The Teddy Bear Habit

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Okay, wise guy, you can wipe it up.”

  We keep a sponge right by the sink. We spill a lot around there. I got the sponge and wiped up the orange juice and some of the batter he’d flung around here and there. “I guess Amorpho Man is going pretty good this week.”

  “I’m working on Garbage Man,” he said. “It’s really flying. I’ve got a great new gimmick.” He forgot what he was doing and stirred a big plop of batter out onto the counter.

  “I never noticed before, Pop,” I said. “You cook like you paint. Just heave the stuff all over the place.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “It’s called action cooking. Now shut up and let me tell you about Garbage Man. See, Rick Martin is no longer going to be a mild-mannered Madison Avenue advertising copywriter. I’m promoting him. He’s going to be Rick Martin, mild-mannered Madison Avenue account executive, in charge of advertising for the far-flung J. P. Astorbilt Enterprises. Fabulously wealthy J. P. Astorbilt takes a liking to the young man, and keeps sending him to various places around the world to investigate troubles in his organization. This way I can get him into a lot of exotic locales. Right now I’m sending him to a certain small Caribbean nation where a junta allied with a certain Iron Curtain power is threatening a takeover which will jeopardize the J. P. Astorbilt sugar mills there. Naturally, Rick Martin will have a trusty Beech twin-engine airplane, as well as his trusty Jaguar. The Beech can turn into a trusty garbage truck with wings. George, it’s going to take the comic book world by storm. What do you think?”

  I thought it stunk, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “It’s great,” I said. “And when the bad guys are trying to escape, Garbage Man can bomb them from the air with bags of garbage.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Right,” he said.

  “You’ve got the idea exactly.” He started to pour the batter into the frying pan. “Incidentally, speaking of garbage, before you go to school look through your stuff and see if you have any old clothes or toys you don’t need. Things you’ve outgrown. Somebody from the Needy Child’s Center came around yesterday collecting stuff for poor kids for Christmas. I told them to come back today.”

  “All right,” I said.

  He got the pancakes cooked finally. They were okay, but a little uneven. Half of them were a little too crisp and half were a little too soggy. But that’s the way Pop cooks, and I’m used to it. His hamburgers are either raw or hard and black, and his hot dogs are usually limp and rubbery. It’s all right, though. You can always disguise the taste of anything Pop cooks with mustard or ketchup or chili sauce or something. So I doused the pancakes with maple syrup and butter, and they tasted pretty good.

  Between kidding around with Pop and the time it took him to cook the pancakes it was pretty late when I finished breakfast. I washed the maple syrup off and was about ready to peel when he shouted out, “Don’t forget about the Needy Child’s Center.”

  I didn’t have time to mess around. I whipped open my drawer and grabbed a sweater I hadn’t worn for a long time, and another one some aunt I didn’t like gave to me, and a pair of pants that were too short, and dumped them on the bed. Then I pulled my junk box out from the bottom of my closet—just a cardboard box that said Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese on it. It was full of old toys mixed in with a pretty good supply of dust. I found a windup train, a midget baseball glove, and a couple of other things. I flung these on the bed along with the clothes. Then I grabbed my books and my lunch money.

  “I put some stuff out in my room,” I shouted. “I gotta peel. See ya. “

  That afternoon when I went up to rehearsal, I began looking for a place to hide the teddy, just in case. Whenever I could think of an excuse I wandered around backstage just sort of looking around.

  By now the panic was mostly over. The stars had quit throwing fits, and Jerry Wastebasket had cut down on the boasting a good deal. They weren’t making quite so many changes, either. Of course they made some changes just out of habit, but they were mainly small things, like switching a word here or there, or having somebody stand a little farther over.

  Because there was less confusion, it was hard for me to go places where I shouldn’t to look for a hiding place for the teddy. Still, I managed to get around, and after a while I thought of something that might work. Backstage there was what they called the property table. Properties are things people need for the act. For example, there was a fake telephone Jerry Wastebasket needed for one of his comic routines, and there were a cane and a top hat Mel O. Tones carried when he was singing one of his songs, and there was a set of holsters and pistols Frisky Legge used in one of her dance routines. Things like that. There was a strict rule against anybody touching any of the stuff on the prop table, except for the property man. I decided that if I slipped the teddy onto the prop table nobody would think anything of it. Of course, the prop man might think there was something fishy about it, but even he wouldn’t want to move it until he found out who put it there, for fear that it might be important. I’d only have to leave it there for five or ten minutes. Then I could stick it under my shirt or something, whip down to the dressing room, and put it away in my gym bag. It was risky; but the point was that by turning my head a little when I was onstage I could get a quick glance at the property table.

  So that was settled, and I decided to forget about it. Maybe one of the other kids would get sick and maybe he wouldn’t. There wasn’t anything I could do about it one way or another. I’d face the whole thing the next night when the show went on.

  They let us go early Thursday night. I guess they figured nobody was going to get any better, and they might start getting worse. I got home just about in time for supper. Pop was sitting in his chair, reading the paper. He looked relaxed, and I knew he’d had a good day.

  “I guess you finished that sequence on Garbage Man,” I said.

  “It came out pretty well,” he said. “I thought we’d go out to Howard Johnson’s and celebrate.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Wash up and put on a clean shirt and we’ll go.”

  I went into the bathroom and washed my hands, and then I went into my room and opened my shirt drawer.

  The teddy was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE TEDDY wasn’t in the drawer, and he wasn’t on top of the bureau. I couldn’t exactly remember where I’d left him. For a minute I just couldn’t move. My hands stuck to the drawer handles, and my feet felt as if they were nailed to the door. Then I whirled around and looked at the bed.

  The things I had put out for the Needy Child’s Center were gone. I began to tremble and shake and my knees got weak. I sat down on the edge of the bed. Then I jumped up and began slamming through the bureau drawers, rummaging through my closet, crawling under my bed, in search of the teddy. I knew in my heart it wasn’t any use. Pop had given the bear to the Needy Child’s Center. But I kept on hoping that I’d hidden him away someplace and forgotten, or that Pop had accidentally knocked him into a corner when he’d come in for the other toys.

  It wasn’t any use. It didn’t take long to search a room that small. The teddy was gone, and along with him the Hermes Sapphire. I stood in the middle of the room, shaking. Finally I got a grip on myself. I changed into a clean shirt, brushed my hair, and went out into the living room. I undid my belt buckle and began adjusting my belt to give me an excuse for looking down so Pop couldn’t see on my face how scared I was. “Say Pop, did you give the Needy Child’s Center that old teddy bear of mine?” I said, trying to keep my voice from squeaking.

  “I just gave them whatever you put out. Yes, I think there was a teddy bear.”

  “It was on the bureau,” I said. “The stuff for the Needy Child’s Center was on the bed.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s right,” he said. “I gave them whatever you had put out.”

  I had messed around with the belt as long as I could. I buckled it up, and faced him, putting my hands in my pockets for the casual effect. “Well,
the thing was, I didn’t put the teddy out. He just happened to be there. I didn’t want to give him away. “

  “Oh?” he said. “I’m sorry, I just assumed he was part of the lot.”

  “No, it was a mistake,” I said. My throat was choked up, making my voice gravelly. “I got it when I was a kid. I sort of wanted to keep it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it meant anything to you.” He didn’t seem very upset, and I thought, you’d be a lot more worried if you knew what was in that bear. “I wonder if there’s some way I could get it back?”

  “You could go over there after school tomorrow and see about it. They clean and repair all the toys before they distribute them to the poor children. I imagine they’d give it back to you.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I’m hungry; let’s go.”

  It wasn’t one of the easiest times I ever put in. Pop was full of good spirits because he had finished the Garbage Man sequence, and he went chattering on and asking me questions and kidding me, and of course I had to kid him back. As we walked up Sixth Avenue to the Howard Johnson’s he kept pointing out things of interest. “Look at that screwball in the sandals and the toga,” he’d say. Or, “There’s old Morris Fisher. That dirty old man with beard. He used to be a fine painter in his day.”

  And I’d have to nod and say, “That sure is some screwball in the sandals and the toga,” or, “He sure is a dirty old man, isn’t he,” and so forth. And all the time my insides were creeping around from place to place. First they’d climb up one side until they bumped against my Adam’s apple, which was as high as they could go. Then they’d let go and slide down my spine and hit on the bottom with a thump; and then they’d do it all over again, just for jollies. To get them to hold still I’d concentrate on my math homework or something. Then, just as I got them all settling back in their places, I would remember that perhaps right at that moment some charity lady was giving the Hermes Sapphire a good washing in naphthalene, or some four-year-old kid was dumping a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of marbles into his mouth and chewing on them, and all of my insides would get up and take off for the slides again.

  Kidding around with Pop was bad, but eating was terrible. Sitting in the restaurant and jamming down the food I thought I’d go crazy. I kept dropping my fork, and dripping water down my chin, and knocking over the ketchup. I ordered macaroni and cheese, which I figured was a dish which would go down easily.

  Right away Pop said, “I thought you didn’t like macaroni and cheese.”

  “They have it at school a lot,” I said. “I got used to it.”

  “Don’t have it if you don’t want it,” he said. “What about the fried scallops? Or a nice piece of pork loin? Waitress—”

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “I really love macaroni and cheese.”

  I might just as well have had the loin of pork for all the difference it made. I choked down the macaroni and cheese, and then Pop, since he was feeling rich, insisted that I have a huge banana split, so I choked that down, too. Between being scared and eating all that food my stomach felt as if it had been pumped full of air. All the way back down Sixth Avenue I kept thinking I was about to heave.

  But I made it home. “I have to do my homework,” I said. I ducked into my room and shut the door and sat there with the math book open in front of me, but I didn’t do much homework. Forty-five minutes later I had finished only two problems. I quit. It didn’t matter. I had something better to do than go to school the next day, anyway. I got into bed and read until Pop told me to go to sleep. I turned off the light and began tossing and turning. Every time I dozed off I dreamed something terrible: that I was being captured by Nazis with great huge faces; or that monsters were coming from the deep all green and slimey with bloodsuckers hanging off them and their eyes cracked; or that four-legged Mars men who were poisonous to the touch were chasing me. The dreams would wake me up, and I’d lie there in bed too scared to move, until I dozed off into another dream.

  Finally a little light came in through the air-shaft window. I got up, dressed quietly, and fixed myself some breakfast.

  Pop was asleep on the day bed, but he woke up from the noise I made and came into the kitchen in his pajamas.

  “What are you doing up?” he said. It’s only six o’clock.”

  “I promised Stanky I’d come up to his house before school,” I said. “I have to help him with his science.”

  “All right,” he said. “Make sure you have some fruit juice. Are you sleeping over at Stanky’s tonight?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ll be up at Smash. I’ll get home about three-thirty. You wait for me to get back before you leave.” Then he went back to bed.

  As soon as I finished my breakfast I sneaked out quietly. Pop was asleep again. It was still half dark in the city. The streetlights were on, but they were pale and cast no light. The traffic was light and the city was quieter than usual. It was cold, and I wished I’d worn a sweater under my jacket.

  I began walking up Sixth Avenue. The first thing I needed to find was a telephone booth that had a phone book, so I could look up the address of the Needy Child’s Center. It was spooky walking in the city that time of the day. A few workmen in windbreakers were going down the street or standing at bus stops. Every once in a while I would come upon people coming home late from parties. They would be all dressed up and laughing over nothing. With the traffic so quiet I could cross against the light whenever I wanted.

  I had trouble finding a phone booth. There was one up near the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, but somebody had stolen the phone book out of it. I kept on walking. Finally I came to an all-night lunch wagon. The counter was full, the waitresses were all busy, and nobody paid any attention to me when I went down to the phone in the back. A telephone book hung from the wall below on a chain. I looked up the address of the Needy Child’s Center. It was on Ninth Avenue at Forty-fifth Street.

  It was warm and cozy in the lunch wagon. The food smells made me feel hungry and sad, and I thought maybe the best thing for me would be to run away for good. I could go out to the Holland Tunnel and try to hitch a ride on a truck. Or I could go up to Grand Central Station, get on a train, and hide in the men’s room until the train was out of the station.

  But I knew I wouldn’t do it. I left the lunch wagon and stood outside, thinking. There was a man standing on the sidewalk in front of me, waiting for the bus. He had his newspaper folded open, and was reading it. I could see a big advertisement:

  DON’T MISS TONIGHT. UNITED BROADCASTING PRESENTS

  FADS AND FANCIES, STARRING JERRY WASTEBASKET,

  MEL O. TONES, FRISKY LEGGE, AND MANY OTHERS

  The bus came and the fellow folded the newspaper and got on. It was a good way up to the Needy Child’s Center. I could get up there in a few minutes by subway, but the only money I had was my lunch money—forty cents. Besides, the Center wouldn’t be open that early. I figured I might as well use the time walking.

  It was over thirty blocks uptown and three blocks cross town. In New York cross town blocks are three or four times longer than up and downtown blocks. I had about three miles to walk. So I started off.

  If I hadn’t been so worried about finding the teddy the walk would have been exciting. The city was just getting started for the day. As I went along people began unlocking their stores, folding back the iron grilles on delicatessen doors, rolling down the awnings of shoe stores, turning on neon signs in the windows of restaurants. Sometimes I would see a watchmaker putting out displays of watches and jewelry in his windows. Sometimes I would see a Con Edison truck drive up, men get out, and start putting up sawhorses to block traffic. And there was one moment when all the streetlights suddenly went out.

  On I went. After a while my feet began to get hot and sore, and my legs to get tired. I went up Sixth Avenue to Herald Square at Thirty-fourth Street, where Macy’s is, and Gimbel’s. The department stores weren’t open, but there were people in some of the wi
ndows putting clothes on the plastic models. The window dressers walked around barefoot so as not to leave footprints. It was funny to see them carrying models around as if they were logs of wood.

  From Herald Square I cut up Broadway until I crossed Forty-second Street and got into Times Square. Here there were penny arcades and movie theaters and little pizza places which had been open all night and were still open. There were a lot of sailors around, some of them from foreign ships, wearing strange uniforms. Most of the sailors looked as if they had been out partying all night. They were walking along with girls or standing at lunch counters, drinking coffee and eating hamburgers.

  It was getting on toward eight o’clock by now. The sidewalks were beginning to fill up with people going to work. The traffic in the streets was getting heavy. The sun was beginning to shine down into the streets.

  I walked west along Forty-second Street toward the Hudson River. I could see bits and pieces of the buildings on the New Jersey shore across the river. When I got to Ninth Avenue I turned up, and three blocks later I came to the Needy Child’s Center.

  It was just an old beat-up storefront with Needy Child’s Center lettered on the window. The window was painted over halfway up so you couldn’t see in. I didn’t know what time it opened. It was just about eight. I stood around trying to look through the window, but it was dark inside, and I couldn’t see anything. After a while I gave up trying to look in and just stood there, wondering when anyone would come.

  At about eight-thirty a woman came and unlocked the door. “Were you looking for somebody?” she asked. She was an older woman, dressed like a teacher, and she seemed nice enough.

  “My father accidentally gave away this teddy bear that belonged to my kid brother.”

  She opened the door. “Let’s go inside where it’s warmer.”

  It wasn’t all that much warmer inside, though. I took a look around. There were plain board shelves along the walls, all of them jammed up with toys and kids’ clothes and blankets and so forth. In the middle of the room there were dozens of huge cardboard cartons filled up with the things they’d collected for the poor kids. There was a fair amount of dust everywhere, a couple of long tables where they sorted things out, and just two bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. It wasn’t the coziest place I had ever been in.