The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle

fur-bearing woman looked for a path but there was none. She felt as if she’d just been initiated into a frightening mystery of the forest. He’d said something about a bear stealing his novel, but what could that mean? Was he saying that his book had been channeled by a bear spirit? Did that account for his wild sexual performance? What secret power did this man possess? And what weekend seminar had given it to him?

 
    The bear strolled through Greenwich Village in the bracing autumn air. A lovely night for a two-legged walk, he said to himself. Getting along like a real human being. Baseball hat, clip-on tie, comfortable shoes. What more could a bear ask for?
    He was starting to enjoy crowds of people, with all their perfumed smells. His book had been purchased by Universal Studios for a million and a half dollars and Elliot Gadson had taken him to his own tailor, where several new suits had been made, one of which the bear wore this evening, a gray tweed which fit him perfectly. The tailor had expressed strong objections to the clip-on tie, but there are some points on which one can’t compromise, reflected the bear to himself.
    He entered Washington Square Park. The chess players were at their tables, and he paused to watch.
    No one knows I’m a bear. Standing here, paws in my pockets. Just another hairy guy in the park. He walked on, with a lighthearted step. A young woman went by on roller blades,arms swinging briskly. I should get a pair of those, he thought to himself, a contemporary bear on the move.
    Engrossed in watching the roller blader, he did not see the dog exercise area until it was too late. Dogs were chasing sticks and chasing each other and attempting various forms of intercourse. A male beagle came around a tree on the run, ears back, body low and almost flying. As he did so, he got wind of the bear. He skidded to a stop, stared for a moment, then threw his head back and let out the ancestral howl. It cut through the yapping and growling of the other dogs. It was the sound of the hunt. The other dogs took up the cry and raced to the fence, throwing themselves against it as they howled and barked, hackles up, teeth flashing.
    The bear quickly changed course, pulling his baseball cap down over his head and trying to blend, but after a few anxious steps he reverted to bear-walking on all fours.
    “Smoke, smoke,” said a voice above him.
    He forced himself to come upright, beside a man with matted hair and a ring in his ear.
    “Grass, hash, crack,” said the Jamaican entrepreneur, falling into step beside him. “What you fancy, mon?”
    “Potato chips,” said the bear with a nervous look back toward the dogs.
    The entrepreneur frowned. He did not have time to waste. He worked hard each day the American way, tobuy big cars and little phones. “I got California sensamilla, mon.”
    “Do you have pretzels?”
    The entrepreneur’s eyes flashed angrily. Image was important in the park and he could not afford to be joked around. He jabbed a finger into the bear’s chest. “Hey, don’t be jiving me, mon, or I stick you in the guts.”
    The bear’s eyes darted fearfully in the direction of the howling dogs and he moved away hurriedly, out of the park. Dogs had the power to unmask him, to turn him into a raging, desperate animal forced to make a stand in public, where he’d quickly be arrested and taken away to the zoo. I let my guard down, he said to himself. I got cocky. Remember what Bettina said, you’re not a star until they can spell your name in Karachi.
    He continued through the Village, toward Gadson’s loft in SoHo. He’d visited it once before and the smells of its restaurants and shops formed a map in his brain, which he was following now, from Greek food to Italian food to Chinese food. At the entrance to Gadson’s loft building, he smelled the Clinique face scrub which Gadson used. He rang the bell and then climbed the stairs, toward a cloud of perfumes and colognes and the sound