Benny: A Tale of a Christmas Toy (2 page)

The fans kicked out a stream of cool air. He
fiddled with the controls with his bare, numb fingers, trying to
get the heater to work. He had wanted to get it looked at before
the winter, but it was just another thing that got put to the
backburner until they got more money.

The truck hit a bump in the road, jostling
Benjamin and the Lindel's bag sitting next to him.

There was a whirring from inside the bag,
and then the boyish voice started up:

"Hello, I'm Bluebear Brother. I have lots of
stories to tell. If you would like to hear a story . . ."

The noise startled Benjamin. When he
realized what it was, he laughed. At the next red light, he reached
into the bag and pulled out the bear. He turned off the player and
set the bear on the vinyl seat next to him.

"You gave me quite a scare, Benny," he
said.

The bear, staring forward impassively,
rocked back and forth when they hit a pothole. The short fibers on
its muzzle rustled in the stream of air blowing from the vent.

Benjamin realized he was talking to a toy,
and felt sheepish. He remembered when he was kid, he had a yellow
lion he took everywhere. Yellow with a purple mane. Milo. That's
what he named him. He wondered what happened to that old lion. He
had many intimate conversations with him.

Then he thought, what the heck. He had to
talk about his problems to somebody. Pam was too much of a worrier,
and there was no way he could afford a therapist. Or stand to bare
his soul to one.

If he didn't get this weight off his
shoulders, he was going to go nuts.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Benny,"
he said. "The credit cards are maxed. My leads are all terrible. If
I don't . . ."

He trailed off as he passed a yellow sedan,
the woman inside gaping at him.

"This is nuts," he said. But he felt the
urge to continue: "Gotta do something, Benny. Find some money.
Maybe I should take another job. Real estate market is in the
toilet. I could always go back to bartending. What do you think?
Think I can do it and not drink? I think I'm beyond those days,
don't you?"

He looked at the bear, then chuckled when he
realized he was waiting for an answer.

"Well, you're probably right," he said. "Not
a good idea. And Pam would never allow it. But something. Maybe I
could work as a night stocker at the grocery store. I could also
ask for a loan from Dad, but I've already borrowed so much when we
bought the house . . ."

He paused as he noticed a man on a
motorcycle staring at him. After it rumbled passed, he
continued.

"Maybe I need to bag this whole real estate
gig altogether," he said. "It was just a pipe dream, being my own
broker. Think I'm crazy doing this?"

His pondered his own question the rest of
the way to the store. Pam definitely would have preferred he get
the typical nine to five job complete with benefits and 401K, but
that just hadn't been his style. He'd done that. Felt suffocated.
But now things were looking bleak, and he had both Pam and Annie to
worry about. He had to quell his restless spirit. All this worrying
wasn't helping anything. And then on top of that, he was never
around. Annie was growing up right under his eyes.

He was still pondering the question as he
parked in the parking garage, weaved through the hustling
post-Christmas crowds of Lindel's, and down to the basement where
the toy shop was. A piano instrumental of "Jingle Bells" played
over the store speakers. He found another Bluebear Brother in the
toy section, then fell into a line leading up to the counter.

"Exchange, sir?"

He looked up. A brunette in a sharp gray
suit looked at him expectantly. He nodded and placed the Lindel's
bag on the counter, along with the new Bluebear Brother.

"Yes, I need to return this," he said. "Its
mouth doesn't work. I want this one."

The girl was taking the broken Bluebear out
of the bag. As he watched her, something didn't feel right. It was
crazy, but he didn't want to give up the original Bluebear.
Benny
. But he had to take something back to Annie. He
couldn't bring back the broken one.

"Wait," he said.

"Sir?"

"Don't do an exchange."

"Hmm? Why?"

"I'll buy the new one, but I want to keep
the old one."

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand."

"I want them both. Just ring up the new one,
okay?"

He heard the tension in his own voice, and
he was embarrassed by it. It was just a silly bear. Why was he
acting this way?

The woman shrugged. She handed him Benny,
then rang up the new Bluebear Brother.

Benjamin paid with cash. He didn't want Pam
seeing it on his credit card statement.

* * * * *

Annie loved her new Bluebear Brother. She
decided to name this one Ryan, since there was a boy in
kindergarten named Ryan she liked. Over the next year, they bought
her a dozen different story sticks, and she listened to them all
until both Benjamin and Pam were sick of them. Hansel and Grettle.
Jack in the Beanstalk. Rip Van Winkle. All the old classic fairy
tales. But like so many of her toys, she lost interest in it,
moving on to tiny toy figures she collected by the dozens. At some
point, her Bluebear Brother was knocked off her shelf, and from
that point on the player didn't work. By the following Christmas,
it ended up in a box left out for the Salvation Army.

But Benjamin kept his Bluebear Brother. He
hid it the back of the closet in his attic office, in a box marked,
"Old Files."

When his troubles threatened to overwhelm
him, and when no one was around, he took it out and talked to
it.

About his problems.

About his dreams.

About how he didn't think he was much of a
father.

It always made him feel better talking to
Benny.

He never imagined Benny was listening.

* * * * *

For Annie's eighth birthday in February,
they bought her a bike. It was a red single-speed, with a banana
seat and jingling bell, and small enough that he couldn't ride it
without bumping his knees on the handlebars. She rode it for a few
months with training wheels, but she kept pestering Benjamin to
teach her how to ride it without them. She said the other kids made
fun of her.

The market had turned, and he had lots of
listings now, so he was having a hard time finding the time.
Finally, on a spring day in March, and after much nagging from Pam,
he relented.

After he brought her home from kindergarten,
they walked her bike down the driveway past the rhododendrons
blooming bright red, crossed Orchard Street, which was too busy for
her to ride on, to the flat section of Trellis Avenue.

The sun glistened on the newly-paved black
asphalt. To the left, out in front of the weathered brick cottage
lived in for the past twenty years by Mrs. Gornan, a widow, was a
grove of apple trees in full bloom. The white petals spotted the
tall wet grass. The rest of the houses were simple, one-floor
ranches, on much smaller lots, and lined Trellis Street up and over
the hill. Their own house was up on a little bluff, and he could
see the top windows of the second floor — where his office was —
peeking over the arbor vita. The pine shadowing the house listed
back and forth in the breeze.

There was no one else outside. He helped
Annie on the bike, gripping the metal bar in the back. They had
mopped off the bike with a towel, but the bar was still cool and
damp from being left out on the back deck at night.

"Sure you're ready for this, pumpkin?" he
said.

"Oh yes, Daddy."

Not even a hint of fear in her voice. So
like her mother that way.

"Okay, let's practice a bit," he said.
"Concentrate on staying balanced."

She bent low like a racer, grasping the
handlebars so tightly her knuckles turned white. The sun glared off
her yellow helmet. He pushed her up and down the street a few
times, holding the bar the whole time.

"Ready to try a little?"

"Okay."

He waited until they faced away from Orchard
Street, then let go for a few seconds. When she started to wobble,
he grabbed the bar again.

"You did it there."

"I did?"

"You did."

"Do it again."

He let go. This time, because she seemed to
be doing so well, he let her get a little ahead of him. It turned
out to be a mistake. Annie rode for a little ways, then turned and
rode inexplicably into the curb. A second later she was on the
ground, balling, her elbows bleeding.

He pulled the bike off her and helped her to
her feet. Pulling her against his chest, he said, "It's okay,
honey. Shh."

When she stopped crying, he turned them back
toward the house.

That's when he saw Benny.

Later, he would replay the moment a hundred
times in his mind. There was something blue in his office window,
something obscured by the glint of the sun. At first, he thought it
was a trick of light, but as he peered closer he saw the blue fur.
The white muzzle. The black shiny eyes. It was standing in the
windowsill, looking directly at them.

Benny.

His breath caught in his throat. He stopped
walking. It was just standing there, not moving. It must have been
a joke. Pam's joke. He started to laugh. Annie tugged on the leg of
his jeans.

"What's wrong?"

He glanced down at her — only a second,
hardly long enough to blink — and then looked back up at his office
window.

Benny was gone.

"I thought I saw . . ."

He didn't finish. It was crazy.

* * * * *

After cleaning Annie up and sitting her down
in front of the television with some grape Kool-Aid, he climbed the
creaky wooden stairs to his office. He couldn't stop thinking about
what he saw. He could have tossed it off as a practical joke by Pam
— she didn't do many, but she surprised him now and then — but then
it vanished with no one in the house. There was no way to explain
that.

The office, an attic conversion with little
ventilation, was cramped and warm. It was bad enough in the spring,
but by the summer it would be so sweltering that he would barely be
able to stand being in it.

He was surprised to find his heart pounding
as he flicked on the light. Mounds of paper covered his faux-pine
desk and two metal filing cabinets, but nothing looked disturbed.
The sliding closet door was shut just as he'd left it.

Nervously, he slid open the door and peered
into the shadowy interior. The walls inside were unfinished wood,
and smelled strongly of pine. His plastic bins, his white filing
boxes, even his guitar — all were as he left them. He opened the
"Old Files" box and looked cautiously inside.

Benny was there, lifeless and still on his
back, just as Benjamin left him. What, four days ago?

He pulled Benny, gently massaging the soft
fur with his thumbs.

"Are you getting out of your box?" he
said.

He looked for any reaction in the toy. The
eyes stared upward, lifeless. This was nuts. It was crazy enough
talking to it, but now he was thinking it was alive.

Turning it over, he unzipped the back pouch
and checked the batteries. As he expected, they were missing. He
had taken them out and used them in Annie's Bluebear Brother, and
never bothered to replace the ones in Benny.

He settled into his squeaky swivel chair,
placing the toy, sitting, on the desk in front of him. The shadow
from the paned window behind him cast a dark stripe over the bear's
eyes, as if it was wearing mask.

"I saw you from the window, Benny," he said.
"I saw you watching. What are you up to?"

The bear didn't answer. Benjamin sat there a
long time, studying his own distorted reflection in the bear's
eyes.

He was going to toss it off as a fluke of
his tired mind. Too much work. Too little sleep. And after a few
weeks, he'd convinced himself this was true

Then there was the accident.

* * * * *

Three months later, Benjamin was on the
phone in his office, trying to arrange a pest and dry rot
inspection on a golf course house that would be a whopper payday
when it sold. The oscillating fan on his desk cooled his face, but
felt the beads of sweat rolling down his back. Through the open
window, he listened to Annie playing with some of the neighborhood
kids across the street.

Now and then he glanced outside and saw her
riding her bike up and down Trellis Avenue, so proud without her
training wheels. He thought she'd be fine. With school out, there
were plenty of kids out there.

When he got off the phone, his throat
parched, he went downstairs to get something to drink. He drank two
glasses of ice water, and, feeling a little punch drunk, sat to
rest on the couch. His cotton shirt stuck to his back. Outside, he
heard children laughing and yelling. The stillness of the house
lulled him to sleep.

A loud crash outside snapped him awake.

His heart pounding, he sat there, taking in
the sounds: a car horn blaring non-stop, children screaming, a girl
crying . . .

His girl.

Annie.

He rushed outside. Using his hand to shield
his eyes from the sun, he looked down the drive. There, to his
horror, he saw Annie in the middle of the street. The red bike was
draped over her.

He ran down the drive. He looked for the
car, knowing he heard a car, and saw it down at the end of the
street — a green Ford Thunderbird, an older model from the
eighties, crumpled against a telephone poll. It was facing their
way, and it looked like it hadn't made it to Annie. The horn
continued to blare. Behind the glare of the sun on the cracked
windshield, he saw someone moving.