“No, Margaret, he doesn’t have a damn fever. He’s been standing here for well over five minutes with his little Christmas list. How you could not see that is beyond my understanding.”
My mother reached for her pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. She placed it into her mouth and then turned toward my father and extended her face. She closed her eyes like she was expecting a kiss.
My father lit her cigarette.
“Listen, you bastard,” she began, blowing the smoke right in his face. “I do not need to be attacked by you today. I am on a new medication and it makes me feel very cotton-blooded.”
“It’s cotton-headed, you madwoman, the expression is cotton-headed. Now, I was just telling little Augusten here about my pet chimp. I’m not sure he believes I even had one.”
My mother turned and looked at me. “Oh, your father had a chimpanzee all right. It hated him. Now, it may not be as exotic as a captive primate, but one year my daddy gave me a goat for Christmas.”
“Oh, not this damn story again,” my father said.
My mother didn’t even look at him. She just kind of talked over her shoulder at him, her eyes on the ceiling. “John. Gordon. Robison. The day I can have those words carved onto a headstone will be the happiest of my life.” Then she looked back at me. “It was a scruffy, scrappy little billy goat and I absolutely adored it!”
“Wait, you got a goat for Christmas? But you didn’t live on a farm.”
“Of course I didn’t live on a farm,” my mother said, bringing her hand protectively to her neck. She laughed at the absurdity of the notion, as though I had asked her if her first boyfriend had been a rooster. “Daddy owned pecan orchards. Oh, just acres and acres of the most beautiful orchards you ever saw in your life. That’s why your grandmother, Amah, sends a box of pecans up here each year for Christmas and I make pie.”
My mother’s pecan pie. My mouth began to water and I needed to spit. “You aren’t going to make that pie again, are you?” I asked, trying to make it sound casual.
My mother was not fooled. “Once. I used salt instead of sugar just once.”
My father said, “N-now, I think it was more than once. I think maybe it was once or twice. Because I distinctly remember the year your friend from Portland flew out here, the unattractive girl with the facial hair. The artist?”
My mother glared at him. “Are you referring to Nadia?”
My father broke out into a smile and then he laughed. “Why yes! That’s exactly the one. Nadia. What an unfortunate appearance that young woman has.”
“You are aware that Nadia ended up marrying Clark Hayes, the head of the mathematics department out there at the University of California, aren’t you?” my mother asked. “We met Clark, John. Don’t you remember? Nice young man. About ten years younger than you? Surely, you remember. You both talked about your freshman students.”
She rose from the table and went to the sink, turning the faucet on. She stuck her cigarette under the stream of water to extinguish it and then she dropped the wet butt into the trash can. “Yes, nice Mr. Hayes. Half your age and head of the department.”
She stretched, placing her hands on her lower back. “Well, I need a nap. My body has not adjusted to these pills.”
“Wait,” I shouted.
Inspiration had struck.
In my fussiest little boy voice I complained, “This isn’t fair. You got a goat and you got a monkey. And last year you gave me a bunch of stupid crackers?”
My mother couldn’t help herself, she smiled victoriously and shot my father a look. “I told you, John. When you brought those crackers home I said, ‘Do you not know our son?’ That’s exactly what I said to you.”
Finally, I blurted out, “I want a horse. I want my own horse. A real one, not some stupid plastic horse like the girls bring to school. I want a real horse, a new one. Not some old used thing, either. A new horse with a saddle and a leash.”
Both of them were silent.
“A pony,” I added. “I want a pony.”
Then, to emphasize the finality of my decision, I crumpled my list before their eyes and I threw it into the trash. I started to walk out of the room but turned around once more before leaving. “I better get that pony,” I said. “Or both of you will regret it.”
As I walked down the hall toward my bedroom I heard my mother say, “Well, now you have done it. You and that damn monkey story of yours.”
The last thing I heard before closing myself inside my room with my Burl Ives Have a Holly Jolly Christmas album was my father: “I was only telling him how terrible a pet that monkey made. I never mentioned anything about a damn horse.”
At Caldor, where my mother and I went shopping for gifts for her friends, she kept trying to tempt me away from my pony, which I had now secretly named Al Capone. “Look at this beautiful gold neck chain,” she said at the jewelry counter. “Augusten, did you see this? I think it’s called a snake chain.”
I looked at it from the corner of my eyes. “Yeah, it’s a snake chain. With a lobster-claw clasp. I already have one. And mine’s electroplated, not filled like that.” My tone was snotty and contemptuous and a normal mother would have spanked such a child or taken him home and drown him in the bathtub.
The child of such people has little choice but to resort to petty manipulations and threats. And in some way, she seemed to know this.
Still, aisle after aisle she tried to unhook my little fists from the reins. “Oh, what a beautiful stereo,” she said, running her hands over the plastic lid of the turntable. “And isn’t that one of those fancy new eight-track players?”
I ignored her.
“Say, how would you like to have that in your room? Oh, imagine! A gumball machine!”
I said, “Maybe you should make one of your pecan pies this year.”
She brightened. “Would you like one? Would you, really? Oh, I would love to make another pecan pie.”
“Horses like salt,” I said. “They lick it.”
She glared at me and pushed the cart forward.
Store after store, day after day, both of my parents tried to interest me in other, more ordinary gifts. My father, pitifully, even dragged me with him to Hastings to get refills for his Parker ballpoint pen. “Son, have a look at this,” he said. He was standing before the glass counter in front. I scanned the contents inside but couldn’t imagine what it was he wanted me to see.
“Now, I’m sure it’s very expensive, but as a special Christmas present, well, you never know. Just maybe Santa would bring you one of those,” and he tapped the glass with his finger.
I said, “That? On top?”
And my father smiled.
To make absolutely certain I said, “In the white box?”
“That’s real gold, son.”
I looked at him and I said, “If you get me that for Christmas? You’d also have to get me a Zippo lighter, just like the one you have.”
He had begun to smile, but now his smile had turned into a question mark. “What would you need with a Zippo lighter, son?”
I began to drift away from the counter, trailing my finger down the length of the glass display case. “I would use it to light the house on fire after I opened your Cross pen set for ladies.”
My father nearly seemed insulted. “This is no pen set for ladies!” he insisted. Then he turned to the clerk. “This set of Cross pens, right here in front. That’s not designed for ladies, is it?”
The clerk replied with a nod.
“It is? It’s for ladies?”
I was standing in front of the cigarettes. “Excuse me,” I said to the guy behind the counter. “Could I see a Zippo lighter? Just like my father’s.” Then I shouted to him: “Hey Dad! Take your Zippo out and show the guy behind the counter so he can see which one.”
We were back in the car not even five minutes later. My father was just disgusted. “They should really mark those things clearly. I might easily have purchased that for my damn self and the
n I would walk around signing documents at the university with this effeminate pen.”
The rest of the way home we listened to Christmas music on the radio. “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls” were performed back-to-back with acoustic guitars. My father hated it. “Well, this is just terrible Christmas music, it sounds like that damn Joan Bylezz your mother is always playing. A pipe organ sounds so much nicer.”
“Baez,” I corrected. “Not lezz.”
During the station break the announcer said, “Here we are folks, just six more days left until Christmas. And that reminds me of a song. So get comfortable, and get ready. Because Christmas morning will be here before you know it.”
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me ...
I sang along, intentionally messing up the words: “One brand-new pony and a partridge in a pear tree.”
There was a certain tension in the air on Christmas morning. It was not yet seven and I’d been up for two hours. My parents had forced me to wait until seven and now that it was exactly seven, I was in the living room, just beside the fireplace. I looked at the tree. Then I looked at the stockings hanging beside me.
I knew my brother would wake up in five hours, walk over to the fireplace, and lift up his T-shirt, then dump the candy from his stocking onto his shirt, making a sort of hammock. He would then retreat to his bedroom where he would remain until dinner.
I reached into his stocking and felt around. I located a few chocolate gold coins, which I unwrapped and popped into my mouth. I crumpled up the foil and tossed this back into his stocking so that he would see it.
There were lots of presents under the tree.
But not a single one was shaped like a pony.
My parents came into the room, smiling. “Merry Christmas,” my mother said. “Yes,” my father said, enthusiastically, “a merry, merry Christmas to you, son.”
Their grins were so wide, it was clear they were disguises. I said, “Merry Christmas. Is it outside in the backyard?”
Neither of them spoke. “Is what in the backyard?” my mother asked with make-believe innocence.
I scanned their faces. They both lit cigarettes at the same time.
For the next thirty minutes, I sat on the floor beneath the tree opening present after present; more presents than in previous years—too many presents, really. walkie-talkies, an O-scale Lionel Santa Fe train set, an LED watch, gold electroplated.
Every single thing I had wanted.
I clenched my teeth together to maintain my dour expression.
My mother sat on the sofa and my father was in his rocking chair. They exchanged worried glances at each other across the coffee table. And finally, my mother spoke. “Augusten? I know you had it in your head that you wanted a horse. But we simply do not have the land for a horse. And neither your father nor I know the first thing about them. It’s a huge responsibility and they are terribly expensive, more than cars. I did check. I really did. But there’s just no way we could get you a horse. Mrs. Clayton down the hill told me you are more than welcome to walk down there after school anytime you want next spring and you can visit her horses.”
Now my father interjected. “Son, a horse is just way, way too much animal. If you wanted, say, a goldfish or a turtle? That might be a different story. But even a gold-fish would need care and maintenance.”
My mother cleared her throat.
And my father said, “Yes, that’s right. And the other thing, son, is that when I was given a monkey for Christmas as a little boy, you have to understand, those were very different times. It’s not like it is today. People back then didn’t have the fiscal responsibilities they have—”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, John, he doesn’t need a lecture on economics. Why can’t you just say what we said you would say? Is that so damn difficult?”
“Now, I have to put up with your constant barrage of criticism every damn day of the year. Am I not allowed one goddamned day of the year where there is some peace and quiet? Or are you going to jump down my back over every damn thing I say?”
“Oh, you are such an infantile man, do you know that? This isn’t your goddamned holiday, it’s Augusten’s. Christmas is for children, not sorry, raging alcoholics. Just because you are miserable at the university doesn’t entitle you to terrorize us on Christmas morning.”
As they continued to fight, their voices gradually rising until my mother was eventually screaming at full volume, red-faced and furious, I sat on the floor amid a crinkled, reflective sea of wrapping paper and glittering bows. In my hands was a small, hard plastic case, about the size of a book of matches. Inside the case was a little block of white foam. And pressed into this foam were three tiny gold nuggets.
Finally, I could no longer restrain myself. I jumped up and began to dance around the room. I hopped to my brother’s stocking and unhooked the candy cane. I bit into it, right through the wrapper, which I spit out onto the floor with expert skill.
“Hey, now!” my father called. “That belongs to your brother.”
“He hates candy canes,” I shrieked. “Hates, hates, hates, hates them!” And I jumped up onto the fireplace hearth, bit into the candy cane again and then hopped back down. I ran into the center of the wrapping paper and began to kick and dance. Chunks of torn paper and ribbons landed at my parents’ feet.
They said nothing. They just looked at me.
At last, my mother said, “Augusten, you are just wild. What has gotten into you? I thought you were depressed about not getting your pony.”
I burst into peals of laughter. I threw my head back and clutched the gold to my chest. “Oh my God,” I cried. “I never wanted any dumb, stinky old horse. Don’t you people even know me?” I paused to take two more large bites of the cane. And then I explained, “Horses are for girls and glue factories.”
The two of them watched me, wide eyed and nearly terrified.
“Thank you for my presents. You gave me just exactly what I wanted. You are officially free to kill each other! Your account has been paid in full for the entire year.” Then I winked at them like one of the hideous, artificial child actors I studied on television and tried, hourly, to replicate in front of the mirror.
My mother’s hand had remained utterly motionless, the lit cigarette between her fingers poised in midair just before her lips. Ash from the end dropped down the front of her bathrobe. She was studying me like I was a cat splayed open on her lab tray.
“Well, well,” she said finally, clapping very slowly, the cigarette parked between her lips, her eyes squinting against the rising smoke. “Bravo, you hateful spoiled thing.”
I beamed at her and curtsied like a girl.
“Now wait one minute here. Are you saying, you changed your mind about the horse?” my father asked. “You didn’t want those gold pens instead, did you son? Because I didn’t get those pens, I was under the impression you were not interested in them once you found out they were for ladies.”
My mother stared at him. “It is a wonder that you are employed by an institution of higher learning. Truly. It is as mysterious as gravity itself.”
“Aw, now what the hell are you talking about, nut-woman?”
I sauntered around them, dropping ribbons and scraps of wrapping paper on top of their heads.
“It means,” my mother said, “that he has played us for fools. But everybody knows,” she said, now turning to look me in the eye, “that it’s the fools who always get the gold in the end.”
I was about to drop a ribbon on her head but her beady, angry eyes made me stop. Instinctively, I pocketed the plastic sleeve containing my gold.
For the remainder of Christmas day, I was stuck in my room with Barry Manilow. My Burl Ives and Charlie Brown Christmas albums had been confiscated. I had been stripped of Christmas.
I hadn’t minded so much giving up the walkie-talkies, the candy, or even the LED watch.
It had been the gold that hurt, physically, to part with.
; My mother was originally going to let me keep the gold as my only present. Until I smart-mouthed, “Good, because it’s the only one I wanted anyway.”
That’s when she pried it from my greedy little fingers and locked me in my room.
It made me so mad I wanted to scream and pound my fists against the hollow-core door. Christmas was in shambles. I supposed I was partially to blame. Or perhaps all to blame.
And the more I thought about it, the more horrible it seemed I had behaved.
And then I went from feeling mad to sorry.
I was released for dinner. My mother had made a ham with cloves on top just the way I liked, except I didn’t get to stick any of the cloves into the top of the ham myself, which was my favorite thing in the world.
When I looked up, she was already looking at me. And she was on the verge of smiling. She held out two fists. “Pick a hand,” she said. I looked from her eyes to her fists, then back at her eyes. There was no clue to be seen in them so I picked the right one.
She extended her hand, rolled the fist over, and uncurled her fingers. A single clove was stuck to the center of her palm.
Happy.
I took the clove and I carefully pressed it into the golden rind of the ham that now sat before me on the platter.
Then she presented me with her other fist and I was surprised.
She waited.
I pointed to the fist.
When she uncurled her fingers, gold was there.
Ask Again Later
THE SUNLIGHT ON the bed was that clean, white light of winter without any tinge of yellow or gold; it was a lensed, glassy light that erased the shadows. So much pure, diffused sun felt like a shoplifted luxury; like sleeping until eleven on a Monday morning. Even without my glasses, I could make out the heavy drapes and see that they were pulled all the way open.
My first thought, What a spectacular morning, was followed immediately by, But I don’t have drapes.
You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas Page 5