Ben the Bear

Y MAMA HAS BEEN BAD AGAIN. I know because he’s yelling at her. She is always bad on Fridays and Saturdays, almost always. He’s gone those days, like he is every day. Don’t matter if he’s working or not, Mama says, he’s gone, just leaves. But it’s when he comes back on those nights, in the middle of the night, when I wake to the breaking things, thumps against the walls and him yelling and my mama screaming, that I know she has been bad again.

I know that my mama says he’s my father and I know that he sometimes, on good days, calls me son. I don’t think he likes me too much most days.

He works all day during the week for my granddad putting roofs on houses, comes home to my mama and me when he gets done. Red face from the sun, sweaty, his eyes almost shut like it’s hard for him to see.

Supper’s always ready when he walks in, it’s his rule for Mama. The house smells of fried pork chops or tomatoes and roast beef. I don’t talk. I just go to my room and shut the door when he walks in. That’s my rule.

I always wait in my room, almost always sit in the chair Dad bought for me when he went to Mexico. Chair’s little and made just for me. With my TV tray pulled up, I like to look out the window at the squirrels playing in the big oak tree or watch Mr. Sheppard next door working in his yard. Sometimes I can hear him talking to himself and sometimes he doesn’t walk too good. He doesn’t much care for me but I still like to watch him.

My mama always brings me my supper. She likes to pet the top of my head before she leaves. I eat by myself. She said I can’t eat with them because he’s tired and he wants quiet. Mama looked like something was wrong when she told me that, like she had been stung by a fire ant. I was lonely at first because I don’t see her again until she takes my plate away, then later when she kisses me goodnight and tucks me in.

Sometimes Mama watches me sleep. Well, she thinks I’m asleep but I’m just pretending. She’ll open the door real quiet and watch. But one time I half-opened my eyes and it wasn’t Mama but my father. He had a smile on his face and then he shut the door. I think he wants to be good to me sometimes but can’t. Don’t know why.

But then one day Mama brought Ben the bear and now I’m not so lonely.

He’s a big bear, almost as big as me. He’s got chocolate brown fur all over. Friendly round face and little furry ears. I was eating one day in my room when my mama brought him in. Eating and humming a song that I heard watching cartoons. That’s what I like to do in my room. Not just hum, but I’ll sing too. Songs Maw Maw sings to me when I’m over there, or songs from Mama’s records she plays when she gets home from work, which is way before he gets home.

She brought him in, hiding him behind her back but it didn’t work because I saw the brown fur sticking out. Ben is a big bear.

“Hey, baby, got a new friend for you.”

She showed me the bear and I dropped my fork and ran up and hugged it.

“Thank you, Mama, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, sugar. What you gonna name him?”

“Ben! I want to name him Ben! Like Grizzly Adams, Mama!”

“Okay, Calvin, okay. Finish your supper and I’ll be back in a little bit.” And she left, closing the door quiet.

That was a long time ago, now me and Ben go everywhere together. When Mama goes to work she takes me and Ben to Maw Maw and Dad’s house. Maw Maw will take me to preschool and come pick me up, but Mama always gets me when she’s done working. To all the different places I go every day, Ben goes too.

I like Maw Maw. She lets me go outside and play with their dogs or with all the toys that Dad buys me. Me and Ben are never bored over there. They have a big backyard with a pecan tree. I set Ben up on a branch while I let Dusty, my favorite dog, out to play. He’s a fox terrier and follows me wherever I go.

I don’t get to see Dad a whole lot because he’s always working. He drives around and tells people what to do when they’re putting roofs on houses. He drives a brown truck with ladders on it, but he also has a big red dump truck with six wheels at his work. He always lets me sit in the cab when they’re not using it.