Tunes for Bears to Dance To

  In the store Mr. Hairston grunted as Henry said, “Good afternoon.” The grocer busied himself with paperwork at the cash register and did not look up.

  Henry went to the cellar and began to put up the potatoes. He worked listlessly, taking no pride in the job, filling the bags automatically, weighing them without interest, adding a few potatoes or taking some interest, adding a few potatoes or taking some away until the scale registered fifteen pounds. He did not even keep his eye out for rats.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened, spilling light down on the steps. Henry looked up and saw the figure of Mr. Hairston silhouetted in the door way.

  “You want to keep your job?” The grocer’s voice boomed down as if he were shouting in a tunnel.

  Henry nodded, staring up into the shadow that was Mr. Hairston’s body.

  “Say yes or no,” the voice commanded.

  Henry swallowed, cleared his throat, said, “Yes.” Then again: “yes.” Not waiting the grocer to misunderstand.

  “Good,” Mr. Hairston said. “Work hard this afternoon. Before you leave, I’ll tell you how you can keep your job.”

  Customers streamed in and out of the store that afternoon, the cash register constantly ringing. Mr. Hairston waited on them eagerly, exchanging pleasantries about the weather, making small jokes, laughing now and then. Henry had never seen him so cheerful. He did not make his usual rude remarks after the customers left. Hummed as he worked at his figures.

  Finally, at the end of the day, Mr. Hairston closed the front door and lowered the shade that said closed on the outside. Henry waited by the cash register Mr. Hairston went to the counter and pulled out the drawer. He reached in and withdrew the sketch, held it up for Henry to see. The terrible X had been removed; only smudges remained as a reminder of its existence.

  “Do you see the X mark has been removed?”

  Henry nodded, perplexed.

  “You peeked at it, right? I knew you would be sneaky and peek at it. That’s why I put the X on it. You only appreciate something when you think you have lost it. I wanted you to appreciate it.”

  But I did appreciate it , Henry thought, wondering why Mr. Hairston would do a thing like that.

  Mr. Hairston placed the sketch on the counter, looking down at Henry with those merciless eyes.

  “You don’t want to lose your job, do you?” he asked.

  Henry shook his head, swallowing hard as if something was stuck in his throat.

  “You also want a monument—this beautiful monument here”—indicating the sketch—“for your brother’s grave.”

  Henry nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “Fine,” the grocer said. “You can keep your job.”

  The late afternoon sun blazed through the window, exposing dust motes in the air, dust that would later settle on the shelves.

  “The monument for your brother? I spoke to my friend who drew the sketch. He will make that monument. With the best stone from a quarry in Vermont. It will be my gift to you.”

  Astounded, Henry thought, But for what?

  The question echoed in Henry’s mind before he asked it. “But for what?”

  “A simple thing.”

  What simple thing?

  “What do I have to do?”

  “What you have to do is easy,” Mr. Hairston said, leaning back against the wall, eyes half closed, as if envisioning what Henry had to do. “It requires no skill at all, just a bit of effort. Maybe a bit of cunning. I know that Canucks are not famous for cunning, a bit stupid in fact, not cunning like the kikes. But everybody has a bit of it….”

  Henry waited, blinking away the insults, not sure what cunning meant, “What I want you to do is this,” Mr. Hairston said, looking directly at Henry. “I want you to go to that craft center one day next week. On any day you choose. In the afternoon.”

  “But I work for you in the afternoon.”

  “That day you won’t. But I’ll pay you just the same.”

  “Okay,” Henry said, puzzled, frowning, a bit uneasy.

  “When the center closes for the day—you said it closes at six o’clock you stay behind, without being seen.”

  “But how can I do that? They’ll see me if I don’t leave.”

  “Hide,” Mr. Hairston said, impatient suddenly. “There must be a place to hide. You’re a small boy. Maybe in the bathroom. Or there must be a back room in the place.”

  “There’s a storeroom,” Henry said, and immediately regretted mentioning the storeroom because he was not certain that he wanted to hide anywhere at all at the center.

  “Fine. The important thing is to stay behind, out of sight when the others leave.”

  Henry looked at the window; saw Mr. Selsky in his three-piece blue serge suit sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store across the street.

  “You wait awhile. To make sure everyone’s gone. Then you come out. …”

  Henry pictured himself in the evening shadows of the center. It would be spooky, he thought.

  “Then you find a hammer. There must be a hammer there, right? You said they have tools of all kinds there. All right, find a hammer. Or even an ax. Something like that …”

  Has he gone mad? Henry thought.

  “What do I do with the hammer?”

  “I want you to take the hammer and smash the old man’s village. Smash it, break it….”

  Henry recoiled as if Mr. Hairston had struck him in the stomach, taking his breath away.

  “What’s the matter?” Mr. Hairston asked, eyes like slits, eyebrows touching each other over the bridge of his nose.

  Henry could not speak, wincing as he pictured the old man’s beloved village smashed and broken by a hammer.

  “All right, all right,” Mr. Hairston said. “It sounded terrible when I said it like that. But we’re not talking about a real village here. It’s a fake village.”

  “I can’t do that,” Henry managed to utter.

  “Sure you can. It’s not like you were destroying real property. The village is a toy. The figures the old man made are toy figures. All toys get broken after a while.”

  “But this is like the old man’s own village. Where he grew up. Where his family lived. It means the whole world to him….”

  “Listen, it will do him good,” Mr. Hairston said. “You told me he was just about finished, didn’t you? What will he do now? He’ll be unhappy with nothing to do. This way he can rebuild the village, do it all over again, find more pleasure in it. Remember how you said he loses himself in his work? That he’s happy when he uses his tools? Well, he’ll have a chance to use them again. You see?”

  Henry didn’t see. But he saw in his mind the destruction of the village and it was a terrible vision, the buildings shattered, the figures broken.

  Then jubilantly he saw a way out.

  “The village won’t be there anymore,” he said. “Mr. Levine won first prize in a contest the city held.” Excitement growing in him: “The village is going on display at City Hall.”

  “When’s this happening?” the grocer asked suspiciously, as if Henry was merely making excuses.

  “Saturday,” he replied. “There’s going to be a big ceremony. The mayor will be there.”

  Surely Mr. Hairston could not deny the old man his moment of glory.

  “We have time,” the grocer said. “Today is Wednesday. You can do it tomorrow night. Or Friday, at the latest.”

  “No,” Henry cried out, louder than he had intended, the word hanging in the air, echoing in his ears.

  Mr. Hairston’s eyes flashed at him. For a moment Henry feared that the grocer would actually hit him. Instead he sighed, and when he spoke his voice was calm, almost gentle.

  “Don’t make a decision now, Henry. Think about it awhile. Think about it tonight. And think about this: If I can’t trust you to do this little thing for me, how can I trust you anymore here in the store?” Full of regret. “Don’t you see? I will have to let you go. No more paychecks to help at home.
No monument for your brother.” Tenderly, softly: “Know what else, Henry? I will have to spread the word about you to other merchants. That you are not to be trusted. No one will ever hire you again. Or even let you enter their store.” Almost whispering: “The principal of your school? A friend of mine. I will have to tell him to keep his eye on you. Who knows? Maybe you cheat at school. Someone who can’t be trusted often cheats.”

  Henry listened, dumbfounded, to the grocer’s horrible words, made all the more horrible by his tender, gentle voice. He knew without any doubt that Mr. Hairston was capable of doing exactly what he had said he would do.

  The grocer cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, as if he had just concluded a satisfying piece of business with a customer, “that’s the way things stand, Henry. Of course, none of it has to happen. And it would be too bad to do all those things. All I want you to do is break a little toy village. Is that so much to ask for all that I’ll do for you?”

  Before Henry could speak—and he was not sure that he could speak—the grocer held up his hand, like a teacher calling for silence. “No, don’t say anything. Think about it, Henry, as I said. Think of all the good things and then the bad things. If you speak now, you might say something you’ll regret later. Think it over tonight. At home. In bed. Give me your answer tomorrow.”

  Henry nodded in agreement, wanting only to get out of this place, away from Mr. Hairston and his suggestions, far far away from his awful plan.

  “Don’t say anything to anybody,” the grocer cautioned as Henry made for the door. “Whether you do this thing for me or not, if you open your mouth to anyone, all those bad things will happen. Maybe worse …”

  The grocer kept on speaking, but Henry was already out the door.

  He lifted the sledgehammer above his head the huge tool so heavy that it almost threw him backward. Gathering his strength, he slammed the hammer down on the village smashing two houses and a barn, sending splinters of wood through the air. The sound was enormous, like a bomb foiling and exploding. He paused to inspect the damage before lifting the hammer again and saw a figure coming out of the farmhouse. The figure was Mr. Levine, his cap flying from his head, running frantically, looking up in horror as Henry raised the hammer.

  A moan of pity and dread came from his mouth as he prepared to smash more of the village, but this time the heavy sledgehammer did throw him backward, to the floor, and he woke up in bed, heart racing, the damp sheet clinging to his body, pressed across his mouth suffocatingly. He leapt from the dream, found himself sitting up, moonlight like a white shroud on the floor, his entire body moist. His fingers trembled as he ran them through his hair.

  His mother, who always slept lightly, a part of her always awake it seemed, called from the next room. “Is that you, Henry? Is something wrong?”

  He realized he must have cried out in his sleep. “I had a bad dream, Ma.”

  She appeared at the doorway, ghostlike, a wraith.

  “Want some cocoa?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  But he was not all right. He dreaded going back to sleep, afraid that the dream would resume and he would go on demolishing the village all night long. While the old man ran from the hammer.

  “Ma,” he said tentatively, thinking that perhaps now in the hush of nighttime he could talk to her about Mr. Hairston’s plan.

  “What, Henry? What’s the matter?”

  He did not answer but slipped reluctantly under the sheet. He still could not put into words what Mr. Hairston had suggested.

  “Want to tell me about the dream?” she said, advancing into the room, her face pale in the moonlight, her dark eyes like two small black caves in her face. “They say if you tell your dream, it won’t come back again.”

  How he longed to tell her his dream. And tell her, too, of his dilemma, the decision he had to make. Instead, he drew the sheet up to his eyes, trying to make himself small in the bed.

  “I can barely remember it,” he lied, because the sight of the old man scurrying from his house in horror still raced across his mind.

  She stroked his head, bent and kissed his forehead. “I’ll be awake awhile.”

  He thought of the empty bed without his father in it awaiting his return. “I’m sorry, Ma,” he said. Sorry about so many things he could do nothing about. And now this terrible thing Mr. Hairston wanted him to do.

  “Try to think nice thoughts,” his mother said, smoothing the sheet as if her hand was treading water.

  He tried to think nice thoughts as he huddled in bed, waiting for sleep to come, but could think only of Mr. Hairston and the store. He had often wondered why Mr. Hairston had hired him to work in the store, why he had kept his job open for him when he hurt his leg. Now he knew. When Henry applied for the job, Mr. Hairston had asked, “Can you follow orders? Whether you like them or not?” Henry had answered with a resounding “Yes.” “I’ll remember that,” the grocer had said, his eyes boring into Henry’s. He had been looking for someone like Henry and had found him.

  Just before he fell off to sleep, Henry thought for the first time: But why? Why did Mr. Hairston want the old man’s village destroyed? Weariness plucked at him with gentle fingers, however, and he drifted off gratefully, giving himself over to the merciful blankness of sleep.

  Mr. Hairston’s calendar on the wall next to the cigarette case was a one-day-at-a-time calendar, showing in big black numbers the date and, in smaller type, the day of the week. Henry’s eyes went automatically to the calendar whenever he entered the store, and today was no exception except for the small shock of the number 28 and the bigger shock of Thursday.

  The grocer looked up as Henry entered, then went back to adding up a customer’s order. But as Henry made his way toward the rear of the store, he felt the grocer’s eyes following him. Or was this his imagination? How can you feel someone’s eyes upon you? Mr. Hairston’s eyes were not like anyone else’s, however.

  Henry fled to the cellar, glad now for his chore of putting up potatoes, listening to the footsteps above, grateful for the customers who kept the grocer busy. Finally, the potatoes were all packed in the bags and Henry reluctantly went back upstairs.

  Later, as he rearranged the fruit at the back of the store, he became aware of the silence that meant the absence of customers. He heard Mr. Hairston’s footsteps as he left the register and began to walk toward the back of the store. Finally the grocer’s shadow fell across the ascending pyramid of oranges.

  “Two things,” Mr. Hairston said, while Henry continued to work at the fruit.

  “Look at me, boy” he ordered.

  Henry turned around but avoided the grocer’s eyes, concentrating on the buttons of his white coat.

  “First, your mother.”

  The words chilled Henry, caused him to shudder even in the dust and heat of the store.

  “She works at the Miss Wickburg Diner,” the grocer said, surprise in his voice as if he had just discovered the fact.

  “The owner’s a friend of mine,” the grocer said. “I’m not talking about the manager, who’s a softie, who treats help like family. I mean the owner, who doesn’t put up with nonsense. …”

  Henry waited, taking his eyes away from the buttons, afraid he could be hypnotized by concentrating on them.

  “A while ago the owner was in trouble, needed money, a loan. He came to me and I helped him out. That’s what people should do, help each other out. Don’t you agree, Henry?”

  Henry did not reply, looked briefly into the grocer’s dark eyes and then went back to the buttons, noticing for the first time one cracked button, second from the top.

  “So I helped him out. And he said, ‘If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.’ Do you see?” Without waiting for a reply he continued. “So, with your mother, if I tell the owner to give her a raise, give her better hours, make her a hostess, even, so she doesn’t have to wait on tables anymore, he’ll do it.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”


  Henry braced himself, knew what was coming, had known what was coming all the time, of course.

  “On the other hand, if things don’t go right, then a word to the owner can have the opposite effect. If I say, ‘Fire this woman or that woman,’ then he’ll do it. Of course, I would not want to do that. The owner says your mother is a very nice woman. A good waitress. She deserves a raise. And a promotion. Why not—right, Henry? You love your mother, don’t you? It’s in your hands….” The grocer sighed.

  “Such a small thing I’m asking you to do. Look at all the rewards for doing it.”

  If it’s such a small thing, why is it so important to you? Henry asked, but silently. Afraid of the answer, afraid of what the grocer might say.

  “Now, the second thing,” the grocer said, glancing anxiously at the door—but no one entered.

  “If you are going to do this thing, then do it today, tonight. You said the display will be moved Saturday morning, but they might change their minds and do it tomorrow. You can never tell about people. So, I don’t want you to wait.” He looked at his watch. “It’s now almost three. You can leave in a few minutes.”

  Henry remained silent, listening to his heartbeat. “Whether you do it or not, I want you to leave now, this minute. If you do this thing, then come back after. I’ll be waiting here in the store, you’ll see the light on. If you don’t, then never come back.” He reached into his coat pocket, took out some folded dollar bills. “Here’s your pay for the week.” He tucked the money into Henry’s shirt pocket. “I never want to see you again if you fail to do what I ask.”

  The customer bell finally rang and Henry, gratefully, saw Mrs. Karminski entering, her small dog sniffing and yipping as usual. A few minutes later, as Henry headed toward the door, the grocer called his name. Henry paused, his hand on the doorknob. He heard the grocer’s approaching footsteps.

  “Do it,” the grocer whispered in his ear. “Destroy the old man’s village.”