Can't get rid of your memories? Call Death Bear - latimes.com

Can't get rid of your memories? Call Death Bear

A shadowy, masked New Yorker relieves people of painful remnants of their pasts: love letters, photos, even underwear. To the man under the giant bear head, it's performance art.

Death Bear visits clients in their homes and accepts love letters, old photos, anything they canÂ’t just throw away. The man behind the mask, Nate Hill, says he wants to create art that helps people. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / March 18, 2010)

By Tina Susman

Reporting from New York - A biting wind whipped down a dark street, where a man crouched in the shadow of a building. He pulled on black gloves and glanced up and down the avenue. Satisfied that no one was watching, he pulled a mask the size of a beach ball out of a bag, pulled it onto his head and wriggled it into place: snout in front, eye holes over his own, rounded ears pointed skyward.

Death Bear was ready for his mission.

A man in the second-floor unit of a nearby apartment building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn was desperate to get rid of something that was too torturous to keep but impossible to discard.

The anguished individual had turned to Death Bear, a macabre performance artist who silently walks the city streets in a one-man quest to relieve people of painful remnants of the past: love letters, photos, gifts, dog tags, underwear -- a lot of underwear, it seems -- anything that might reduce an otherwise well-functioning person to a sniffling wreck.

His service has spread through word of mouth and the Internet.

"Help me, Death Bear!" read a typical plea that flickered via text message onto his cellphone.

"Dear Death Bear, can you come . . . tonight?" asked another, pleading with Death Bear to relieve her of "pain and a lonely Valentine's Day" by carting away memories.

And then there was the simple text from the Williamsburg man: "I'd like to make an appointment with Death Bear. Is he available today?"

It's a service

In real life, Death Bear is soft-spoken Nate Hill, whose previous art demonstrations have been geared toward shocking people or making them laugh. He used to dress up in a dolphin costume, sit on a subway station bench and give bouncy-rides on his knees to interested passersby.

Death Bear, who made his debut in November, is different.

"I was trying to make something that deals with more serious subjects, like grief, pain and tragedy," said Hill, 32. "I'm interested in making art that can help in some clear-cut way, that's not just abstract."

Hill decided that the identity of a bear would provide the right mix of comfort and mystery. It would conjure up images of a cuddly teddy bear but look fearsome enough to ensure that retrievals were solemn events. He bought the Fiberglas bear head online and painted it dark brown.

Some clients laugh at his get-up, and Hill admonishes them that he is there to help, not entertain.

And while most of his calls are from the lovelorn, others hint at tragedies greater than being dateless on Valentine's Day.

One man gave Hill a photo of himself and his ex-girlfriend on a beach and said they had served in the Army together. Then he gave Hill his military dog tags. Finally, he handed Hill a bullet.

"He almost started to cry," said Hill, whose clients know him only as Death Bear and never see his face. "I started walking away and started to break down. I thought maybe something happened to her. Maybe she got shot, maybe she killed herself."

But Hill never presses clients for details. As a bear, his job is not to make conversation.

Once, a formerly overweight woman gave Death Bear a huge pair of underwear, a reminder of a life she wanted to forget.

Hill does not charge for Death Bear's visits. That would destroy the mystique. "I'm a bear that lives in Central Park in a cave," said Hill, who sometimes refers to Death Bear in the first person and sometimes as a separate being. "He's not really interested in money."