Some will call me monster for what I’ve done. Some will call me hero. But none of that matters to me. Not anymore. What’s important is that we won. There were certain measures that had to be taken in order for that to happen, and those choices are now mine to live with.
It all started in 2012. Chicken and beer on Valentine’s Day or something; I try to forget those days. Things were bleak, and hope was scarce. The season was already over, and the team was nothing more than a sad, sick joke. We knew something had to be done to save our fair city from a fate worse than poverty, famine, pestilence, war, or even death: losing.
I received my letter in late October. It arrived in a plain envelope on unassuming paper. An address, a date, and time were printed neatly in the center of the page. In my six years living in the Boston area, I had yet to be called upon at this point, so this first summons was very exciting for me. I could barely focus on my work during the week leading up to the appointed date and time. I knew that every Massachusetts resident would at some time be asked to serve the Council, but to be summoned at such a dire time as this was truly an honor. “They must have great faith in my abilities,” I thought. I learned many things over the course of the ensuing journey, not the least of which being just how wrong one man can be…
I arose at dawn on the appointed day to find an air of anticipation in the city. I was charged with excitement, and fair Boston seemed similarly stimulated. Strangely, as I stood in the elevator that would carry me to the Chamber of Wicked Smaht Dudes, Kid, secreted away in the basement of a Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robins convenience food outlet, I was not afraid. Rather, I was confident. I knew the Council believed in me, and I knew I had been brought there to do great things.
What a fool I was. It is easy for a man to believe that he is more than a beast. Humanity has fought for millennia to elevate ourselves above the primal violence of our ancestors, to prove that we were some how better. We are not, or at least, not by the council’s reckoning. My lofty ideals and grand ambitions all came crashing down as the obscured faces on the screens around me explained that my mission was not one of peace or empowerment, but one of vengeance. Bobby Valentine had failed the Council and worse, had flaunted the power with which they had entrusted him. For these unforgivable crimes, he was to pay the ultimate price. I was presented with a weapon, and instructed to watch as it was sanctified. Boston’s Archbishop, chief Rabbi, head Sheikh, and highest Lama, garbed in the highest of holy vestments? a Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox, and Celtics jersey respectively? stepped forward in unison to perform the time-honored tradition of anointing a brown bear with Bud Light. Using this sacred weapon, I was to inflict the Council’s mortal wrath upon Bobby Valentine.
Later that day, as I carried the bear (hidden in an extremely large guitar case) back from the Council meeting, I stopped on the Mass. Ave. Bridge to consider the task with which I’d been charged. What would this solve? The man had wronged the Council, and all of New England, surely. But he had been fired, and the team stood to be made strong again by its new manager. I had thought I would be used as an instrument to further the Council’s will and better the city, not as a simple hitman.
While I stood staring into the depths of the river, a cyclist who somehow had failed to notice my massive, growling guitar case blocking the entire sidewalk and most of the road crashed into my case and me, sending all three of us over the railing. I managed to cling to the bridge, but my bear tumbled out of my grasp and into the waters below where it was quickly swept downstream and out of sight.
After hours of frantic searching, I found my lost bear caught under the dock along the Esplanade. I dragged it ashore and opened the case, desperately hoping the consecrated weapon would still be intact. Much to my dismay, I found that the seal was not airtight, and that the Charles had seeped into the case changing the elemental nature of the bear forever. As the green glow washed over me, and the steel latches on the case began to dissolve, I became painfully aware that this bear was now not only a holy weapon of Boston, but also highly radioactive. (Note from the author: Like literally “painfully”. All my hair fell out, I shat blood for 2 years, and my doctor says if I ever have children there’s a 70% chance that they’ll have webbed toes and nipples where their eyes should be.)
It was at this point that I made my fateful decision. I chose to disregard the Council’s orders and enact my own plan, one that would save our team and our city.
I released the now radioactive bear into the Red Sox locker room, where it bit every player except Stephen Drew. Through the course of the season, the symptoms of acute bear-radiation became more and more obvious. Extreme badassery, excessive baseball ability, the occasional insatiable hunger for the flesh of lesser animals, rapid and extensive beard growth, and Stephen Drew’s inability to hit a single goddamned thing in the postseason were all classic signs that his teammates were becoming bears thanks to their bites, and he was not.
By the end of the 2014 season, the Red Sox players will soon be unable to control their bear-rage, and will begin literally mauling opposing players on the field (as opposed to the figurative maulings they performed this year.) Their beards will grow to cover their entire bodies, and their bear arms will become even more heavily muscled, weighing them down and forcing them to walk on four legs.
I disobeyed the Council’s orders, and in so doing turned our team into bears. I alone must live with my actions, but I have no regrets. The 2013 Red Sox have restored our city to its former glory, and will live on forever in baseball history and in our hearts.
And also in the forest as immortal god-bears.