I see you everywhere (33 page)

What Buzz and Jim pointed out is that we don’t do the bears any service by fixing Danny up, like a car with a bum alternator, and putting him back out there to thrive and reproduce, maybe have cubs with a defect just like his. So the choice becomes this: play God or play Darwin, wrong either way.

Right there, in the middle of that meeting, I saw the hypocrisy of what we do. Here we are, self-proclaimed lovers of nature, yet our whole mission is to fight its laws and logic. We don’t let nature take its course; we struggle to reverse that course. Why make a ruthless exception of Danny?

“Okay then,” I say. “How about we do the surgery, then
castrate
the guy? Call it nepotism. Favorable treatment.”

Miner Jack and his friend turn around when they hear the c word. I meet their glance. “What we do to hunters who disregard the quotas.”

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My French toast arrives. I dig in, determined not to talk. I’m not hungry, but I eat because it gives me a way to avoid R.B.’s punishing gaze. He lowers his voice when he says, “Who do you think you are?”

I look up, stung. It’s another echo of my mother, her get-off-your-bigfat-throne retort whenever Louisa or I tried to gain some authority over her (always a losing battle). But the look on R.B.’s face is perplexed, not angry. He says, so earnest that I have to listen, “Are you in this to do the work or get some kind of martyr charge out of everything that fails?

’Cause the work means a lot of beating your head on walls. I hope to God you know that by now.”

“Do I ever.”

R.B. isn’t into power struggles, so he spares me. “Well, doll, as it happens, you just might get your way. There’s a
National Geographic
guy in Jackson, a good pal of the surgeon who’s gung ho to do this procedure with Sheldon.”

I glare at him, but I let him talk. I don’t ask how he knows this. R.B. knows everything that goes on in town. He’s an all-purpose tracker.

“Conehead loves high-class press. As well he should.” R.B. is alluding to the Teddy Factor: the way we win public opinion by trading on just how photogenic the grizzlies are. Whenever someone publishes a letter in the paper about how bears are dangerous or overprized or stand in the way of development and tourism (i.e., jobs), we call up the editor and counter with a Panavision shot of mama and babies frolicking in a starry field of flowers.

“But,” says R.B., “Sheldon’s motives are one thing.”

“Naked ambition,” I say. “Good for him.”

“So what are yours?”

I shake my head, feigning amusement. This time, I fool him into thinking I couldn’t care less. He spears a slice of my tepid French toast and lays it beside the last of his scrambled eggs. A dotted line of syrup runs from my plate to his. I can think of several wry remarks to make about this territorial act, but I am out of witty repartee. This is so incredibly not like
Daktari.
This is more like, what,
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-
In
?
The Mod Squad
?

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∞

On the day of the surgery, it’s hard to tell who brings in more equipment: the surgeon from Laramie who’s working with Sheldon or the photographer from
National Geographic.
In our bare-bones exam room, which they’ve rigged for the procedure, space is tight. It will be a feat to accommodate Sheldon, the surgeon, and his tech, plus a local livestock vet (who has instructions from a zoo vet on how to handle the anesthesia), along with the photographer and the writer. Never mind poor Danny, who’s spent a bewildering week in the holding pen. Doris and his sister were taken north and released five days ago.

I did not go along for the release. I made the excuse that one of us had to stay by the phones to handle calls from reporters. In the end, we’ve bought Danny’s life, or his chance at life, with a media fuck. This happens all the time in our work; the best way to hearts, minds, votes, and wallets is through NPR, or
Nova,
or even—the bighorn center nailed this one—the
Wall Street Journal.
So you let the outsiders barge in with their tape recorders and videocams, their oohs and ahs, their neverquite-adequate footwear. You act like you are pleased as punch. And now, today, when all I want is to be with Danny, as if he were my child, not a subject of my scientific scrutiny, it’s my job to hang out with the B-list writers—from two western papers and a magazine for members of a glamorous wildlife organization (the Panda Huggers, we call them behind their backs). Sheldon gave me a list of “talking points” on the surgery; Marty gave me an up-to-date list of the local politicians who are (or are not) behind the protection of grizzlies. “Be darn sure you work in the names of the ones who are pro,” he said. To my exasperation, but also relief, Conehead couldn’t make it today. His offspring—a real live human child—is graduating from college.

So we have what constitutes a small crowd. We even have hecklers. In the street out front—a street in the middle of nowhere, no TV cameras in sight, maybe an idle passerby or two—stand four people with three signs: grizzlies are a threat, not a treasure and people are a species too and bears belong in zoos. The fourth person has a megaphone Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 224 224

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that she is clearly embarrassed to have brought. Out the window, once everyone’s in who’s coming in, I see her stash it under a bush.
Is it true that grizzly bears are gentle by nature, that only people make
them mean? Has this surgery ever been done on a wild animal before? Is it like
a bypass? Will he be reunited with his mother? How much will this cost? Is it
paid for with our taxes? Isn’t the Endangered Species Act due to expire?
These are some of the questions I answer while Danny goes under the knife. Over several hours, members of my audience come and go, returning with pizza, doughnuts, pretzels. The office area begins to smell like a sports event: half grease, half perspiration. At one point, the photographer comes out of the exam room to take a leak and grab a slice.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

He takes another bite before speaking. “Intense.” He wolfs down the rest of his pizza and wipes his hands on the seat of his jeans. I let myself outside and walk around the building twice. A cold brilliant light emanates from the window to the makeshift OR, but it’s a high window, too high for me to see anything more than the fluorescent fixture on the ceiling. The picketers have left. Rage cools fast without an accessible target. The reporters have run out of questions. Two of them, both women, stand on the concrete steps out front, smoking, chatting about what their kids will be doing for the summer. Inside, two others help themselves to our desks, open their laptops, and start to write their stories. When my phone rings, I have to reach over a stranger’s shoulder to answer. R.B. says, “Well?”

I tell him it’s not over yet.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Bought some of that white wine you like. Want a movie?”

“A movie? If it goes well, I plan to sleep for three days.”

“Sleep here,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say. What I’m grateful for is that he didn’t ask what I plan to do if it doesn’t go well.

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Beyond them, I can just see Sheldon, his blond hair darkened and flattened by sweat, the blue cloth mask crumpled at his throat. The faces of the three men who’ve left the room are slack, drained of energy and will. The photographer says something that makes his colleague laugh briefly. And then the other writers, the ones who’ve waited with me—four of the original six—crowd around the door, blocking my view.

I sit on my desk and wait. Buzz comes over and stands beside me. He rests a hand, a lingering kindness, on my knee.

“Moment of truth,” he says.

I am quiet. I resolve not to say a word until I speak to Sheldon, as if this will promise good news. I refuse to eavesdrop on the conversation at the door, eight or ten feet away. Whatever they’re saying, it’s hearsay. The reporters peel away for a moment, making room for the cardiologist from Laramie. He heads straight for the bathroom, inscrutable. The tech wheels a machine out of the room and down the back hall. On my desk, the phone is ringing again. Buzz looks at me. I shake my head. He lets it ring till the voicemail picks up. Sheldon comes out quickly, pulling the surgical smock over his head. He throws it hard, an act of violence or emancipation, onto a chair. By the time it slips to the floor, he is standing with me and Buzz. His T-shirt advertises Jamaica; the sweat stains beneath the arms reach all the way to his waist.

“We are fucked,” he says to me. “Sorry, Clem.”

I start crying before he tells us what happened. Danny did not come out of the anesthesia. Whether the surgery itself might have succeeded is unclear. Sheldon avoids looking at me. He tells Buzz he will go out for a quick dinner by himself, then return to do the necropsy. “No one stick around,” he says. “I mean it. I told the vultures to call me tomorrow.” He shows no emotion other than mild disgust.

I realize that all the journalists have left, including the
National
Geographic
guys. Dave, our hyped-up intern, lurks nervously about but seems to understand it’s a time to keep mum.

Finally Sheldon turns to me. “You going to call Marty?”

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Buzz says, “I’ll do that.” He’s quietly put an arm around my shoulders. Sheldon goes into the bathroom. When he comes out, he takes his coat from the rack, as if he’s in a tearing hurry. He starts for the door to the parking lot, but then he turns around and comes back toward me. “I’m sorry, Clem. I really am. You said you’d take responsibility, remember that? But it’s mine. Just so you know. My responsibility.”

“You did your best,” I say, and I know he did. But still, in the midst of this agony—worse for him than for anyone else—I can’t suppress the cruel thought that his nobility is a pose. He leaves quickly. Before the door closes behind him, I hear him shout “Fuck!” three times at the top of his lungs. What’s the matter with me, that I can’t feel sorry for Sheldon, that my heart goes out only to the bear? Dave says, “Wow. What a day. Like, what next?”

“Go home,” Buzz tells him, more gently than I would. Dave looks wounded, but he follows orders.

Buzz and I are alone. The surgery ended less than half an hour ago, and everyone’s gone but us. “Want to have dinner?” asks Buzz.

“No, but thanks.” I get up from my desk and go over to the exam room. I open the door and switch on the light.

“Oh don’t. Really, don’t,” says Buzz, but he follows me in. Danny lies on the steel table like a small battered ship washed ashore in a storm. Like all dead creatures, he looks surprisingly deflated. His chest is shaved, a long incision sewn shut in his dark, smooth skin. Bits of tubing and stained wads of gauze lie scattered about his body and on the floor, like windblown debris. On the gray linoleum, two or three partial shoe prints are traced in blood.

“His head is so huge,” I say. Grizzlies have massive heads, larger in proportion to their body than in any of the other bears. Even when you know it, this defining point of anatomy, it startles you over and over. So I grasp his head between my hands, the dense fur both coarse and soft, and I look into his eyes. They are open but dull, fogged over. R.B. once told me that if you see your reflection in the eyes of a fierce, predatory animal, one that could tear you limb from limb, you will never be the same again. Glas_9780375422751_3p_all_r1.qxp 7/2/08 10:21 AM Page 227
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I forgot to ask how you will never be the same. Are you cursed; are you wise; are you saved? This won’t be my day to find out.

“Clem, let’s split,” says Buzz. “I’m taking you for a drink.”

I let him find my jacket, guide my arms into the sleeves, and lead me to the parking lot. He drives us to a yuppie watering hole with a stunning view of the Tetons. Well, it’s stunning by day. Now the picture window is a mirror, in it a gathering of fortunate, good-looking people out on the town. I order a margarita, and then I go to the ladies’ room. I call R.B. and tell him what happened. He asks me where I am, and I say that I’m having a postmortem drink with the guys. I wait for him to beg me to come over. He doesn’t. He says he’s sorry, that he’ll see me tomorrow. As I walk back to the bar, all I can think is
This sucks,
but when I see Buzz from a distance, looking so wholesome and so dejected, stirring his vodka tonic with his little red straw, I know I have to try, just try, to say something nicer than what I’m thinking. Once I’m sitting on my stool, I say, “Serendipity and fluff.”

Buzz laughs, nervously. “Excuse me?”

“It’s something this really ancient aunt of mine used to say. How she loved ‘serendipity and fluff.’ The pleasure of trivial nonsense. Her life was like this secret, muted tragedy, but she still had a huge appetite for silliness. Harmless gossip. Beach books. Cotton candy. That is what I’m wishing for right now. Serendipity and fluff.”

“Yeah,” he says, “we could use that now, couldn’t we.”

The silence that follows simply mocks our longing for levity. “But hey,” I say. “We can eat. And we can damn well drink.”

We order burgers. I have two more margaritas. We talk about how we got to this place, these jobs, how much we like Wyoming. It’s like two hours of tender small talk, as if we just met, as if we’ve been dumped by other people and we’re each groping for a new beginning. I figure if he wants to take me home with him, I’ll go. But he’s a gentleman, is Buzz. He drives me all the way out to where I live and promises to pick me up in the morning. “How about I bring the radio receiver? We can drive north and spy on our golden girl.”