Running Bear
Let's talk about Mom's boyfriend, Rudy
Whenever there was a crowd — around our campsite when the adults’ speech became as thick and slurred as the humidity, in the early hours of my slumber parties, or when the impromptu cookouts moved indoors — Rudy, mom’s boyfriend, would break into his signature song. The song was a crowd pleaser, a call and response that my friends loved to sing along to, with that gleeful expression of getting away with belting out the naughty lyrics between swigs of Big Red. Until five minutes ago, (thanks, lyricsondemand.com) I thought he’d written the song, “Running Bare.” Mom says he added in the call and response, in which we’d repeat EVERY SINGLE LINE. I sure loved singing it back to him, full-throated.
In the bathtub,
taking a shower
It was late
don’t know the hour
Heard the sirens away across town
Looked out my bathroom window,
my house burned down
Running bare, down the sidewalk
The neighbors seeing what they could see
Running bare, down the sidewalk
Running Bear, that’s what they called me
Rudy made it his anthem, partly because his last name was Beair — he insisted it be pronounced BEAR — and partly because it captured his life on the run. Whenever we’d take long Sunday drives, searching for fishing holes, we’d avoid certain counties, where Bear might have had a warrant out on him, or unpaid fines, or a pissed off contractor he’d left in a huff to finish a job without Rudy’s muscle. He was always between apartments, when he wasn’t shacked up at our house until a fight got bad enough for Mom to demand his departure. I was skilled at spotting his panel truck, gray with primer, through the bushes as I got off the bus, knowing that the whole mood of the house lie in how hard he slammed the door when he got out of it, or if the truck was still in the exact spot from the night before (meaning he hadn’t picked up any odd jobs that day.)
Mom met Rudy the summer after my dad, Billy Gene Temple, died of cancer in 1978. Billy Gene and Mary June met at work; he the dentist, she his dental assistant. They got married at the Marriott Chapel in Clarksville, Ind., (it was his second marriage) and honeymooned at the Madison Regatta on Fourth of July weekend. Mom says he proposed by looking over the appointment book and telling her to block off an extra few days after July 4. Why, she asked? Because that’ll be our honeymoon. When he was in remission from cancer just six short years later, they went to Europe. They sought experimental treatments in Mexico. Our last family vacation was to Aspen, where at age 6, I learned to ski. In that awful year after Dad died, time drifted and stilled. There were no plans, no vacations, no cancer treatments, no momentum. Stuck in the sprawling ranch house Dad and she had overseen construction of as the first on the block, Mom sought escape. She’d take me on mid-week getaways at hotels around Southern Indiana — doing a back dive under a gilded domed pool at French Lick resort and swimming in the Holiday Inn pool in February remain core memories).
Mom’s friend, Trudy, wanted her to get back out there, meet someone, get out of the house, spend some time in the country, etc. Forever in a halter top, hoop earrings and bell bottoms, Trudy was as fun as her name. Mom and Dad had played golf at the New Albany Country Club with Trudy and her husband, Andy. Sometimes, Andy’s sister, Diane, and her husband, Fuzzy, would join them. Fuzzy would win the Masters a few years later and then show everyone exactly how small a town New Albany was and how tiny a man he is by making cracks about fried chicken when Tiger Woods donned the green jacket. Anyhoo, Mom, Dad, Trudy and Andy double-dated a lot. I had a school girl’s crush — or just a longing for a big brother, for their son, David.
Trudy left Andy around the time Dad died, and was living in a four-story farmhouse, straight out of a V.C. Andrews novel, in horse country outside of Lexington. She invited us down one weekend. When we showed up, Rudy, her younger brother, was outside, with kids hanging off both his hairy arms. He was sitting up a swing, or maybe playing with a hose. He was definitely having fun. At six-foot-something, with long hair and a beard, he immediately reminded me of Grizzly Adams, if Grizzly wore Camel t-shirts. I was in his arms in no time.
Mom would soon follow. By the time we sold our house in the burbs and moved out the country, Rudy was part of our wobbly little family, and boy did he need one. Rudy Beair is a name straight out Dickens, if Chuck had grown up in Maysville, Ky. When Rudy’s mother died, Charlie Bear dropped his six-year-old son off at an orphanage. Two of his sisters went to live with relatives. Charlie kept the pretty one, Trudy. I met Charlie once. A long lean mean face, framed by greasy hair, with a tanned, thin neck poking of out a stiff polyester shirt with a sharp collar, Charlie was sadness and meanness incarnate. Rudy liked to say the orphanage was better than growing up with Charlie, and after one look at the man, I had to agree.
Went to the river, to take a swim
I hung my britches upon a limb
Some girls came by you know what they done
Them damn bitches1, took my britches, and away they run
Running bare, down the creek bank
The skeeters playing a tune on me
Running bare, down the creek bank
Running Bear, that’s what they called me
A strong, big man with a truck ready to help fix up the fixer -upper in the country, who would sing silly songs to your kid and take you camping, Rudy offered Mom youth, fun, vibrancy and distraction. “You know, I did all the things they tell you not to do after a death — sell your house, move, fall in love,” Mom said to me recently. “You know why they say that?” I asked. “Because it’s so easy to want to do those things. And you likely didn’t even hear that until Oprah or Dr. Phil told you decades later.”
But fall hard she did, and by then it was too late. Rudy and I immediately began competing for her limited attention, now that she was working two jobs and going back to school to become a teacher. Money was tight — Mom had to pay off the loan her in-laws had given to build the first house — and we knew no one in the rural country we’d move to. My first day of school, I came back to report: Everyone is related to one another or has been friends since they were toddlers.”
Rudy drank. He drank after a hard day painting houses. He drank after a day of sitting in his chair, watching TV and wishing he were painting houses. He drank when he couldn’t watch “The A Team,” because it was my turn to watch “Facts of Life.” He drank on camping trips. He drank while driving that stupid panel truck. He drank after he and Mom hung a mural on their bedroom wall, and after he punched a hole through it. I’ve never been able to stomach the taste or smell of beer and trace my recoil to both Rudy’s breath and frat-party floors. He drank when he was in a good mood, and drank even more when he was in a bad one
My girlfriend called said come around
Cause my husbands out of town
Time I got there, he walked in
Please notify my next of kin
Running bare, through the bushes
Dodging bullets from tree to tree
Running bare, through the bushes
Running Bear, that’s what they called me
Whenever I write about violent Rudy, my childhood friends are surprised. The amount of work that went into keeping his violence a secret must have paid off. He never hit me and when he did land a punch on Mom’s face, she was skilled in hiding it. He was always nice, maybe a little crazy, to my friends. Hell, everyone had some loud relative who drank too much and partied too hard. They loved watching him play practical jokes on cocky boys at my parties. The boy would sit on the floor with his legs spread wide. Rudy would pour some water in front of his outstretched legs, hand the kid a pair of knives (!) and tell him to start chopping at the water. Rudy would then promise he could wipe up the water without a single knife touching his hands. Cocky teenager would start mad chopping. Rudy would grab his legs and pull him through the water, leaving the teen’s jeans wet on the ass. Mostly though, I stayed away from our house to avoid the Possibility of Mad Rudy. From middle school on, I spent most weekends at the homes of my best friends, going to Catholic church so often that I can still recite large portions of the liturgy. (We believe in one holy and apostolic church, we acknowledge on baptism for the forgiveness of all sins). By the time I was in high school, he’d largely sobered up and moved out. I loved him and so did Mom, but he couldn’t stay around. The second to last time I saw him, he helped me move into my dorm room, his long hair, desert boots and trucker hats no longer making me cringe. When my resident assistant freshmen year confronted me about throwing up in the communal bathroom, I went to a outpatient treatment program for eating disorders. Mom told me that Rudy went to the library to look up bulimia and to apologize for making me clear my plate.
The last time we saw one another, at Mom’s house in the woods, he was living back in the hills of Kentucky, still painting. He had a new ‘ol lady. He was thinking about becoming a minister. He still loved singing that song.
Rudy changed the lyrics here, for spice. The original are “Some girls came by you know what they done. They took my clothes away they run.”