An alleyway presented itself, as they will when you are in your cups. Especially if you are in need of the toilet. Eddie was in need of the toilet as much as he was in need of somewhere cosy and dry, and so the alleyway that presented itself was a sort of dual-purpose alleyway. Or triple-purpose alleyway, if one were to be exact. Or quadruple, if you were Tinto.
The alleyway that presented itself to Eddie was of the type that was greatly favoured by 1950s American-genre private eyes. It had one of those fire escapes with a retractable bottom section, some dustbins and the rear door of a nightclub, from which drifted the suitably atmospheric tones of a mellow saxophone.
Eddie bumbled and stumbled into the alleyway and relieved himself to the accompaniment of much contented sighing. Even though sighing wasn’t usually his thing. He lifted the lid off the nearest dustbin and then drew back in disgust. Bears have sensitive noses, after all. Another lid and then another, and then he found an empty dustbin and a new one, too. Eddie flung Tinto’s book into this empty dustbin and, after something of a struggle, followed it.
“Hardly the most salubrious accommodation,” said Eddie, drawing the lid over himself and preparing to settle down for the night. “I will probably laugh about this one day. But for all the life that’s in me, I cannot imagine what day that might be. But,” and Eddie did further settlings, “that day will come.”
And Eddie Bear, in darkness, settled down to sleep.
And slept.
And then awoke.
With more than just a start.
A terrible clamouring came to the ears of Eddie, a terrible rattling and jangling about. His dustbin bower was being shaken. Ferociously.
“Give a bear a break.” Eddie put his paws to his head. The din and the shaking grew fiercer.
Eddie rose and gingerly lifted the lid.
A great white light dazzled his vision. Sparks flew from somewhere and leapt all around and about.
Eddie’s mismatched eyes took it all in. Whatever it was. There was a glowing orb of light, a sphere of whiteness. It grew, right there, in the middle of the alleyway, from nothing to something.
The shaking and rattling and the jangling too grew and grew. And then, just like that, because there was no other way to it, it ceased. The shaking and the rattling and the jangling and the sparking and the light. It was gone, all gone.
But something else was there.
Eddie cowered and peeped through the gap between bin lid and bin. Something had materialised. Out of nowhere. Into somewhere. In this very alleyway.
It crouched. And then it rose. And as Eddie looked on, he could see just what this something was.
It was a bear.
A toy bear.
And this bear looked like Eddie.
Just like Eddie.
The bear rose, flexed its shoulders, glanced to either side.
And then made off at the hurry-up.
Eddie Bear sank down in his bin and gently lowered the lid.
“I think I may just give up drinking,” Eddie said.
2
The morning sun rose over Toy City. It was a big and jolly sun with a big smiley face and its name was believed to be Sam.
So the sun of Sam[3] shone down and the Toy City folk awoke.
The economy, for Toy City had such a thing, as everywhere seems to have such a thing these days, whatever the word might mean, was a little on the decline hereabouts. Wages were down and prices were up and the niceties of life seemed as ever the preserve of the well-to-dos, those who had, having more, and those who had not, less. The heads of the have-nots drooped on their shoulders as they trudged, or wheeled, or trundled to their places of work. Factory whistles blew, traffic lights faltered, trains were cancelled, dry-cleaning failed to arrive back upon the promised day and how come one is always in the wrong queue in the Post Office?
A rattling and jangling and shaking all about awakened Eddie Bear, from a sleep without dreams, because toy bears do not dream, to recollection, then horror.
“Oh my, oh dear. Whoa!” Sunlight rushed in upon the bear as his bin bower was raised and upended. And, “No!” shrieked Eddie, affecting that high-pitched whine of alarm that one makes when taken with fear.
Up went the bin, and up and over and out came Eddie, down into the dustcart.
As will be well known to those who know these things well, these knowers being those who watch movies on a regular basis, movie garbage consists of cardboard boxes, shredded paper and indeterminate soft stuff. When heroes fall, or are thrown, into such garbage they generally come up unsoiled and fighting.
Oh that life should as a movie be.
Eddie found himself engulfed in fish-heads, curry cartons, rotten fruit, stale veg and that rarest of all rare things, the dung of a wooden horse. Eddie shrieked and struggled and wallowed and sank and rose again and was presently rescued, lifted (at the length of an arm) and set down on the ground.
Garbageman Four looked down upon Eddie. “What did you do that for?” he asked.
Eddie spat out something evil-tasting and peered up at Garbageman Four. Garbageman Four was part of a six-man matching clockwork garbageman crew, printed tin-plate turn-outs all. Garbageman Four considered himself to be a special garbageman, because only he had a number four printed on his back.
“What did I do what for?” Eddie managed to utter.
“Scream and shout and struggle about,” said Garbageman Four, rocking on the heels of his big tin work boots. “Garbage is not supposed to do that. Garbage is supposed to know its place and behave the way it should.”
Eddie made growling sounds. “I am not garbage,” he said. “I’m an Anders Imperial. Cinnamon-coloured mohair plush, with wood-wool stuffing throughout. Black felt paw pads, vertically stitched nose. An Anders Imperial. I have the special tag in my ear and everything.”
Garbageman Four leaned down and viewed Eddie’s special tag. “That’s a beer cap, that is,” he said. “And you’re a grubby rubbish old bear. Now back into the truck with you and off to the incinerator.” But as Garbageman Four reached down towards Eddie, Eddie took off at the hurry-up.
His stumpy legs carried him beyond both garbageman and alleyway and out into a main thoroughfare. Clockwork motor cars whirred by, along with cycling monkeys, woodentop children going to school and a teddy or two who viewed him with disgust.
Eddie sat down on the kerb and buried his furry face in his paws. How had it come to this? How had he reached the rockiest of rock bottoms, sunk to the very depths of the pool? How, how, how had it happened?
His woe-begotten thoughts returned to his time as mayor. He had tried so hard to make things better for the denizens of Toy City. He really, truly had tried. But no matter how hard he’d tried or what actions he’d taken, he’d always somehow managed to make things worse. Every by-law, edict and new rule he’d put in place had somehow got twisted about. It had been as if someone or something had been out to sabotage everything he’d done with kindness in his heart-regions and the good of all in the foremost of his thoughts.
Eddie groaned. And now it had come to this. He was a down-and-out, a vagrant, a vagabond. Ill-smelling and disenfranchised. An outcast. The garbage truck rumbled by, its tin-plate wheels ploughing through a puddle that splashed over Eddie Bear.
Eddie added sighs to his groaning, then rose and squeezed disconsolately at himself. He was a mess and whatever optimism he might have felt the previous evening, optimism that had probably been buoyed up by the prodigious quantities of Old Golly-Wobbler he had imbibed, was now all gone and only pain remained.
Eddie did doglike shakings of himself, spraying puddle water onto a crinoline doll who tut-tut-tutted and strutted away, her haughty nose in the air.
“I need a drink,” said Eddie. And his tummy growled. “I need breakfast,” said Eddie. And his tummy agreed.
As chance, or fate, or possibly both would have it, across the thoroughfare from Eddie stood a restaurant. It was a Nadine’s Diner, one of a chain of such diners owned by Nadine Spratt, widow of the now-legendary Jack Spratt, Pre-adolescent Poetic Personality. Jack, as those who recall the nursery rhyme will recall, was the fellow who “ate no fat”, whilst his wife “would eat no lean”, and so, in the manner of the happy marriage they had once enjoyed, between the two of them they had “licked the platter clean” and started two successful restaurant chains, his specialising in Lean Cuisine and hers in Big Fat Fry-Ups. Hers had been the more successful of the two businesses.