Bunky and His Mother, the Neighbors Who Came to Call Once Too Often

In Pittsburgh, as throughout the nation, landholders and real estate speculators lost everything during the Depression. Consequently, bargains abounded for investors. A few miles south of Carrick, the new owner of a tract acquired through bankruptcy renamed it Baldwin Manor and parceled it into large lots. One provided the very setting Mother had always envisioned for her dream home.

Over several years, my parents purchased the lot, remitting a small portion of its cost each month. Even before road improvements, we often drove out to the lot so Mother could stand in the tall weeds, the breeze whipping her skirt, while she conjured up architectural designs suitable for the plot. Once it was theirs, free and clear, my parents hired a contractor.

The house he built for them was everything Mother desired. A red brick, center-hall colonial, it boasted a porch, a sun deck, two baths, an attic, and my favorite accessory, a clothes chute. Shortly after we moved in, Mother began catching up on her social obligations. A friendly soul, she adored entertaining...until Bunky entered the picture.

Bunky's father, a genial chap with a sonorous speaking voice, rebounded from a Depression-driven layoff from AT&T into a lucrative niche as a radio announcer. His mother, more exotic than homespun in mien, shared my father's fondness for detective stories and demonstrated her appreciation of his taste by borrowing his favorite volumes and forgetting to return them, despite repeated hints.

"I don't put much truck in her," Grandmother said, darkly. The tone of her voice suggested that her surveillance of Bunky's house from behind our living room curtains unleashed shocking details about the woman rumored to wear pants and smoke.

Soon after we moved away, former neighbors reported that Bunky ranged throughout the community terrorizing children, adults, and family pets alike. The child psychologists his parents retained excused his misdeeds by labeling him precocious.

Mother's diagnosis differed. He was, she declared, a brat.

With no advance warning, Bunky and his mother paid us a call, a civility held over from the Edwardian era. Bunky's mother wore a smart little sailor hat on her dusky curls and a beatific smile as she informed us that there was no need to entertain Bunky. He could make himself at home quite nicely. Surreptitiously, Mother signaled me to steer Bunky straight up to the attic playroom and detain him there at all costs.

My playroom was not richly paneled and carpeted. It was crammed with orange crates holding books, games, and a Lionel train set alongside dusty trunks piled with period clothes, World War I souvenirs, and costumes. The ceiling was decorated from gable to gable with silver stuffing reading lengthwise and crosswise: Johns Manville Johns Manville Johns Manville.

I ushered Bunky up the steep staircase, dogged by a premonition of disaster that commenced the moment his savage little eyes beheld my treasured toys. Princess Elizabeth never had a chance. Her crown was quickly disassembled, her pasteboard suitcase flattened, and her satin gowns smeared by sticky fingers. Snow White, dashed unceremoniously onto the floor, parted company with the tip of her dainty china nose. Lilas May, an enormous rag doll, stewed in her stuffing, while the baby doll's eyes were punched to the back of her head, leaving empty, Orphan Annie-like ovals in their stead.

Bunky ignored my protestations. "You can't make me stop," he snarled. "I'm your guest."

Fearing the same fate as my dolls, I quaked in silence while Bunky continued his barrage with accelerated gusto.

Hundreds of puzzle pieces lay strewn across the floor before his practiced hand turned to the game boards, the books, and the dress-up outfits. My prized Lionel train, too, was fair game for his capabilities. Once the tracks were twisted to his satisfaction, he jumped repeatedly on a carton of fragile Christmas ornaments, chortling at the tinkling sound from within. By the time he desecrated my father's World War I army uniform, Bunky began to be bored. Leaving the scene of destruction in his wake, he delivered a mighty war whoop, then plummeted to the front hall astride the mahogany banister, gouging a memento of his passage along its polished surface. Helpless, I trailed at a safe distance.

Mother gasped as Bunky entered the living room, but her voice remained steady. "Why, here are the children. Surely you haven't played with all the toys in the attic."

"He's seen them all," I wailed.

The alarm in Mother's eyes acknowledged receipt of the message conveyed by my tear-streaked face. Still, her exquisite manners prevailed. One never chastised other people's children, especially when they had come to call.

"My gracious, it looks as if you two are having a grand time," said Bunky's mother. "We really should be going, but it would be cruel of me to drag Bunky away when he's having so much fun." Her incisors knifed into a pink mint.

Snatching a fistful of tea cakes, Bunky sprinted toward the back of the house. He flung open the basement door and stomped down the steps toward the player piano, the phonograph, and stacks of records dating back to Mother's childhood, some of them destined to become collectors' items.

Before I was halfway down the stairs, Bunky had begun tossing records onto the cement floor. Finding one to his liking, he popped it onto the phonograph turntable, then pressed his hand heavily upon the arm. With each revolution, the needle carved fresh grooves into the wax, distorting the sound.
Minutes later, heels clicked across the floor overhead. Surely help was near.

"What's the pretty music I hear?" Bunky's mother stood at the top of the cellar staircase, her hat cocked jauntily above her serene, beaming face.

"Old phonograph," Bunky muttered.

"Play the record again for mother," the lady coaxed.

"Can't! Dumb old thing broke."

"What a pity! Mother hates to pull you away, but she promises we'll come another day."

"Haven't played the piano yet." He turned toward it, new fire in his eyes.

Only his mother's promise of a chocolate sundae at Isaly's Dairy on the way home averted the piano's demise. His options duly considered, Bunky reversed his direction and the piano survived.

Stony-faced and numb, Mother and I watched them drive away. As we surveyed the destruction Bunky left behind, Mother vowed, "That woman will never enter my home again! Or her brat, either. Especially her brat!"

During the passage of several months, Mother discussed the fallacies of etiquette rules often and bitterly with everyone who would listen. What percentage was there in being a lady, she argued, if it meant watching your most treasured possessions destroyed before your eyes? Given another chance, she swore to follow her instincts.

Her opportunity presented itself sooner than she wished.

My imaginary friends and I were cutting out Gone With The Wind paper dolls when Mother's frantic hiss pierced our solitude. "Hide! Here come Bunky and his mother!"

Sure enough, their '39 DeSoto blocked our driveway. Its two occupants disembarked, their faces illuminated with joy, confirmation that their initial visit to our new home had proved so rewarding they felt obliged to re-indulge their pleasure.

As the feather on Bunky's mother's hat divined the path to our front door, Mother realized that feigning absence was our only salvation. Before Bunky's Olympian sprint up the front steps could corner us, she secured the lock, then dropped to her knees and crawled toward the kitchen. I followed, with no time to spare.

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Bunky hit the doorbell again and again, his beady eyes peering through the sidelights, nose pressed against the glass pane.

Unwilling to be defeated, his mother urged him to try again..

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong...ng...ng...ng! Bunky forced the doorbell until it gagged.

Upon reaching the kitchen, Mother slid the backdoor bolt into place and removed her shoes, motioning me to do likewise. She opened the kitchen closet a crack, then shook her head in dismay; brooms, mops, and the usual cleaning implements consumed all available space in our most logical hiding place. Outside observers had an unrestricted view of the entire kitchen and its occupants, except for our dog who ordinarily slept under the stove, the only appliance not facing a picture window. Frantic, Mother dived under the stove, dragging me along.

Our gas stove had provided trouble-free service for more than a decade and was expected to serve us into my adulthood. Proudly emblazoned across its white porcelain surface was its point of origin: TOLEDO. Tall, white, and sturdy, it sat on bowed legs supported by pseudo-Chippendale feet with space enough between them to accommodate us snugly. Mother's nudge assured me that the tiny window opposite was so high above the ground Bunky never could reach it.

At length, the dings and the dongs subsided. Just as we became sufficiently emboldened to quit our secret spot, we heard voices and footsteps rounding the side of the house. Unable to rouse us from the front, they were about to try their luck at the rear.

Prolonged pressure on the back buzzer was followed by vigorous thumps of determined fists on the door. Someone jiggled the knob, but the bolt held. Mother and I stopped breathing as shadow heads interrupted the sunlight streaming across the kitchen floor. Mother tossed me a confident smile. They were bound to give up soon.

A long stretch of silence, then, "There they are! They're home! I see them!"

We blinked, and blinked again. Incredible, but true, Bunky's pugilistic little face glared down at us from the unreachable window.

Bunky's mother was puzzled by her son's pronouncement that we were under the stove. "Whatever are they doing there?"

"They're hiding!"

Our two pairs of eyes, unflinching, stared back at Bunky on his perch.

Bunky's mother's voice reverberated with anger. "How insulting! If they have no manners, we certainly won't waste time bothering with them any more."

Not until the DeSoto bit the driveway cinders in indignant flight did we dare to crawl from under the stove. Although our muscles were cramped from the confinement, our heartstrings plucked a major chord. By repelling the Bunky Invasion, we had added a vital qualification to the "in" quote of the Depression, "Come up and see me sometime - if you can behave yourself."

Months later, I overheard Mother and close friends giggling over an item in The Pittsburgh Press. Snatches of their conversation made no sense to me: "...caught with a young man...behind a flowering bush in the park...a long time behind bars."

Who, I wondered aloud, would spend time behind bars. The ladies blanched; they had not heard me enter.

Mother responded in the low, deliberate tone she used when taking me into strict confidence. "Bunky's mother."

"But why will she go to jail for picking flowers in the park?"

The ladies heaved a collective breath that erupted in several muted snorts.

"It's illegal to pick the kind of flowers she was after," one finally managed, while the others tittered behind their handkerchiefs.

Years passed before I fully understood Bunky's mother's sin.



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