Lunchbreak

Brendan Gillen

There was a bear in the woods where Davis snuck out for his lunchbreak. First time he saw it scared the piss out of him. He was sitting on a rotted log having his roast beef and Coke when he heard a thick rustle in the overgrowth about fifty yards away, just past the stream that was all but cracked earth. He half expected to see Philips pop his ruddy boyish face from behind a tree and say Gotcha or some shit, then fire his ass on the spot. 
          The bear was the size of a fridge. Lumbering on all fours. Davis could see the musculature at work beneath all that black fur, could hear the labored exhalations that were somehow profoundly relatable. That seemed to say: Is this all there is? The bear hadn’t spotted him. Or if it had, it didn’t seem to care. Hell, Davis hardly cared himself. Hardly knew how he got here. Not Stroudsburg. Not the body shop. Not even the divorce from June. No. The question that gripped his throat with bony fingers was: who was he anymore? His life was half over. Moreso probably. He hadn’t seen Cassie since she blew out the candles on her fourth birthday. He hated his job. Philips. His car. Grew a beard because he hated the pockmarks on his jaw. Was there a road ahead for a man like him? Did he have the energy to find out? Hell, what he did know was you were supposed to avoid eye contact, hold your breath, play some version of dead. Sort of like how he acted around Philips at the body shop.
          Eventually, the bear decided there wasn’t much of interest, made an about-face, and vanished into the woods. Davis felt a heavy sadness in its absence. So, he left a gift. He unwrapped the rest of his sandwich, set it down where he sat, and made his way back to work.
          He returned the next day. And the next. Each time closing the gap. And if things took a vicious turn? So be it.
          There was no schedule or pattern. The bear showed up when it felt like it. But each time it came closer and closer, by now well fed on roast beef and tomato and horseradish on white. Maybe, Davis thought, it needed the company too.
          One morning, Philips dressed him down in front of a customer, a good-looking young woman who’d come in with a blue Cherokee. Davis had used an aftermarket catalytic converter to save money, just like he’d been asked to do since Philips had taken over the shop from his father. And now here he was, emasculated by the spoiled little shit trying to get laid. “Apologies, ma’am,” Philips was saying, “I’ve told Davis here that the one thing we never do at Philips Auto is cut corners. Need to get them old ears checked, don’t you, Davis?”
          Davis fumed in silence and decided he wouldn’t come back from lunch until he fed the bear by hand. Until he got as close as possible. Felt its heavy breath on his skin. Proximity to a raw force that had the power to destroy him. That could shake him awake from the stupor of his life. He hoped the bear had come to understand his intentions. That he came in the name of peace and companionship. And if it didn’t? Well, then he’d chalk it up to a rift in the order of things that had nothing to do with his existence. Not that he’d be around anymore to hash it all out.
          The bear was already there when he ambled down, its shiny coat striated by the skeletal shade of an oak that had all but shed its leaves.
          “Hey there, boss man,” Davis said, almost a whisper.
          The bear looked him dead in the face, eyes that were galaxies of absence. Davis shivered. The bear looked lazily away and suddenly Davis felt very silly, felt tears begin to chase him down. But before they salted his cheek, the bear looked at him once more and began to paw its way over.
          “You a hungry dude?” Davis said. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, dug excitedly in his rucksack for his lunch. “Brought extra today.”
          The bear stopped a few feet away. But Davis could feel the magnetism. The hairs of his neck stood at attention. A cold drop of sweat trickled down his flank beneath his coveralls.
          “All for you,” Davis said. “Come eat.” He unwrapped one sandwich, then the other, offering them with open palms like some sort of sacrament.
          The bear drew closer and closer still. It blinked and Davis could see the film of its eyes. The long curl of the claws, shockingly white. And the smell, a deep, earthy musk that reminded Davis of river muck.
          “I appreciate you,” Davis said, in the lilting tone he had once used with Cassie when she was an infant. He had stopped short of saying love but resolved that if he ever saw his daughter again, he would say it over and over.
          The bear sighed.
          Davis stifled a giggle, felt giddiness well up in his chest. He held out the sandwiches, felt the hot puffs of air from the wet black nose, nostrils that expanded and contracted with a rhythm of their own.
          When Davis felt the first bite, he pictured himself as a boy, an only child, about the age Cassie was now, lonely, but hopeful. The bike rides he would take after school let out, up to the steep hill where the oaks thinned to a clearing. He would crest the hill and count backwards from ten, imagining the man he would become, the life he’d lead. Then he would shove off, the sharp incline drawing him down and down, faster and faster, and he would lift his feet from the pedals and say his prayers, terrified and wild and free.

Brendan Gillen is a writer in Brooklyn, NY. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions, and appear in the Florida Review, Wigleaf, X-R-A-Y, Necessary Fiction, Maudlin House, Taco Bell Quarterly, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. His first novel, STATIC, is available now via Vine Leaves Press. You can find him online at bgillen.com and on Twitter/IG @beegillen.

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