JT comes in from his tri-nightly cigarette break. He is in his 40s, originally from Kodiak, wears house slippers and keeps to himself usually. When he walks in the door, he faintly whistles through his front two teeth almost as a fair warning “Man Comin’ Through.”
He has been so chill to live with. I wasn’t sure how it would go when I heard that all 4 of us would be living on the same level of Ohashi. It’s been fine. I mean, we stay out of each other’s ways and haven’t had any serious bathroom jams. Plus, it’s the end of season. We are all heads down and let’s get through this beast.
SO: JT returns from his cigarette break and says “I just saw a bear going through the trash.”
“Really?” I say?! And so does Claire with the same question-mark exclamation-point excitement?!
“That’s kinda cool.” I respond, and we try to see him out the window. He’s not there anymore.
Before you know it, there’s a rumbling of trash cans outside and I theorize: “I bet that’s a bear out there!” I am instantly transported to my youth, summers in Gatlinburg, when my sister and I would “eep!” at the possibility of a bear around any corner. Most of the time, bears just wanted food. So we went on a hike with food. The bear found us. But nearly every time, we were imagining things.
He says “Yeah at first I just looked at ‘im but then I thought: “Yeah that is a bare. You don’t fuhck with a bare” and he gives out a belly chuckle. His accent is distinctly mountainous which I didn’t know existed this far away from the.. South.
But it does.
Claire checks from her bedroom window. It’s a human, in the misty evening rain, throwing their own trash away.
The trash cans all have handles on them so that bears and other critters can’t easily start a tea party with our trash.
It’s pretty cool to live in a place where you might run into a bear on a cigarette break. The possibility is just as exciting as the actual event, suspending you in a place of “what if” at all times. Good thing I don’t smoke and I’m not a pile of trash (on most days).