Free The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley Page B

“they” referred to.
    â€œListen, Alvin, I know you’ve been asked this already, but are you sorry for killing Louis Victor? Thinking about it, does it make you sad?”
    He leaned forward again. He had the shadow of a scar above his left cheek. His chest was shiny and showed a dark stubble and one razor nick above the top button of his shirt. He squinted at me as if he were trying to read something written on the tip of my nose.
    â€œI didn’t kill Louis Victor,” he wheezed. “God killed him. God reached up through the earth and killed him.”
    â€œAre you an agent of God, Alvin?”
    â€œWe’re all agents of God, some of us are just more attentive.”
    â€œDid God tell you to kill Louis Victor?”
    â€œNo, God told everything on earth to kill him, and I just happened to be listening.”
    He leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses with a professorial gesture. “Do you remember in the story of Jonah when God directs the worm to eat the roots of the fig tree that was shading Jonah out in front of the temple? That was just a fable, he was really directing the whole earth to teach Jonah a lesson. You can’t really blame it all on the worm. I am a worm, you are a worm, and all of the guards and lawyers are, too. It’s true, you see. When I was younger I was confused by that, but not now. Worms. I used to be dirty and I was lazy. I couldn’t pay attention to what was being said. I was covered with bacteria. Bacteria breeds in body hair. I used to have lots of hair and my stepfather used to whip me for having my hair too long. He was being like the worm, moving and sort of swimming in the earth surrounded by God.”
    â€œWho killed Louis Victor, Alvin?”
    â€œYou mean who actually stopped the electrical workings of his brain?”
    â€œYes.”
    Hawkes looked down. I could hear him flicking his thumbnail under the table. He closed his eyes.
    â€œYou know, before I gained so much control I was very sinful. I did terrible things.”
    â€œWhat did you do, Alvin?”
    He was forcing his eyes shut now, squeezing them shut, painfully tight, as if trying to keep out any trace of light. Then he covered his eyes with his fists. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving.
    â€œI used bad language. I had sex with dirty girls whose whole bodies stank with sin. I even had the clap. I was mean to my mother and to my grandmother. I was mean to children in school. God doesn’t like that. God doesn’t like that. But when I first started to hear the voices they told me that I was forgiven.”
    â€œDid God forgive you for killing Louis?”
    His body appeared to be rigid, and I could see sweat soaking through the armpits of his prison blues.
    â€œLouis was going to kill me. He was going to turn into a bear and eat me. Bears and humans eat the same kinds of food. Louis was going to eat me, and I had to feed him to the bear first. I was very, very confused. I was hearing crazy things. I thought I was God. That couldn’t be true, could it? That’s just crazy, after all of the… sinful things I had done. That couldn’t be true, could it?”
    He looked at me with a frantic questioning expression, eyes darting back and forth.
    â€œFinally, I couldn’t keep it in, and I had to tell Louis about the voices and about what kinds of things they were saying. He started yelling at me. He said he had to get rid of me. That’s what he said—get rid of me. Not fire me or let me go, but get rid of me. His son and daughter were on the boat and he said that he was going to sleep with them. I remember him with a gun in his hand. I knew he was going to kill me.”
    Hawkes stood up. His voice was urgent and his eyes were focused on the blank space next to the door.
    â€œI walked toward him as he was bending down by the bed. He stood up and hit me.” Hawkes crouched in a wrestler’s stance, still staring