Sledgehammer Writing Contest

The Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunter

by Erica Somes

We all have “that friend”. The friend who can’t seem to see the insane situation in which they are fully, inexplicably entrenched. I happened to be on the phone with that particular friend of mine, my BFF (Best Friend Forever) Kat, when I first heard about the Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunter.

“Casey’s spending the night in a tree… trying to shoot a bear?” I thought it was a joke.

“Zoe, he’s spending the night in a treehouse, with his bow, waiting to shoot a bear. He put out a few of those rotisserie chickens from the grocery store and is waiting for the bear to find them.”

“Oh, it’s all clear to me now. He’s chumming for bear, hunkered down in a treehouse, waiting for said bear to meander in for a dinner of rotisserie chicken, then he’s going to shoot the bear, with an arrow?

Can you even kill a bear with a bow and arrow? Don’t you need like, a machine type bazooka gun to kill a bear?”

“I don’t know. I don’t hunt. That’s just what his text said.”

“He’s texting you from a treehouse! That’s insane. You know that right?”

“Yes, Zoe, I know.”

“And you’re still wanting to date him?”

“Yes.”

Time for a topic change.

See, when a friend is in one of “those” relationships, where she has a boyfriend climbing into a tree to hunt a bear after graciously baiting it with store bought rotisserie chicken, well, you can only insinuate for so long, that the only person crazier than the hunter perched in a treehouse chumming bear with a bow, is in fact the person in a relationship with the crazy person, perched in a tree, chumming for bear with a bow.

“Do you want to go to the nude beach tomorrow? Josh and I are heading out in the morning. We’ll pick you up if you want to go.”

“Zoe, you want me to be naked on the beach, with you and your boyfriend and you think I’m crazy… ha!”

Kat did her best to sound appalled in order to challenge my accusation that she was off her rocker for dating Casey, the Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunter.

“I’m just inviting you Kat, you don’t have to come.”

“Why would I want to go to a nude beach with you and the gym teacher?”

“He’s not a gym teacher. Josh is a professional educator specializing in Physical Education. And you always talk about how you wish Casey would take you, so I’m asking if you want to go with us.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, well, you and the gym teacher have a good time. I don’t want to be naked around your boyfriend and Casey just texted me from the tree again, I gotta go.”

The next day Josh picked me up and after a short drive we were hiking through mosquito infested trees that seemed to exist in their own sort of microclimate, to the beach of buck naked human beings, who relish flaunting their nakedness, like rich women who buy those ugly ass granny bags, that for some reason cost a huge amount of money.

The water lapped at the sandy beach as barges the size of city blocks slowly made their way up the river.

Josh and I thoroughly enjoyed frequenting the nude beach because we shared a perverted pleasure for pointing out things that were blatantly obvious to us and yet wholly invisible to those with a sliver of a moral compass.

Today, however, after 2 hours of blissful nudity and an appropriate number of people to make fun of walking by, Skinny-Bitch came into our world. Skinny-Bitch liked to order her boyfriend No-Backbone, around and moan about EVERYTHING in a high pitched, whiny voice. Skinny-Bitch of course, had No-Backbone, lay out their blanket near our blanket… just to be a bitch. Really annoying, bitchy girls are somehow magnetically attracted to girls like me, who hate most other girls, aside from my BFF, Kat.

Skinny-Bitch also happened to have a broken leg and be sporting a hot pink cast from her knee to her pedicured toes complete with matching hot pink toenail polish. This I’m sure propelled her whining to epic heights, even to No-Backbone. She also violated the one rule of the nude beach… complete nudity.

She removed her bikini top but left on her bikini bottom. Then proceeded to smoke a joint while No-Backbone applied sunscreen to her bare boobs.

“Josh are you staring at her boobs?”

“No, I’m staring at the guy rubbing sunscreen on her boobs… Yes, of course I’m staring at her boobs. We’re at a nude beach and I haven’t become immune to boobs yet. Boob immunity takes more like three or four hours.”

“Uh huh, well Kat called me last night and told me that Casey was spending the night in a treehouse waiting to try and kill a bear with a bow and arrow. Do you think that’s even possible? To kill a bear with an arrow?”

“No.”

“No… That’s it?”

“Is there really more of an answer required for that question?”

“I guess not.”

At that point I decided to let Josh ogle Skinny-Bitch’s boobs and call Kat.

Kat answered her cell with a “Hellooooooo!” to which I responded with an identical, “Hellooooooo!” to which Josh rolled his eyes and dropped his head in his hands in utter disgust at our middle school absurdity.

“Hey there BFF, how did Bear Hunter’s night in the tree go?”

“Well, he fell and broke his nose during one of his climbs in and out of the treehouse. Took a picture of his bloody face and clothes and sent it via text message this morning when there was enough light for a photo.”

“What the hell! Is he trying to make you worried or angry or is he just stupid?”

“Well, I texted him that he needed to leave the bear alone and come home. When he told me he was going to track the bear all day and camp again in the treehouse tonight I sunk into the black hole of feigning no cell signal… he’s texted seven times and I’ve ignored him. What are you up to?”

“Way to take a stand against testosterone inspired stupidity. Josh and I were here at the beach enjoying our nakedness until this half nude Skinny-Bitch ordered her No-Backbone boyfriend to setup camp right next to us and now Josh can’t seem to take his eyes off her obviously enhanced boobs.”

“Hold on a sec Zoe, there’s a delivery man at my door, he has flowers, oh my gosh, they’re from Casey. The card says he’s sorry to worry me and he loves me. Ahhh…”

“Oh my God Kat, you’re not buying that are you! He’s calling a florist from a treehouse? What the hell… he probably took ketchup packets into the treehouse to smear on himself after he supposedly broke his nose so he could make you worry about him. You see that right.”

“He sent me a dozen roses. You go back to Josh and distract him from his boob staring. I’m going to go buy some new lingerie for when Casey gets back from hunting.”

“Oh my god… really! Really! Are you serious? Oh my god you are hopeless… if you weren’t my BFF I would never talk to you again because I find you to be so unimaginably gullible where Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunter is concerned… rather than new lingerie, you know what you need is a nice lobotomy to remove that part of your brain that finds Casey attractive and is susceptible to his lame and predictable manipulations and follow up cliche apology flowers.”

“Uh, huh, I love you too Zoe. I stopped listening a while ago. Have a good day, say hi to the gym teacher for me. Bye now.”

Kat hung up on me and I refocused my energy on my dislike for Skinny-Bitch and decided a bold move was required to regain the attention of Josh. I stood up, stretched and started walking down to the water… right past a group of frolicking college kids. I managed to pull the attention of enough of the boys to warrant Josh joining me in the water.

“How come you never send me flowers Josh…?”

“You mean overpriced flowers delivered to your door by an underpaid high school dropout? Gee, maybe because I know you’d rather receive a one pound box of Butterscotch Squares from See’s when I mess up.”

“Hmmpf. Well, I still like flowers even if I say they are ridiculous when Kat gets them from idiot boys.”

“Noted. Oh my God, there’s the Warrior! He’s here!”

The “Warrior” Josh was speaking of, was a man who embodied manliness like no other. He enjoyed strutting up and down the beach in calf height water, appropriately nude, skin shimmering with baby oil, long black hair flowing, necklace of white shark teeth around his neck and what appeared to be a third leg, swinging back and forth with every water parting step.

Josh was entranced by Warrior… He was wholeheartedly disappointed on days we came to the nude beach and didn’t get a chance to stare at his awesomeness as he patrolled the beach like some king surveying his kingdom.

“He’s mesmerizing isn’t he Zoe?”

“Yes Josh, he is beauty defined. I am once again feeling jealous of the man crush you have for Warrior. Why is it that both you and Kat are in love with these insanity inducing archetypes of masculinity?”

I stood next to Josh and watched Warrior parade by, took Josh’s hand and walked him back to our blankets to get dressed. Carefully avoiding eye contact with Skinny-Bitch, so as not to visibly grimace as the sound of the water behind me dissolved into her shrill voice.

“Let’s head back to town and get a margarita. After all this talk of Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunter sending flowers from a treehouse and feeling jealous of an overly tanned man wearing teeth around his neck, I feel the need for inebriation.”

“Inebriation of Zoe by Tequila and Triple Sec coming up…”

Yes, we all have at least one of “those friends” in our lives that make life interesting. Who makes us shake our heads and provide us all with unquestionable certainty that life is there in front of us, happening all the time. If we didn’t have “those people” in our lives, life would be so boring.

How could we exist without the Bow-Armed-Bear-Hunters and Warriors of this world?

I don’t ever want to know.

© 2010 Erica Somes

Filed under: 2010 Submissions | Tagged: Erica Somes, Portland, Sledgehammer, writing contest |