HELP! A Bear Is Eating Me! - Mykle Hansen [35]
“Hey, Mister Bear! Remember me? It’s Marv Pushkin!” But Mister Bear shows no recognition, he just lazily scans each nut one at a time with the paw-held laser UPC scanner and drops them in a plastic bag. Beep. Beep. Beep. This will take forever. Beep. I tap my knuckle on the counter and gaze idly at my left wrist. Beep. One of the nuts won’t scan for some reason, and Mister Bear has trouble entering the code number on the ten key pad of his cash register. Beep. He scratches his head and yawns. (Note to self: don’t hire bears.) I notice on the register that these nuts are not cheap. I reach for my wallet, but my pants are gone. Looking down I see only my underwear and my furry bear legs. Beep. Oh, how awkward. I’ll have to hike back to the Rover and dig some cash out of the dashboard mini-safe. But … I’m so hungry, and the sweet aroma of the nuts tortures me, so close, so delicious … I’ve got to have those nuts!
Quick as a subliminal advertisement I snatch the sack of nuts and the 40-ounce bottle off the counter and dash out the door, into the woods. I hear an alarm — Mister Bear must have tripped it — but I sprint with my amazing bear feet, faster than Maurice Green or Mister T., deep into the dark woods, until I can no longer hear the claxon. Then I tear open the bag and stuff the individually wrapped nuts in my mouth, wrappers and all. I chew, chew, chew, they are so delectable! I swallow a little bit of plastic but who cares? In moments I’ve eaten the last of the nuts and spat the cardboard out of my teeth. I’d like to wash it down with some berry flavored malt liquor but without my Leatherman Super Tool I can’t remove the bottle cap. And I’m still hungry. Oh, so very remove the bottle cap. And I’m still hungry. Oh, so very 11 … but no, I can’t go back there now.
The forest is my snack bar. Wafting on the breeze I can smell raspberries, almonds, trout, cafe au lait, pizza, everything a person could need is here, somewhere in this forest. I only have to follow my nose. I choose raspberries, and set out to find them.
I’m finding it’s easier to master the terrain if I walk on all fours. But as I amble along the forest floor I find a curious swath of broken twigs and crushed vegetation, and at the same time I catch whiffs of both fresh bacon and Marcia from Product Dialogue perfume. Interesting. So I follow this trail a short distance, and ahead of me on one side of the trail I see a black lump. Could that be what I smell? No …
I get closer and I see an inert pile of black fur and fabric. Oh dear. It’s Bomber again. Still dead, lying face down. Only he’s not wearing his motorcycle outfit any more, he’s wearing a tiny bear version of the polyester print 7-11 shirt that Mister Bear wears at his job, and a matching hat. He’s been crushed to death, and a muddy tire print runs down the length of his back. Oh God, this is really sad, this is gross and awful … oh, poor Bomber, don’t you know better than to run out in the road?
Now Mister Bear is here beside me, a fat tear forming in the furry corner of his eye. He sniffs the dead bearchild, lays down beside him, puts his face in his paws and whimpers like a sick dog. I cry too. Who wouldn’t? Poor Bomber. He was so young, he had so much potential, he could have gone to college or joined a circus or been one of those trained acting bears, or maybe even gotten a job in a zoo. But I look again and that’s not Bomber lying flattened in the dirt, it’s my little brother Jimmy, with a bottle of Toilet Duck in his hand, flattened by a truck.
“Mister Bear,” I scream, shaking my weeping, disconsolate furry sidekick, “Are you going to take this? I’m not going to take this! We’ve got to find the fuckers who crushed our families! We need to make an example of them! That’s what Justice is all about! Are you with me?”
Mister Bear springs up with a mean grunt of determination and sprints off down the path at awesome speed, and I strain to keep up with him. Then he stops: ahead of us in the trees is a lone building, an isolated forest hideaway. Actually