Winkie’s bad eye began to throb again. He had seen this game before, but still he wanted to cry out, outraged on behalf of the dark ratfinks, yet envying the lighter ones. Ken had positioned the four black and brown ratfinks in a model car over by the dresser. It was an open convertible, so the boys could put them in and take them out easily. Ken pushed the car quickly forward. “Errrt!” he said, like squealing rubber, and the convertible stopped short in front of the big brick house. Cliff giggled.
All the white, yellow, and blue ratfinks were hiding upstairs. “They’re here!” said Cliff, placing one near a window.
Ken wiggled the black ratfink in the driver’s seat. “Oooh, looky dere—a mansion!”
“Ooh!” said Cliff.
“Let’s steal somethin’,” said Ken. “Better go roun’ back, so we don’t gets caught!” He pushed the model car in a half circle around the house, making the chugging sounds of an old, run-down engine, which then sputtered to nothing. “I gots to get dat fixed!” Cliff giggled more. Ken lifted the driver from the car and made him approach the rickety staircase. “Dum-de-dum,” Ken hummed. “Hello. Any white folks dere?”
“Nobody home!” Ken answered himself, taking the part of the ratfinks inside.
“Dat’s good,” said the black one, moving toward the house. “Come on, let’s get up dem stairs—AAGHGH!”
As the boys laughed, the rigged stairs fell over.
“AAGHGH!” cried Cliff.
Winkie was so angry by now that it almost gladdened him when the two brothers began fighting again.
“OK, time to clean up,” said Ken. There were red and white plastic bricks all over the floor of the bedroom.
“OK,” said Cliff, beginning to gather pieces. But Ken simply headed for the door. It took the six-year-old a moment to realize. “Hey—”
“They’re your bricks,” Ken said. With a gloating smile he was already backing out of the room. He imitated a TV parent: “Put away your toys now, Little Cliffy.”
“No!”
Winkie could tell Cliff was madder than usual, inflamed by the story of the trick staircase.
“I’m giving them to you,” Ken sang. He was at the top of the stairs, out of Winkie’s vision. “They’re all yours now.”
Then he stomped victoriously down the stairs, but Cliff ran out after him with the model car in his hand. He was crying wildly now.
“No!” he screamed, and there was a clattering sound. He must have thrown the car.
A moment of excruciating silence. Then Winkie could hear Ken whining, “Mom, Mom,” on his way to the kitchen. Which meant that he was OK but also that Cliff would be in trouble.
In a moment Winkie heard Cliff run into the bathroom and slam the door.
8.
In a flickering like fog, time began to go more quickly. Christmas and birthdays were celebrated. Cliff learned to read, and he began writing stories, which he made into little constructionpaper books. He stopped shitting his pants. Mardi Gras, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween. Still Winkie longed to be held; rarely he was, and then more rarely still until it was almost never. Sometimes his eye bothered him, sometimes not; he heard noises—footsteps, doors slamming, cars coming and going—or he ignored them; sometimes and even for long periods he felt nothing, whether his bad eye was open or closed, stuck or free. Occasionally by some trick of the barometer or humidity, the painful orb might of its own accord suddenly ease itself open or shut, depending on whether he’d been left seated or prone, and for a moment the world almost seemed normal again, because his eyes were in unison, no longer straining, hardly hurting him. Then it was almost as if whatever he saw or didn’t see made sense, and he seemed like himself again, if only for a moment, the self he’d always known. But soon enough if Cliff did happen to pick him up for a moment, perhaps to retrieve something else on the shelf, Winkie would realize in the jostling that his bad eye was stuck again—closed, open, or worse, uneven and in-between, so that he seemed to be at war with himself, offering the world what he knew to be a crazed, drunken look. He might hear Cliff giggle at the sight; for a moment it was sweet. Then came a sadness like terror: pounding all through him, because he didn’t even have a real heart to hold it—there was only a fear and burning, the wish to cry out or weep. He knew he was a crazy bear then, a hopeless bear, even if Cliff happened at that moment to be holding him—an unlovable almost-creature alert to every bad thing in the world and himself. Then Winkie’s mind began its rapid flickering until he blacked out. Or sometimes the oblivion part took a long time or maybe never came—everything just went sort of blank gray. The boy had put him down long ago. Winkie only half woke. Calm again but listening for every noise, sniffing every molecule that floated by—waxy crayons; the old blocks; his own ratty fur and stuffing; and down in the street, the bug spray pouring from the back of the mosquito truck …
In this way, nearly two years passed.
9.
TV commercials and Ken’s taunting singsong down in the family room, Cliff screaming, “No!” then crying up the stairs, and soon here he was, at full volume, like so many times before—he stumbled in and curled up on his bed, and even now the bear’s heart all but broke open for the boy who never touched him anymore.
“Seven,” Winkie thought, gazing at him, trying to be objective. A boy of seven crying, then trying not to cry, succeeding, and soon simply breathing, but still curled up. His small, short breaths, his little head of straight, sandy hair. His little nose … Why couldn’t the bear simply let him go—as he had first with Ruth and then with each of her children up till now?
“Too soon,” he answered himself. Not that it was too soon for Winkie to let go—in fact, he knew it was already past the time. But Cliff’s rejection of him had come too soon and too cruelly, so that each time Winkie encountered the boy he was filled once again with the injustice of it.
“A wall,” he said to himself. “A wall between us, a wall there, a wall, a wall …” The words were almost like weeping, though they didn’t satisfy. Did real weeping satisfy? Did curling up and breathing? Wall, wall, wall, the bear thought, and it seemed almost like he was getting through to himself, like finally he might understand that this child was indeed lost to him, like all the others, and he was truly alone: a fact, a simple fact.
But as if this were the magic thought—as if acceptance, through some paradox, also broke the spell—just then Cliff turned to him and sat up on the bed. “Hi, Winkie,” he said. His gray blue eyes were huge, moist, and full of love. How long had it been? Cliff came over to the shelf and lifted the little bear down, holding him in his arms like a swaddled infant. Winkie’s good eye had neatly clicked shut; the other was lodged open. How long had it been since he was held so tenderly?
“I never play with you anymore,” Cliff said, solemnly gazing down at him.
True, the bear thought. He wanted to snuggle deeper and he wanted to squirm free. Half in ecstasy, half in rage, he could only gaze with his one bad eye back up at the boy who had spurned him. Yet as if that cockeyed gaze suddenly held some power of persuasion or even truth, the boy’s face now crumpled into remorse.
“I’m sorry, Winkie!” he sobbed.
And the old bear was cuddled up tightly into Cliff’s arms, which now shook with grief.
10.
No, no, no, it wasn’t possible, a boy could not go back, nor a girl, nor any child, Winkie had never in all these years been returned to, in all these years a child’s love had never resumed, never like it was before, no, it wasn’t possible.
And what had caused Cliff’s outburst? Winkie puzzled over it through the rest of the afternoon, the evening, and all night as Cliff slept, but he knew only that school had started that week, and that afternoon Ken had been teasing him (Winkie didn’t even know why), so Cliff ran upstairs crying. Then he stopped crying, then he turned to Winkie … But the tearful reunion ended as abruptly and unaccountably as it had begun: Still sniffling, Cliff simply put Winkie back up on the shelf and went downsta
irs, apparently to watch TV again.
Neither could a bear go back, nor did Winkie want to, nor would it do any good even if he could, even though he had thought for so long that that was what he wanted; no, he shook it off, it was too late.
Yet the next afternoon, while Ken was still at band practice, Cliff came upstairs and lifted Winkie off the shelf once again. “I’m going to play with you every day now,” he whispered. He gingerly pushed the bear’s right eye open so the left and right agreed, and then he made him walk along the bed. Winkie didn’t want to, and yet when Cliff hummed, “Doo-di-doo,” the bear began to lose himself anyway, and it was as if he really were walking along the bed and humming a tune—a forgotten tune so beautiful that it seemed to have arisen from his very soul …
But just as quickly, as if by some mistake, Winkie was placed back up on his shelf without another word, and Cliff went out.
* * *
Now more than ever, and against his better judgment, Winkie watched and listened for his one companion, whose distant voice from the kitchen or the family room tickled the bear’s huge ears and made him wince with longing. Not more than a week ago that very longing had seemed to summon Cliff to himself, yet now day after day the boy ignored him, apparently without remorse, without even a thought.
Early one afternoon Ken and Ruth came into the boys’ room, and as Ruth stood by, the pudgy thirteen-year-old climbed on top of the dresser and began stretching masking tape from corner to corner of the large picture window.
“OK?” Ken asked.
“I think you’d better double this one, too,” Ruth answered.
“OK …”
Winkie had heard their businesslike chatter and the crisp screeching of the masking tape from the other bedrooms and had wondered what they were doing. Ken traced a second X on the window, a few inches from the first.
“Thank you,” said Ruth as Ken climbed down. “Of course Dad is away, so I have to take care of everything myself …”
Inwardly Winkie sighed at Ruth’s favorite complaint. Dave was in New York this week, on business.
“Paul says we might have to ‘evacuate,’” said Cliff, who had just appeared in the doorway. All three boys had been sent home from school early today.
“They don’t even know for sure if it’s really coming here,” Ruth answered, annoyed with such tales. “It could veer off.”
Indeed, past the Xs in the window, the sky exhibited a pale, harmless blue. Winkie’s right eye, still wedged open, was especially swollen and painful, as it always was in fine weather. He began to grow anxious anyway. Ruth and Ken moved on to the bathroom window and Cliff tagged along making wind noises. Now Winkie could hear the tape sound from downstairs as well, which must have been Paul at the same task.
As dusk approached Winkie noticed that the pain in his bad eye had not only lessened but disappeared altogether, for the first time in two years. Usually it felt better in the rain, but never this good, and just at that moment he felt the orb actually ease loose in its socket—he was sitting upright, so the eye remained open—but now it freely bobbed up and down just a little, as it should. For the first time in two years, neither eye nor eye socket was swollen. He wanted to say, Look! to someone, but everyone was downstairs at dinner and the bedroom was dark.
Outside, the sky had quickly clouded over and already it was night. Soon the wind began to blow and the rain to fall. The streetlight and the lights of the houses across the street grew blurry in the wet, and the silhouettes of the young trees began to thrash and strain against the slender poles they were tied to. The picture window rattled with each gust. Winkie could actually see the glass with its masking tape bulging slightly inward, snapping back as the wind suddenly dropped, bulging inward again with the next assault. It was raining hard now, and the drops hit the window like fistfuls of pebbles.
The bear began to shiver. He felt very small, even smaller than usual. He wished Cliff would come upstairs soon, if not to hug him, then at least to pick him up, if not to pick him up, then at least to talk to him, if not to talk to him, then at least to look at him, if not to look at him, then at least to turn on the light … And yet the pelting rain and the rattling window seemed almost to have been conjured out of the bear’s own loneliness and wrath. Let the terrifying storm destroy this house and everyone in it. The evening wore on and still no one came. He heard someone on the stairs, but it turned out to be Paul; as on any ordinary weeknight, the teenager shut himself in his room and began playing “House of the Rising Sun” on his guitar. Between gusts of rain Winkie could just hear the TV going downstairs—music, actors’ voices, a news bulletin. “… winds gusting to nearly … Hurricane Betsy … Residents are advised to … nearest evacuation center …”
“In this wind?” Ruth cried. “Carrying our food and bedding?”
Wind and rattle. The television said something else, and Ruth replied, “Why would we be any safer there—in some school, with a whole bunch of other people?”
Winkie puzzled anxiously over whether she was right or not. Paul sang another mournful verse, the warnings on the television continued, and then, out the rain-smeared window, the whole block went dark.
“Oh,” said Ken and Cliff. Paul stopped strumming. “OK,” said Ruth mildly, and Winkie felt almost reassured.
The only sound now was that of the rain and wind pummeling the bedroom window along with all the other windows of the house.
“Where did Dad put the flashlight?” Ruth complained. “It’s supposed to be right on top of the refrigerator.”
“Get out of the way,” said Ken, evidently to Cliff.
“Here it is,” Ruth sang at last, and Winkie could imagine the circle of light shining on the kitchen floor, the glow on Cliff’s and Ken’s faces. Here it was still pitch black.
Ruth called, “Paul!”
“Yeah,” he called back manfully, and Winkie could hear him making his way down the stairs to the rest of them.
“Well, now what?” asked Ruth in her humorous way, as if this were any ordinary household emergency, but the rain and wind continued and in fact were growing worse.
Ruth said something about finding candles and the other flashlight in the trunk of the Falcon. Like some terrible weather instrument, Winkie’s window was rattling even more wildly. In the blackness he imagined the two masking tape Xs shaking more and more frantically. Xs mark the spot …
“What if there’s a flood?” Cliff asked.
“It’s a two-story house, dope,” said Ken. “We’ll just go upstairs.”
Winkie took some comfort in this, since he was already upstairs, but then Ruth warned, “Stay out of the living room. I’m afraid that window will go.” The living room window faced the same direction as Winkie’s.
“It’s past your bedtimes,” said Ruth to Ken and Cliff. Between the rattling, footfalls on the stairs.
In the purple Mardi Gras beads, the bear saw flickering light reflected, and Ruth entered the bedroom holding the flashlight. Winkie felt its weak, yellowish light pass over his worn-out face.
“This is the worst one,” Ruth said, shining the beam on the window. “Just listen to that.”
The storm gusted and the glass rattled again.
Paul had come in behind her with his own flashlight. “Wow, it could just blow in, any second,” he said.
“Paul!” She sighed with annoyance. “Well, Ken and Cliff had better not sleep in here. Here, hold this.”
She handed Paul her flashlight, and Winkie watched her pull the sheets and blankets off the mattresses and carry them into the hallway, where he could hear her shuffling about, making her usual irritable housework noises. “Can you hold the lights in one place, please?”
“Why can’t they just sleep on the couch in the family room?” Paul asked.
“By the sliding glass door? There’s already water coming in.” She hurried in for the pillows and threw them down in the hall. “I’ll be up all night mopping down there.”
“OK, OK …�
��
“Go see if you can find your transistor radio.”
He stalked off, and shortly tinny bulletins began wafting from Paul’s room. “… Levees … Pontchartrain … sea level …” Evidently Ruth had gone downstairs, and before long Winkie heard Ken’s and Cliff’s voices ascending, along with Ruth’s. “All right, let’s go get your pajamas,” she said, and for a moment Winkie felt almost safe, imagining bedclothes and the cozy blankets and pillows on the floor of the hall, like a sleepover. He seemed almost to be lying there already, snug and cared for …
“Is there going to be a flood?” Cliff asked, groggily. It was now well past his bedtime.
“Only in nigger neighborhoods,” Ken corrected him. “They won’t let it happen to our part of town.”
Winkie wondered if this could be true. Probably.
Ruth’s flashlight shown into the room again, and Cliff and Ken tiptoed in, as if hoping not to disturb the window that continued shaking loudly in the rain and wind. The pale Xs quivered and glowed. Ruth trained the fuzzy circle of light on the dresser so that Cliff could see—and it was then, just as the seven-year-old was pulling open the second drawer, that Winkie realized what should have been obvious: that Cliff intended to retrieve only his pajamas, not his bear, too.
The boy took what he’d come for, closed the drawer, and scurried out. Ken and Ruth followed, shutting the door behind them, leaving Winkie alone there with the darkness, the rattling glass, and the storm.
Rattle, rattle. A child had to live and a child had to grow and in growing he had to leave things behind, just as Winkie always had been left behind—and how could he think this time he wouldn’t be?
Betrayal and wind and blackness and rain and rattle.
Stupid, stupid, stupid for dreaming it wouldn’t be so with Cliff just like all the other times, this time which was also surely the last time and therefore final. Winkie was alone—stupid bear alone, stuffing and cloth alone, stupid hidden thoughts alone and fading to nothing in the storm—and that was what had to be and only a stupid bear would ever think it could be otherwise.
Winkie Page 10
