Bear v. Shark (9 page)

Are there personalized license plates on the Vegas-bound interstate? License plates with cryptic and clever little declarations of fealty? Man, like you wouldn’t believe. There is a shorthand that you pick up after a while. For instance, BR = Bear. SHRK = Shark. LUV = Love. SUX = Sucks. You get the idea.

Mr. Norman says, “Maybe I should call the office.”

Mrs. Norman, who at one time had touched Mr. Norman in extraordinary ways, in extraordinary places, who at one time had taken Mr. Norman’s hand and guided him to places on her body, the existence of which he had previously heard about, sure, but never until those precise moments of contact quite believed in and which he now doubted once again because of the fallibility of memory, the corrosive work of the years, to tell the truth it might have been not Mrs. Norman at all but another woman, a previous girlfriend, a secretary at his place of employment, if it indeed happened at all, might have been a Television program, says, “Why?”

Mr. Norman says, “What?”

Mrs. Norman says, “Why should you call the office?”

Mr. Norman says, “I said I would.”

Mrs. Norman says, “Then by all means.”

Mr. Norman calls the office.

In the backseat Matthew says, “I’ve said it before: A shark is a killing machine.”

In the backseat Curtis says, “Listen, have you
ever
seen a bear when the water is roily with salmon?”

A man at the office says, “Hello.”

Mr. Norman says, “This is Larry Norman.”

The man says, “Hey, Larry.”

Mr. Norman says, “I’m just checking in.”

The man says, “OK, thanks.”

Mr. Norman says, “OK.”

In the backseat Matthew says, “The shark is perfectly adapted to killing. Essentially it has not evolved in millions of years. God rendered it artfully.”

In the front passenger seat Mrs. Norman says, “What do you mean by essentially?”

In the foreword, Aldous Huxley says, “Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us in a single century.”

Mr. Norman says, “How is everything?”

The man says, “Some high school principal in Wichita just ordered thirty fake laptops for his computer lab.”

Mr. Norman says, “The kids will like those.”

The man says, “Why don’t you give us another call tomorrow, about the same time.”

Mr. Norman says, “Will do.”

The man says, “Listen, Larry, before you go. What kind of feeling are you getting out there in America?”

Mr. Norman says, “I don’t know, a pretty good feeling.”

The man says, “Yeah? Is the feeling palpable?”

Mr. Norman says, “Palpable?”

The man says, “Yeah, can you feel it?”

Mr. Norman says, “Can I feel the feeling?” The man says, “Yeah, can you cut the feeling with a knife?”

Mr. Norman says, “I guess the feeling is fairly palpable.”

The man says, “I just bet it is.”

In the backseat the Television Personality says, “The latest polls show that of the 39 percent of Americans who know who Martin Van Buren is, 72 percent think that he was either ‘better’ or ‘far better’ than William Howard Taft.”

In the backseat Curtis says, “Tafty Taft needs some PR.”

In the office the man says, “Good-bye, Larry.”

In the backseat Matthew says, “
Roily?
”

In the driver’s seat Mr. Norman knows: A quick jerk of the wheel and it’s all over.

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The American family just keeps driving the American vehicle across the American interstate system. Destination: the Sovereign Nation of Las Vegas.

There are specious skies, fruitless pains.

There is shredded grace.

There are amber waves of nausea.

There are purple billboards’ majesty, countless billboards, just imagine how the earliest settlers must have felt gazing up at such wonders. These billboards — each one large enough to contain, say, cigarettes and beach volleyball, and sexy enough to prove a correlation between the two. A
strong
correlation. These billboards perform countless miracles of conjunction: cologne and power are joined in natural and sensible union, the corner office shown to be the telos of the fresh, manly scent;
bottled water
leads inexorably, syllogistically, to quirky individualism; baked cheese snacks and Happiness become indistinguishable; Seasoning Pouches and harmonious families reprise the chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.

A slightly sun-bleached Breakfast Link, hysterically enlarged to show texture and foregrounded against family members who clearly adore one another and who would want to get together
even if they weren’t related,
says, “And I’m 80% meat!”

A casino promises fun for the whole family.

A politician promises fun for the whole family.

Gracious Native Americans selling authentic jewelry roadside at Gypsy strip malls promise to accept your check card, exit now.

An enormous digital clock — showing days, hours, minutes, seconds, split seconds — races countdown style toward Bear v. Shark II.

Curtis says, “I gotta pee like a
resource
.”

The Normans pass Exit after Exit, Food Mart after Food Mart. Mr. Norman always has the uneasy feeling that he is passing up the best Food Mart and that he will inevitably stop at one that has disappointingly few variations on the corn chip, the individually wrapped cream-filled cake, the sweet carbonated beverage. It is difficult to tell the good Food Marts from the bad ones. The dashboard is oddly reticent. And the signs are of no help. Judging by the signs — on which “Quick” invariably becomes “Kwik” and
and
becomes
n
— you are led to believe that each store has the same commitment to expediency and convenience and variety, which is clearly not the case.

Are the Food Marts getting better,
funner,
as Las Vegas gets closer? It’s an interesting premise, but I’m not sure it’s true.

Food Mart, Food Mart, Food Mart. At the current rate, there will be more Food Marts than people in just twenty years. A nation of snacks and gas. It’s the end of geography, the end of the road novel. Just try advancing a plot along the U.S. roadways. The Normans have traveled a distance of 302 miles (486 km), you’ll have to take my word for it.

The Sport Utility Vehicle needs fuel and Matthew or Curtis — one of them back there — needs to pee, but it is difficult to choose a Food Mart. You feel that when you choose one, you rule out all the others. It is a loss, a mini-death. Robert Frost, a poet from New England, talks about that in one of his more well-known poems.

Mr. Norman pulls into a Gas-n-Dash, Pump 16. While Mrs. Norman and the boys go to the rest room, Mr. Norman puts fuel in the Sport Utility Vehicle and also washes the windshield.

A guy from Pump 22 says to Mr. Norman, “Say, where are you headed?”

Mr. Norman says, “What?”

The guy says, “Where are you headed?”

Mr. Norman says, “Las Vegas.”

A sign with a little girl’s picture on it says, “Have you seen me?”

The guy says, “Goin’ to the big show?”

Mr. Norman says, “What?”

The guy says, “You going to see Bear versus Shark?” He actually says that, Bear
versus
Shark. Nobody says that. In today’s hectic world, Mr. Norman thinks, who has time to say “versus”? It’s always
vee
. Mr. Norman thinks maybe this guy is a foreigner, but he is speaking American.

Mr. Norman, vaguely suspicious, says, “Yes.”

The Pump 22 guy says, “You must be excited.”

Mr. Norman says, “I guess so.”

The guy says, “Most people headed that way are pretty darn excited.”

Mr. Norman says, “I’m pretty darn excited. It’s palpable.”

There are pretty puddles of gas. Rainbow puddles. A handwritten sign says, “Please prepay after dark.”

The guy says, “I saw on the Television that they had a prefight workout yesterday and the bear looked great. Slim, alert, strong. Fur had sheen.”

Mr. Norman says, “Sheen?”

The guy says, “Radiance. Luster.”

Mr. Norman says, “Oh.”

At a nearby plant where workers manufacture chips and circuit boards, a supervisor says, “We’re going to have to let six hundred of you go.”

The guy from Pump 22 crosses over the pump island and gets up close to Mr. Norman. His eyes are bright, clear, focused. There is obviously something wrong with him. He says, quietly, “Listen, there are other ways to live.”

Mr. Norman says, “What?”

The creepy guy says, “I used to be like you. Worked in an office. Babbled all the time, couldn’t stop. Had the ESP TV, the downloaded uplinks, the personalized plates, the wife whose name occasionally escaped me, the whole five yards. But.”

Mr. Norman says, “
Nine
yards.”

The guy says, “What?”

Mr. Norman says, “The whole
nine
yards. You said five yards.”

The Pump 22 guy says, “The exact yardage is not germane.”

Mr. Norman says, “It’s not like five yards would be
whole
.”

The guy says, “All I’m saying.”

Mr. Norman says, “Where do you suppose that saying came from? Football?”

The guy says, “Nine yards, whatever. The point is.”

Mr. Norman says, “Fabric?”

The guy says, “There are other ways to live your life, better ways, take it from me. You find other people like us, you get rid of your Television.”

Mr. Norman says, “Are you trying to sell me something? I already have a good Television. Several.”

Mrs. Norman and the kids, bearing pretty decent Snacks, cross the parking lot toward the Sport Utility Vehicle.

Mr. Norman says, “I have to go now.”

The guy says, “Just think about what I said.”

Ariel Dorfman says, “We also have shields which can be used as mirrors.”

The guy says, “We don’t have much, but we’re awake.”

Mr. Norman gets into the Sport Utility Vehicle with his wife and their two children, Matthew and the other one, the younger one.

A sign says, “Persons with physical disabilities wishing to buy lottery tickets please sound horn for service.”

Mrs. Norman says, “That man from Pump 22 had the kind of posture you read about.”

Mr. Norman says, “His eyes were weird.”

Why, tell me this, would a racehorse have to pee so bad?

How do racehorses pee, anyway?

I mean, why would a racehorse have to pee more than, say, your average farm horse or your cantering beer-commercial horse?

Standing up?

And listen, is the idea here that they’re sprinting
because
they have to pee, or is it the very act of sprinting that
causes
the need to urinate?

I don’t believe they squat.

I can see it both ways.

They definitely don’t lift a leg. I think they just let it rip.

Well, it depends on which type of horse you’re talking about.

But we already specified that we’re talking about racehorses.

You’ve got your stallions, your mares, your colts, your studs, your striplings — all pee different.

Palomino?

Different.

Pommel?

That one’s sterile.

Yes, and so’s the Earl Grey.

The thing you have to keep in mind is the withers.

Fetlock, croup, gaskin, hock.

Shank, pastern, muzzle.

Introduced by the Spaniards.

Hooves instead of feet.

You just better hold on tight bareback because I got this friend Billy who got thrown off one time and he busted up his gaskin pretty bad.

OK, joining us now is . . . Say, Mitch, ever get the sense that we’re
forever
getting joined by people?

Oh yeah. Join join join. We’re like a damn YMCA.

Did people ever say
joining us now
before, say, 1950?

Ridiculous.

So-and-so is joining us, so-and-so has joined us many times before, last summer we were joined by so-and-so.

That’s what we do. We join. People join us.

Join now and save! Join now and receive a free tote bag!

Would you care to join us for dinner?

Let’s join hands. Let’s join forces.

We’re like a movement or a cause or an Internet porn site.

Join starts to sound funny after a while, kind of like fork.

Join. Join. Join.

Fork. Fork.

Join.

OK, joining us today by satellite from London is . . . Hey, Mitch —

I know. You don’t have to say it.

Back in the olden times, joining meant sharing the same physical space. If somebody joined you, then they were, like,
with
you.

Barbara, joining is no longer limited by considerations of space or time. Hell, on this very show we’ve been joined by former president Martin Van Buren as he orbited the moon in a lunar shuttle.

I know.

Join has undergone a revolution. Join has kept up. You have to keep up. If you don’t, you get left in the dust. Join has reinvented itself. You have to hand it to join. Think of other verbs that have been left in the scrap heap of history, of interest only to crusty old professors.

I can’t think of a single one.

That’s my point.

There is a technology of joining, Mitch, a whole technology. The satellite uplinks, the remote feeds, underground cables in networks and webs. We’re all joined. We want to keep in touch, but.

But perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Hey, you’ve been reading Thoreau.

As you know, Barbara, he’ll be joining us next week.