Winkie

by Clifford Chase

  “Doesn’t know,” the attorney murmured as he wrote. “Uh … well, OK, how about after that? Perhaps I could name places, and then you could tell me if they ring a bell?” The bear sighed, but Unwin took no notice. His voice had grown surprisingly calm and patient. “London, Rio de Janeiro, Poughkeepsie, Bangkok, Chicago—”

  Winkie nodded forcefully.

  “Bangkok?”

  The bear opened his eyes wide in frustration.

  “Chicago?”

  Again Winkie nodded.

  “And when was that?”

  The bear motioned toward very far behind him.

  “Ah, a long time ago,” said Unwin.

  Winkie didn’t want to feel any of it, but even at these few words his heart began to soften and the recollections poured forth.

  “You must have been very young when you lived there,” said the lawyer.

  Sadly Winkie nodded yes.

  And by this method, gradually over the next several days, Unwin was able to sketch out the bear’s entire life story. Soon Winkie no longer minded his questions, for as Unwin learned more, the questions grew more interesting. This man was, it turned out, capable of remarkable concentration and empathy. By the end, it was as if their two minds were functioning as one.

  “When you feel the urge to do something,” asked Unwin, “is it like waking from sleep, or a sudden welling up of a fountain within you, or a letting go?”

  Winkie pointed to the middle of the table, indicating the middle option, but hesitantly.

  “Maybe like a welling up,” said Unwin. “Got it. A flood or a trickle?”

  The bear shrugged.

  “Depends. OK. And is it a welling up of multicolored bubbly water in sunlight, or a welling up of a dark underground stream in a cave?”

  Winkie gestured to his right.

  “Ah. Cave,” said Unwin with satisfaction, writing it all down.

  Longer visits with his attorney were among several new privileges Winkie had been granted that week. Starting Monday he found either a peanut butter cookie or a small piece of frosted cake, albeit stale, on his tray for both lunch and dinner. Tuesday afternoon he was taken to the exercise yard even though it wasn’t his day, and that night at bedtime the light actually went out in his cell. The bear actually slept. Strangest of all, both Wing and Finch had grown extraordinarily polite.

  “Miss Winkie, by order of the warden I am happy to inform you that you are hereby released from solitary confinement,” said Deputy Finch, smiling and unlocking the bear’s cell Wednesday morning. “For good behavior.”

  Winkie could think of no recent change in his behavior, unless increasing despair counted. Between Finch’s legs he could see the other prisoners gathered around several metal tables in the common area. Randi waved at him gaily.

  “Go ahead,” said Finch indulgently, motioning toward the tables. “May I introduce you to your fellow inmates?”

  The week of marvels continued with two movie nights, a badminton tournament, homemade ice cream, and a performance in the common area by a local string quartet. During intermission, Randi leaned back to whisper to the bear, “I think it’s really great that you’re planning to destroy America.” She grinned, scrunching up her nose with delight. Such attempts to engage Winkie in incriminating conversation only reminded him to be on his guard. As usual, he said nothing.

  However, he couldn’t help being stirred by the music, and at the end of the concert he had to hold back tears as he helped put away the metal folding chairs. He’d just placed the fifth one in the rack when Deputy Wing called out, “Oh, Miss Winkie, there’s someone here I think you’d definitely like to see!”

  The bear turned and saw that Françoise had just been let into the cell block.

  She looked worried and drawn, but then her eye caught Winkie’s and she smiled. “Come, little bear,” she said, kneeling down.

  Winkie ran to her, climbed up into her lap, and began to sob.

  “Shh,” she said, stroking his ears. “Don’t worry, little bear. Don’t worry.”

  Winkie looked at her pleadingly.

  “Yes, I am fine,” she answered, adding that her girlfriend had secured a lawyer through the hospital workers union. “I will have a hearing next week. Everyone will be there—our friends from the gay and lesbian center, people from the union, other Egyptians we know. Some of them are going to protest, too, in front of the courthouse!” Winkie wasn’t sure what all this meant but her voice reassured him. They sat down at one of the far tables, and Françoise remarked on her good fortune of being reassigned to this cell block. The other inmates circled nearby, listening in, but Winkie paid no attention.

  “Friends are all I have,” said Françoise. “Yesterday I received a letter from my sister in Cairo. My lawyer gave it to me and I wish he had not. She writes that she and my parents hope my arrest will convince me to change my ways.” Françoise sighed. “The letter is very depressing.”

  Winkie nodded, placing his paw on top of her hand.

  “Fifteen years ago my sister came to visit, from Cairo, and when she saw that my girlfriend and I had only one bed in our apartment, she said, ‘But where does Mariana sleep?’ And when I told her that Mariana and I sleep in the same bed, because we are lovers, my sister started crying. ‘Oh, I cannot believe it! Oh no, Françoise, you must stop doing this! You must stop!’ And I said, ‘Go ahead and cry, honey, because it isn’t going to change.’ ”

  Winkie wished he knew just the right thing to say.

  “But we must remember better times. You know, little bear, I have already gone to jail once before—because of the giant rat!” She burst out laughing, but Winkie looked puzzled. “You have not ever seen the rat? We share him with the other unions, to use when there is a strike—you know, as a protest. He is three or four meters tall and there is a machine that fills him with air. The hospital really hates the rat—he is our secret weapon!” She laughed again, and so now did Winkie. “So Mariana and I go to the hospital very early in the morning to make the rat, but the machine functions poorly and even after an hour the rat has only a little bit of air inside him. Again and again Mariana says to him, ‘Stand up, stupid rat!’ but he won’t, still he lies there on his side—and we cannot stop laughing. Then the police come to arrest us, because they say the rat is lying on hospital property.”

  As they laughed together, Winkie felt a strange, thrilling pride in the giant rat—in a fellow half-creature’s ability to both appall and amuse. Françoise’s giggling gently rocked him, and for a moment he felt what it was like to be whole again.

  Just then he saw Finch and the chief detective in the window of the cell block door. The deputy seemed to be having trouble opening it, and the chief was yelling at him to hurry up. Now Wing hurried over and swiped her own card through. The lock made its distinctive thunk, and the chief entered yelling.

  “Fucking goddamn coward, fucking piece of shit, you are outta here, motherfuck, stinking little—”

  He marched forward and snatched the frightened bear from the lap of his friend.

  Françoise cried out and Winkie reached back for her. The detective held him up by the scruff of his neck as the bear’s feet ran in the air. Finch locked the miniature shackles around his wrists, then his struggling ankles. All at once the bear went slack.

  “Your little friend here thought he could get away with pretending he was a woman,” said the chief, apparently to Françoise. He handed Winkie to Finch. “Thought you’d throw us off, huh, asshole? Thought things would be easier here? Ya like hanging out with the ladies?”

  “Gross,” muttered Finch, holding the bear away from his body. Wing snorted.

  “Sir, I have told you again and again that this bear is a boy,” said Françoise.

  “Well, you’re in luck. Forensic high-resolution microspectral analysis confirmed it,” the detective replied. “Let’s go.”

  As Winkie was carried away, he managed to glimpse Françoise one last time. She was crying. Shackled as he was
, he could only lift his paw a little, in farewell.

  “Hey,” Randi called. “I heard them say something about a secret weapon.”

  The chief stopped short. “What?” He ordered Finch to take the bear and stayed behind to question the informer.

  Winkie tried to comprehend how he could be arrested in jail, since he had already been arrested in the cabin. The arrests must go down and down, he thought, so that wherever Finch was taking him now, he might, soon enough, be arrested from there as well and taken down to the next level of punishment. The deputy set him down roughly on the cold elevator floor and after perhaps a ten-second ride, up or down, Winkie couldn’t tell, the heavy metal doors rumbled reluctantly open on what appeared to be the very same white cinder-block lobby they had just left. Winkie blinked. The only difference was that the distant yells and catcalls were of a deeper pitch.

  More hallways, guards, locked doors. It was almost as if they were all being created on the spot, for Winkie’s benefit, and he wondered at the jail’s ability to spin out this endless white labyrinth. At last Finch led him to what appeared to be a destination, but a cluster of men in black riot gear was just marching in ahead of them.

  “Whassup?” Finch asked.

  “Lockdown,” one called back. The door slammed shut behind them, and Winkie could hear their heavy boots charging down the passage.

  “Shit,” said Finch. He turned to the two officers standing at the console, but they answered nothing. After a moment one of them gestured with his chin, barely, toward another door.

  “Hey, guys,” Finch said, shrugging, “I can’t help it.”

  He meant it wasn’t his fault that he had to bring them so contemptible a prisoner. Finch was ashamed even to be guarding him, Winkie realized. Without a word the two officers buzzed open the second door and Finch shoved the bear through.

  In the muffled distance Winkie could still hear yelling. He and Finch had been waiting in a holding cell for some time now. The door buzzed and Deputy Wing appeared.

  “I heard you were stuck here with this little em-effer,” she said.

  “Yeah,” the deputy said glumly. He had already complained several times that his shift was supposed to be over.

  Wing gestured with her head toward the distant yelling. “Somebody throwin’ feces again?”

  “’Parently.”

  Winkie had heard this mentioned earlier but understood only now that it was meant literally. The raw, animal desperation of throwing crap at your captors made perfect sense to him, even as it filled him with raw, animal disgust. Which was, he supposed, the point. In the same instant he realized that Deputy Wing had a crush on Deputy Finch.

  “So what’ve you and the little A-hole been doin’ all afternoon?” she eagerly asked. “Did he switch back to girl again?”

  Finch only grunted.

  “Here, maybe this’ll cheer ya up,” said Wing, handing him a page from a small pile of papers and envelopes in her hand. “I got it from my friend over at the federal lockup. Read it.”

  Finch bent his head to the page.

  “No—aloud,” Wing ordered. “I want the prisoner to hear it, too.” He cleared his throat. “‘What Is a Jail Officer?’” he began. “‘A Jail Officer is a composite of what all people are, a mingling of saint and sinner, dust and deity. A Jail Officer, of all people, is at once the most needed and the most unwanted. A Jail Officer is a strangely nameless creature who is “Sir” or “Ma’am” to their face and “Fuzz” behind their back. …’” The essay went on for some minutes in this vein, and Finch read it all with great feeling. “‘… The Jail Officer must be a minister, a social worker, a tough person and a gentle person. And, of course, they’ll have to be a genius. For they’ll have to feed a family on a Jail Officer’s salary.’”

  Finch shook his head and was silent for a moment. “That is so true.”

  Wing glared at the bear. “Now maybe you see how it is from our point of view,” she said, as if her own days were spent caring too much for inmates. The strange thing was, Winkie did see it from Wing’s point of view. His undying sympathy went forward, almost against his will, and for a moment he looked upon Deputies Wing and Finch with a new sadness.

  “And look, I brought little Miss, Mister, whatever Winkie some letters!” Wing said, with sudden hilarity. “Can you believe it? The little he-she gets mail!” With a comic flourish she laid a small stack of envelopes on the Formica table.

  The bear snapped back to hating her. At first he didn’t move, refusing to take the bait—but quickly his curiosity overcame him. As soon as he reached for the envelopes, though, Wing snatched them away—however, not before he glimpsed the return address of the letter on top: Cliff Chase.

  “Way-way-way-way-wait!” Wing said. “Deputy Finch and me gotta look these over first. Make sure there’s no funny business.”

  Finch chuckled. The envelopes were torn open and clearly had been examined already by the authorities. Could one of them really be from Cliff, the boy he once knew? What would it say? Not being able to find out drove tears of frustration straight from Winkie’s eyes.

  “Aww, looka dat,” said Wing. “Da wittle tewwowist is cwying!” Finch laughed harder, his small mouth making little Os. Wing selected a colorful envelope from the pile and read aloud: “‘Dear Occupant’—I guess that’s yew, Whiny. ‘Don’t miss this chance to win a luxurious trip around the world! Enter now!’”

  Finch was in stitches, but Winkie could scarcely pay attention. He stared and stared at the stack of letters, willing them to move toward him.

  “Kinda hard to take a trip,” said Wing, stating the obvious, “when you’re sittin’ in the gas chamber! But what the hey.” She found the entry form and took out a pen. “Let’s see. Name: Mohammed Filthy Faggot Traitor Winkie the Third. Address: Care of Department of Corrections, County of …”

  Finch was howling. “Mail it! Mail it!” he cried.

  “Oh, I will! And the lucky little midget is gonna win, too!” Wing sealed the return envelope and gathered up all of Winkie’s letters, tapping them coquettishly against Finch’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”

  She left and Winkie watched the mail go with her.

  It was nearly midnight before Finch and an officer from the men’s jail escorted the prisoner to his new cell.

  “That’s Darryl,” said the officer, referring to a large snoring mass on the bottom bunk, wrapped up in blankets. “Don’t worry—he’s been sedated.”

  Winkie watched as the heavy lump rasped in air and let it out again. Then he peered up at his own bunk, wondering how he could climb way up there without stepping on the person he wasn’t supposed to worry about.

  “I hear yer new roomy is quite a character,” said Finch from the doorway. He yawned. “Hey, Walter, can we hurry it up?”

  Deputy Walter was carefully removing the bear’s little shackles. He was much older than Finch and seemed a lot nicer. His face was tan red and full of lines. “Darryl’s OK mosta the time,” he whispered, lifting Winkie up onto his bunk, “but we hadta calm him down quite a bit today. He threw, um, something at the warden.”

  Once again the light never went out, and the jail’s too-bright hours seemed to go on forever as Darryl snuffled and snored. The undelivered letters danced before the bear’s mind. He began to scratch. He thought of a morning long ago when he sat on the lap of Ruth’s youngest, Cliff, and together they watched Ruth make cookies. The girls were away at college and the other two boys wouldn’t be home from school for hours. It was often this way, back then, the year that Cliff was four—just the mother, the boy, and Winkie at home. Humming, Ruth pulled another baking sheet from the cabinet and rubbed it with a dab of Crisco on a scrap of wax paper. The radio rehearsed a tinny symphony. Against the window above the sink, the last few drops of a rainstorm fell. Both then and now, the bear shivered pleasantly. Cold and wet outside, but in Ruth’s kitchen it was warm with the cozy odor of cooked sugary dough.

  “Winkie is going to make blue
cookies,” said Cliff.

  “Blue cookies?” asked Ruth.

  “Yep.” The boy squirmed pleasantly.

  “OK, now I remember him saying that,” said Ruth.

  Both then and now, the bear tried not to miss even the smallest nuance of this luscious scene of which he was the sudden, lucky center.

  “Will Winkie eat the blue cookies?” Ruth asked, completing a neat row of dough tufts in the pan.

  “No, sell them.”

  Ruth laughed. “Well, we could use the extra income.” Through the thin walls Winkie had heard Ruth complaining about money to her husband, who had recently lost his job. But at the moment she was in a good mood, unaccountably, always unaccountably, for even after thirty years the bear could never plumb or predict Ruth’s moods. “What’s in Winkie’s cookies?” she asked, finishing the last row of lumps. “Green peas?”

  “No!” Cliff hooted. He hugged the bear closer.

  “Hamburgers?”

  “No!” The boy was giggling with delight. “Yes!”

  The timer rang but it announced no end and no beginning to this perfect afternoon. Ruth pulled the sheet of finished cookies from the oven and replaced it with a fresh one. She reset the timer. Her expertise was amazing. She took the spatula and began swiftly moving the hot, tan disks from the pan to the wire rack. “And who does Winkie sell his blue hamburger cookies to?”

  “The animals.”

  “Oh, yes, animals like blue hamburger cookies …” The pan was empty now, and she glazed it lightly with a fresh dab of Crisco. “Where does he sell them?”

  “At the zoo.”

  “For how much?”

  “A penny.”

  “I’m afraid a penny a cookie isn’t going to be of much help,” said Ruth, more to herself than to Cliff.

  Idly the boy began tilting the bear forward and back, and his eyes clicked closed, open, closed, open, which always made him pleasantly groggy. Outside it had begun to pour again. As Ruth dropped glob after glob onto the flat, freshly greased pan, Winkie himself seemed to be baking the cookies, and they were blue, with hamburgers in them, and over at his concession stand at the zoo, all the animals were lining up two by two to buy them …