This particular story happened some years later than my encounter with the Mountain Maid of Roaring River. In fact, meeting Ellie marked the beginning of the end of my dark years. However, if you read about John Gaskins in the Folktales & Legends section, you'll see how his story and my life intersected, and that's why I'm jumping ahead. It happened in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where paths frequently seem to intersect in strange and wonderful ways, which is why so many stories come out of Eureka Springs. Eureka is to folktales what London was to Dickens and Oxford was to Faulkner and California was to Chandler.
I confess with all the ardor of my unreliable heart that I love Eureka Springs! I love her mystic artists and mandolin playing Rastafarians, and earnest proteges of the Reverend Billy Graham; her UFOlogists and phrenologists and parapsychologists; her readers of stars and cards and the poems of Rumi. I love the Birkenstocks and Jesus tee's and kilts and beads and motorcycles. Eureka Springs is the most American of towns because people are free to do and think exactly as they please, as long as they don't hurt anybody. And I've never met anyone in Eureka Springs who wants to hurt somebody.
We need to remember that America means freedom, you know, "Give me liberty or give me death!" That's something I don't understand about politics today: It doesn't matter which side people are on, Left or Right, they want to force other people to think like they do. Can you imagine a greater threat to any person's liberty than forcing him or her to think a certain way? The Original Great American Principle—the celestial ideal that inspired our brass-buckled, powder-wigged forefathers to kick Olde England's rosy ass—has always been "leave us the hell alone." When I pass a green-haired gal with a row of earrings clinging to her lobe like some kind of DARPA-inspired centipede, I think to myself: "There walks the Original Great American Principle incarnate," and so I tip my hat and say, "God bless you." I do.
Now to my story. Back in 1981, I played Gaskins the Bear Hunter in Eureka's Basin Spring Park, and my partner was a cute girl from Fayetteville named Ellie Wheelock. The park has some benches for an audience and a bandstand built into the bluff. That's where we would perform. John Gaskins was reputed to have killed over 200 bears, which made him a legend among the locals, and probably among the bears, too, though he wouldn't have been as popular with the bears. Anyhow, I dressed up in tan leather trousers and a buckskin jacket with fringes and a coonskin hat. The city loaned me a musket from the Eureka Springs Museum, and this I brandished as part of my act. I would ballyhoo and carry on, and pretty soon a crowd would gather. Then I would tell the tourists a little bit about Alvah Jackson and the history of the springs and the ghosts in the Crescent Hotel and gangsters at the Basin Park Hotel and, of course, about the exploits of Gaskins the Bear Hunter. About mid-way through my spiel, Ellie would show up in a two-piece bear outfit with little round ears on top of her head and some whiskers painted on her face, and she and I would engage in some back-and-forth innuendo.
She'd say, "Howdy-do, Mr. Bear Hunter!"
And I'd leer and say, "Bear huntin' just got a whole heap more interestin'!"
Then she'd ask me, "You know the difference between a teddy bear and a bear in a teddy?"
I would look her up and down and say, "Well, I've got a pretty good idea, but, tell me what is the difference between a teddy bear and a bear in a teddy?"
She said, "A teddy bear can't do anything, but a bear in a teddy will do anything you want!"
I'd gulp (which wasn't acting by the way) and say, "Well, I sure would like to stretch out on a soft bearskin! Get it? Soft bare skin?"
Groans from the crowd.
And she'd say, "I guess you'll just have to grin and bear it!"
I leered at her again and said, "And what is that supposed to mean?"
And she said, "I guess that depends on what you meant."
So, I said, "This is getting confusing. Let me ask you this, 'What would a hunter have to have to get a little bear like you?"
She said, "Oh, that's easy: A heart full of honey and a wallet full of money!"
"Which is more important?"
"Oh, the honey, of course! A full wallet with an empty heart is worthless."
So, I looked at the crowd and said, "Maybe I do have a chance!"
Then I said to her, "You're just trying to 'panda' to public opinion. Get it? 'Panda' to public opinion."
And she said, "Maybe we're just polar opposites. Polar bears, that is."
More groans, but it was all in good fun. Tourists seemed to like it, mainly because of Ellie. She brightened every room she ever walked in.
Well, one day, we were in the middle of our routine, when up sauntered the chief of police, big-bellied Sergeant Talleywhack. He stood at the back of the crowd, bouncing on his toes and watching the little she-bear with a peculiarly lascivious eye. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore; he hollered out, "This performance is a disgrace to our fine town!" The crowd turned to see who was talking, and Sergeant Talleywhack pinned his thumbs behind his suspenders and fixed his face in a scowl. "Who's responsible for this poor excuse for entertainment?"
I said, "The Chamber of Commerce, yer Worship."
"The Chamber of Commerce? Good God. Who wrote your so-called material?"
"Miss Ora Lee Dunne, the archivist down at the museum," I lied.
"Ora Lee wrote this crap? Good God." Then he got down to the question that was vexing him in the extreme: "And who is that little gal playing opposite you?"
"My name is Ellie Wheelock," said the she-bear. "I'm a senior down in Fayetteville."
"Oh, a co-ed. You must be, what, twenty-one, twenty-two years old?" The sarge was all but choking on the saliva pooling in his mouth, and the crowd quickly realized that a whole different performance was in the making.
"More or less," Ellie said.
"Good God," Talleywhack murmured to himself. Then, nearly breathless: "Where'd you get that outfit?"
"Eve's Lingerie Store in Rogers."
"A lingerie store?"
"Yessir. It's real soft. You want to feel it?"
"Feel it? Good God."
Ellie made her way from the bandstand and stood almost toe-to-toe with the sarge. "You want to feel how soft it is?" she whispered and looked up at him with her soft, brown eyes.
He groaned and lifted his hands toward heaven. The chief was in a mighty moral tussle with himself, but more was at stake than he knew. Because Ellie wasn't "more or less" twenty-one; she was only less. In fact, she was a senior in high school, not a senior at the University. You could see the sarge sweating and fretting inside his corpulent self as Ellie stood there. Oh, how we wanted to feel her furry mounds! Oh, how we wanted to bump his belly forward against her fit little waist! And she knew it. She moved toward him. "Doesn't the chief of police get to do what he wants in his own town? Isn't that the whole point of being the chief?"
What's she up to? I wondered, and then I realized: She's gonna break him right here in the middle of town, and then she's gonna sue his ass! That's what she's up to!
But the sergeant wasn't a complete fool. He thought a moment, swallowed, and said, "Looks like I'm gonna have to run you down to the station. For street actin' without a license."
Uh-oh, I thought. This won't end well. So, I hollered out, "Wait a minute! Here's our license. See?" I held it up.
"Well, I'll arrest her for public indecency then."
And Ellie said, "You're the only one who's hot and bothered."
At that, he took out a pair of handcuffs, and said, "You're comin' with me, missy."
I yelled, "Hey, hey! You can't do that! We were just doing our job!"
"Well, if you arrest her, you're going to have to arrest me, too." I leaned the musket against a rail, descended the steps from the bandstand, and took my place next to Ellie. I figured I'd better stay with her to keep anything bad from happening. It wouldn't be my first time behind bars, but it'd be the first time for doing the right thing.
Then something happened I never expected. As Officer Talleywhack stood glaring at me and then at Ellie, I felt as if I was looking into a mirror. He was using his authority to get what he wanted in the same way I was using the Gospel to get what I wanted. He was me when I was pretending to be righteous and upright in public but living like a degenerate in private. He was me! And I knew then I didn't want to be him or me anymore. I crossed my arms and said, "She's not going anywhere!" I went from being a bear hunter to a bear protector. After the passing of a century, John Gaskins had been redeemed.
About that time, a lumpish woman with ruddy cheeks was crossing the street toward the park.
I thought, Oh, my Lord, it's Mrs. Talleywhack. Now what?
Ellie saw her, too, but the chief didn't. He was still trying to figure out how he was going to get his hands on Ellie without getting caught. For her part, Ellie was trying to figure out how to manage the situation into a full-blown sexual harassment lawsuit without losing control. And for my part, I was trying to figure out who the hell I was in light of my recent impulse to become a decent human being. The wildcard in all this figuring was the fierce approach of a ham-faced woman wearing a straw hat and carrying a shopping bag.
Then another thing happened I didn't expect: It looked as if Ellie would win the contest of wills! Officer Talleywhack's eyes took on a mean and desperate look, and he began stretching his hands toward her.
Some joker in the crowd yelled, "Do it!" And the other folks started chanting, "Do it! Do it!"
I said, "Keep your hands off her!"
Ellie glared at me and said, "Shut up!" Her eyes were savagely happy because she was driving the trolley.
The chief's sweaty hands were drawing near.
I was doubling up my fists.
The crowd was chanting, "Do it! Do it!"
Then, ka-whomp! With both hands, Mrs. Talleywhack swung the shopping bag and round-housed Sergeant Talleywhack in the head, whereupon the bag ripped and sent wine bottles flying, rolling, and shattering around the park. The sarge himself dropped like a stone, and then it was Mrs. Talleywhack who stood face to face with Ellie.
"And what do you think you're doin'?" Mrs. Talleywhack hissed.
"Same thing as I'm always doing: I'm making my way in the world the best I can. And maybe someday I'll spend all my time shopping and drinking wine. But I sure won't let my man play the fool in public like some women do." And with that, Ellie took me by the hand and said, "C'mon, Bear Hunter! Maybe there's more to you than I thought."
And for the first time in my life, I thought maybe she was right.