Ten Years in Training

It is hard to believe that I graduated high school at all. It is almost unfathomable that I did so ten years ago. “What the fuck have we done with our lives?” my friend Bernadette, shrieks into the phone after receiving her 10 years and counting invitation in the mail. It is for situations like these that I am thankful for the vibrate and ignore features on my walkie-talkie, but the clever Bernadette called from an unregistered number. Hoping it was David Salmone calling to interview me and Sherman, the black bear I live in the woods with, I had answered.

Obviously I hadn’t done a ton. Unless sweeping pinecones out of the cave I have trained the local skunk to stop peeing in has been up-graded to PhD research. “I don’t know about you Bernadette, but I have no interest in going to our high school reunion.”

“Oh, boo-hoo for you,” Bernadette cries over the phone. “Poor Scott. Found the bear of his dreams and lives the life of Riley in the forest like a better-looking David Suzuki.”

Ever since I met up with some of my old friends at my friend, Darlene’s, wedding; these old acquaintances have decided to take a greater interest in my life. They think it is exotic the way most people think mud-huts built with feces in southern Kenya are exotic. Just because something is different doesn’t necessarily mean it is romantic though. It just means you are boring.

“Plus, you promised to introduce everyone to Sherman,” Bernadette prods. “Everyone will want to meet him.”

“No, Bernadette. Everyone will not want to meet him. Everyone will want to point-out to Sherman all the ways that he is too good for me,” I respond.

“Is he too good for you?”

“Yes!” I scream. “Very much so and I have worked really hard to trick him into loving me in spite of that fact. I don’t want all that work to go to waste.”

“Well, that’s what families do,” Bernadette says. “Plus, it will be fun.”

Fun things never need to be prefaced with the promise of their being fun. Sherman has never once had to say let’s go to bed…it will be fun or let’s skip book club…it will be fun. Liars lie about boring things by promising stupid people that they will be fun. I know—I pull this all the time with my drag-queen father.

“Besides, you like people from high school.”

“No, Bernadette. You like people from high school. I was nice to people in high school. There’s a big difference.”

But then I look over at my Sherman. He had been bothered that I hadn’t brought him to my family reunion and although he hadn’t cared about coming to a wedding overlooking the Niagara Falls, I realized it was an incredibly lonely experience without him. If this relationship was really going to be more than a summer fling, it was time for me to make an investment. Throwing Sherman to the vultures of my past seems like the easiest way for me to do that in a short period of time. If nothing else, I am lazy. “Fine, Bernadette. You win. Sherman and I will pick you up on the way. Pack honey.”

On the long drive to Hillbilly-Ville, Bernadette thought it would be a good idea to regale me with tidbits of information. “You know, so we’ll have something to talk about at the party.” I suspect Bernadette has much higher expectations of this event than I do. Considering I am looking forward to December 22, 2012 more, that isn’t saying much though.

“I don’t know about you, Bernadette, but I live in the bush with a black bear who is smarter than me and who I am also introducing to people tonight. I think that’s a pretty good conversation-starter.”

“Just ignore him, Bernadette,” Sherman says, in his subdued, smoky voice. “I am all ears.”

“Suck up,” I mumble.

“What was that?” scowls Sherman.

“Nothing.”

“It says here that of the 496 criminals placed in the top ten on the Most Wanted list since its inception in March, 1950, 450 have been caught. That’s a 96 per cent rate,” Bernadette says. Bernadette, like Sherman, is obviously into higher-education. That makes them both the type of people that shine at high school reunions. People that drop life-bombs about dating man-bears don’t tend to fair quite as well.

“I wonder what the rate of capture is for those who are number eleven on the list?” asks Sherman. Like I said, they are both Mensa-smart. The only Mensa I was ever associated with was my drag-queen father’s dog. And her nick-name is Ironic.

“Probably eight per cent,” I say, trying to act involved. “He probably sits there at the weekly poker game and heckles the top ten. PS-Bernadette, I love the Enquirer. I am a huge fan of the investigative series documenting the Bat Boy.”

That is a true story too. My grandfather used to collect Enquirer back-issues and bring them down to me. Six months’ worth of the Bat Boy in one sitting: it’s a little thing called heaven.
Both Bernadette and Sherman glare at me. “I only have this subscription because I won it in a charity raffle at an event I was being honoured at for my work with blind and underprivileged youth,” says Bernadette.

“That sounds like nepotism,” I suggest.

“That is not the correct use of that word,” laughs Bernadette as she gives Sherman a knowing wink because they both have a handle on what is my first language and their second. A similar instance once happened to me while I was trying to give directions to an elderly Algerian woman in the grocery store. She asked me if English was my second language and when I told her it was my only language she shook her head in exasperation and walked away. “Really, Scott. I thought you were a journalist.”

“Whatever,” I say. “I didn’t even want to come to this shit-show. Richard Hatch will be lonely without cuddle-time.”

“Our cat will be fine,” smiles Sherman. “Your drag-queen father will take good care of her.”

“No he won’t,” I whine. “Richard is scared of their pet turkey, Daphney. She will hide under the fire-place the whole time.”

Sherman motions to his eyes as though a tear is falling and Bernadette starts playing an imaginary air fiddle. “Really?” I ask. “And I am the one here without graduate credentials.”

Just then I speed up to pass someone I assume is geriatric but turns out to be my good friend Giselle. I don’t know why she is going to this event since she is an over-sized lady of the night who was 32 when I was seven, but she will be a distraction from me and my bear so I honk in salutation. She flips me off and reverse-passes me: just barely missing an on-coming eighteen-wheeler.

“Why the fuck would she do that?” I ask. “She didn’t know that truck was there.”

“That’s what makes it a game,” says Bernadette. “It’s like that Russian game with the revolver.”

“You mean Russian Roulette?” I ask.

“I know what it is called,” she says. “I was throwing you a bone.”

When we get to Shit-Show High, it is even worse than I remember it. That isn’t a shocker though. I was nineteen before I graduated and rarely showed up sober to my last semester of class. This was probably a premonition of the less than stellar decisions I would go on to make over the next decade, but that’s just hindsight and tequila talking.

“Holy shit balls!” screams Jake. “It’s Scott and Bernadette. What the fuck is going on?”

“Apparently more than you, considering you are on your third rum and coke and it is only 7:30,” I bitch.

Jake ignores me. He always did. “Who the fuck is this?” his says, hugging Sherman.

“This is Sherman,” I smile. “He is my lover.”

I enjoy how the words sound coming out of my mouth.

“Nice fucking catch, Scott,” hollers Jake. He is clearly inebriated, but it is a way better reaction than I have ever garnered on my own and it brings a smile to Sherman’s face. Plus, people discussing the foxy-nature of my burly lover means less time they will commit to discussing my lack of career or upper-body strength. Especially when they get a whiff of my friend, Franklin’s, combination bald spot and pregnancy bump. “How did you bitches meet?”

“I’ve been looking for Scott my whole life,” smiles Sherman. “Then he just stumbled into my world and changed it forever.” It sounds so romantic coming from Sherman’s lips. So prodigious…I think.

“So, he was unemployed and squatting in your cave when you kindly took pity on him?” Jake surmises.

“Something like that,” Sherman laughs. I go to hit him, but then I see his face. It is beaming with pride. It’s the kind of thing that would make me want to throw-up if I saw a stranger doing it, but since it is about me, it couldn’t make me happier.

“And what about you Jake?” I ask. “You still selling your blood for lunch money?”

“No. I married this cougar a few weeks ago and now I don’t know what to do with all my money.” Just then I look across the room and see a glow on Giselle’s face similar to that of Sherman’s. “Couldn’t be happier.”

“Hmm,” I smile. “Sometimes shit just works out. Although, maybe not.”

“What do you mean?” asks Jake.

“Giselle has the Gonge.”

“That actually explains a lot man,” Jake smiles, awkwardly.

The rest of the night was fairly blaze. There was an hour-long award ceremony, but I didn’t win anything. Then there was the traditional meet-and-greet, but I let Sherman do most of the talking because he is better with that sort of thing. He is turning out to be something of a people-person. Then we hit the dance-floor.

“Finally!” I shout. “Can I get a what-what?!”

Everyone stares at me like I have just torn my Velcro-pants off and pissed on somebody’s leg. That was a potential at the beginning of the night, but it’s more of a finishing move and the night is still young. This was the reaction I was afraid of though. I always thought it would come at the expense of my love for Sherman, but the fact that it has come at my unique dancing skills is surprisingly no-less sad. It is lonely being singled-out in embarrassment. Even for a self-confident trail-blazer like myself.

But then my hero comes to my rescue.

“What-what!” hollers Sherman, as he takes my hand and we start to move to the music of the night.

 In the short time of two hours, Sherman has built himself a legion of fans from the inbreeding capital of the world. The “what-what’s” fill the room as the hill-billies of my past take their lead from the motions of me and my prince charming.

The changes I have seen in the short-course of a decade are impressive.

 It is something I never could have imagined ten years ago.