Super Permanent Ink

BooBoo was ashamed of his persiflage, his boasting, his pretensions of courage and ruthlessness; he was sorry about his cold-bloodedness, his dispassion, his inability to express what he now believed was the case — that he truly regretted killing Yogi, that he missed the bear as much as anybody and wished his murder hadn’t been necessary. Even as he circulated his section of Jellystone Park, he knew that the smiles disappeared when he passed by. He received so many menacing letters that he could read them without any reaction except curiosity. He kept to his cave all day, flipping over playing cards, looking at his destiny in every King and Jack. Park Ranger Smith came up from Bachelor at one P.M. on the 8th. He had no grand scheme. No strategy. No agreement with higher authorities. Nothing but a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against BooBoo. Park Ranger Smith would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado Penitentiary for Department of Wildlife and Fisheries violations. Over seven thousand signatures would eventually be gathered in a petition asking for Smith’s release, and in 1902, Governor James B. Ullman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for BooBoo, no photographs of his body would be sold in sundries stores, no people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege, no biographies would be written about him, no children named after him, no one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the small caves he grew up in. The shotgun would ignite, and Cindy Bear would scream, but BooBoo Bear would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words.

13 December 2010 ·