The Small Blue Button with the Anchor – Part 2 by Philip Butera

Philip M. Butera grew up in Buffalo, NY, earned a BS degree from Gannon College in Erie, PA, served in the US Navy then received an MA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He has four books of poetry, “Mirror Images and Shards of Glass”, “Dark Images at Sea”, “I Never Finished Loving You”, and “Falls from Grace, Favor and High Places. His crime novel, ” Caught Between”, has been published, and his second novel, “Art and Mystery: The Missing Poe Manuscript” will be available in the Spring of 2022.

The child’s play area was comfortable and full of exciting things to look at, play with, or read. There was a record player/radio atop an old bookcase with a small box of 45s next to it. The play area wasn’t big, just a hallway between his parent’s bedroom and the upstairs bathroom. The child loved this part of the house; it was his domain, and he had spent long hours by himself playing and doing what comes naturally to a child who was used to being on his own.   He was an only child, but he never seemed to be lonely. His imagination kept him busy and his mind active. 

From childhood through high school, college, and beyond, the boy found refuge in this play area, which remained the same during all those years. Pictures on the walls changed along with the boy’s progression, from The Lone Ranger to Dodger’s Duke Snyder, then Elvis, replaced by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and a large peace sign. Little girls in schoolroom poses or out in nature playing with cats or dogs made way for teenage pin-ups, Sophia Loren, of course, to a tasteful photo of a Playboy model. One picture far to the right under the small white porcelain light fixture remained through all the changes. It wasn’t in a frame, just an idealized image of one of John Paul Jones’s ships with scotch tape on the four corners.

The objects on the walls changed with the times but never the room’s configuration. Against one wall was a wooden school teacher’s desk and chair. Opposite that wall is an antique bookcase with all the baseball team decals on the wood framing. 

At one corner of the desk was a black phone, the upstairs phone. He remembered when he was twelve or thirteen, he would come home from school and call his girlfriend, who lived a distance away. When her father would answer, the boy would get frightened and hang up. When her mother answered, he would try to be “conversational” and ask politely for his sweetheart. He would use that phone to call his buddies and cousins. He was lucky to have a private telephone. But he knew he was not to abuse that privilege because while he was on the line, an important caller might be trying to get through with crucial information to share with his parents. 

There was a large cedar chest, the original home of his mother’s trousseau. The outside had a deep scratch, gotten when the swivel desk chair was spun out of control, tipped over, and fell onto the chest. His Dad put some touch-up on the scared wood, but the scrape never disappeared. 

The trunk was jam-packed with the treasures a boy needed to help him understand the world that surrounded him. There were toys, games – Monopoly and Clue but an only child rarely plays games where several other players are needed. An only child imagines. There were drawing tools – a slide rule and a pencil gadget to draw circles, comic books – Superman was his favorite, then The Justice League of America – a pencil box he had since first grade, lots of little rubber cowboys. A signed photo of Captain Midnight, a cool black Zorro mask, a set of six-shooters in their Hopalong Cassidy holsters, a small red box of caps, marbles – heaps of cat’s eyes, a Texas Rangers badge, keys to long lost locks, decks of cards – Old Maid, Snap, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, baseball cards, lots and lots of baseball cards including the whole set of the 1957 Dodgers and all the other natural dream creators that make a child feel his world has value.  

Next to the desk was a small child’s leather red chair, a staple of the boy’s life from the beginning. In that chair sat a large chocolate-colored Teddy Bear. When the boy was seven or eight years old, his father asked him, “What do you want Santa to bring you?” The boy surprised his father by stating a big Teddy Bear. Teddy Bears are for “little” kids, but the boy’s father was one of six children, and the boy’s mother was one of thirteen. They didn’t realize a child needs a pal to play around with, even if he is stuffed. Teddy was usually dressed in cowboy gear, but occasionally he wore a blue football jersey with the white initial “P” on the front. Sometimes he had a black pirate hat and a patch over his eye. Sometimes he was a detective’s sidekick with a too-big brown shirt substituting for a Humphrey Bogart raincoat. 

He was the boy’s best friend, and he sat in that chair throughout the years. The boy had no secrets from his pal, they rode the Western trails together, went to sea, even a few times to the moon, but they didn’t have the proper uniforms to stay there long. They would listen to the radio together. The station would be changed regularly to try and catch a favorite song. They would nod to each other when they heard one and sing along, but not too loud. The boy and the Bear were of one adventurous mind. And they were involved in many exciting undertakings.

The chocolate Teddy Bear had lost the tip of his nose when the boy was young. They were scouting Indians when the boy tripped. The Bear flew out of his arms, and his snout hit a valuable Angel lamp from Italy. Teddy had lost his nose. But the boy’s mother replaced the nose by sewing in its place a shiny blue button with an anchor impressed on it. 

That Teddy Bear watched as the boy struggled with homework through the years, especially with math. History was easy and English exciting. The boy loved to read. His father had brought him books, large bound books with names like “The Book of Marvels,” “Architecture of the Italian Renaissance,” “The World Atlas,” “Famous Seaports of the World,” and many more. Through the years, his father gave him books. The boy would turn the pages, not completely knowing what he was seeing but comprehending its uniqueness or majesty. Indeed, there was nothing like this in his neighborhood. He would point out unique photos to Teddy, discussing the world that was growing in their understanding. The boy was captivated by books about animals, painters, art, poets, history, mountain ranges, islands, countries, the world, etc. But there was this world with numbers the boy could not grasp. 

The boy reminisced when he was in high school, before the math finals every year, his Uncle Matty, his favorite Uncle whom he loved like an older brother, would come to his house and sit in the swivel chair after supper and teach him the whole math course in a few nights. It seemed so “logical” when Uncle Matty explained it was not complicated like the priests made it out to be. Usually, during this tutoring time, Teddy would take a nap; he knew Teddy Bears had little use for algebra or geometry. Yes, this small space between the bathroom and bedroom was very special to the boy. It was the center of his life, where he was nurtured and matured, and Teddy was a part of that.    

Years later, the boy was sitting at the desk looking over at his lifelong buddy. He stared at the Bear’s nose, the blue button with the impressed anchor. The boy, now a young man, looked down at what he was wearing – a blue uniform. There were many shiny blue buttons impressed with anchors. He thought about the old days, his youth, and how much this room and that Teddy Bear were a fabric of his being. The young man knew that he would be gone for years, maybe to places he had heard nightmarish and very dangerous. There was a war raging in South East Asia. He knew nothing would be moved in this, his space. It would remain the same till he returned. He was leaving to go on active duty in the US Navy, and he was worried, but he knew his sidekick, the chocolate Teddy Bear, would still be here to welcome him back when he returned.

The young sailor stood up and hugged his old friend after hearing the horn honking outside. A friend had come to drive him to the airport. He took a last look at his sanctuary. He tossed a tissue into the wastebasket and walked down the stairs to kiss his visibly worried mother goodbye before he left.