Dinner At Midnight

A friend watches over a friend as she grazes through the local smorgasbord.

The bear sashays down our steep street with all the confidence of a teenager owning the night. I decide she’s a girl. It’s after midnight and the companionship of another female at this hour is comforting even if she would not consider me a friend.

Security lights pop on as she ambles from one trash can to another. Small but muscular, she’s probably young, as well. That would account for her ineffectual efforts to pry open a large trash can four houses away from mine. She wedges her nose under the lid then pushes hard upwards. The can rocks back against a tree. She butts against it and the can tips to the ground. She now uses her paws to rock it back and forth which only serves to make it roll across the street and into a ditch.

At this she gives up and moseys down to the next house. Voilà! The nose-under-the-lid maneuver works. Off pops the lid, down goes the can, out comes a black bag that she quickly shreds, disgorging its contents. My next door neighbor has routinely made exasperated fun of the people in this house, which the owner has turned into a vacation Airbnb. All summer long he complains about the loud parties and children in his front yard. Sometimes extra guests block his driveway or outright park in it. Very few know how to stop the weekly trash can raids by our woodland residents. This means our neighbor cleans up after the bears, gangs of deers, and the fox family whose den is across the street within a boulder field. This field is also a favorite motel for slumbering bears.

An owl has been hooting throughout my vigil, but it’s now silenced by the rattle of tin cans and the satisfying snorts coming down the hill. The bear raises her head. I’m pretty sure she’s licking her lips.

Our house has a little gully in front, formed by a busted pipe we really should fix. It’s been raining the last two days and a fierce storm, complete with the threat of a tornado, is forecasted before morning. Two beer bottles that the bear tossed from the Airbnb landed in the gully and are now diverting the water. It laps over the edge of my newly planted garden, threatening to wash away a bed of creeping Jenny and mint.

I should go out and retrieve the bottles before she heads over for our neighbor’s trash cans. Instead, I lock the door and, for good measure, the back door, too. Last year when I was in the house alone with our ancient dog, I was awakened by a loud thump against a sliding door that leads onto the deck from the garden. The morning light revealed two very large paw prints several inches above my five foot seven height. I now run to the sliding door to make sure it is secured by a piece of wood wedged in the bottom.

By now, you may be wondering why I haven’t roused my husband. But I already know what he would say: We have strong bear-proof straps holding down the trash lid! The bear’s more afraid of you! Come back to bed ! Go to sleep!

I don’t want to come back to bed. I admire the bear. She trusts her instincts, sure of her power and purpose. She doesn’t care that she is sopping wet, her thick fur a matted mess. Most of all, she is comfortable within herself, assured of her place in the wild world. I long to be as confident in my chaotic world.

The bear has finally arrived next door and doesn’t even waste time with our neighbor’s expertly fastened lid. She doesn’t even slow down at our equally sealed cans. Instead, she nudges the beer bottles out of the gully and sends them clattering on their way. Off she goes in that pert sashay of her’s, down the dark hill until I can’t see her anymore.