Vesta Goes Tits Up!

Smiling Toy Shop Story 13

     It was another quiet evening, and that was just fine with Jasper the Living Teddy Bear.  After having to endure more arm-pulled-out-of-the-socket, legs-bent-vertical, and ears-subjected-to-dip-shititis, he was so weary; all he wanted to do was rest.  Old Mr. Vesta was in his office; he had seemed kind of down to him.  He shouldn’t be concerned about it, but he sort of liked Mr. Vesta.  Ah s**t, it wasn’t his problem.  He was just glad that that prick-bear Denbo was gone, taken home by a drooling brat.  He sort of felt a little sorry for the kid who’d been stupid enough to fall for Denbo’s ‘cute, cuddly teddy bear’ routine.  The horrible truth, that the kid would soon learn the hard way, was that far from being cute and cuddly, Denbo was a total a*****e, who would verbally abuse the poor b*****d unmercifully.  Just then, the door to Mr. Vesta’s office opened, and Mr. Vesta came stumbling out clutching a bottle of whiskey, mumbling to himself, and carrying some sort of sign that he couldn’t see.  Vesta staggered towards the front window and taped up a sign.  ‘For Sale’; he wouldn’t have cared, except he knew that the Smiling Toy Shop was Mr. Vesta’s baby, had been his dream for a lot of years, and something drastic must have happened for him to try to sell it.  Jasper watched silently as Mr. Vesta shuffled his way by, on his way back to his office.  Curiosity got the better of him at last, and he blurted,

 

     “Hey, up here; why are you selling this place?”

 

     Mr. Vesta stopped, looked up at Jasper on the shelf, and, instead of the fright and panic that he had expected, he heard,

 

     “Oh, wonderful; I’m so drunk, I’m even imagining the toys are talking to me.  Well, what the hell, the reason I’m selling it is it’s been losing money since I opened it, and I’m going tits up.”

 

     “Oh, that’s too bad,” he answered.

 

     “Ah, s**t, I’ve just got to face it; my dream has exploded in my face.”

 

     “Surely, there must be something you can do?”

 

     “No, I’ve thought of everything, and no matter what I think of, it won’t be enough to save the toy shop.”

 

     “Oh.”

 

     Jasper desperately racked his brain to think of a way to raise money for Mr. Vesta.  A carwash?  Yeah, right, an old man and a living teddy bear; that would work.  A bake sale?  That wouldn’t work; Mr. Vesta was still old, and he?  And he didn’t have opposable thumbs.  No, he could bake s**t!  Think outside the box.  Hey--no, that wouldn’t work.  How about--no, again.  Then he had an idea.

 

     “Would it help to raise money if you had some sort of attraction, something novel that no other toy store had?”

 

       “Sure, but what?”

 

     “Well, you’re looking at him.”

 

     “What?  You’re just a figment of my crocked imagination.”

 

     “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Pops.  I’m as real as you.”

 

     “Ah, this is bullshit; I need to write out the ad I’m going to place in the newspaper tomorrow,” said Mr. Vesta. 

 

     “No, wait!  I--”, he started to reply, but Vesta was already turning away from Jasper; and walking back to his office; he ignored anything more Jasper said.  He entered and shut the door, with a long sad glance out at his store. 

 

     Jasper was left there upon the shelf on aisle 3, with nothing but the traffic sounds from the street out front, and the ticking of the wall clock, which read 10.30 pm.

 

 

     The clock now read 7.30 am, and the sunlight was slanting through the venetian blinds covering the windows when Jasper saw Mr. Vesta’s office door open, rather timidly, and a bleary-eyed Mr. Vesta came staggering slowly out. 

 

     “Oh god; my head!” he  exclaimed, and grabbed it on both sides.  “I drank way  too much last night.”

 

     “Good morning; did you give anymore thought to my suggestion from last night?” said Jasper, rather quietly.

 

     “Ah!” shouted a stunned Mr. Vesta.  He turned to run, his feet got tangled up, and down to the floor he went.

 

     “Hey, watch yourself there, old man; you could hurt yourself; and the last thing you need is a busted hip,” said Jasper.

 

     Mr. Vesta made a mewing sound, and attempted to crawl away, rather pathetically, if anyone cared to ask Jasper. 

 

     “Oh, come on, Vesta; do you or do you not want to save this place?”

 

     “Yyyeeaahh, I do, but having an imaginary conversation with an imaginary talking teddy bear won’t help!” he replied, glancing back over his shoulder as he crawled.

 

     “Listen to me very carefully, old man; you had better start believing your eyes and ears, or you can say goodbye to this place, and get used to living in your car, and eating sawdust loaf for dinner!”

 

     Vesta stopped crawling, and turned to look at Jasper.  “Oh, what the hell; what’s the worst that can happen if anyone sees me carrying on a conversation with a teddy bear?  They’d say, ‘Look at that old man, kids; you see what happens to you if you don’t mind your parents?  You’ll turn into that guy!  Is that what you want, huh?’  What’s your idea?  I can’t believe I’m doing this!”

 

     “What, getting a better idea; hell, any idea, you dumb-s**t moron?  Okay, here it is; Jasper couldn’t believe he was about to say this; “Kids, come into the Smiling Toy Shop, and see the world’s only living teddy bear (never mind Denbo, that jerk-weed; and as to whether he was alive, it was still debatable!); you’ll be amazed!”  Oh sure, invite a lot more of the little rodents in to check your a*s out, thought Jasper. 

 

    “Well s**t, if I’m nuts, it won’t matter anyway, “I’m in!”

 

     “Okay, here’s what we’ll do...”

 

The End