by Jay Quinn
I glanced at the box—it was from Zack’s agency—and I decided I’d ignore it. I needed two glasses of orange juice with just enough vodka to give it a twang, and I needed to get my nekkid ass back in bed. This was just a pit stop after all.
But by the time I made the two drinks even my plushiousness—hell yes! Plush and luscious was how I felt that sunny morning. Even my plushious mood couldn’t distract my curiosity about what was in the box. So I left the glasses of spiked juice on the counter, took a steak knife from the wooden block, and went to retrieve the box from the floor by the door.
It was heavy, but it had a weird center of gravity. Something slid inside as I picked it up and carried it to the kitchen table. I went at the clear tape sealing the seams like a pro, slicing through them neatly. Folding back the flaps of the box, I saw what was inside: a ham. Not even a Smithfield ham, but one of the cheap ones. This was what Zack’s company sent the employees. Management got a Smithfield ham, underlings and retirees got some cheap-ass off brand.
I started laughing. If I hadn’t just spent a stupendous afternoon getting fucked senseless, my self-esteem would have been beat near ‘bout to death by that off-brand ham. But in my current state of mind, the ham was just a ham and would be really tasty in a couple of days.
“What’s so funny?” Heath called from my bedroom down the hall. Leaving the ham in its box on the table, I picked up the glasses of juice and started back to bed. Halfway there I felt my dick swing and marveled at the weight of my balls. It had been a long time since I thought of my dick as anything other than something to piss through and my balls as anything other than something that got uncomfortably creased in my boxer shorts. Looking down, I saw the whole package bouncing merrily below the slight curve of my belly. Welcome back, boys, I thought. God bless us every one.
December 24th dawned cold and lonesome. Heath was on his way to Greensboro to visit his sisters, but he said he’d be back by my house around lunchtime on Christmas. There were animal patients and boarders that needed to be checked on. As there were no real patients—only boarders—Heath had promised his assistant that if she covered the feed-up and walking on Christmas Eve, he’d be back in time to do the same chores on Christmas morning. I offered to spell them both as I didn’t really have any responsibilities or plans, but Heath declined graciously.
I’d always taken Beau’s vets for granted over the years. Heath’s difficult dad would have been pleased, I thought, by his fierce commitment to his four-legged patients. I was so sentimental about my own dog that I couldn’t even watch stories on animal abuse on the evening news, even though I could abide stories of human murder, abuse, and inhumanity with near immunity.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Heath had said when I told him this. “But, I do feel a great responsibility to dogs and cats. Hell, even horses and cows. Human beings took on that concern when we made them so utterly dependent on us.”
That resonated very deeply with me. Heath didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would discard anyone, animal or human, in favor of a prettier breed or a self-serving need. He wasn’t the kind of person to send a cheap ham to the person who raised his kids, in other words.
To get some of the salt out, I set the ham Zack had his office send me to bubbling along merrily in the biggest stock pot I had. After I let it cool a bit, I’d score the tough outer skin and put it in the oven, bathed in bourbon and brown sugar to bake.
I jumped feetfirst into the Christmas spirit the moment I got up. After my morning walk on the beach—which proved to be exhilarating, not depressing, this Christmas Eve morning—I strode up the stairs to the deck, let myself into the cottage, and got busy. I had the tree on, the fireplace on, and the Temptations’ Christmas CD playing loud. For no reason other than it was what I always did, I was cooking: peeling potatoes for potato salad, chopping onions and celery for oyster dressing, preheating the oven to bake a pound cake and pecan pies. I was really enjoying the home comfort of habit. I had not heard one word of holiday plans from any of the kids or their spouses, but that didn’t really matter. If the food didn’t get eaten, I had a near-empty freezer and a long winter ahead.
The phone’s ringing caught me by surprise. I picked it up with one hand and tried to reach the volume control on the CD player in the kitchen with the other.
“Hello! Hold on a minute, I’ve got to turn down the music,” I shouted into the phone. I got the Temptations down to a dull roar and picked up the phone again, fully expecting it to be Wade Lee. “Sorry, what’s up?”
“Hello Chris, Merry Christmas,” a familiar voice said.
“Well, I’ll be damned! Merry Christmas to you, Zack.” I was surprised, but not really.
“It sounds like you’ve got quite a party going on there.”
“Actually, it’s just me, but I’m wide open. Got that ham you sent me cooking right now.”
“Yeah? Well … that’s great.”
“Thanks, Zack. I mean it, I do appreciate the ham. It was thoughtful of you to keep me on the list.”
“You’re certainly welcome, but that’s not why I called.”
I realized Zack had no idea I was even on the list.
“I wanted to let you know Alicia and I are having the usual Christmas party tonight, if you’d like to drop by … if you’re in town.”
“That’s great, Zack. But I plan on staying right here. Except for going to Mass, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh. Well, I thought you might like to see the kids. We’re going to open gifts here tonight.”
“Oh man, Alicia must be going nuts with the last-minute details. Christmas Eve parties are a lot of work.”
“So you don’t mind?”
My first thought was Bastard, but I said, “Absolutely not, Zack. The kids are all grown and have busy lives. It’s probably much more convenient for them to spend time with you and Alicia tonight and have some time to themselves tomorrow. I’ll see them sooner or later before Old Christmas.”
Old Christmas was January sixth—Epiphany. I had made it a part of the kid’s holiday tradition while they were growing up. It was primarily a religious event, but I did hold back one gift apiece to give them on the day tradition said the three wise men arrived to see the baby Jesus. In exchange for the last of their gifts, the kids gave me leftover Christmas cards that I made them each fill with personal promises as a present for the infant Christ.
Over the years I’d collected a lot of cards. I had the box out on the table and planned to string them up around the dining room windows as a sort of garland, like I always did. I loved reading the progression of promises, which ranged from Schooner’s crayoned scrawl of his name to Trey’s “This year I promise not to fart on Schooner while he’s sleeping,” Andrea’s “I promise not to chew my fingernails” and “I promise not to become a big slut like Mary Katherine Henderson,” and Schooner’s thoroughly ambiguous “I promise not to smoke any more cheap bud” from last year.
Zack pulled me back from that recollection. “Have you spoken with any of them?”
“No, not for a couple of weeks, but Schooner has claimed my loft.”
Zack chuckled at that and said, “Don’t let him get too comfortable—he might never leave.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying he shouldn’t be so hard on Schooner. Zack had always considered Schooner’s casual je ne sais quoi as sheer laziness. Instead, I just said, “No problem there.”
After an uncomfortable bit of silence, Zack said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate your … maturity … over the past year, Chris.”
“Ah, sweetheart, I’m really not a child that’s surprised you by being well behaved. You’ve never really gotten that have you? I raised your children into pretty wonderful adults and you’ve done well by me in return, Zack. I think I didn’t do too badly with you, considering I really became just a housekeeper you acquired for nursery duty and the odd blow job now and again.”
“Chris, that’s not fair. You don’t honest
ly—”
“No, wait. Let me finish. I really don’t want to get into this. Can you just believe me when I tell you everything’s okay between us, Zack? I’m actually very happy and proud of the life we made together. Now, I’m doing great, really Zack. I’m situated and happy. Okay?”
“Would it matter to you if I said I miss you?”
I let that stand just long enough to try to summon some good feelings from a lifetime of memories. It wasn’t difficult, but Goddamn it, why did he always have to be the one walking away with a concession? I took another uncomfortable few seconds to collect myself.
“Chris—”
“No, Zack. I appreciate the thought, but there’s no looking back. What really matters is I genuinely wish you a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. We both deserve to follow up last year with a great new one, don’t you think?”
I waited for what seemed an eternity before Zack said, “Take care of yourself, Chris.”
“You too, baby. You too.”
There’s a Christmas CD I listen to only on Christmas morning. That was pretty much the only time I had to myself all day—usually between 6 to 6:30. The kids and Zack were often still and asleep until then. We seldom got home from Midnight Mass and into bed before 2 A.M. I’d get up in the chilly house, stir up the fireplaces in the living room and in the kitchen, and play the CD while I made coffee.
This year I woke up at my usual time and wandered alone into the chilly expanse of my new beach house and started my pushbutton fireplace. I turned on the lights that covered the embarrassingly large tree and started the CD just after I turned on the coffee.
I leaned against the sink and watched the dawn begin to brighten my partial ocean view with streaks of pink lacing the few clouds to a cold blue sky. The second song on the CD was a beautiful soprano singing “Procession from a Ceremony of Carols, Opus 28” with only the accompaniment of a piano. In reality, the song must have been recorded in some old, cold conservatory. The notes of the piano and the woman’s voice were so pure in what sounded like a vast space. It was hard to imagine the song being committed to tape in a contemporary studio.
In my mind’s eye I saw the pianist—a trim, spare man and the singer—a large woman dressed in a white choir robe with a navy- blue chasuble. They came, just the two of them, to a very plain, empty old church, with bright, early-morning light streaming in through large, clear windows. It is cold in the church, and the piano’s notes and the woman’s clear voice are achingly beautiful in the brittle air. They have come to this sacred place to offer the gift of this song to the Christ child. Not the effigy of an infant in a crib before the altar, but rather the living presence of promise newly arrived with the pure morning light.
Whatever else ever came my way on Christmas—poorly wrapped handmade doodads carefully presented by small chubby hands or glittering boxes containing expensive things and offered with an anxious smile—it was always that song on that CD that captured the spirit of the day to me. Its austere beauty was a tonic against all the excess—religious and secular—of the season.
Like most families, mine reveled in the holiday spirit, but being practicing Catholics offered an additional dimension to the season. I especially liked going to church during Advent, with the church decorated and the sense of coming wonder tugging at the edges of my life I reserved for religion.
With Christmas morning actually begun in church the night before, I watched the pageant of the dawn with a continuing awe. I said my poorly prepared prayer of thanks and wonder and praise alone on Christmas morning. As the sun peeked over the horizon, I finished my prayer, crossed myself, and smiled.
Then, ever human and always flawed, I drank coffee spiked with Kahlua and ate cold sliced ham and potato salad off a Blue Willow plate I’d looted off eBay. I eventually moved from the kitchen table to a chair by the fire and from coffee and Kahlua to eggnog and bourbon. Feeling pleasantly potted and half asleep, I was startled by a rap on the French doors off the deck.
All I had on was a pair of flannel boxer shorts and a T-shirt from the Dine-A-Shore Grill and Pier, but I marched over to quiet the knocking that was becoming pounding. I opened the door and was nearly knocked down by Trey, who held up a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice. His wife Susan followed behind him a little unsteadily; one of her fingers gripped Trey’s back belt loop and carried two more bottles of champagne in her other hand. Behind her came Andrea and David carrying presents, and after them Schooner followed with his hands awkwardly balancing more presents of varying sizes.
Trey and Susan claimed never to have gone to bed, but Andrea claimed they had slept in David’s car on the way to the beach. I got swept up in the organization of coats and presents and champagne popping. I was more than a little overwhelmed, but I was also hugely happy.
“Look at my nontraditional household of upper middle-class white people doing Christmas,” Andrea proclaimed, raising her glass of orange juice as Trey slopped champagne into it.
“Don’t deconstruct my holiday you postmodernist, over analyzing bitch,” Schooner said as he handed me a glass of champagne.
“Kiss my ass, you little sawed-off Republican twerp,” Andrea shot back.
“Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?” David intoned evilly, putting his arm around Andrea and kissing her neck.
“Mister Scrooge, would there were not,” Susan said, pinching David’s ass.
“Knock it off, all of you,” Trey ordered. “Chris, a toast?”
I nodded and waited as Trey swung around to take in his siblings, wife, and brother-in-law. When he was satisfied they were all settled and paying attention, he lifted his sloppy glass and said, “To being home for Christmas.”
“And to the best, smartest, and most beautiful kids in the world,” I answered. And we all swallowed our toast, quiet for once and all happy. My family had truly returned to me.
“I’m hungry,” someone said.
“I’m fucking starved.”
“Where are the plates, Chris?”
“The house is beautiful, Chris!
“I want to open presents.”
“Not until I take a leak. Chris, where’s the bathroom?”
“You thought we weren’t coming, didn’t you?”
“Schoo-ner, stop eating out of the bowl, how crude can you get?”
“No, wait. For God’s sake, don’t show her.”
“Damn, it’s hot in here. Open them French doors.”
“There has got to be some potato salad, right?”
“Fuck that, where’s the pie?”
“Chris, please don’t tell me you forgot to make pecan pie.”
“Schooner, you forgot the biggest present, run downstairs and get it.”
“What am I, your fucking slave, Trey?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The mouth on you on a Christmas morning.”
“Are you drunk?”
“A little. Are you?”
“A little.”
The afternoon sun was westerning and the day had warmed the sand so it was nice under my bare feet. Heath and I walked along the beach toward the pier.
“Does your family always drink so much?”
I shrugged. “They’re Irish, almost full-blooded. Their father’s mother was a drunk and their mother … well, let’s just say she had her own problems. I think that gives them some caution, but alcohol was never a big deal with their father, so it’s never been a big deal with me. They can handle it.”
We walked a few minutes in silence. As we neared the pier Heath said, “My father was a drunk. A social drunk, but a drunk nonetheless. It makes me think about it, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. But you’re part of that Protestant country club world. Baptists are like cats: You know they’re out raising hell, but you can’t ever catch them at it. We Catholics are more out in the open.”
Heath laughed and stopped. “Are you ready to turn around yet? I need to be getting back to start getting some dogs and cats t
aken care of for the evening.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s turn around.”
We turned back toward the wintry sun. The island lay east to west with the beach along its southern exposure, and the cool colored sun still washed our faces with warmth.
“How long do you think they’ll all sleep?” Heath asked.
“For a while longer. I imagine they’ll be waking soon, hungry and facing a long drive back to Raleigh.”
“Traffic shouldn’t be too bad for them. The highway back from Greensboro was nearly deserted this morning.”
“So, what do you think of my kids?”
“They’re a handful, for sure.”
We walked along for another silent minute or two. Terns and gulls scooted out of our way, unperturbed and peaceful.
“The sun is really nice, isn’t it?” I said to break the spell.
“It’s a beautiful Christmas Day,” he replied.
“One thing I wanted to ask you …”
“Shoot.”
“Where’s my puppy?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where’s my Chesapeake puppy … that’s the way I saw today ending.”
“You’re a bit of a princess, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea,” I said with a grin.
“I suppose I could get you a Chesapeake. Do you think you’re ready?”
“Dog people aren’t ever really happy without a dog. A good man told me that once not long ago.”
“I know that man. Maybe it’s time to give Steve Willis a call. His girl-dog’s litter came earlier than we expected. They’re 10 days old now.”