Go West, Young Man!

My name is Buddy. I am a member of the Bearlet family. Our intrepid forebears left England centuries ago, in search of a better life. They were brave, honest, and God-fearing bears. Okay, enough already! I can see you rolling your eyes. I tend to stretch the truth a little. No more eye-rolling, please! I admit it; I am a pathological liar, but a well-intentioned one. I mean, many, if not most, writers, are full of crap. It is general knowledge in the authorial world. In the summer of 1974, we went on a car trip from the family farm in the province of Ontario to western Canada. Papa Bear bought a camper for the back of his pickup truck. Mama Bear was excited because she missed her older sister, who had moved with her family to the province of Alberta several years before. Five of the Bearlet children would come along; two of their teenage sisters would remain at home to stoke the fires in the family hearth, figuratively speaking. A fire was most certainly stoked because, unfortunately, one of the two sisters would end up preggers. But that is another story! I had wanted to stay at home to read, to write, and to look at my collection of men’s muscle magazines furtively. What changed my mind? Papa Bear decided the route west would be through the USA. That sold me! The country to the south of Canada had always fascinated me. It was where movies were made, and dreams could come true. The USA had an edge, a potentially dangerous one. Just about everyone owned guns, and sometimes they would ‘go postal’ and try target practice on anyone nearby. Despite being thrilled about travelling through the States on the way to western Canada, my imagination – always overactive at the best of times – was on high alert. To my chagrin, the Bearlet family holiday took a rather dark turn when it looked like we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Papa Bear pulled into the parking lot of an almost deserted shopping mall. Only a few vehicles were parked there, but he decided to pull up beside a group of young guys standing near the open trunk of their car. Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and Toddler Bear were in the front of the pickup truck. Big Sister Bear, Little Sister Bear, and Yours Truly Bear were lying on a mattress that was directly above the truck’s cab, with a bear’s eye view from a forward-facing window. We three Bearlets suspected that our father had parked beside the young guys because they had short buzz cuts and looked to be the antithesis of hippies. However, from our vantage point perched above the truck’s cab, we could see that the muscular, butch-looking, young men had chains, pipes, and what looked to be knives in the open trunk. As an aside, and despite my mounting fear, it was not lost on this teenage Bearlet - who suspected he was gay - that the young men were feckin’ hot! The three of us in the nest above the truck’s cab were in a state of discombobulation. We could see the guys staring at the truck as Papa Bear exited it with Baby Bear in hand. Mama Bear and Toddler Bear were still inside the truck. For a heart-stopping moment, we wondered what would happen next. My writer’s mind was racing. Would the young men beat up Papa Bear? Would they pistol-whip Mama Bear? Would they taunt Baby Bear and Toddler Bear? Would they bitch-slap Big Sister Bear and Little Sister Bear? Would they manhandle Buddy Bear and use him for their pent-up pleasure? Fortunately, the young guys closed the trunk, started their car, and exited the parking lot. Papa Bear came to the back of the truck to let down the tailgate and open the camper door. We three began to excitedly tell Papa Bear how close the Bearlet family had come to danger and perhaps death. To our amazement, Papa Bear did not seem at all perturbed. He commented, “They looked like a bunch of nice young boys.”