“Nothing you need to worry about.” His voice is sharp, final.
But I step closer, fingers brushing a tarp. “Bear.”
He exhales, ragged. His shoulders sag for the first time all day.
Then he grabs the edge of a tarp and yanks it off.
Underneath, gleaming even through dust, I see an old steel chair, dented and scarred. A championship belt with its leather cracked but plates still polished. A rack stacked with boots, wristbands, costumes.
My chest seizes.
WWE equipment.
Pieces of the man he used to be.
I look at him and for once, he can’t meet my eyes.
For a long moment,I can only stare.
Most of the equipment is battered and bent, but it’s been carefully, maybe evenlovingly, preserved. The belt—heavy enough to anchor a man. Boots stacked like they’re waiting for him to lace them again.
The smell of dust and leather hangs in the air, thick and intimate, like I’ve stumbled into a shrine.
I move closer, fingertips brushing over the cracked leather, the tarnished metal. “Bear... this is...”
His shoulders square, but he doesn’t speak.
“This is all your stuff... from when you were The Grizzly,” I whisper. “Isn’t it?”
Still no answer.
I glance back at him. He looks carved out of stone, eyes dark and wary, like he’s waiting for me to laugh.
But all I feel is awe.
My hand trails down the belt plate, the engraved gold dulled from years but still sharp enough to shine. “How did it start? And... I mean... how does someone even end up here?”
His jaw ticks, but he exhales slowly. “Street fights. County fairs. Wherever they’d let me swing my fists without calling the cops. Someone spotted me, thought I could be trained.”
I blink. Fights and fairs. A boy clawing his way up, fists first. I picture him younger, bruised and bloody, using his sheer size and strength to muscle his way forward. Out of a bad circumstance into something better. And he did.
My fingers trace over another belt. He earned so many. Yet here they are, hidden away. “Did you want to do it? Be that?”
A long pause. “Didn’t matter what I wanted. It was the only thing I had worth a damn.”
My chest tightens. He says it like a fact, like he’s counting off a pine tree, not exposing a wound. But I hear it... the hollow underneath.
I crouch by the trunk, my fingers brushing the wristbands, the boots. “So you kept everything?”
“Not everything.” His voice is rough. “Just enough to remind me.”
I tilt my head. “Remind you of what?”
His gaze flicks away. “That I was once someone else. Someone they thought they could chew up and spit out.” His laugh is pure acid. “Hell, someone theydidchew up and spit out.”
The barn is quiet except for the sound of dust motes shifting in the light. He stands rooted, hands fisted at his sides, like he could still bolt any second. Or cave in the world with his next roar.
I sift through more of the trunk. Programs, rolled and yellowed. Ticket stubs. Photos... blurry shots of him leaping from ropes, arms raised in victory, the crowd’s faces bright with worship.
