My mother’s psychiatrist always had her on one pill or another. Sometimes, the effects could be quite entertaining. I liked best the pills that made her sleep. For days. It gave me the opportunity to paint her eyelids with blue chalk dust and apply a wide coating of lipstick, doubling the size of her lips. I saw my sleeping, made-up mother not as clownish but as beautiful.
Inspired by the “earthy” new generation of women like Carole King, who wore no makeup and looked like a farmhand, my mother had stopped wearing anything on her face. Maybe she would wear lip-colored lipstick, which only made her look as if she had just eaten a greasy drumstick and not wiped her mouth.
My mother pulled herself together and followed after my grandparents in her side-effect shuffle, wiping her hands on the hips of her black slacks. I noticed that her black turtleneck was on inside out, the white tag making her look like something that could still be returned to the store.
My grandfather was now standing in the center of the kitchen, turning around and around, Jesus/Santa still under his arm.
First, Santa’s head knocked against my cake batter bowl and sent it skittering to the edge of the counter, where my grandmother swooped forward and caught it just in time. Then Jesus’s glossy black boots smacked my grandmother in the back of her head as Jesus/Santa came around again. “Jesus, Santa old boy, I’d hate to see you after a few highballs!” my grandfather chuckled.
And I thought, My grandfather calls him Jesus/Santa, too. Now I was desperately confused.
“Damn it, Jack, stand in one place or you’ll destroy the whole kitchen!” my grandmother shouted, her hands fluttering around the back of her head, repairing her hairstyle.
“Aw, hell,” my grandfather finally said, “let’s set this ol’ boy down in the living room next to the tree.” And with that, he turned one last time and walked back out through the kitchen doorway, Carolyn scurrying after him with her arms already outstretched, ready to catch whatever it was that came crashing down.
Her internal clock obviously unwound, my mother commented, “Why, I’ve never seen such a thing. He’s nearly life-size. He sure does take over the kitchen!”
In a mean little voice I whispered, “They’ve already left the room.”
But Jack had heard her with his basset hound ears. “He sure as hell does. And let me tell you, we had a hell of a time fitting the old boy in the car, but we finally just lay him on his side in the backseat and Carolyn here gave him a good shove and we shut the door. Made it up here in record time, too.”
When I stepped into the living room I couldn’t even breathe. He’d set Jesus/Santa down right beside the tree and it was an overwhelming sight. Here he was, all for me.
I felt overjoyed, like one of the crippled wheelchair kids on TV when Jesus floats down and shines his light on them.
This year, our tree was so tall it nearly touched the central cedar beam of the cathedral ceiling. It was the tallest tree we’d ever had and my father almost didn’t get it. He was worried it wouldn’t fit on top of the car; then he was worried it wouldn’t fit inside the house. He threatened to get this stumpy, awful little tree that looked like an angry fat person, all crooked and lopsided. It reminded me of my mother before she went on Weight Watchers. When I mentioned this to my father—“Doesn’t it remind you of her? Especially from the side?”—he immediately turned away from the angry stump tree and said, “We’ll get the other one.”
I stepped forward and looked up at the glorious tree and my Jesus/Santa standing guard beside it.
Now, the garbage my mother had added to the tree no longer bothered me. It was as if Jesus/Santa had made all of her trash simply vanish.
My mother placed her own “fragile and very special” ornaments on the top half of the tree, out of my reach. Where I couldn’t smash them, I knew she was thinking. But she flattered herself; I had no interest in her beige angels made from common barn straw or her Three Wise Men crafted entirely from Indian corn. And if she thought I had any interest in her precious little walnut-shell mouse, she truly was crazy and should be locked away.
Blech.
Why would anybody pollute a Christmas tree with such filth? Why stop at corncobs and straw and nutshells; why not just glue dirt and puff balls to the branches?
A Christmas tree should be wrapped around and around and around with a dazzling gold garland. And then tinsel should cling to every branch—in clumps, not stingy strands. And there should be lights, dozens of them. All blinking. And then gold and silver balls, some coated with sparkly glitter, the others with tiny mirrors. And maybe it would be okay to have a few other things, as long as they were either illuminated or gold-electroplated.
I noticed that even in the wide-open, breathy light of the morning that diffused the living room, I could see the bright red, green, blue, yellow, orange, and white lights from the tree reflected in Jesus/Santa’s shiny black boots.
I wanted those boots.
On Jesus/Santa’s face—so true to life—was an expression of genuine affection.
I wanted that face.
My grandfather had led my grandmother and mother into the kitchen. I heard the freezer door open then the shattering smack of a bag of ice hitting the counter. In an instant, my father came ambling up the stairs. The ice had called him like a dog whistle: Special occasion cocktails in the morning!
I heard my grandfather’s sonic boom. “Well, hey there old man! How are ya, boy? Where the hell have you been? Your mama and I have been here for hours already.”
I just couldn’t believe it. This was, this was ... I didn’t have the words to even describe the euphoria I felt. Not only would I love having Santa right here in the house with us for Christmas, but when the holidays were over, I would move Jesus right into my bedroom and he would live with me, full time.
My mother stuck her sweaty head out the kitchen doorway. “Augusten,” she called, “you can play with Santa later, come on in here now with your grandparents and say hello.”
“Coming,” I shouted back. Then I quickly reached forward and touched the Jesus/Santa’s crotch.
When I walked innocently into the kitchen, my grandmother clapped her hands together then patted her thighs. “Come here, precious, and sit on my lap.”
I was still technically small enough to be able to fit on a lap. But in a matter of months, I would be banned from laps as I would shoot up almost a whole foot and weigh nearly as much as a big dog.
“Now, what’s this business about referring to Santa as,” and she whispered the name, “Jesus?”
I just looked at her and blinked.
“You know it’s wrong for you to make fun of Jesus, don’t you?”
I bristled at the mere suggestion, felt my small ears grow warm. I certainly did know this and furthermore, I wasn’t making fun. “I know that,” I said. “I would never say anything hateful about Jesus. That’s why I’m so happy he’s here.”
My grandmother studied me, her thin, lined lips puckering around a cigarette that wasn’t there. “Now, honey, when you say you’re so happy he’s ‘here,’ you mean here, don’t you?” and she placed her hand on her blouse, above her heart.
“No, Carolyn,” I said, calling her by her first name as all the grandchildren did. “I mean, I’m glad he’s here, in the house, out there in the living room next to the tree where Jack stuck him. You saw, you were there.”
My grandmother was now flustered. “Jack,” she said, “give me that,” and she nodded to the drink in his hand. She meant business, so he took a step over and passed it to her. She grabbed the glass from his hand and took a deep swallow, then handed it back.
That’s when she asked me, “Honey? Do you really think that big, red stuffed Santa we brought you is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior?”
The room fell eerily silent all of a sudden and everybody stared at me, waiting for my answer. It was the silliest question in the world, the answer so obvious that I was alerted to a possible trick.
I craned my neck aroun
d to look at my father, my mother, Jack—all of whom were looking at me expectantly.
“Well,” I said carefully, as though taking my first step across a frozen pond, listening for the crack of ice, “I know that he’s Santa.”
And my grandmother smiled, pleased with my answer, and patted me on the head.
“But he’s also Jesus,” I added. And I felt her stiffen beneath my legs.
“Margaret,” Carolyn said, glowering at my mother, “what does he mean?”
My mother stepped over to the sink and ran the faucet over her cigarette, tossed it into the trash and immediately lit another. “I’m not sure what he means at all, Carolyn,” she replied, the new calm smile still attached to her face. “Augusten, why do you say Jesus and Santa are the same? How so?”
So this is how it came to pass that I got my first lesson in Christian theology. Front row center on my grandmother’s lap, I learned that what I had believed all my life was not only terribly wrong but deeply sinful and disrespectful.
In fact, I could likely burn in hell for all of eternity for my error.
Jesus was real. Jesus was God’s own child, as surely as I was my mother’s. He lived in the sky—not, absurdly, at the North Pole above Canada—and he invented everything, including Eskimos and goats.
“And Pop-Tarts?” I asked.
“No,” my grandmother replied, “not Pop-Tarts.”
She continued with the lesson. Jesus was the Holy Father, or at least his son.
“Which?” I asked.
“I told you,” she said. “Jesus is our Lord and Savior.”
“Then who’s God?” I asked.
“Jesus is God,” she replied.
“But you said Jesus was the son of God just as surely as I am the son of my mother.”
My mother cleared her throat and everybody turned to face her. She asked, “I can’t interest anybody in thum cheethe and crackerth?” She winked, like she was trying to be a pretty television star, except it was just a muscle spasm.
Everybody turned away from her.
But the interruption had given my grandmother her escape hatch. She changed the subject and I still didn’t understand how Jesus could be God and the son of God at the same time.
Santa Claus, she explained, did not live in the sky; he flew through it once a year on a sleigh powered by reindeer. He lived at the North Pole with Mrs. Claus and some little people who made toys for him.
“You mean midget slaves?” I asked.
My grandmother sucked in her air. “Goodness gracious, no, I most certainly do not mean midget slaves. Where did you even learn to combine such words? These are little leprechauns he has up there with him and—”
My grandfather blasted in. “Aw now, hell, Carolyn, don’t go twisting the boy back up in knots all over again now that you finally got him straightened out. They aren’t leprechauns, son. They’re elves. Leprechauns are those little drunk motherfuckers from Ireland.”
Carolyn let out a little yelp. “J. G. Robison, I should wash your mouth out with soap, you know better than to use such language in front of a child.”
I told my grandmother, “It’s okay. We say much worse things here.”
Her face grew dark. “You do?”
Jack chuckled into his drink and my grandmother moved on.
Once a year, Santa delivered presents to all the good boys and girls all over the world.
My grandparents had brought a life-size stuffed Santa, not a life-size Jesus. As my grandmother said, “Nobody knows for sure how tall Jesus was, anyway, so he could hardly be life-size, even if he was Jesus—which he is not, son. Which he most certainly is not.”
I was more confused than ever. “So, Christmas is Jesus’s own birthday?”
My grandmother said that it was.
I told her how in stores, sometimes you saw pictures of Jesus, but mostly, you saw Santa. On television, you saw cartoons and programs with both of them. And that’s why I figured, Jesus brings presents to all the poor, foreign, and crippled children and Santa brings presents to the regular children, like me.
That’s what I thought in the beginning, anyway.
“But then I heard this song called, ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ and it goes, ‘Hang your stockings and say your prayers, ’cause Santa Claus comes tonight,’ and I realized, ‘say your prayers’ means they are the same person. It’s just that, most of the year, Jesus is naked except for his little rag and his thorn hat and then on Christmas, he puts on his good red suit.”
My grandmother stared at me in disbelief. And then she glanced up at my mother as if to say, This is all your doing. You could just about see those words right there in her eyes. But my mother didn’t catch the look because she was struggling to open a can of tuna at the counter; the opener kept sliding off the lid and banging against the Formica countertop. Frustrated, she finally tossed aside the opener and began stabbing at the lid with a fork until Jack gently placed his hand onto her wrist and smiled at her.
I knew my grandmother thought I was as dumb as a sock, but somehow, this had made perfect sense to me. It wasn’t like I actually sat down and figured the whole thing out. But my beliefs had evolved over time—one piece of false information layered on top of another—until I came to my incorrect and extremely sinful view of Christmas.
Darkly, I thought of all the wordy, bossy letters I had mailed to Jesus—long lists of products that I wanted and where they could be purchased. I’d even lied to him once and said, “My brother says he doesn’t want anything and I can have whatever ration you were going to give him, so could I have an above-ground pool?” You weren’t supposed to lie, and I had lied to the very man who made up the rule about not lying. I could not even think about how furious these letters must have made him. He’s busy building goats and rocks and air and I am pestering him and lying. Jesus, I realized, must just hate me.
Sitting on my grandmother’s lap as she explained that Jesus and Santa were two entirely different people with very different careers, I felt something drain out of me. Joy was bleeding away, being replaced with a kind of cottony confusion and a disappointment that seemed to have a physical weight, like stones.
What else did I believe that was wrong?
Once my grandmother was convinced that I was clear on exactly who was standing beside the tree, she allowed me to jump off her lap and run out to see him. I heard her say to my parents, “What a funny, funny child,” as I left the room.
It was two days before Christmas. My parents and grandparents sat in the kitchen around the table drinking Singapore slings and snacking on appetizers my mother had extracted from cans. My big brother was safely stored away in his bedroom doing the unimaginable.
I found myself alone in the living room with the twinkling Christmas tree and Santa—formerly Jesus—standing right beside it.
I dragged one of the chairs from the dining table over to the tree and climbed up on the seat. Standing, I was now eye-to-eye with Santa.
The sparkling blue eyes were so clear and bright that I was entranced. They looked like real eyes, taken out of a real person and put inside the doll. It was amazing, mesmerizing.
And the beard. And the lips. And just his whole face. It was all so real.
Standing now with my own face just inches from the stuffed Santa, I was trembling with emotion. Did it even matter whether he was Jesus or Santa, when one thing was certain: he was all mine?
I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. His wax skin felt warm and soft. Not hard and cold, like plastic. But silky, like a candle.
I took a sniff.
He even smelled like a candle.
I leaned forward again and this time, I kissed Santa on the lips.
A startling, nearly electric sensation shot through me and I quickly looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching. I knew that Jesus was watching—Carolyn said he saw everything—but I also knew it didn’t matter what Jesus thought since I was already going to burn in hell for all of time.
But I was safe. The grown-ups were still in the kitchen, I could hear them laughing, my grandmother’s high-pitched, delighted squeal, “Oh, you don’t mean it!”
I kissed Santa again, and this time I stuck my tongue out and swiped it across Santa’s lips.
I didn’t know why I did this and the action surprised me. Kissing was something you did with your lips, not your tongue. So what made me do that?
I did it again. Sliding my mouth all over Santa’s, I licked his upper lip, his lower lip, the corners of his mouth. I licked and licked and licked because not only did Santa smell like a delicious candle, he tasted like one, too.
My heart was pounding and I was overwhelmed with new and astonishing sensations and desires. At any moment, my grandmother or my father could poke their head out from the kitchen doorway and see me and I’d be in trouble.
Just one more kiss, I thought, and I leaned forward once again.
With Santa’s lips in my mouth, I bit down. I bit down hard. His lips came off right in my mouth.
Shocked and unsure of what to do now that I had Santa’s lips entirely in my mouth, instinct took over and I started to chew.
I chewed the lips and they dissolved almost to nothing. They were, I realized happily, exactly like one of my favorite candies—wax soda bottles, filled with liquid.
I moved to the right where his plump, red check presented an impossibly tempting round knob. I bit it clean off his face, leaving a gaping hole with what appeared to be Styrofoam beneath.
I chewed and swallowed.
I bit off his chin and then I went for his ear, but it was hard plastic and resisted my teeth, so I settled for a little bit of neck.
His beautiful, true eyes: I opened wide, curled back my lips and bit into the ridge of his brow.
You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas Page 2