Flotsam & Jetsam | Shooting the Bear

— a semi-regular humor column by Maurice Austin —

Shooting the bear should have gone off without a hitch. We had anticipated its exact course of approach, precisely sequenced our trolleys and overhead booms accordingly, and even had a back-up drone for our primary drone. Alas, if only things had gone according to plan.

It started with Dwayne, of course. Poor guy’s got two left paws, and three appetites. Couldn’t help himself from stocking up on Teasers’ ham-and-cheese croissants, snacking all throughout the morning while we loaded the units and set up the shot. He even squirreled a few doughnuts away in his costume—probably guessing nobody would be able to see him munching munching munching away underneath all that bulk. And indeed, if you examine the footage closely, you’ll note that the bear seems to pause, as if chewing on its own tooth a moment, even burping at one point.

But Dwayne cannot bear the full brunt of blame. Other factors, including the trajectory and speed of the projectiles shot at the bear, likely contributed more to the disastrous results of the shooting than a few jelly doughnuts.

It was going to be such a cool effect: the slow-motion feathered arrows spinning toward and then spinning the bear around, pinning him to a tree, and then a swooping closing shot catching a close-up of the last arrow piercing the bear’s eye socket. Look, we were one take away from setting up the final shot—teen outcast heroes who survive a deadly attack from nature’s apex predator after their Doctors Without Borders helicopter is shot out of the skies above Venezuela (they were installing solar-powered water purification stations in indigenous villages) by a Panamanian cartel who recently befriended President Putin…anyway, they stand around and look heroic with their hand-made bows and arrows.

Or were going to stand around and look heroic, with their hand-made bows and arrows. Instead, when they were shot, they squealed “Oh my God!” like adolescents while running off into the bushes. Ready? Set? Scatter!

In William Faulkner’s short story The Bear, the bear is emblematic of the Old South, and the youth and his quivering, yapping little dog symbols of change, of noise over poise, modernity over darkly nostalgic romanticism. In Dwayne’s bear, the postmodern uncoupling of head from shoulders, and shoulders from haunches, and legs from torso seems emblematic of modern man’s fractured existence when confronted with nature, with earnest appetite, with caloric, rather than moral values.

I really only had one shot. Dwayne’s bear costume was a twenty- or forty-footer at best, at least from the shoulders down, buttons and whatnot leaving creases and rather burlap-looking haunches. Close up, claws were too obviously loafers stuck through with drywall screws. But from the shoulders up, it looked real enough.

Shot was blocked thus: Bear bursts forth from vegetation. Roar. Overhead shot of intrepid heroes pivoting, drawing their bows. Close-up of bear roaring in rage, swinging head. Approaching menacingly. Point-of-view shot from nearest hero, sweeping from bear’s mouth to running over landscape, feet running, panting. Close shot of arrow. Roar. Spinning. Spinning. And then Dwayne pops his corn syrup eye socket and juice spills all over and he dies.

Instead, as the video shows, the bear roars, and then there’s the running shot, and then there’s a bear, a real bear, on its haunches and obviously sniffing the air, and it’s obvious I panicked, as at that moment a couple of Growlers flew overhead, and growled, and fearing for my life I dropped the camera like it was a bomb, and headed for the hills with the rest.

The next sequence you see, sideways, camera lying on the ground, is a bear taking apart a bear, limb by limb, then torso and then head, and that sound you hear is Dwayne giggling, because a bear’s tongue is unrelenting, and Dwayne if anything is unrelentingly ticklish.

Meanwhile, the rest of us had dropped our equipment and fled—including the operator of the drone. So who knew drones could fly so high? In retrospect, had we been aware Naval Air Station Whidbey was conducting training exercises in President’s Channel, perhaps we could have prevented the resultant intervention of aforementioned Growlers, which led to the collision of an incapacitated jet with a coal barge. That the unfortunate deluge of burning coal seared a boat full of innocent whale-watchers cannot be blamed on Dwayne and his love of doughnuts alone. Larger forces were at work here.

I’m hoping, of course, that this recent setback isn’t going to interfere with our next planned project involving battling an Orca-Chupacabra hybrid over the steep slopes above Oso. Dwayne has already promised not to try to stuff his costume with his leftover Hogstone pies.
Of course, I blame myself for my reprehensible and irresponsible behavior, and that is why I am only suing the county for $10 million. Anything more would seem…well…egregious.