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four-foot-five-inch height. "Take it back, Pete! Don't make me climb up there!"
    Pete's eyes twinkled with mirth. He shook his head and looked away.
    "Somebody get me a stepladder!" I said, and everyone laughed.
    Crisis averted.
    The guys chanted "Next round, next round," and Pete stomped off to fill glasses. Left me staring at myself in the mirror behind the bar.
    What a hairy S.O.B. I might have been the shortest of the local bear brotherhood, but I was by far the hairiest.
    Shaggy brown fur covered my head and my whole face except my eyes, lips, and the tip of my nose. More of the same covered almost every inch under my clothes...even covered my hands except for my fingertips.
    How'd you like to go through life looking like a werewolf , right down to the hair on your palms? All thanks to the miracle of hypertrichosis, the disease that blasts hair growth into perpetual overdrive.
    Welcome to my world.
    Imagine the constant ridicule and abuse I put up with from day one. Imagine being abandoned by my parents at age three , then juggled like a hot potato from one foster family to the next. Always the freak, always the outcast, always the dog-faced boy. Growing up to scrape by as a home-based telemarketer. Hardly ever leaving my apartment, and then only with everything under wraps. Always just hanging on to life and sanity by the skin of my teeth.
    Imagine living like that, and maybe you'll get it. Maybe you'll understand just how happy I was with Stan and the bears.
    And why it hurt so unbelievably bad when I lost them. Why that birthday party turned out to be my last happy night on Earth.
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    *****
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    Pete had just brought out the next round when he showed up. Yuri.
    The bears and I were grabbing our mugs, and the front door flew open and slammed into the wall. Yuri blew in like a gale or a mad dog, demanding immediate attention without saying a word.
    He must've been seven-foot-six or seven, at least three hundred pounds. A wild Hawaiian shirt was draped over his massive gut, bursting with flowers in pink and gold.
    Yuri's face was broad and ruddy and moist as a side of beef. His blazing red hair frizzed out in all directions like flames, like his head was on fire.
    My mouth fell open as I gaped at him. I felt Stan make a sudden movement beside me.
    " Magnifico !" When Yuri spoke, his voice boomed like a backfiring car with a Russian accent. "You knew I was coming, didn't you? Spaceba for the party , you big lug! "
    Just as I wondered who he was talking to, one of us spoke up. My breath caught in my throat in surprise.
    It was Stan. "Party's not for you, Yuri."
    Yuri waggled his eyebrows, which were thick as squirrels. " Stush! What's the matter? No kiss for your old lady? " Yuri puckered his liver slab lips, pooching them out from under the giant walrus mustache he wore like a fox stole across his face.
    "What do you want, Yuri?" Stan's voice was cold. His hand clamped around my shoulder and tightened.
    Yuri's brows and walrus 'stache jumped high as his face lit up with an alligator smile. "So this is your new girl!" Lurching forward, Yuri reached out with one sausage link finger and tickled my chin. "Why, he's just a little cub! "
    Suddenly, Stan lunged at Yuri, hooking his wrist and yanking his hand away from my chin. "Get out of here, Yuri. Now."
    Horst, Al, and the others closed ranks around us, glowering. Yuri went on talking, never breaking eye contact with me. "Daddy bear Stush go bye-bye, little cubby." Then, he slid his gaze from me to Stan. "Unless, of course, he cares to send this cubby in his place."
    " Never ." Stan ground the word between clenched teeth. " Get out. "
    "The man said leave, gashole!" This time, it was Pete the bartender doing the talking. He pushed between Louie and Horst with ball bat in hand, looking stone cold deadly.
    Yuri raised his squirrely brows and took one last long look into my eyes. "Sweeeet dreeeams, leetle cuubbyy." He sang the words with sickening false sweetness. "Uncle