Bear v. Shark by Chris Bachelder

Curtis, this preadult, this virtual madman. At his Keyboard he has taken countless lives, ain’t no thing, he has received outrageous sexual favors from CyberWhores with tits out to here, digital fucking machines born to pleasure Curtis Norman.
    Matthew (to Curtis) says, “Shut
up,
fag.”
    Mr. Norman knows that you would want to wait until after Bear v. Shark II, of course. You could electrocute yourself easily enough, it seems. There’s electricity everywhere.
    A woman on the Television clutching a bag of groceries tells the reporter that sharks are, like, 90 percent teeth.
    Curtis says, “It was on the Internet. Some professor had a Web site. He turned out not to be a professor, just a fisherman who reads a lot, but I think his point about ethos still holds.”
    The waitress says, “It’s mostly cow.”
    The Normans order BearBurgers. And Sharky Temples for the kids.
    Curtis says, “Can you pass the sugar substitute?”
    A guy on the Television wearing a bike helmet and a blood-soaked shirt says that bears are as fast as cougars.
    Matthew says, “What you have to remember is that a person who reads the Sunday
New York Times
gets more information than a French villager in the eighteenth century got in his whole lifetime.”
    Mrs. Norman says, “
Their
whole lifetime.”
    The head-jerking funny-eyed guy in the next booth says, “Yes, but people are living longer now.”
    Mr. Norman, there was always carbon monoxide, says, “Where did you hear that information?”
    Matthew says, “Some show on French villagers. Turns out they had real problems with gum disease.”
    Mrs. Norman says, “The way I heard it was that a person who habitually reads newspapers knows more, in essence, than an eighteenth-century French person.”
    Curtis says, “The point is that it’s hard to know what to believe.”
    Matthew says, “No, the point is that there is a lot of stuff to believe.”
    Mr. Norman says, “Isn’t the point that you shouldn’t believe anything?”
    The waitress says, “Aren’t those all the same point?”
    The reporter on the Television says, “Back to you, Derek.”

31
Bear v. Shark: The Essay
    A REASON TO LIVE
    (by Curtis Norman)
    In today’s society there is a lot of bad news. Just for an example of this is tornadoes, assassinations, tainted food, and killer bees. Other examples are pollution, bad roads, heroin, teen pregnancy, and rabies. These problems aren’t anyone’s fault, most of them (like killer bees) are natural and can’t be controlled by human destiny.
    It can be difficult to be happy with all this bad news around. For instance, people are grumpy and many of them commit suicide. Men tend to choose guns and women choose pills. I say choose life!
    Bear v. Shark allows people to forget about their own problems and the troubles in the world and just be happy. Bear v. Shark gives people a reason to be excited about their day. Instead of sad about gang violence or a collapsing infrastructure people can be upbeat because they are happy. Their minds are on something else. Say, which side are you on? Are you for the bear or the shark? And what about those fins anyway?
    In closing, my gardener is Dutch and he doesn’t have a culture. But America is great because it has a culture and Bear v. Shark helps us have a culture.

32
The Fur Team
    The guy in the booth next to the Normans, the guy looking at Mr. Norman in a strange manner, eventually joins the family for lunch. He squeezes in beside the boys. He’s wearing an old faded black “Bear v. Shark I” T-shirt from the first event two years earlier.
    It (the shirt) looks like a classic. It looks authentic, though they sell them like that now, faded and threadbare. They do a nice job. It’s really hard to tell.
    Curtis notices the shirt. He says, “Were you there?”
    The guy nods. He says, “Third row. My uncle worked on the bear programming team. He hooked me up with the tickets.”
    Curtis says, “Too bad about what happened.”
    The guy