“Specious, I guess. At least as a courser. Mom probably shot my dad as he was flying into the cottonwoods. She bagged the poor deer purely by accident.”
“There was a deer?”
“I rendered it. I used a hacksaw, a hammer, a dozen different knives. We had venison for months.”
“Not a talent we’d’ve ever attributed to you, Daniel.” Philip meant the actors and aspiring playwrights in the theater projects that Daniel raised money for and directed.
“Meat processing?” Daniel said.
Philip gave him a faint smile. “Your mother wasn’t prosecuted for the slaying?”
“It was self-defense. Or property defense, call it. Besides, no one ever found out.”
“Your dad’s bones are still out there in the dump?”
“I guess. But even if his bones are still there, his surviving aura isn’t. Not always, anyway.”
Philip wanted an explanation. Or pretended to want one. He was trying to be kind. Daniel was grateful. At this crucial pass, he thought it important to narrate the fallout of what had happened on that long-ago Christmas morning.
“My father—his ghost, anyway—appeared to me ten years later. To the day, Christmas 1967.”
“In Van Luna?”
“No. I left there after graduating high school. I vowed never to go back, Philip. A vow I’ve kept.”
“So where were you?”
“Cross-country skiing over a meadow of snow- and ice-laden trees in the northwestern corner of Yellowstone Park. A scene out of The Empire Strikes Back, Philip. Unearthly. Alien. Some of the trees had gusted together, and then frozen, in architectures of special-effect weirdness. The sky looked nickel-plated, but with a light behind it like thousands of smeared-out coals.
“And your dad—the ghost?”
“Hold on, O.K.?” Daniel opened his eyes as fully as he could, given all the plastic tubing. “I had a hemispherical tent. On Christmas Eve, I pitched it near a fountain of spruces. I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag. I listened to the crazy-lady arias of the wind. A super feeling. Peaceful. Exhilarating.”
“Yeah. Alone on Christmas. Thirty-five below.”
Toward morning, before dawn, icicle music woke me. (If you’ve never heard it, I can’t explain it.) A guy in a red-plaid coat was quivering like geyser steam outside my tent.”
“Klepto Kriss?”
“A.k.a. Clifton Pitts. He—it—sort of modulated in and out of existence with the moaning of the wind. Then he retreated, backing away toward the mountains. I had to throw on my coat and boots and go after him.”
“Just what I do when I see a ghost: I chase it.”
Daniel, taking his time now, breathing as if invisible crystals of ice had interthreaded the air, told Philip (who, he remembered, almost always ran lights for him) that his pursuit of his father’s aura had been successful: he had caught up with it.
The ghost had questioned him, wondering why Daniel was alone on Christmas Day, what he’d done with his life, and how, at his young age, he’d escaped taking up an M-16 in the war against the Reds in Southeast Asia. A Pitts—a strapping kid like Danny—should have volunteered.
“Did you tell him how you’d ‘escaped’?” Philip asked.
“I told him. And he—it—retreated, fading away into the wind so that I wasn’t able to follow it any longer. A bit later, after eating, I began to think I’d hallucinated the wraith’s visit. The cold, the high, thin air. It wasn’t unlikely, the possibility my mind had played tricks.”
“Sounds good to me. Better than a visitation.”
“Except—”
“Yeah?”
“Right after thinking I’d hallucinated my dad’s visit, I looked around and saw my sleeping bag was gone. My father—his ghost—had taken it.”
“An animal dragged it off, Daniel. Some other outdoorsy dude stole it while you were chasing your mirage.”
“No. There’d’ve been signs. Tracks. Footprints. Something. And I hadn’t been gone that long.”
“What would a ghost want with your sleeping bag?”
“To kill me, Philip. As soon as I recollected that it had come on an anniversary—the tenth anniversary of Clifton Pitts’s death—I knew why it had come. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. On Jesus’s birthday.”
“A sleeping bag?”
“Not just that. As soon as I’d realized what was happening, my tent blew away. It flipped back, beat against the trees, whirled off into the clouds. I was miles from the nearest town. Without my tent or sleeping bag, I was screwed.”
“But you got out O.K.”
“I followed some elk tracks to a hay bale left out for them by a tender-hearted rancher. Pure luck.”
“But you did get out.”
“No thanks to Papa Pitts.”
“Who’s haunted you every Christmas?”
“No. Only on ten-year anniversaries of that reindeer shoot in Van Luna.”
Philip cocked his head. “What happened last time?”
“In ’77 he materialized in an intensive care unit in Wichita. On which occasion he stole my mother.”
“You saw it?”
“It began with icicle music—this time, though, from a hospital cart turning over in a hall. Test tubes shattering.” Daniel shut his eyes. “Festively.”
“You’d returned to Kansas to be at your mom’s bedside?”
“Yes. Dad showed too. It annoyed him, how well I was doing. Healthy-hedonistic, looking contented. Mom’s lung cancer was a nice counter-balance for him—proof that the woman who’d killed him wasn’t immortal. And that her son—his son as well—might also be vulnerable. In fact, after taking Mom’s soul, he assured me that my heyday was over. Our heyday.”
Daniel remembered that he had received this news while staring perplexedly at his mother’s waxen face. Then the ghost (an unseen mirage to all the medical folk traipsing in and out) had begun to fade, Milly’s soul—the ghost had kissed her—fading with it. How did it feel to be swallowed by a mirage?
“He told you that?” Philip said. “‘Our heyday is over’?”
Daniel blinked a yes.
“How do you suppose he knew?”
“Who can say? Maybe he guessed. Or maybe it was just redneck spleen. A cartoon of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ on a TV in a seventh-floor waiting room rubbed him wrong; he wasn’t happy about the way the war’d turned out; he didn’t like the peanut farmer in Washington. Grievances, grievances.”
Philip got up, walked around the sick man’s bed to the window. He seemed agitated. “This is another ten-year anniversary. To the day, Daniel. He’s due again.”
“Right. Maybe you’d better split, Philip.”
“I’ll drop in tomorrow. With Mario and Trent.”
“Gary,” Daniel said. “I want Gary to drop in.”
“Gary was a sweet man, Daniel. But he’s gone. We can’t recall him to us. You know that.”
“I know that.”
“Hang on, O.K.? Just hang on.” Philip leaned down, touched his lips to Daniel’s brow, and murmured, “Goodbye.” Then, finally, finally, he exited.
The radio at the nurses’ station down the hall was broadcasting carols. An intern and a candy striper were dancing together just outside Daniel’s room. Someone at the other end of the floor blew a raspberry on a noise-maker. The intern peeked in, sporting a cap with plastic reindeer antlers. Daniel waved feebly to let him know his getup was amusing. Satisfied, the intern backed out.
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
* * *
Outside Daniel’s window, faint icicle music. The glassblower’s panpipe hanging from the cornice had begun to melt, releasing long-pent melodies.
“Come on,” Daniel murmured. “Come on.”
He couldn’t wait. He wanted his father’s bitter ghost to get a move on. If it materialized in the room and stole his soul, that would be a welcome violation: a theft and a benediction, the first Christmas present his daddy had given him in over thirty y
ears.
Come quickly, Father. Come.
Miracle
Connie Willis
* * *
There was a Christmas tree in the lobby when Lauren got to work, and the receptionist was sitting with her chin in her hand, watching the security monitor. Lauren set her shopping bag down and looked curiously at the screen. On it, Jimmy Stewart was dancing the Charleston with Donna Reed.
“The Personnel Morale Special Committee had cable piped in for Christmas,” the receptionist explained, handing Lauren her messages. “I love It’s a Wonderful Life, don’t you?”
Lauren stuck her messages in the top of her shopping bag and went up to her department. Red and green crepe paper hung in streamers from the ceiling, and there was a big red crepe paper bow tied around Lauren’s desk.
“The Personnel Morale Special Committee did it,” Cassie said, coming over with the catalog she’d been reading. “They’re decorating the whole building, and they want us and Document Control to go caroling this afternoon. Don’t you think PMS is getting out of hand with this Christmas spirit thing? I mean, who wants to spend Christmas Eve at an office party?”
“I do,” Lauren said. She set her shopping bag down on the desk, sat down, and began taking off her boots.
“Can I borrow your stapler?” Cassie asked. “I’ve lost mine again. I’m ordering my mother the Water of the Month, and I need to staple my check to the order form.”
“The water of the month?” Lauren said, opening her desk drawer and taking out her stapler.
“You know, they send you bottles of a different one every month. Perrier, Evian, Calistoga.” She peered in Lauren’s shopping bag. “Do you have Christmas presents in there? I hate people who have their shopping done four weeks before Christmas.”
“It’s four days till Christmas,” Lauren said, “and I don’t have it all done. I still don’t have anything for my sister. But I’ve got all my friends, including you, done.” She reached in the shopping bag and pulled out her pumps. “And I found a dress for the office party.”
“Did you buy it?”
“No.” She put on one of her shoes. “I’m going to try it on during my lunch hour.”
“If it’s still there,” Cassie said gloomily. “I had this echidna toothpick holder all picked out for my brother, and when I went back to buy it, they were all gone.”
“I asked them to hold the dress for me,” Lauren said. She put on her other shoe. “It’s gorgeous. Black off-the-shoulder. Sequined.”
“Still trying to get Scott Buckley to notice you, huh? I don’t do things like that anymore. Nineties women don’t use sexist tricks to attract men. Besides, I decided he was too cute to ever notice somebody like me.” She sat down on the edge of Lauren’s desk and started leafing through the catalog. “Here’s something your sister might like. The Vegetable of the Month. February’s okra.”
“She lives in Southern California,” Lauren said, shoving her boots under the desk.
“Oh. How about the Sunscreen of the Month?”
“No,” Lauren said. “She’s into New Age stuff. Channeling and stuff. Last year she sent me a crystal pyramid mate selector for Christmas.”
“The Eastern philosophy of the month,” Cassie said, “Zen, sufism, tai chi—”
“I’d like to get her something she’d really like,” Lauren mused. “I always have a terrible time figuring out what to get people for Christmas. So this year, I decided things were going to be different. I wasn’t going to be tearing around the mall the day before Christmas, buying things no one would want and wondering what on earth I was going to wear to the office party. I started doing my shopping in September, I wrapped my presents as soon as I bought them, I have all my Christmas cards done and ready to mail—”
“You’re disgusting,” Cassie said. “Oh, here, I almost forgot.” She pulled a folded slip of paper out of her catalog and handed it to Lauren. “It’s your name for the Secret Santa gift exchange. PMS says you’re supposed to bring your present for it by Friday so it won’t interfere with the presents Santa Claus hands out at the office party.”
Lauren unfolded the paper, and Cassie leaned over to read it. “Who’d you get? Wait, don’t tell me. Scott Buckley.”
“No, Fred Hatch. And I know just what to get him.”
“Fred? The fat guy in Documentation? What is it, the Diet of the Month?”
“This is supposed to be the season of love and charity, not the season when you make mean remarks about someone just because he’s overweight,” Lauren said sternly. “I’m going to get him a videotape of Miracle on 34th Street.”
Cassie looked uncomprehending.
“It’s Fred’s favorite movie. We had a wonderful talk about it at the office party last year.”
“I never heard of it.”
“It’s about Macy’s Santa Claus. He starts telling people they can get their kids toys cheaper at Gimbel’s, and then the store psychiatrist decides he’s crazy—”
“Why don’t you get him It’s a Wonderful Life? That’s my favorite Christmas movie.”
“Yours and everybody else’s. I think Fred and I are the only two people in the world who like Miracle on 34th Street better. See, Edmund Gwenn, he’s Santa Claus, gets committed to Bellevue because he thinks he’s Santa Claus, and since there isn’t any Santa Claus, he has to be crazy, but he is Santa Claus and Fred Gailey, that’s John Payne, he’s a lawyer in the movie, he decides to have a court hearing to prove it, and—”
“I watch It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas. I love the part where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall into the swimming pool,” Cassie said. “What happened to the stapler?”
* * *
They had the dress and it fit, but there was an enormous jam-up at the cash register, and then they couldn’t find a hanging bag for it.
“Just put it in a shopping bag,” Lauren said, looking anxiously at her watch.
“It’ll wrinkle,” the clerk said ominously and continued to search for a hanging bag. By the time Lauren convinced her a shopping bag would work, it was already twelve-fifteen. She had hoped she’d have time to look for a present for her sister, but there wasn’t going to be time. She still had to run the dress home and mail the Christmas cards.
I can pick up Fred’s video, she thought, fighting her way onto the escalator. That wouldn’t take much time since she knew what she wanted, and maybe they’d have something with Shirley Maclaine in it she could get her sister. Ten minutes to buy the video, she thought, tops.
It took her nearly half an hour. There was only one copy, which the clerk couldn’t find.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have It’s a Wonderful Life?” she asked Lauren. “It’s my favorite movie.”
“I want Miracle on 34th Street,” Lauren said patiently. “With Edmund Gwenn and Natalie Wood.”
The clerk picked up a copy of It’s a Wonderful Life off a huge display. “See, Jimmy Stewart’s in trouble and he wishes he’d never been born, and this angel grants him his wish—”
“I know,” Lauren said. “I don’t care. I want Miracle on 34th Street.”
“Okay!” the clerk said, and wandered off to look for it, muttering, “Some people don’t have any Christmas spirit.”
She finally found it, in the M’s of all places, and then insisted on giftwrapping it.
By the time Lauren made it back to her apartment, it was a quarter to one. She would have to forget lunch and mailing the Christmas cards, but she could at least take them with her, buy the stamps, and put the stamps on at work.
She took the video out of the shopping bag and set it on the coffee table next to her purse, picked up the bag and started for the bedroom.
Someone knocked on the door.
“I don’t have time for this,” she muttered, and opened the door, still holding the shopping bag.
It was a young man wearing a “Save the Whales” T-shirt and khaki pants. He had shoulder-length blond hair and a vague expression that made her
think of Southern California.
“Yes? What is it?” she asked.
“I’m here to give you a Christmas present,” he said.
“Thank you, I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling,” she said, and shut the door.
He knocked again immediately. “I’m not selling anything,” he said through the door. “Really.”
I don’t have time for this, she thought, but she opened the door again.
“I’m not a salesguy,” he said. “Have you ever heard of the Maharishi Ram Dras?”
A religious nut.
“I don’t have time to talk to you.” She started to say, “I’m late for work,” and then remembered you weren’t supposed to tell strangers your apartment was going to be empty. “I’m very busy,” she said and shut the door, more firmly this time.
The knocking commenced again, but she ignored it. She started into the bedroom with the shopping bag, came back and pushed the deadbolt across and put the chain on, and then went in to hang up her dress. By the time she’d extricated it from the tissue paper and found a hanger, the knocking had stopped. She hung up the dress, which looked just as deadly now that she had it home, and went back in the living room.
The young man was sitting on the couch, messing with her TV remote. “So, what do you want for Christmas? A yacht? A pony?” He punched buttons on the remote, frowning. “A new TV?”
“How did you get in here?” Lauren said squeakily. She looked at the door. The deadbolt and chain were both still on.
“I’m a spirit,” he said, putting the remote down. The TV suddenly blared on. “The Spirit of Christmas Present.”
“Oh,” Lauren said, edging toward the phone. “Like in A Christmas Carol.”
“No,“ he said, flipping through the channels. She looked at the remote. It was still on the coffee table. “Not Christmas Present. Christmas Present. You know, Barbie dolls, ugly ties, cheese logs, the stuff people give you for Christmas.”
“Oh, Christmas Present. I see,” Lauren said, carefully picking up the phone.
“People always get me confused with him, which is really insulting. I mean, the guy obviously has a really high cholesterol level. Anyway, I’m the Spirit of Christmas Present, and your sister sent me to—”
A Yuletide Universe Page 11