Bear-Baiting Straight Lads
by Jack Fritscher
Olympia! I have seen your young bears
come into town from the Washington woods,
standing Friday nights, grouped in an ursine sloth,
wearing Camel cigarette parkas
on the corner of Capitol and State
where the yellow fire suits hang
in the brightly lit fire station
waiting, like me, for fire to break out.
The streets are alive.
The cops cruise cool.
The clubs play blues.
Your young men stand
untouched by the cold
in flannel shirts and vests,
ball caps turned backwards,
watching cars cruise by.
One stands, leader of his frolicking cubs,
sporting what must be his first short beard,
holding a football, strange at night,
just holding the football
in his big right hand, hairy against his thigh,
thinking of what? Anything? Displaying
his bruin courage on the field,
his football the symbol of his glory,
signal of his readiness for full
rough-and-tumble body contact.
Is he thinking of his coach?
Or of some girl?
Is he bi-curious?
Is he thinking
of his teammates?
Is he always thinking
of full-body contact with
Olympia girls, art students and musicians,
who dye their hair blue and magenta
to attract him? I think, watching him,
the girls dye in vain,
because he is a young and hirsute man,
uninitiated, waiting for ritual,
the ritual of manhood to come along,
pick him up…
Bears travel alone.
Do I open the car door
this pass around the block?
Does he even know
he wants to be whisked away,
football and all,
so some fur-bearing coach can initiate him
into the sensual secrets, the masculine dreams,
the survival disciplines he will need
to meet and marry
and breed new cubs
with the girls with blue and magenta hair
texting how hot he is.
Coaches, teachers, a cop in the PAL teams
have all left this stripling stranded on this corner.
In his bearded face burns the jock-hunger
for some trainer, some Indian guide, to take him,
back to the woods where
men are mountains,
take him from the street corner where they loiter
in beautiful, beautiful, beautiful shirts,
young alpha horseplay goosing butt,
night air smelling
of combustion engines and testosterone.
Olympia! Your young men,
from the foggy piney woods
surrounding this village,
dream of girls
with blue magenta hair
and do not know why
in a few crazifying years,
they will own a two-car garage
with a house attached,
or why they have so many children,
because no man, no father, no coach, no guide
invited them to come frolic in the woods
to get their bearings.
The young quarterback,
for a quarter back,
a buck, or twenty,
for lip tobacco and beer,
watches the cars cruising by
not knowing, really not knowing,
what he’s looking for,
as he stands with his pals
on the corner of Capitol and State,
foraging for action,
in the cold November night,
waiting for the signal to know
when they are no longer boys
when they are become men
when they become grown
fathers and husbands
who love their children and wives
who keep their own counsel
because each man in his secret heart
lives off the embrace of some forebear,
some teacher, some lover,
some coach, some man,
who one night held him
in quiet discretion
at some small hotel
just off campus,
at some hunting cabin in the woods.
Olympia! I have seen your young men
on sweet foggy November nights.
I could warn them,
roll down my window and roar to them,
hey, the way of the world,
but they might be afraid
to embrace the men who might
douse them with the spray of manhood
that would make them fully human and good
towards the blue magenta women
who will bear their children.
Without this warm bear hug between males,
what will make these cubs men?