The Bear in the Bull Market

Marcus stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, the **water** below churning the same restless gray as his stomach. Forty-seven and three months into what should have been his golden promotion—instead, he'd been demoted by a man half his age who called him 'old **bull**' in meetings, like it was affectionate.

His father had pitched Triple-A ball for the Mets' farm team until his shoulder gave out. Marcus had spent every weekend of his childhood watching from behind **baseball** chain-link, learning to read people the way his dad read batters. Now he worked in commodities, where the market could be **bear** or bull, but mostly it was just hungry.

'You're iron deficient,' the doctor had said that morning, sliding a prescription across the desk. 'Take these **vitamin** D supplements. You're not a kid anymore, Marcus.'

He'd laughed, because what do you say when your body starts mutinying the same week your career does?

Now he leaned against the bridge railing, the pill bottle in his pocket pressing against his hip like a accusation. His phone buzzed—Elena, probably. They'd fought again last night. She wanted children; he was too tired to start over, too afraid he'd pass on whatever had made his father drink himself into an early grave and made Marcus stare at the **water** and wonder how cold it would be.

A tourist asked him for directions to the **baseball** stadium.

'You're standing on it,' Marcus said, gesturing vaguely toward Manhattan. 'The old Ebbets Field used to be—well, never mind. Nothing's where it used to be.'

He caught his reflection in a shop window later: a **bear** of a man, hunched and graying, swallowing **vitamin** pills with lukewarm **water** in a world of **bull** markets and boys who called him old.

Marcus bought a ticket to a Cyclones game that evening, sat behind home plate alone, and for the first time in twenty years, let himself remember the sound of his father's fastball hitting the mitt. The crack of the bat. The way his father had looked at him sometimes, like he was seeing a ghost.

The pitcher on the mound threw a **bull**-seye curveball. Strike three. The crowd roared.

Marcus called Elena. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Let's try. I want to try.'

She was crying. He was crying. Outside, the city hummed its relentless song, and for the first time in months, Marcus didn't want to jump into the **water**. He wanted to swim.