Free The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle Page A

again. “And I ain’t never been happier. Got that whoreson farm off my back, and I spend my days the way I wants to.”
    “And he owes it all to that arsenic-eating woman,” said Pinette as he got up to leave. “That’s the part I think our readers will go for.”
    Gummersong accompanied them into the dooryard. “Don’t be afeared to rub that grease in,” he said to Bramhall.
    “Thanks, I will,” said Bramhall, swinging the jug by the handle. The thick yellowish liquid made a heavy sound. Though his literary life had been ruined by a bear, he lowered the jug with a sort of courtesy toward its contents. And a sort of acknowledgment came from it, that perhaps something was owed to him for his having been ruined by a bear and that the matter was being taken into hand.

 
    Elliot Gadson and the bear stepped into the large, mirrored exercise room of Gadson’s health club. The bear was in gym trunks and a T-shirt, as was Gadson, who’d suggested that his portly writer would benefit from working out. Gadson was himself in very good shape, having been a champion diver in his days at Yale. Currently he was being trained on the club’s Nautilus equipment by Bart Manjuck, a powerfully muscled young man who awaited them now. Manjuck was eating a Bel Air Protein Wafer sold by the club and wore the club’s own T-shirt, the sleeves of which were stretched tight around his biceps. His hand rested lightly on the tip of an upright metal bar on which was threaded a thousand pounds of circular iron weights.
    “Bart,” said Gadson, “this is my guest, Hal Jam.”
    “Nice to meet you,” said Manjuck. “Ready for a little sweat?” He was gauging what kind of shape Mr. Gadson’s friend was in. Grossly overweight, observed Manjuck. No muscle tone at all. And he’s got a bad slouch. Looks like it takes all his strength just to stayupright. “I think we should start you out with a nice light program. Not too much weight, we don’t want any strain.”
    “Fine by me,” said the bear. No strain was just what he liked.
    All around the room men and women were grunting and panting as they rowed and lifted and pedaled and climbed stairs that didn’t go anywhere. Soon he’d be climbing stairs that didn’t go anywhere either and then he’d be a full-fledged human. He was pleased to see how many females there were in the club. Maybe he could have them up for honey sometime. But when the eyes of the trim, pumping females fell on the porky-looking guy, they barely acknowledged his presence. They were building power bodies to go with their power jobs, and men who didn’t keep themselves in condition were pathetic.
    “Why don’t you just step this way, Hal?” said Bart Manjuck. “I’ve got a curling machine free and we can put you on it with around fifty pounds resistance. That shouldn’t stress you too much.”
    “Great,” said the bear obligingly. As he followed Manjuck, he stubbed his toe on the pile of weights, so he picked up the weights to move them out of the way. “Okay?” he asked, holding the thousand-pound stack questioningly in the air. Bart Manjuck’s head came forward like an astonished camel’s. The trim women paused in their pumping and watched the porky guy pick up asecond thousand-pound pile of weights in his other hand. Considerately, he took them to the corner of the room, where he set them gently down.
    A petite middle-aged woman rose from her Nautilus machine and strode swiftly toward them. “You must introduce me, Elliot,” she said in the throaty Southern accent that’d been heard on all the morning network shows that week. “Eunice Cotton,” she said, extending her hand to Jam. “You’re some power lifter.”
    “Well, of course, it wasn’t a lift, strictly speaking,” said Bart Manjuck, bouncing up and down on his Nikes and flexing his pectoral muscles.
    Gadson said, “This is Hal Jam, Eunice. I sent you the manuscript of his book.”
    “
This
is Hal Jam? But I
loved
your book,” she