by Tom Perrotta
My mother smiled at me. “Guess what? Mr. Floyd baked us some Christmas cookies.” She had a special tone of voice that she only used when we had company. It made the simplest fact sound like cause for celebration.
“That's right,” he said. “They're in the kitchen.”
I mumbled a few syllables and hurried into the kitchen, relieved to find such an easy way out of small talk. I hadn't expected to see Bill Floyd, and all I could think of was Ed's crack about his toupee looking like a squirrel.
The cookies were green and shaped more or less like wreaths. Each one was studded with a single bright red candy. Bill Floyd appeared in the doorway and asked how I liked them.
“Terrific,” I said. “Still nice and chewy.”
“My mother's recipe,” he told me. “It's not Christmas without them.”
He said good night, and I heard the front door close. My mother came into the kitchen with three empty glasses.
“Whew,” she said. “I thought he'd never leave. Your father fell asleep an hour ago. I was trying to watch the Andy Williams special, but he talked so much I hardly caught a second of it.”
I could see she was annoyed. My mother had a big crush on Andy Williams and often referred to him as her “boyfriend.” I put another cookie in my mouth and spoke through the crumbs. “So what did he talk about?”
She picked up a sponge and started scrubbing at a spot on the Formica countertop.
“He talked about his mother,” she said. “He misses her.”
I had to work at the deli on Christmas Eve. I made a few sandwiches at lunchtime, then killed an hour with chores, cleaning the sheer and straightening the snack cakes. After that there was nothing to do but wait for an occasional customer to drift in for cigarettes or milk. I passed the time warming my hands over the open oven door while old man Freund napped, chin in hand, at his little table in the back.
Near closing time he came back to life and joined me at the oven. We stood close together in our soiled aprons, washing our hands in the hot, rising air. Mr. Freund squinted suspiciously at the Schickhaus clock, which had hot dogs for hands.
“Where did the day go?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It just went.”
At five o'clock I hung up my apron and headed outside to do my Christmas shopping. I had to hurry, because I'd promised my mother that I'd come straight home from work to help her with the luminaria. This was a fancy word for candles anchored in sand at the bottom of hamburger take-out bags. A neighborhood committee had enlisted our entire street to line the sidewalks with them on Christmas Eve.
Medi-Mart was delirious with last-minute shoppers. The shelves looked looted; even the Muzak seemed hectic. I bought my father a carton of cancer sticks, a Pepperoni and Assorted Cheeses Gift Pack, and a paperback about Pearl Harbor. I got my mother a battery-operated minivacuum and a small bottle of perfume. I also picked up a glossy greeting card: “A Christmas Prayer for You, Mother and Dad.”
Only two registers were open, and I got on the slow line. Three people ahead of me, this woman in a kerchief started an argument about the price of a jigsaw puzzle that had two stickers on it. She insisted on speaking to the manager, who seemed mysteriously difficult to locate. By that time, it was too late for me to change lines.
The bag of presents bounced against my thigh as I j°gged home through the darkness. It was nearly six o'clock, zero hour for the candles. We'd never get them set up in time. Once again, through no fault of my own, I'd let my mother down.
But when I turned the corner of our street, I saw that the bags were already out, neatly arranged along both borders of the sidewalk. As I approached the house, I could barely make out the outlines of two people standing in the driveway.
“Thanks a lot,” my mother said.
“Sorry. The mall was a madhouse.”
“I was lucky,” she said. “Mr. Floyd saved my life.”
Bill Floyd waved a candle to ward off her praise. I glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice. “I was just passing by,” he explained in a cheery voice. “Glad to be of assistance.”
Our neighbors began coming out of their houses, hands full of little white bags. Friendly greetings traveled up and down the block through the freezing air. The church bells started ringing and we lit the candles. Locust Street was suddenly aglow with lines of soft light that stretched as far as you could see in both directions.
* * *
At the supper table, my father asked if I was going to midnight mass. It was a family tradition: he and I went to church on Christmas Eve while my mother, the only one of us who believed in God, stayed home and wrapped presents.
“I can't,” I said. “I've got band practice. I'll go to church with the guys.”
My father took the news pretty calmly, although he kept nodding his head long after he should have stopped. It was my mother who got mad.
“That's ridiculous,” she said. “Band practice on Christmas Eve. Who are you kidding?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “it's fine if a football team plays on Thanksgiving, but it's not okay if a band practices on Christmas Eve. Where's the logic in that?”
“Don't give me your logic. I just think you could put your family ahead of your friends for once.”
My father touched her hand. “Forget it,” he said. “I'm tired anyway. I'll go with you tomorrow.”
I was hoping to make a quick getaway after supper, but my mother wasn't through with me. She waited until I was getting my coat out of the closet to play her final card.
“No sir,” she said, positioning herself between me and the front door. “You're not going to church like that. You look like a ragpicker.”
I was wearing school clothes, corduroys and a plaid shirt. I had changed into them specifically to avoid this argument.
“What do you mean?” I said. “You bought these clothes.”
“You should wear a coat and tie to church. And no sneakers.”
“Jesus never wore a tie,” I said.
“What's wrong with you?” she asked. “Why do you hate me?”
“I don't hate you.”
She made a big show of wiping her brow. “Whew. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
She turned to my father, who was sitting on the couch, ignoring us in favor of a crossword puzzle.
“Jim, tell Buddy he can't go to church like this.”
He slapped the pencil against the paper in his lap and looked at us in total disgust. “Goddammit,” he said.
In the end, we compromised. My mother went upstairs and packed my sportcoat, a white shirt, one of my father's ties, and my dress shoes in a shopping bag. I promised to change into the good clothes before going to church.
Ed's family was out visiting relatives, so Rock-head had the house to itself. Instead of jamming we raided the incredible collection of gift-box liquor under the tree. Ed's father drove a delivery truck for Budweiser, and all the liquor stores had given him bottles for the holiday.
Sally showed up a couple hours later, and we moved the party to her car. Cruising through town, I was struck by the darkness of the streets. When I was a kid, nearly every house was lit up and blinking this time of year. Ever since the energy crisis, though, people had been opting for solitary electric candles in their front windows. The whole world seemed to have outgrown Christmas along with me.
“Anybody see the Grinch the other night?” Sally asked. “That dog with the antlers is a real trip.”
“Man, I hate Christmas shows,” Ed said. “The fucking Grinch is bad enough, but the people are even worse. Perry fucking Como, Bing fucking Crosby, Donny fucking Osmond. Every washed-up moron in the universe gets a Christmas show.”
“Bob fucking Hope,” Dirk added.
“The King fucking Family.”
“Andy fucking Williams. ”
“Just once,” Ed said, “I'd like to turn on the TV and watch the Aerosmith Christmas special.”
“Or the Dead,” Sally suggested. “That would be cool.�
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“Not all those shows suck,” I said. “Rudolph's pretty cool.”
“Yeah, I like Rudolph,” said Sally.
“Then you're both assholes,” Ed told us. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a totally fucked-up story.”
“Gimme a break,” Sally said.
“I'm serious,” Ed said. “I've been thinking about it.” He took a swig from his rum bottle, then a swig from the Coke can in his other hand. “I'm serious. First Santa cuts Rudolph from the reindeer team ‘cause he's handicapped, he's got this electronic nose, right, and the next thing you know, everyone's down on Rudolph, his parents, his girlfriend, all the shithead reindeers. Am I right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “So what?”
“So Rudolph runs away and hooks up with the misfits, who are completely excellent, but he has to leave their island because of the Abominable Snowman, right? So after putting Rudolph through all this crap, Santa has the gall to go back to him and beg him to guide the sleigh, because it's foggy out, and all of a sudden the electronic nose is this big bonus item. Now Buddy, if you're Rudolph, what do you do?”
“You're a reindeer,” I said. “It's not like you have much choice.”
“See,” he said. “You're a chickenshit, just like Rudolph. But if it was up to me, I'd say, ‘Suck my moosecock, Santa, I wouldn't guide your sleigh tonight for a million bucks, you fat shit.’”
After a while, Dirk broke the silence. “I was just thinking,” he said. “What if we changed our name to the Misfits?”
It was standing room only by the time Ed and I got to St. Elmo's. We had to squeeze in with the crowd of latecomers that had gathered in the rear of the church. At the altar, a choir of sixth-grade girls was singing “Silent Night.”
I was feeling a little shaky. On top of the rum and coke, we'd smoked a joint before Dirk and Sally dropped us off, and now my head felt like it had been inflated to twice its normal size. A lot of adults were staring at me, their attention apparently focused on the shopping bag full of clothes that I'd set on the floor between my feet. To make matters worse, Ed snickered every time the choir hit a bum note.
Out of nowhere the organist struck a chord and a man in a dark suit shoved me backwards. It took a moment for me to comprehend that the man was an usher, making room for the priests and altar boys now entering the church to the tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
Our paperboy was at the head of the procession, carrying a tall silver crucifix. I winked at him, but his eyes remained wide and unblinking as he passed with slow, measured steps. I leaned forward to see if I could recognize anyone else. A priest swung a metal incense ball right in front of my nose. The smoke pouring out of it was heavy and moist; one breath of it sickened me. A splash of holy water got me in the face just as Monsignor McGuire shuffled past with a ceramic baby Jesus cradled in his arms. The doll was ugly—bald, jowly, unhappy-looking—a miniature version of the monsignor.
Mass started, and it was fun for a while to watch the people sit, stand, speak, and cross themselves on cue. Every now and then, someone stood up for no reason, glanced around in alarm, then sat quickly back down. It was like a huge, easygoing game of Simon Says.
Ed poked me. “Is that your dad with Toupee Ray?”
My father was sitting on the right side of the aisle. He was wearing his good blue raincoat, and his hair was slicked back with Vitalis, curling a bit above the collar. There was no mistaking the hairline next to his.
“Ray should have a raccoon tail hanging from that thing,” Ed whispered.
Bill Floyd was everywhere these days. Not long ago I'd never seen him anywhere except church. He came with his mother. Mrs. Floyd was a blue-haired lady who wore a fur coat all year round, except in summer, when she wore a stole that came from the same animal. At the end of mass, while everyone else filed out, she remained on her knees. Her son sat beside her with his hands in his lap, looking calm and unhurried.
I had a clear view down the narrow center aisle straight to the altar, where a priest I'd never seen before was going on in what may have been a foreign language, and I remembered that there used to be a bowling alley in the basement of the church. My father had worked there as a pinboy for a penny a game back in the days before automated bowling, the days of Latin Mass. Years ago, the basement had been renovated into a separate church, with indoor-outdoor carpeting and soft overhead lighting. They had guitar masses down there.
I started to feel a little sick. Had someone turned up the heat? I wanted to take off my coat, but the procedure struck me as impossibly complex, what with the noise of the zipper and all the elaborate arm movements, so I decided to leave it on and concentrate on remaining upright.
Monsignor McGuire was giving a sermon about the Immaculate Conception. “And the Wonder of Wonders, the absolute joyful mystery of our Savior's birth is that God saw fit that Mary remained without stain. Our Holy Mother was without stain.”
Ed gave me an elbow. “What detergent did she use?” His voice was nearly as loud as the Mon-signor's.
Heads swiveled from all directions to look at us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hefty usher start toward us, and something about his sideburns made me sure he was an undercover cop. The last thing I needed was to get busted in church. I grabbed my shopping bag and pushed through the crowd into the vestibule. Without stopping to bless myself, I opened the heavy wooden door and stepped outside.
The fresh air only made me feel worse. It was too early to go home, and I couldn't think of anyplace to hang out, so I had no choice but to try to walk off the nasty hum in my head. I wandered down Grand Avenue, past darkened shops and factories, staring at my sneakers so I wouldn't have to look at the endless series of identical Santa Claus faces smiling down at me from the overhead wires. At Icee Freez, beneath the neon vanilla cone that had been turned off for winter, I stopped to take a rest. Someone had been using the parking lot to sell real Christmas trees. There were still a few left, scrawny spruces lying flat on the asphalt, cut down for nothing. Hoping to clear my head, I bent down over one to inhale the scent of the needles. It was a mistake. I puked on the tree, then remained on all fours until the spasms passed.
As soon as I felt a little better I dragged my shopping bag over to another, slightly larger tree. It occurred to me that I'd have to change into my good clothes if I wanted to avoid a scene at home. I unzipped my coat and draped it over the tree, as though covering a corpse. Then I took off my shirt. I pictured myself as one of those bare-chested drunks you see at football games, raising his beer cup to the TV camera while the fans around him shiver beneath layers of winter clothing.
It took me about six tries to get the tie right, and even then the skinny end was a little too long. I sat down on the tree trunk to put on my ridiculous shoes. They had three-inch plastic heels and were hopelessly out of style. Just last year, I had begged my parents to buy them for me.
When I walked through the front door, my mother was right where I knew she'd be—in the middle of the floor, wrapping a present. The Yule log was burning on TV.
“You're early,” she said.
“We had to stand in the back. I left at the beginning of Communion.”
“Oh.” She measured a length of red ribbon and snipped it with her scissors.
I took off my coat and hung it in the hall closet. The coat slid off the hanger just as I closed the door.
“I saw Daddy with Bill Floyd,” I said. “I guess he got a second wind.”
“Why didn't you wait for a ride?”
“I don't know. I guess I felt like walking.” My voice sounded as though a ventriloquist were standing behind me, pulling a string.
Her eyes narrowed. “You look funny. Are you all right?”
“I'm fine.”
“Come here. Hold down this ribbon for me.”
“Just a minute. I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Come on. It'll only take a second.”
I approached cautiously and knelt down. I placed my index fin
ger on the ribbon and stared at my fingernail for what seemed like a long time, trying not to breathe in her direction. She never tied the knot. When I looked up, her eyes were sparkling.
“How could you?” “What?”
“Don't,” she said. “Don't make it worse. Just get out of my sight.”
I woke up on top of my bed, feeling awful. My pants were off, but I was still wearing the shirt and tie I'd put on at Icee Freez. I forced myself to sit up. As soon as I loosened the tie, my head started pounding and I remembered why I was awake: I had to wrap the presents.
On my way to the bathroom for aspirin I stepped on something. I groped for the wall switch and saw, in the sudden nightmare brightness, that my mother had left scissors, tape, and wrapping paper outside my door.
The picture on front of the Pepperoni and Assorted Cheeses Gift Pack was almost enough to make me puke again, but somehow I managed to pull myself together. When I was finished I gathered the gifts in my arms. They looked like they'd been wrapped by a six-year-old.
Downstairs, Bill Floyd was stretched out on the recliner, fast asleep. He was flat on his back with his hands behind his head. Every few seconds a blinking light illuminated the room. The light came from a large, five-pointed star on top of the tree, a star I'd never seen before.
I set my presents under the tree. When I stood up the star blinked and I got a good look at Bill Floyd. He was snoring softly, and I felt a strong urge to shake him by the arm and wake him up. I wanted to watch him sit up and glance around in confusion, his toupee comically askew on his head, trying to figure out where he was.
I poked him once, but he only mumbled a vague protest. His face was peaceful, and it was suddenly strange to think of him waking up, putting on his coat, and trudging home through the darkness. The star blinked again. It was strange to think of him opening the door and stepping inside the big empty house that was waiting for him.
You Start to Live