Bears

Matthew MacKenzie

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780369101068
• eBook ISBN: 9780369101082
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Drama
• Index: Literature

As the prime suspect in a workplace accident, Floyd has to get out of town fast. Pursued by the RCMP, he heads through the Rockies for Burnaby, BC, along the route of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. By the time he reaches the Pacific, Floyd has experienced changes: his gait widening, muscles bulging, sense of smell heightening…

Bears

Sounds of the Boreal Forest slowly reach a fevered crescendo. Floyd in silhouette.

Floyd: Dreaming of awakening from a long winter slumber . . .

Stretching forward and back . . . claw and rump . . .

Greeting the morning sun . . . eyes sensitive from sleep . . .

Smelling the Mountain air . . . the snow as it shifts . . . the Forest as it stirs with new life . . .

Sliding down slippery slopes with the melt . . . ready to meet the valley again . . .

Buffalo shake off their winter coats . . . Elk search for new growth . . . Crocuses push their heads up out and out . . .

Turning over boulders . . . digging up grubs and tubulars, bulbs and fungi . . .

The Chorus lumber on all fours.

Crossing mountain passes . . . frolicking in alpine meadows . . . splashing through glacial waters . . . passing through ancient Cedar Forests . . . swimming across swollen Rivers . . . staring into the swells and the shallows . . .

The Chorus stand.

Following in the footsteps of those who have come before . . .

The Chorus travel on the spot behind Floyd.

Standing to meet danger . . .

Never turning tail . . .

Never backing down.

A Grizzly heartbeat.

Bears.

Lights to full. Floyd wears oil patch coveralls and workboots.

Chorus: The prime suspect in a workplace accident, Floyd had to get out of town fast.

Floyd: He was headed west, but he wanted to avoid the cookie cutter homes and Starbucks rush, electing instead to follow the trails along the Whitemud and Blackmud ravines, emerging like Gaddafi from a drainage pipe — but instead of finding death, finding open farmland, Prairies, which would roll into Hills, which would fold into Mountains, which of course was where Floyd was headed.

He knew a guy who flew helicopters, tailing and tranquilizing Grizzlies to track their declining numbers, and if there was one thing Floyd loved, it was Bears. Maybe he’d take in an orphaned cub. Maybe he’d hunt poachers. Maybe he’d make art installations out of their shellacked droppings — it didn’t matter, really, so long as it involved Bears.

There’d been a berry patch out back behind his duplex growing up, Raspberries —

Chorus: Like shitloads.

Floyd: At three years of age, Floyd had guarded the patch jealously, charging out of the brambles after a feeding frenzy to chase any would-be “Sally Samplers” away.

His mom had named him —

Mama: “Little Cub.”

Floyd: — setting a half-pint daily berry limit, a rule Floyd still followed at forty years of age. There can be too much of a good thing —

Chorus: Even for Bears.

Floyd: Walking through the native grasses in the gutters to avoid the GM crops in the fields, Floyd wondered what life would have been like for the last Grizzlies of the Plains. They dwelt in the Mountains because it was a refuge, not because they chose to be confined to the range. There was a reason Grizzlies could run at over forty klicks — they were equipped to bring down Antelope and Deer, Moose and Elk.

Antlers become quills.

Chorus: “Progress.”

Floyd: Floyd scoffed as he stepped over the bloated carcass of a Porcupine that lay decaying in the dirt.

The call of a Gopher. Floyd hits the dirt.

The call of a Prairie Gopher alerted Floyd to a passing patrol.

Prairie Dogs sound the alarm as the patrol passes.

Eyeball to eyeball with a Dark-Eyed Junco, Floyd couldn’t help but recall that songbird populations on the Prairies had been off the charts when the Buffalo used to roam — Tattlers, Thrashers and Yellow-Rumped Warblers feasting on the insects that fed on the vast herd’s dung.

Chorus: “Fuck progress.”

Floyd: Floyd thought, dusting himself off.

Floyd crosses the Pembina River.

Crossing beneath a suspension bridge that spanned the Pembina River, Floyd realized he didn’t know what he’d do when he encountered his first Grizzly friend, but he knew he wouldn’t play dead.

That’s what his foreman had done when a Bear had wandered through their drill site outside Fort Saskatchewan, and that nearly ended with Floyd’s foreman being dragged to kingdom come.

Grizzlies were foragers. They’d feed on a carcass just as soon as they’d feed on Highbush Cranberries or Dandelions. If you encountered a Grizzly in the wild you either had to clear out or try and stand your ground, Floyd reaffirmed, because —

Chorus: “There’s no such thing as neutral in the Bear world.”

Floyd: Somewhere outside Edson, Floyd found his rhythm. He wasn’t walkin’, he wasn’t marchin’, he was trompin’ — trompin’ to the beat of deerskin hand drums he’d had beatin’ in his heart since he was eleven. His gait was widenin’, his muscl...

Table of contents

• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• A Note from the Playwright
• Production History
• Mama Bear’s Cree Prayer
• Characters
• Bears
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author