Care Bear for Sale

I’m about to be mugged over a fucking Care Bear. Togetherness Bear. Don’t ask how it came to be in my possession. Okay, fine, go ahead. I opened my front door one morning, and it was sitting there. I’m not lying. There was a box and I opened it and there he was.

I hear you say, “That’s a bit unusual, mate.”

Well, yeah, I guess it is. But unusual has this way of happening to me. Like the time I opened my door to find detectives standing there. I would have preferred the Care Bear, especially as the house was surrounded by armed police officers. 

Two words for you: past occupants. The detectives mumbled apologies and left, but this Care Bear has stayed.

The first time I was mugged it was over a pair of drumsticks. I thought the man running toward me in the flannelette shirt was going for a late-night jog—until he stopped and began throwing punches. The second time I was mugged, it was over a traffic cone. This will be the first time I’ve been mugged for a Care Bear.

Why am I so certain I will be mugged for the Bear?

It started two days ago, with someone who shares the name of a Bronte novel.  She came at me within seconds of creating the listing. 

“I really, really want this,” she said. “When can I get it?”

“How does tomorrow sound?”

And so, while I sit waiting, I browse her profile and notice something.

Care Bears. Everywhere.

Buying, selling, it doesn’t matter. She needs Care Bears like a junkie needs their next fix. 

“I’m really sick,” she tells me, and I think to myself, in the head?

“I can’t make it today,” she continues. “I’m pregnant.”

I say congratulations, and tell her it’s okay, and that in the meantime, other people are longing for this Care Bear, and she understands this, because at this moment she wants nothing else more than said Bear.

“Can you please hold it for me?” she asks, and for a second, I think she wants me to embrace the chap; to cuddle him, and let it know that a new owner will be with it soon. But then I snap out of this Care Bear daze of insanity.

“Yes, of course,” I reply. “Same time?”

“Yes!” she says. “I want him so much.”

So, here I am on this couch, rocking back and forth while reading a news headline:

MAN BEATEN BY THUGS POSING AS BUYERS FOR HIS IPHONE.

“This isn’t an iPhone,” I reassure myself.  But thoughts of rooms filled with Care Bears, like those on her profile, start to infiltrate logic, and I resign myself to fate.

MAN STABBED FOR CARE BEAR.

I can see the headline now. I ponder my final words. 

“Shhh!” I whisper to the empty house. I hear a car pull up outside. I run to the toilet window, because it’s inconspicuous, and no one will expect anyone to peer at them through there.

But shit. She has already escaped my vision, she’s already at the door. This is it.

I pick up the box, the same one that appeared on my doorstep on that sunny morning in November. My dog stares directly at me.

“Really?” she says. “You could be making something of your life.”

I shrug my shoulders. The Care Bear is life.

I turn the door handle and there she is. Dripping wet, curly red hair and barefoot, as if she has taken part in a triathlon to get here. I look around, expecting to see a bike and other competitors, before remembering that I’m about to be mugged.

She stares at the ground, unable to make eye contact, waving cash in the air.

“I’m here for the Care Bear,” she says, breathing heavily, eyes fixated on my feet.

“Here it is,” I say, presenting her with the Bear. 

This is when it will happen; the shanking. The box arrives in her hands and I reach for the money. The knife will pierce my skin any minute. I’ll fall to the ground, arms outstretched, clasping for the Care Bear that caused this, reaching for the remnants of my life.

But it never comes. The money lands in my hand.

“Merry Christmas,” I say, relief washing over me like the waves that clearly drenched her hair.

“You too!” she replies, skipping away with the Bear, back towards a car that still has the engine running, driver in place for a quick getaway.

She clearly forgot the knife. I look at my dog, and she wags her tail.

The Care Bear is responsible for my next two dinners. As I sit chewing my food, gratitude hits me. I’m grateful I wasn’t shanked over a Care Bear and grateful for the food on my plate.

I still think of him whenever I open my front door. Maybe one day there will be another box. Maybe not. But I will always remember the day he arrived on my doorstep and the day he left, via a barefoot girl with dripping wet hair, heavy breathing, who was maybe pregnant, and who may or may not have forgot to bring a knife to our Craigslist sale.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.