cherry vanilla

The massive bear looked down on me with no expression on his face. This, I was afraid, was not a good sign.

I looked up at the bear who loomed over me the way I, at 6’2, loomed over a fairly large percentage of people I met. This, I knew, was also not a good sign.

The bear, his face seemingly made up of nothing but thick black hair and foreboding black sunglasses, looked down on me…apparently sizing up the best way to wrench my head from my shoulders. The bear smelled of beer and cheap cigars and Old Spice…a wholly masculine mixture that didn’t make me feel any better about my chances of escaping the next few seconds without experiencing enormous amounts of pain.

Oddly enough, the chill on my hand felt kind of good in the hot August sun but I didn’t dwell on that sensation long. I looked down at my hand holding the mostly empty ice cream cone and then let my eyes trace the river of cherry vanilla ice cream from my hand and down the denim-clad leg of the bear down to his dusty black boot. The swiftly-melting scoop of ice cream…and all pink and white and flecked with ruby-red bits of artificially colored fruit…was, needless to say, incongruous sitting on top of the well-worn black boot.

I looked back up. I started to ask the bear why he was wearing so many clothes on such a hot day but my more prudent angel stayed that question before it could escape.

“You gonna get that?” the bear finally spoke, his voice deep and, I thought, purposefully dispassionate.

I stood stock still for a second as I processed his question. “Oh yeah…sorry, man,” I stammered. I threw the mostly-empty cone aside (my prudent angel again coming to the fore and stopping me from tasting some of the soupy ice cream in the cone before I tossed it into the nearby trash can.)

I shoved my sticky hand into my back pocket and pulled out the handkerchief I always carried but rarely used. I stooped down and scraped as much of the scoop of cherry vanilla off his boot as I could.

I wondered if he wanted me to wipe off the river of ice cream on his leg but I decided that he probably did not.

I stood up hearing Don McLean singing “American Pie” in my head…this’ll be the day that I die…this’ll be the day that I die…

“Sorry,” I said in a small voice as my life flashed before my eyes, “didn’t mean to bump into you…” I had an impulse to flee but my legs refused to cooperate.

The bear looked down and all I could see was my terrified face reflected in his dark glasses. The bear nodded. “Shit happens, son,” he said softly, a slow Southern drawl coloring his voice. And then he turned and walked off…presumably to find a men’s room to clean the rest of the ice cream off his jeans.

I stood there…on the avenue in the hot August sun…motionless. Amazed to be alive, I wondered what I should do next. I shrugged and, as soon as my legs would work again, I turned around and headed back towards the ice cream stand. I was hoping that they hadn’t run out of cherry vanilla yet.

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