bear's dream

Bear comes with the Goose. He lives across the street in the house where he was born, the youngest and smartest of some 12 kids. The house has no plumbing or electricity or heat, so Bear pretty much hibernates in the winter. "At least he doesn't have dirt floors," says Dale, the plumber who came out to dowse for my septic tank. "I went to school with a kid whose house had dirt floors. The plumber, 55, didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity himself until he was 11 years old.
Now Bear would like to go on a trip. At 45, he has never been out of his home woods. Maybe, he thinks, he could go with me when I leave, go visit a nephew in Maine. He has some money saved up from his job at a small sawmill. "How would you get back," I ask. "I could take a plane," he suggests. "I never been on a plane. Or a bus, or a train." It's about three-and-a-half hours to the Memphis or St. Louis airports.
I feel guilty now, that by blowing into town on a whim I have altered Bear's perception of reality. "You give him hope," says Elaine. But I'm not so sure that's a good thing. I may have made Bear (whose real name, alas, is Randy) dissatisfied with his life—especially since he met my beautiful friend Carly from Kansas City. He is a lonesome Bear, and he wanted me to tell her "hi." "I am afraid having me here has made for him a chemical reaction of longing for places and people he cannot have," I wrote her. "You inspire the same chemical reaction in me!" she wrote back. "How strange. . . Say hello to Bear."