really see, the sound of crackling branch and brush emerges towards me. Although my body is not reacting, my mind is instantaneously taking in data and trying desperately to justify this noise with ANYTHING that is safe, healthy, and maybe even good for me at this time. I thought, (really this is what first popped into my head) that one of the neighbors across Clarkston Road and 17 miles back, had seen through a telescope of sorts from their dining room at this time in the morning a rather lanky, but gentle white man adjusting his member in a relational, but non-threatening manner juxtaposed to a green bag marked “Union” on it. And in response to a call from the neighbor to the, yes you guessed it, the Clarkston Police, maybe four or five of them had decided to "Sting" this operation and take the pounce approach on this man instead of a drive up next to him and ask "What the fuck are you doing here" statement. You see this would have been good for me, and quite desirable at this point as I would surely get a ride back to the Castle.

As fast as that hopeful scenario came into my mind, the horrors of what was most- probably the truth took hold. I now believed with conviction that it was thugs or suburban kids really high that were simply making this noise that now had been elevated to a very loud and consistent crashing sound of branches, shrubs, tree limbs, along with the swishing of tall grass being ruffled and torn as many sets of feet ripped through its water logged, bending stalks. I became fearful thinking their goal was to beat me senseless, take my money, and leave me on the side of Clarkston Road where no one would find me till morning because there is no light….. ironically, ‘it’s because I had no fucking lights to start with that got me here almost an hour earlier!!

What happened next not only woke every fiber of my 40 year old frame, but immediately made me hope that it was the thugs that were going to crash through the trees onto the now abandoned and wimpy, little dirt path and beat me with a welcomed fervor.

Coupled now with a sturdy rise in sound of the loud bush and brush crashing, and an ear-shattering, branch breaking, collective Yawl of "Lets Kill Whitey" clamor, was a distinct, night piercing sound of a low and climbing bellow, a guttural roar of what I know with certainty believed to be a group of bears.

I am now 14 years old again. I am sure of it, because this 40 year old Dad of three, who smokes a pack a day, and eats Butter-sickles for breakfast everyday, bolted like a bat-out-of-hell from that rickety old dirt path squarely into the center of Clarkston road, with a single Gazelle like leap, catching hold of the pavement on the two center, faded yellow lines, and simply ran.

And run I did. As the two now terrorizing sounds of the Bears’ ghoulish screams and the felling and crushing of branches rose into a midnight crescendo from hell, I bolted. All was clear now. I jolted forward with the clarity of mind to simply not get eaten tonight.

Although the speed of my run was immediate and extreme, problems occurred within 2 short minutes of my leap and run to safety. The fucking bag. The green, shit-bag had swung back to its original carrot-pounding position in my quick departure from the bears, and was now pummeling my "No, No Zone" like the piston of a tractor engine on crack. I mean to drive this moment home, let me elaborate a bit with some adjectives that will clear things up a bit philosophically, and I think consequently answer some questions as to what it is I have become -- or maybe now realize what I have always been. Picture a man in a blazing Red three-button Polo short-sleeve, Green and wrinkled khaki shorts, with white socks pushed down to the top of brand-new, eye-blinding, white Polo tennis shoes, flying down the middle of a dark street, with ashen face and dark circles deep around his eyes, a small cherry head topped with thinning hair that repeatedly jerks back over his right shoulder with the understanding the he is soon to be bear fodder on the edge of the 10^th largest city in America.

So see me now, here I am transformed by time of night, location, and sounds into what looks like a little fucking Panda Bear on two legs wearing a red shirt with a now battered penis, zipping down a darkened road with blazing trails of white lights powered by Polo. As this entire picture evolves, and as my most heightened realization of self takes hold firmly, as does the fear, I realize that I may be the only man in this small, but sure metropolis that was killed and eaten by bears just a stones throw from a traffic light.

Now less than 60 seconds later the evenings picturesque and landscaped tale changes dramatically. From a shaking fear, all is overcome by new sounds and feelings. All I now hear is my heart thumping and it is fear that has now given way to the burning heat of my lungs as they prepare to implode from exhaustion.

I turn my head back one more time as I am now resolved to let whatever happens, happen. I slow to a stop, hands to knees, head down, I gradually turn to my right 180 degrees, looking a bit like a little centipede on his way into a full roll, and check my rear to see if it is dinner time for Ling-Ling and her brown-bear brother brother.

At this moment, my ass is facing west, and I hear a car approaching from behind. I do not care now, I want the lights of the car to illuminate my fate and allow me to see what comes to me this night. The noises fade as the car passes, maybe the noise of the tires on the road collided with the sounds of the screeching bears, but as the car lights up East Clarkston Road I see nothing, and as the humming of the car tires fades, so does the screaming, the breaking, and the debauchery that was there only moments before. Nothing now – just dead-air.

After a few minutes of catching my breath, I painfully stand tall, fling the green bag of death into the now silent evenings brush, and I begin the second and utterly uneventful walk back to the castle.

I talked with a police officer the next morning at the castle, through separate circumstances that I had nothing to do with, I asked him why the officer last night would not drive me home. He thought for a moment and replied that although the police are not really a taxi service and don’t usually take people home, he assured me that if he would of seen me running down the street, drenched in sweat, with a couple bears on my ass, he would have picked me up and taken me home.

Footnote: I asked the officer if there really were Bear here in these parts, as some of my neighbors would say, and he said most-likely not, it was probably a deer or two giving birth as there's a lot of that going on this time of year.