Land of Bears

I never knew much about Sunny Glen Estates. At least not until the bear attack. The gated retirement community sat on the south border of the city, mostly surrounded by open fields and some farmland. A sliver of an area, tucked away from the rest of world.

I was a reporter at the local paper when my editor handed me the assignment: a tragedy at a seniors’ bingo night. The scene sounded like it was straight out of a movie.  Allegedly, a wild bear had somehow wandered into the community’s clubhouse on a Saturday evening, right in the middle of a game. By the time it was over, the bear had escaped but not before mauling three seniors to death, during what was supposed to be a fun and peaceful night.     

The sensationalized story had sparked a frenzy of international media attention. So by the time I managed to land an interview with the Community President, the earliest available date was a month out. That wasn’t going to work. I only had a two day deadline to uncover the grizzly details. Luckily, my partner’s coworker had an Aunt living at Sunny Glen. She hadn’t been at the bingo massacre, but according to my partner, she had plenty to say about it. I was desperate for an interview, so the next day, I drove out to Sunny Glen for an afternoon cup of tea.

It was a gorgeous day as I drove through the gates of the retirement community, home to around five hundred senior residents. I wound my way through a maze of side streets, each lined with semi-attached, yellow brick bungalows. The grounds were nicely landscaped, filled with white flowers that made the community look like a little piece of paradise. But the streets were eerily empty. I couldn’t tell if everyone was indoors hiding from the murderous bear or simply deep into their mid-afternoon naps.

Decades ago, this place was all farmland. According to old city records, the clubhouse now stood exactly where an old farmhouse once did. It was the home to a farmer and his family. When the city moved to develop the land into a retirement village, the farmer refused to leave. He sued the city, claiming generations of his family had lived and worked that land. But he lost. Evicted, his house was torn down. Less than a year later, the clubhouse went up in its place.

When I arrived at the Aunt’s home, I was greeted not just by her, but by two of her closest friends from down the street. All three, in their early eighties, wore matching knitted cardigans like team uniforms. We huddled around her small kitchen table, where I was served tea and an assortment of afternoon snacks: cheese with olives, pita with hummus and falafel. I hadn’t even taken a first bite of anything before the Aunt launched into her story with intensity. 

"That wasn't some random attack," she said. "For the past year, those blue jays have been purposely feeding that bear nonstop." The other two women nodded in agreement, saying nothing.  

"Blue Jays?" I asked, confused.

She smiled and was obviously amused by my outsider status. “Anyone living north of the clubhouse is called a Blue Jay. Named after the main street that runs through it.”

“We’re the south Robins,” one of her friends added proudly.

It made sense. All the streets were bird-themed. I remembered I’d driven in on Blue Jay Way, then Canary Trail, Hummingbird Lane and onto Robin Road once I past the clubhouse.

“When you say the bear was purposely fed?” I followed up. “What do you mean by that?”

"That bear’s been feasting on leftovers like it had a standing invitation. I’m not saying they wanted an attack, but come on…what did they think would happen? The bear didn’t show up to play bingo, for Christ’s sake." 

“What evidence do you have of this?” I asked. 

“Evidence?” The Aunt huffed at the question. “The entire north end is a goddamn minefield of bear poop. You can’t take two steps without stepping in it.” With that, she stood up, snatched my falafel away from me and marched my plate over to the kitchen counter. “The whole lot of them need to go.” 

One of the ladies lowered her head at the remark, and the aunt and her friend immediately picked up on it.

“Unless we’re talking about a certain gentleman,” the friend teased.

The Aunt rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I don’t know what you see in that Blue Jay. He’s been divorced three times and his teeth are practically begging for a dentist.”

 “He’s sweet,” the woman replied bashfully. 

When my time was up, I got up to leave but not before I wrote down the name and number of the scandalous Blue Jay courting the Robin. The Aunt walked me to my car, and I thanked her for her time. I also offered my condolences. She didn’t seem that shaken about the three who were killed. We actually never even got into the details of that night. I had a feeling the victims were a trio of Blue Jays. As I got into my car, she leaned in and whispered, “That man you’re about to speak to…he’s got a touch of dementia. Not a reliable source.” 

On my way out, I drove past the clubhouse and into the north phase. I crawled along the streets and scanned the land as closely as I could. But despite the warnings, I saw no sign of any bear poop. 

***

The Aunt wasn’t wrong about one thing, Mr. Casanova definitely needed a dentist. When he smiled and shook my hand the next day, his two front teeth were missing. And his dark grey hair matched the carpeting throughout this home.  

We sat in his living room surrounded by framed photos of all 22 of his grandchildren. I joked and asked if he could name them all. “Only my favourites,” he joked back. 

When I brought up the bingo massacre, his mood changed. Just like the ladies the day before, he had little interest in discussing the details of that night. Instead, he started to rant about how the real problem were all the robins. He said they were making it impossible for him to have a romantic relationship around here. 

“I can’t help who I fall in love with,” he said. “Some days, it feels like my heart has been ripped out by that bear,” he added. 

“How long have you lived here?” I asked.  

“Oh, I’m approaching close to eight years now,” he said.

“Have you ever fed any wild life?”

He laughed out loud. “You’re not the first to ask that dumb question,” he said. “Everyone thinks us Blue Jays are out here having a picnic with the bear. That story from the Robins has been going around since the first bear attack. I’m so tired of hearing it.”

“Wait…first bear attack?” I asked. I’d lived in this city half my life and worked at the local paper nearly as long. I’d never heard of another bear incident at Sunny Glen.

He rocked back in his chair and gave me a look. “Aren’t you a reporter? You should know this.” He leaned forward. “We’ve had multiple run-ins with the bear.”

I stared at him and was stunned. This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Of course, it’s always the Blue Jays who get blamed. Never the Robins. But why don’t you ask that self-righteous flock why, years ago, they blocked a vote to use our reserve fund to hire a professional to trap the damn bear? Maybe none of this would’ve ever happened.”

I sank back into his plaid couch. I had a thousand questions. He could see it on my face.

“If you don’t believe me, go to the clubhouse library,” he said. “There’s an archive section with records of our entire history.” He smiled, exposing his missing teeth. “You’ll find your version of the truth there.”

Just before I left, I thanked him for his time and tried to lighten the mood. With my jacket on and one foot out the door, I pointed to a framed high school graduation photo of one of his grandchildren that hung on the wall. 

“What’s her name?” I asked. 

He squinted at her for a moment. 

“Fatima,” he replied. 

Funny, I thought, that was also the name of his current off-limits girlfriend. 

*** 

I asked my editor for a deadline extension. I needed one more day. He didn’t understand. All he wanted was a quick 300-800 word write-up on what happened. I told him I might have a feature on our hands. That this story didn’t just start and end on bingo night. There is bad blood between residents. A deeper history here to uncover. “Does it include more bear?” he asked. “There’s definitely more bear,” I said. With that said, my extension was granted.        

The clubhouse with its large windows and peaked roof reminded me of a miniature castle. As I walked towards it, I realized it was larger than it first appeared from my car. The right wing housed an impressively large indoor pool. On the left, was the library and a little exercise room. Downstairs, the basement had a kitchen but functioned as a storage room filled with stacks of extra plastic chairs and tables, bins of art supplies and other odds and ends from various clubs.

At the centre of it all was the site of the bear attack. I could only poke my head inside the main hall. The high ceiling reminded me of the great hall from those Harry Potter movies, but there was no magic here. Just a garden of sympathy flowers and three framed portraits of the fallen seniors.

I spent the next four hours barricaded in the clubhouse library. I devoured everything I could get my hands on. The archives were juicer than I thought. Well organized, they held hundreds of complaint letters addressed to former board directors, voting records on everything from whether to fund a clubhouse pool to repeated debates about the bear problem. Tucked between the files were black and white resident photos of past bear sightings. The photos were grainy and spooky, the animals always appeared shadowy, like evil ghosts haunting the grounds.     

I uncovered that the original feud between residents dated back to the very first year Sunny Glen was established. The debate was about the farmer who had been evicted from the land to make way for the community. Some residents believed the man and his family should have been offered a home within Sunny Glen. Others strongly disagreed, citing the “no kids allowed” policy. Not long after that bitter divide which birthed the Robins and the Blue Jays, the first bear appeared.

At one point, the bear-poop minefield had become a very real problem. And it wasn’t just happening in the north, but throughout the south end of the community as well. One anonymous resident described in a letter the general smell in the air saying it was so overpowering, “it was like the sky opened up and a nuclear shit bomb went off.” They added, “My hair is going greyer because of it."  

A short time later, a community vote was held in the clubhouse to decide on hiring a professional bear trapper. Surprisingly, it was the Blue Jays, not the Robins, who blocked the motion. Their reason? They believed that any bear coming around was just a part of life. That the situation should just be accepted, and that the reserve fund would be better spent on a statue of the community’s founder. That idea was quickly vetoed by the Robins. Eventually, both sides compromised and approved a budget for tree trimming and landscaping improvements, which included a bi-weekly sweep for bear droppings.

Near the end of my deep dive into the community archives, I had the library entirely to myself except for one brief interruption. A curious resident wandered in on his way to the exercise room and stopped when he saw the sea of documents spread out all around me.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“Just doing some research on the bingo night tragedy,” I replied.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh. Are you a Blue Jay or a Robin?”

“Neither,” I said.

He glanced around at the hundreds of letters scattered across the floor. “I see. So why do you care so much then?”

***   

The article ran the next day making the front page. The headline read: “The Sunny Glen Estates Massacre.” It opened with a brief summary of the tragic bingo night but quickly got into the long-standing feud among residents and their common bear problem. I placed the blame squarely on the Blue Jays, who had blocked efforts to hire a professional trapper. I finished the story claiming they had chosen pride over prevention. 

Even though he wanted more bear, my editor was pleased with the piece. And I was happy he was happy. But our moods changed once the smear campaign against me started. Within days, I was flooded with nasty handwritten letters and phone calls from the outraged Blue Jays. The complaints weren’t just sent to my office but also to my home. I even received a series of threatening voicemails not just to my cell phone but to my editor’s as well. The cherry on top? I discovered a generated A.I. Facebook attack AD, targeting me by name and my employment, where I was labelled a “fake news reporter”.

I’ll admit, the wave of hate mail shook me to my core. I’m a mild mannered guy from a small town and have lived a relatively sheltered life. Conflict wasn’t something I was used to. The worst I’d ever faced was when my twin sister falsely accused me of shoplifting as a teenager just to get me in trouble with our parents. Total lie. She was just angry I got my driver’s license before she did and would leave her behind driving around town with my friends.

My partner, on the other hand, found the whole thing amusing. She assured me it would blow over and even suggested I frame her favourite complaint letter and to mount it outside our home for all to see. The letter accused me of “blatant ageism.”

Just when I thought the storm was starting to pass, I was called into my editor’s office the next morning. He was brushing off the flood of voicemails, but there was one call he couldn’t ignore - the mayor. Apparently, the mayor wasn’t happy with the story. As it turned out, he was an old college buddy of the current Community President at Sunny Glen. A price had to be paid, and that price was me. And just like that, I was let go. 

It was the first time I’d ever been fired in my life, and it felt like I had been shot in the stomach. I was completely gutted. 

I fell into a depression. My partner Yvonne did her best to console me but there wasn’t much she could do. And with my lost benefits, I couldn’t afford therapy. I searched for work in my field, but opportunities were limited in our city. The only other outlets were a student-run college paper and an Arts and Culture blog that was really pushing political propaganda. And I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. Chasing and reporting the truth had always been my purpose.

It took six months before things changed for the better. I finally landed a new reporting job in a new city. So Yvonne and I packed our house and left everything behind.

It was late October when we were finally settled into our new home, just in time for Halloween. One of our neighbours invited us to a costume party at their house. I’ve never been that big on Halloween. The last time I had dressed up, I was just a kid. But Yvonne thought it would be a great way to meet new people and insisted I needed to have a little fun. So, we said yes.

I had no idea what to wear, and when I asked Yvonne, she made a dark joke that I should go as the bear from Sunny Glen Estates. As much as it was morbid, it caught me off guard and surprisingly made me laugh. With only a couple of days left before the party and too lazy to come up with a better idea, I went ahead and ordered a cheap bear costume online. It would be our little secret. No one at the party would have a clue.   

The bear costume arrived the morning of the party. I slipped it on to make sure the sizing was correct. The fake fur smelled of plastic from the airtight packaging and it draped awkwardly on my skinny frame. I had clearly ordered a size too big. Instead of looking like a killing machine, I looked malnourished and in desperate search for food. Yvonne had ordered her costume online too, and that evening, she emerged dressed as a giant watermelon slice. She couldn’t resist another dark joke, telling me I'd better not try to devour her alive. 

When we stepped inside the house party, we were greeted by the excited host, dressed as an army soldier. He pointed a plastic rifle at me and grinned.

“Welcome to the hood,” he said. “My mission is to make sure you have a fun night and to protect you from the evil regime that is my wife.”

Right on cue, his wife appeared behind him. She was decked out in orange face makeup, a blue suit and a red tie.

“What a beautiful couple,” she said, doing her best presidential impersonation. “Maybe the most beautiful couple I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of beautiful couples. Some would say too many.” Yvonne and I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Yvonne gave my saggy bear bum a playful tap, a silent signal that reinforced our decision to come and I blushed. 

The Halloween party buzzed with music and laughter, filled with guests in elaborate costumes of famous characters from across the world. We drank, we danced, and for the first time in a long while, I saw Yvonne truly let go on the dance floor. It took me back to our early years of dating. She deserved a night like this. Through everything, she’d been my rock. She had sacrificed a lot for me. I knew how lucky I was to have her. 

Toward the end of the night, an urgent need to pee hit me out of nowhere. Unfortunately, it happened just as everyone was crowding into the kitchen for the announcement of the best costume award. I told Yvonne that I’d be right back. The main bathroom was occupied so I headed upstairs in search of another bathroom.

As I passed a spare bedroom, I caught sight of a large fluffy grey cat laid out across the bed. I paused. The cat looked old and it just stared at me with this unbothered attitude. I’ve never liked cats. One had attacked me without warning when I was a kid without any provocation or reason. Ever since, I never trusted any of them. 

I slowly entered the room and moved towards it, expecting it to fearfully scatter under the bed. But this one didn’t flinch, it just continued to stare. And that’s when something different stirred inside me while hidden underneath that costume. For a moment, I imagined smothering the cat. With a pillow. With my hand. I pictured the life slowly draining from the cat’s confused and panicked eyes as it would frantically struggle to break away from my death grip. Eventually, it’s body slowly going limp. But then my train of thought snapped as the sound of cheers erupted from downstairs. Yvonne’s voice followed, slightly drunken but full of joy as she accepted the award. 

“I share this with all of you!” she declared and the crowd roared in approval. 

Hearing her broke the spell. Whatever darkness had seeped in, it slipped away. And I walked out of the room leaving the cat be.

I never wore the bear costume again, but I’ve never been able to get rid of it. It’s followed me through every new chapter, every move into a new city, rotting in the back of either a bedroom or a basement closet. The plastic stench has long faded, replaced by something damp and moldy. It lingers around. And whenever someone asks me about it, like why I still have it or why I don’t just throw it away - it’s the only time I feel something primal stir inside me. Even Yvonne knows not to question it. It’s then I easily get worked up. I get defensive. When it comes to that costume, I can feel it just under the skin, my sharp claws ready to come out.  

The End.