As grave as the dangers of city living are (why just last week some kids sitting on the stoop in my block in Brooklyn were robbed, at 11 pm!) there are dangers in country life too. Like the bear that jumped in our pond yesterday,
Okay, it was a hot day. And I don’t have a bear phobia, they have as much right to roam the hills below the Appalachian Trail as I do (more, some would argue). But after accepting the fact that we would not be driving back to NY from CT when our reasons for returning vanished, I decided to embrace the sense of entitlement that comes with a country house and head for the pond behind our house for a swim, with only my dog, my Kindle, my Android and the last of of the Patrick Melrose quartet (in paperback) for company.
Between dunks (the water was still a little too cold for actual swimming) I took a moment to feel the stillness of the environment. Bugs, birds, bees… broken by a splash big enough to be a dog. A really big dog.
At first I thought it was a beaver: it was big and black and wet and slick. Until it climbed out of the water, and kept coming. And suddenly I was looking at the California state flag, in 3D. Our dog, Riley, seemed quite blind to the happenings (being, I’m afraid, kind of blind now) but I grabbed his leash, started to assemble my things and then did what any good city dweller would do: I called 911.
I got patched through to the parks department, eventually, and I confessed that I had not been paying attention the day in class when they discussed what to do when confronting a black bear. “Just make a lot of noise,” the nice man said. “Carry a big stick if you want to. But the last thing you want to do is startle him.”
Oh, great, now we’re worrying about me scaring the bear.
Armed with my tree club, carrying my bag of electronic devices and holding Riley on his leash (at least he could smell the bear now, and was very excited) I sang a version of “Finiculi, Finicula”: “Harken, harken! Music fills the air/Harken, harken! this song is for the bear.”
We made it back to the house in one piece, though we found the front door open. I made Riley go into each room with me, hoping he would smell the intruder before I saw him but we were alone. Beds were unmade, of course, and porridge all gone…