Poison Shy Read Free Page A

for a save-the-bears project he’d spearheaded, and had recently returned to the place where he’d grown up. He’d decorated the walls of his establishment with graphic hunting photos — animal carcasses, live bears caught in various traps, beavers being skinned alive. He said he wanted to expose his customers to the horrors of animal cruelty, and shock them into taking political action.
    The strategy struck me as more perverse than inspiring, but the thought of spending another night watching Chad caress the bronzed thighs and glittered shoulders of the barely legal daughters of Frayne was enough to make me insist on The Bloody Paw.
    We showed up during peak hours of campus pub life. A gathering of smokers puffed and mumbled on the sidewalk outside the bar. A scruffy guy with a harelip opened his mouth to show his pierced tongue to a gaggle of tipsy blondes.
    â€œGuaranteed to moisten you up and put you in a trance,” he said to them.
    Chad and I snaked our way through the crowd to the entrance. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim orange lighting, I saw the place was packed with all manner of college dweebs in pre-ripped jeans, second-hand T-shirts, and oversized sunglasses. They slouched over the checkerboard tables, watered-down pints and mixed drinks in hand, and discussed the teenification of punk rock and Hemingway’s sexual orientation with straight faces and unbrushed teeth. The music of Neutral Milk Hotel crashed through the speakers and sank down into the funk of patchouli oil, stale beer, and armpit reek.
    The photos decorating the walls
were
explicit. In one, a massive grizzly roared at the camera as he tried to pull his blood-caked paw from a trap’s teeth. In another, the same bear lay dead on its side, its eyes black and dead as a stuffed toy’s. Inches from its head was an upturned chunk of skull. Bits of brain hung over the rim like stew. The third photo in the sequence showed an older man with his arm around a younger man’s shoulder. The younger man held a shotgun. The bear lay in the background like a lump of dirt.
    Chad made a barfing sound with his throat. “Come on, let’s grab a table.”
    We’d had two or three beers before I caught a glimpse of a freckled face at an L-shaped table in the corner. Melanie Blaxley sat with ten or fifteen others, all of them clapping and cheering on a broad-shouldered guy with thick-rimmed glasses and a shaved head. He stood on his chair and took a bow. His mouth was moving like he was giving a speech, but the music was too loud to hear anything. Also at the table was Melanie’s roommate Darcy. Seeing his matted hair and yellow, watery eyes again gave me the creeps.
    â€œWhat’s going on over there, you think?” I asked Chad.
    â€œNot sure,” he said. “But I think that guy might be the owner. That wacko you were telling me about.”
    â€œReally? How come?”
    â€œWell, I don’t know. I’m guessing. I overheard someone at the table behind us say he’s Viktor something-or-other.”
    â€œViktor Lozowsky, yeah.”
    â€œWhat a nutjob.”
    I watched him for a while as he gabbed and gestured like some enthused orator. His friends seemed to eat up everything he said, Melanie included. Darcy was the only one who looked like he didn’t give a damn.
    I couldn’t stop staring at Melanie. Her hair was pulled tight behind a thin black headband. Her top was low-cut and hung open between her breasts. I wanted to shrink myself down, climb onto the bendy straw in her drink, and dive head-first into her cleavage.
    â€œThat chick’s hot,” Chad said, nodding in Melanie’s direction.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œYou should go talk to her, man. I know you like to play Mr. Cool, but listen: if you don’t go talk to her,
I
will.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
    â€œCome on, Chad. She’s with a big group of friends. Any one of