Teddy's Nightmare

 

Teddy’s Nightmare

 

A framed bear’s arm adorned the wall like a trophy, honoring the human spirit and the struggle to survive. 

* * * 

I looked down the hallway in this old abandoned building in Detroit where I grew up. The paint was chipped and a few scraps of wallpaper still clung to the wall. Sad to think this now noiseless complex was once a vibrant apartment building filled with children’s laughter. 

            I spent time here as a child visiting my cousin Connor. We ran through the halls playing hide-n-seek or tag. Connor had a Teddy Bear. He was seven and despite his age he carried his bear wherever he went. The birth of the Teddy bear had been propelled into popularity by President Teddy Roosevelt’s refusal to shoot a bear tied to a tree. It was unsportsmanlike. Kids outnumbered adults and ruled this building. No one paid attention until Connor went missing on June 14, 1903. They found his Teddy bear with one missing arm, lying on the ground next to the dumpster. We knew it was Connor’s because his name was on the bottom of the bear’s foot.

            He claimed his Teddy protected him. We believed him until he vanished on that warm summer day. Kids played outside all day, only checking in when they got hungry. Sometimes they went home for lunch. Other times they ate at a friend place. No one became concerned unless you weren’t home for dinner. Connor never came home that night. 

            A missing boy was shocking news but quickly faded away when the Wright brothers made their first successful flight on December 17, 1903. Like many decades there was bad news and good news and whether it’s right or not, the big news, always took the limelight. The Wright brothers flight was really big news.

            I never forgot my cousin but learned to live with hope for the future. His mom gave me his ragged Teddy bear. I kept it in a chest in my room that was opened once a year on Connor’s birthday.  

            It was 1908 when Henry Ford’s first production Model-T was built. I lived in Detroit and was only fifteen years old when I went to the plant to get a job as a runner. It was a long shot but it paid off. They hired me that day to run parts from one line to another. I didn’t make a lot, but it was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up. 

            It was hard living in those days, so I took every opportunity to make money. I learned to paint houses. It was easy work but took time. I offered my services to many of the full time workers who preferred drinking in the local bars rather than maintaining their homes. 

A foreman hired me to do some painting and everything was going well until I showed up to get paid, and he brushed me off with a promise. I wasn’t about to work for nothing, so I pestered him for payment, but he angrily resisted and threatened me. He told me he would have me fired at Ford if I didn’t back off. Getting fired would have been devastating, but I also wanted him to pay me for the job I did. 

I followed him home from the bar many nights, but without any plan on what I needed to do in order to get paid. I planned to talk to his wife about the money he owed me, but found out she’d left months ago. Then one night, I watched him stumble on to the porch and into the house. He left the door ajar, so it wasn’t locked. He was dead drunk with no wife in the house. 

I knew it wasn’t right but it also wasn’t right for him to stiff me out of the money he owed me, so I snuck in the front door. He hadn’t made it more than three steps into the house before he collapsed on the floor. I tiptoed past him and as quietly as possible searched through the kitchen, looking in the cookie jar, refrigerator, on top of the cabinets, wherever I thought he would hide money. Then I went to the desk in the living room and reached in the bottom drawer. I felt something fuzzy and yanked my hand back thinking it was a dead mouse, but peered into the drawer and saw that it was a Teddy bear’s arm. The shock of seeing it made my head spin and fall to the floor. Lucky for me, the drunk didn’t even flinch. 

I sat there for a few minutes trying to piece this together. It could be nothing but a weird coincidence. I reached back in the drawer and took the bear’s arm. I wanted to see if it matched Connor’s bear at home. Once I regained my composure I left quickly and quietly through the front door.

Upon arriving home I was anxious and apprehensive about taking the bear out of the chest. I sat for an hour before I reached in and pulled out Connor’s teddy. Surprised and shocked, it was a perfect match. It had the same tear pattern. Now, what was I going to do?

            Going to the police wasn’t an option. I had no proof of anything. I was just a kid with a wild imagination—that's what they would think. Plus, if I told them how I got the bear’s arm I’d be charged with breaking and entering. I needed more proof that this guy was involved in my cousin’s disappearance. I had to go back and find something to show the police, proving he was a kidnapper. 

On the next trip I planned to take a flashlight and pry bar. Turning the house lights on might give me away so the flashlight would be needed when I went into the basement. I didn’t know it at the time, but the pry bar turned out to be invaluable. 

I stalked the guy for five days before another opportunity came along to enter his house. It was a Friday night, a big night for him since he didn’t go to work Saturday. He drank more at the start of a weekend. He was a consistent and reliable drunk, so I felt any blunders I made that night would go unnoticed.

The front door was open so I entered as I did the first time. He was again sprawled out on the floor, but this time he had knocked over an oil lamp, that spilled onto the rug. He had a bloody gash in his head from the broken glass.

I stepped around his body and immediately went down the stairs into the basement. Each tread creaked, growing louder with every step. I paused to listen for movement upstairs, but when I heard none I proceeded to the bottom. 

As I searched through the rubbish, I tripped over a piece of plywood lying on the floor. My ears buzzed when I heard moaning. I listened closely and used the pry bar to move the plywood, exposing a pit. The moaning got louder.

            When I looked into the pit, I saw a withered body, barely clothed. It was Connor, left for dead, and struggling to live. I found an old wooden ladder and used it to climb down into the pit and lifted him on my back. When I reached down and picked him up, I was shocked how little he weighed, no more than five gallon buckets of paint I carried to job sites. I hoisted him over my shoulder and climbed the rickety ladder.

I was so focused on getting my cousin out of the pit, I hadn’t noticed the drunk was now awake and in the basement. He didn’t see us climb out of the pit. With Connor on my back, we quietly made our way to the steps. When the drunk heard the steps creak, he charged us. I threw the pry bar at him. It bounced off his knee and landed on the ground in front of him. He stepped on it and stumbled backwards into the open pit. 

When we got upstairs, flames leaped and smoke filled the room, blocking our exit. We barely escaped through the back door with our lives.

The fire department later determined a lit cigarette started the blaze. The oil soaked rug was the wick that fed the fire. We left through the back door. 

The drunk died that night. The fire department found human bones, small underdeveloped bones, like those of children in the basement. Some had been used to make lamp bases and ashtrays. There was also a bone wind chime. What went on in this house was beyond belief. The circumstances compelled the police to try to locate the wife, until they discovered bones from an adult woman in the basement.  

We celebrated Connor’s thirteenth birthday on August 30, 1909, two weeks after I pulled him out of the cellar pit. 

My life changed after that traumatic experience. I worked as a forensic investigator for the city of Detroit until retirement. Connor gave me his Teddy bear, which I proudly displayed it in my office.

It took Connor many years to recover from his five years in captivity, but with the help of his family and friends, he not only survived, but also excelled in everyway. He became a prosecuting attorney for the city of Detroit.

The Teddy bear’s arm proudly hung on the wall of Connor’s office. It was a perpetual reminder of his past never to be forgotten. A memory that led him to a career he never imagined.