The Little Yellow Bear

He threw his army-surplus duffel bag in the back of the old rusted Dodge pick-up truck, hopped in after it and sat down against the tailgate. Sitting this way always reminded him of his mom warning him as a child not to sit there for fear the tailgate would open and he would fall out of the truck. But sitting backwards always made him carsick and he no longer cared if he fell out of the truck or not. He took his threadbare and dirty cap off, pulled his long curly hair into a ponytail and tucked it under the cap. the gears in the old truck's transmission ground together as the driver shoved it into gear. He closed his eyes as the wind picked up and held his hands on top of his head to keep his cap on. And he thought of her.

They had met at a party at a friend's lake-house. She had worn a red dress and her long, wavy brown hair flowed over bare shoulders and although she had walked in with another man, he had been unable to take his eyes off her until he got her alone. Late in the party he had persuaded her to go for a walk with him and they ended up sitting on the pier talking all night, forgetting about the rest of the party. Neither of them realized how long they had been talking until they were shielding their eyes from the early morning sun reflected off the lake and she suddenly realized she had to be at work in less than an hour. They swapped phone numbers and she agreed to go out with him the next weekend.

He was unable to think of anything but her for the entire week. The time he had spent with her kept replaying itself in his mind like a scene in a movie and he knew that he wanted to spend every waking moment with her. He thought he had been in love before, but now he was certain those prior experiences were nothing more than brief infatuations and now he had finally found real love. She made him aware that part of himself had been missing, much like a jigsaw puzzle that was missing several pieces and he knew that without her, he would forever be incomplete.

A little less than a year after they were married, she had become pregnant. He was right there with her in the delivery room, holding her hand and telling her to breathe and that she was going to be all right, that everything was going to be all right and nagging the doctors to tell him every little thing that was happening. When he heard his son's first screams he was sure that it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. Tears were streaming down his face as he cut the umbilical cord.

Forty-five days later, his world shattered. It was an otherwise beautiful Saturday morning. Birds were singing outside his window. The sunshine streaming in the windows cast long shadows across the floor. But something wasn't right. He checked the time. Ten-thirty in the morning. The baby had usually woken him up by now. When he looked in the cradle, he instantly knew what was wrong. Sometime in the past several hours his son had died. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the doctors said.

For two straight weeks after that, he had stayed drunk. Even at the funeral he had been drinking. He told himselv it was the only way he could handle it. He would never see his son's first step. Never hear his first word. Never teach him to fish or to shave. Never go to Boy Scout meetings. His son would never have a birthday party. he would never play Little League or have a girlfriend.

He eventually lost his job with the power plant he had gone to work for straight out of college. His depression and the hangovers had caused him to become inattentive and too many safety regulations had been violated. Christmas proved too painful and he and his wife split up. He tried to move on, patch his life back together, tried to restore his relationship with her, but things just didn't work out. On his son's birthday he called her, tried to talk to her, tried to tell her that he needed her and that they needed each other. But she wouldn't talk to him and he spent the day drinking and staring at a stuffed yellow teddy bear that played a sad, pretty song when squeezed. it was the only thing his son had played with before he died.

With no job, no family, and no real life, he just packed up and started hitchhiking. He's searching, but he doesn't know for what. All he carries with him is his ID, a change of clothing, a picture of his wife holding their newborn son, and the little stuffed bear. He doesn't know where he's going and doesn't really care. Right now he's sitting in the back of an old pickup going wherever the ride takes him. The wind roars in his ears and whispers things of the past to him and he tells himself it's only the wind causing the tears to stream down his face.