Contents ( 42)
- The Art of Breathing
- Part One: How We Became Who We Are
- Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
- 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
- 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
- 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
- 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
- Part Two: Coming Home
- 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
- 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
- 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
- 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
- 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
- 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
- 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
- 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
- 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
- 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
- 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
- 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
- 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
- Part Three: Just Breathe
- 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
- 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
- 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
- 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
- 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
- 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
- 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
- 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
- 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
- 28. Where Tyson Breathes
- 29. Tyson And Dominic
- 30. The Art Of Breathing
- Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
- Author’s Note
- Excerpt
- Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
- More from TJ Klune
- Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
- By TJ Klune
The idea of another person in the world like Bear is surely a sign of the coming apocalypse, so I try not to dwell on it too much. “What’s her drag name?” I ask, trying to match the pronouns like Kori does. It’s important to her. And therefore to me. Kori keeps things close to the vest, and if this is the first time I’m hearing about an old friend, I need to make sure I don’t screw anything up.
“You’ll love it,” she says as she looks back out to the sea. “It’s Helena Handbasket.”
That’s so much better than Minerva Fox. “Epic,” I say.
“Indeed,” she says. “Oh, and Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“You know how you’re forcing me to protest even though I don’t believe in this?”
“I’m saving your soul. But sure.”
She grins evilly at me. “Just remember not to be nervous when you’re getting interviewed by the reporter today. I’m pretty sure you won’t screw up all your words on live TV and get put onto YouTube for all the world to see and make fun of you. Too much, anyway.”
Oh, goddammit.
IT STARTS out well. Or, at least as well as a last-minute, slap-dash protest of a chain restaurant initiated by a nineteen-year-old ecoterrorist, assisted by his bigender best friend, who seems to be doing her best to channel Marilyn Monroe today, and a group of five hippies who I think live in some kind of compound thing on one of the beaches, can get. And since they live in a compound, I’m pretty sure they probably belong to some kind of cult and dance naked every full moon and then go back to their drum circle and have orgies so Mother Gaia renews them with vigor or some such thing. I’m not judging, especially when it comes to these kinds of protests. The greater the numbers, the louder the voices, and rah-rah-rah. To each their own. I just don’t want to be in a hippie orgy.
But the cult aside, at least they show up in force. Five of them, with their own signs—LOVE YOUR ANIMAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS and HOW CAN YOU EAT SOMETHING THAT HAS EYES? and WHEN THE ANIMALS ARE ALL GONE, WILL WE EAT EACH OTHER? It’s a start.
The restaurant, BJ’s, has some very shady meat-procuring practices and prides itself on quadruple-decker hamburgers it calls the “HeartSlammer.” It’s as grotesque as it sounds. The fact that one of the restaurants in Connecticut was found to be using horse meat only made things worse.
All I want to do is bring attention to the good people of Seafare what kind of businesses are opening in our city. I just want to make sure everyone knows the kind of food they are putting into their bodies. All I want to do is exercise my right to assemble peacefully. A local news reporter shows up (though I invited at least four more—I guess they were all busy with the fast-paced news world that is the coast of Oregon). I planned on giving an interview. We would protest for a while. Then we would leave. That’s all. Sounds fine and dandy, right? Sounds easy as pie.