Patrick F. McManus - The Bear in the Attic

Table of Contents

T he little girl rattled on ceaselessly and seamlessly, the lack of even the slightest pause relieving me of any need to respond or, mercifully, to listen. Mostly, she talked to the teddy bear that sat alongside her in the backseat of the car, strapped in with its own seat belt. In a moment of mild insanity, or possibly only laxity of alertness, I had been beguiled into baby-sitting the little girl while her mother and grandmother went shopping. Her name was Devon. She was a nice little girl, very pretty and I think quite bright, perhaps too much so. I felt sorry for her, having a grandmother and mother so irresponsible as to leave her in my care. Thats the problem with women these days, no sense of responsibility. Their civility could use a bit of touching up, too, if you ask me. Well, I had predicted this eventual turn of events. Once they get shoes and escape from the kitchen, I said, theyll take over the world and

Grampa! Im talking to you!

Hunh? Oh, sorry, Devon. I was distracted there for moment. What is it?

I said Teddy and I really liked the pool hall. Can we go there again sometime?

Perhaps, darlin, perhaps. But we dont call it a pool hall, do we now? What is it we call it?

The library!

Thats right, sweetheart, the library.

I really liked that big black man who let me sit up on the counter and mixed me Shirley Temples to drink.

Yes, Ernies a very nice man. Hes the head librarian. Now, why dont you tell your bear a story? I bet he would love to hear you tell him a story. I would, too.

No! I want you to tell us both a story.

Oh, I would much prefer that you told the story.

Pool hall!

But if you really want me to, I guess I could. What would you like the story to be about?

A bear! Do you know any stories about a bear?

A bear. Why, yes, come to think of it, I do. If you would just shutbe really quiet for a few minutes, dear, while Grampa concentrates, Ill even show you where the story took place.

It had been years since Id driven out to Birchwood, partly because it made me sad to do so. Many of the fine old homes of the early timber barons had now been turned into apartment houses. The occupants of others had adorned the spacious lawns with an assortment of broken automobiles and discarded appliances, a style of landscape design I like to think of as North Idaho Gothic. A few had simply been abandoned to the whims and guiles of the weather. The majestic birches that gave the neighborhood its name were gone, too, cut down because of disease or possibly the need for firewood. Birchwood reminded me of a dog Id once owned. As a puppy, he was completely white with a brown tip on his tail. When he grew up, the tip vanished, and so we were alwaysexplaining to visitors why we had named him Tippy. The present residents of Birchwood no doubt were forever making similar explanations about the name of their neighborhood. Birchwood didnt have a birch in sight.

At last we came to the mansion of my aunt Lucy and uncle Charles Winslow, which wasnt a mansion really but what had seemed like one to me when I was growing up on a tiny stump farm a few miles away. While my family raised essentially the same crop of stumps each year, Uncle Charles and Aunt Lucy wallowed in wealth, wallow being my mothers word for describing the affluence of her brother and sister-in-law. If some porcine connotation clings to the word, it was perhaps unintended on Moms part. Indeed, the Winslows were more than generous with our family, the more so after my father died. Heaping charity upon us at every opportunity, they gave till it hurt, yet another innocent cruelty with which to afflict the poor.

Uncle Charles was an executive, perhaps even the president for all I know, of a timber company, by far the largest establishment in all of Blight County. Im not sure whether Blight City ever produced a high society as such, but if so, Uncle Charles and Aunt Lucy surely must have enjoyed a lofty perch in it.

Oh! exclaimed Devon. Is that it? Is that the house? It looks terrible! Is it haunted?

If a ghost still resided in the old Victorian, it would have been the only inhabitant in a long while. Windows were broken out, the front door hung from a single hinge, and a squadron of swallows appeared to be flying sorties from a base in the living room. The attic window remained intact. I glanced at it, then quickly away, not wishing to glimpse anything behind its leaded glass.

I personally saw only one ghost there, I told Devon. I doubt its still around. We could go in and see, if you like.

No! Just tell the story!

Oh, all right. Its kind of scary, though. I dont want yourmother and grandmother yelling at me, because you refuse to go to sleep without the light on. Promise not to blab?

I promise. Now tell the darn story!

The story starts with my cousin Chucky, I began.

I thought it was about a bear.

It is about a bear. We get to the bear later. First, I have to tell you about Chucky.

As I explained to Devon, I must confess here that I personally did not witness all the events in this report. I was on hand for many of them, though, and have scrupulously maintained the highest degree of accuracy in reporting whatever I personally witnessed. Over the years I have also accumulated numerous firsthand accounts from various other participants and observers, many of whom had slipped into the grip of compulsive if not pathological reminiscence, usually an unbearable bore but in this instance quite useful. Eventually, all the recollections and bits and chunks of information reached critical mass and melded into the following account, beginning with my cousin Chucky, as I indicated to Devon.

Chucky must have been eight years older than I, because I had just finished doing a stretch in fifth grade when Chucky turned eighteendraft age! It was 1942 with World War Two still accelerating toward full momentum. I loved that war. Well, I loved it after I became fairly certain we were going to win it. Years later, as I myself approached draft age, I began to see the folly of sending youth such as myself off to foreign lands to risk life and limb. At the time of this memoir, however, I was still enamored of war.

Now heres what I thought was so unfair. I loved the war, Chucky hated it, but hes the one who got to go, scooped up by the draft to be blown off to some great adventure in exotic lands. My cousin was a pale, puffy fellow, with sparse blond hair and fat red lips, the kind of pouty lips a girl might love, if they were attached to her face instead of his. It is my opinion that women did not find Chucky particularly attractive, hismother being an extreme exception. He was not simply the apple of Aunt Lucys eye but the whole basket of fruit.