“No,” Ray uttered.
“Then whatever it was couldn’t have been so bad.”
Ray couldn’t explain it to Oscar. The idea of the soldiers sounded crazy but it was just one more thing that Ray couldn’t explain. Ray knew that now would be the time to start finding out. He was too sad to be afraid anymore. He let out a breath, reached in his pocket and grabbed the brass bit. He put it on the bench next to a can of nails that sat between him and Oscar.
“Here, it’s yours. Take it.”
Oscar looked over at the bit and stopped working. He slowly reached for the bit, picked it up and put it in his pocket.
“Why didn’t you say it belonged to you?” asked Ray.
“I must have forgotten,” Oscar said quietly. He picked up a pair of snips and continued to cut the metal.
Ray pulled down his goggles and looked at Oscar. He put his hands in his pockets so neither of them would see them shake.
“Oscar,” Ray said, his voice scared and soft. “Oscar, are you Santa Claus?”
Oscar let out a hard laugh and turned to Ray. “You don’t believe in Santa, remember?”
“I’m not kidding. Are you the real Santa Claus?”
Oscar stopped working again and faced Ray. He pushed the goggles down off his face and removed his gloves. “Is this about the sleigh downstairs?”
“No, it’s about the bucks in your backyard.”
Oscar just stared at Ray, running his tongue over his teeth in an attempt to buy some time. He blinked a few times, then finally spoke. “What bucks?”
“The bucks you saved in the woods. I saw you with them. They know who you are. They listen to you. Except for one,” Ray said as he stood up. “He listens to me.”
Noises and breaths in objection came out of Oscar, but no words. Ray continued.
“There’s one with a white star on its face. That deer saved us from getting eaten by Fluffles. And…and I also think…” Ray paused as his courage dipped. Oscar lowered his chin and looked at Ray, waiting to hear the next allegation come from his ten-year-old mouth. “And I think those bridles downstairs are for those bucks and not Dr. DiNapoli’s horses. I think you made them to pull that sleigh.”
Oscar’s chin remained low as he looked at Ray. Ray waited for a response. Oscar just looked at him, sucking his teeth in thought. Finally, he spoke.
“Those bridles were from Dr. DiNapoli’s ponies. The sleigh is for the Goldsmiths. I know I appear like Santa because I make toys at Christmas, have a white beard and although I’m not jolly, I’m certainly…” he slapped his stomach with both hands. It rippled like a pebble hitting a pond. “Fat.”
“What about the bucks?” Ray asked.
“Well, what about the bucks?”
“Why do they follow you?”
“Maybe they think I’m a big head of cauliflower. I don’t know,” said Oscar as he got up from his seat and headed towards Olive’s workstation. “I think you should keep on not believing in Santa. It’s easier that way.”
“Really,” demanded Ray as he got up to follow him. “Why? You said Santa is real. Remember when I yelled at Tommy? You said Santa is very real to some kids.”
“Well, yes. Santa is real. Santa is very real. I’m just saying…” Oscar grabbed his hair in frustration. “You shouldn’t stop believing in Santa. You should stop believing in me.”
The two looked at each other sadly in the middle of the room. The clocks rang out three o’clock, saving them both the time and space to say anything. They stood quietly as they let the bells and chimes ring out. After the echo of the alarms faded they remained quiet. Oscar hobbled in defeat back to the workbench and put on his goggles.
“Come on. We got work to do.”
Ray walked slowly back and sat down at his station. He put on his goggles and quietly asked, “Oscar, when did you stop believing in Santa Claus?”
Oscar said softly, talking more to himself than to Ray. “About fifteen seconds ago.”
CHAPTER 20
Kozak’s Front Steps—Southold, New York, 1944
Neither Ray nor Oscar said much for the rest of the afternoon. Both worked in relative silence until it was time for Ray to leave. After the clocks rang out four o’clock Ray walked home, dragging his feet in thought. Most of what Oscar said he didn’t believe. Too much of what Ray saw pointed to his theory that Oscar was, in fact, the one and only Santa Claus. Maybe the storybooks had it wrong. A simple miscalculation in words. Instead of North Pole, it was the North Fork. No one would think to look for him on Jacob’s Lane. But if Oscar insisted, however badly, that he was not who Ray thought he was then there was no need to ask anyone else. The only one would believe him would be Olive. Despite being mad, Ray missed her at Oscar’s. She lightened the air at the workshop. Whether by humming along to the radio, stumping Oscar with the riddle from Terry and the Pirates or talking about the funny things she and Paley would search for with a telescope, Olive knew how to make time fly in the workshop and Oscar not swear when he hit his hand with a hammer.
Ray trudged along until he saw Paley rocking in place in the Mott’s front yard, staring up above the treetops. The cereal box clenched in his hands looked worn and soft from the elements and time.
“Hey ya, Paley,” Ray said. “See anything today?”
Paley, eyes still in the sky, shook his head. “No planes today. No soldiers today.”
“That’s good,” Ray said with his voice raising. “Bet you’re scaring them off.”
“No,” Paley said. “No. They’re not scared of me. I’m not scared of them.” Ray patted Paley on the shoulder. Paley would have made an excellent soldier. Fearless, loyal, tireless, keen, and fascinated by planes. Ray believed that he would be dropping bombs over France if he didn’t come out on this earth slower than his peers. Some people felt sorry for the Motts and for Paley with his different brain. Not Ray. To Ray, Paley’s different brain kept him alive and out of a war.
“I feel safer knowing you’re here,” Ray said. Paley just smiled shyly with pride and patted Ray’s hand, never looking away from what might be coming in the sky.
Ray continued to his home but stopped when he saw Olive sitting on his front steps. Her knees bounced up and down rapidly in hopes of keeping her stocking-covered legs warm. She looked up at Ray with red eyes and waved at him timidly. Ray’s feet moved himself towards her as he took a seat on the front steps.
“I’m sorry for what I said today, Ray. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“It’s fine,” Ray said as he picked blindly at a piece of frayed leather coming off the tongue of his shoe.
“I don’t ever want to make you feel sad about your dad. I miss him so much.”
Ray looked at Olive in surprise. It never occurred to him that she might miss him too. The only hurt he could see was his own. He really never saw his mother’s. He just knew it came out in quiet bits and pieces behind his back or a closed door.
Olive stared ahead over the patches of snow that still clung to the grass. Her voice quieted to a whisper, as if she spoke too loudly someone would come along and take her memories away.
“He called me Sweetheart. Nobody calls me that. I liked that.” She looked over at Paley and nodded. “And he called Paley, Son. I liked that too. Father never called us those things.”
Olive’s father, from the little Ray remembered of him, was a loud man. Ray’s dad could get loud, but only when they were running through the woods or playing games. Mr. Mott was loud when adults were usually quiet, like after bedtime or during dinner. Mr. Mott spent all his free time at the taverns and bars. After a while, all of his time became free. Ray heard that he lived around town but he never saw him anywhere. Never at church or at the grocer or post office or even at the barber. Ray asked his mother once why they called him Paley if his name was really Frank Jr. She said Mr. Mott wanted to make sure that
no one confused the two. And then, for some reason, she spit.
Olive wiped her nose with her mitten and smiled. “I also missed the way he pitched to Tommy.”
Ray let out a laugh. He could picture his dad looking like a human pinwheel as he wound up to throw a baseball to Tommy Goldsmith. Tommy would look so serious at bat. His oversized cap wobbled around on his head and his chubby arms struggled to hold up a bat too big for his frame. Ray’s dad would tug on the brim of his cap, lift his leg way up in the air, wind up like a windmill, hop five times to get closer to the batter, then release the ball. Everyone other than Tommy would be in stitches. But Tommy could always hit them. His dad called Tommy the best hitter in Southold for being able to hit a pitch that silly. Since Tommy’s cap covered his eyes most of the time, Ray thought his dad might just be the best pitcher.
“And the way he clapped. Like this.” Olive put her hands together as if she were packing a snowball.
It felt good to hear someone talk about his dad. Someone who knew him and missed him in the small ways. The way he clapped his hands. The way he threw a pitch. Olive and Paley weren’t Ray’s brother and sister. His father wasn’t their father. But by the way Olive spoke about him in the everyday details, it became clear to Ray that his father might just be their dad.
“Yeah, me too,” said Ray. “I miss…” Ray looked back down at his shoe, which he began to pick apart. “Everything.”
Olive stood up and smoothed down her coat. “Is it alright with you if I go to Oscar’s tomorrow?”
“Sure. That’s swell. Olive?” Ray paused and looked up at her. “Olive, do you believe in Santa?”
Olive looked at the ground and shrugged. “I wanted to but my sisters told I me was too old to believe. Why?”
“It’s just. I didn’t but now…I’m…not sure. I mean, I saw things around Oscar’s place…”
“You think Oscar might be Santa Claus?” Olive jumped in.
“I don’t know. I asked him.”
“What did he say?” Olive said as she stared at Ray. By the tone of her voice, Ray got the feeling that she harbored the same suspicion.
“No. Said he wasn’t him.”
“You don’t believe him. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” Ray said, confused. “Oscar…or Santa wouldn’t…lie. Would they?”
Olive narrowed her eyes in thought. “There’s a way to find out.” She turned around and marched towards her house. The sun dimmed in the horizon as it turned quickly from dusk to night. Paley had already gone inside as the lights from the Mott’s parlor shown through the front window.
“How?” Ray called out. “He said he wasn’t!”
“A letter!” Olive hollered back. “I’ll write him a letter.”
CHAPTER 21
Kindergarten and the Railroad Tracks –
Southold, New York, 1944
And she did just that. The next day in school Ray followed Olive as she walked a red envelope to the oversize mailbox that sat in the hallway between first grade and kindergarten. The makeshift mailbox was an old milk crate from Sunrise Dairy painted red, with the words “Letters to Santa” pasted in cotton balls on the side.
“Wouldn’t you rather put it in a real mailbox?” Ray asked.
“John Charles said they take letters from schools. They have to take these.”
“Did you ask for just one thing, like we talked about?”
“Of course.”
Ray leaned in and whispered. “One thing Oscar can’t make.”
“Yep. Just one pirate telescope for me and Paley.”
Ray thought about what Olive said. If Santa could bring him anything then maybe he should write him a letter. The thought stewed in Ray’s head all through the rest of their classes and after the last bell rang. Ray sat at his desk and stared at a blank sheet of lined paper and scribbled a note beginning, “Dear Santa.” He didn’t know what to write. There was nothing he wanted. No toy, no mitt, no game. Nothing under the tree would make it a better Christmas. Olive left Ray with his thoughts as she headed out to find Tommy Goldsmith while his teacher, thinking he was working on his long division, let Ray sit at his desk until she finished cleaning the blackboards. Once she wiped the words off from the day, Ray jotted down the only thing that made sense, stuffed it in an envelope and shoved it in his coat pocket. He made his way through the halls of the school but stopped once he turned the corner to the kindergarten.
The Santa mailbox sat on the floor, overturned by the janitor, who was shoving fistfuls of letters into a large sack. The man was already dressed for the cold as he smashed the letters down into the bag to make them all fit. Ray lingered at the end of the hall, silently watching the man’s movements. Once the man finished cramming the last clump of letters in, he slung the sack over his shoulder and headed down the hall towards the doors that led outside. Ray watched as the man opened the doors and walk out as a frigid blast of wind rushed inside.
Ray thought for a moment, ran down the hall and followed the man’s path outside. He trailed him across the parking lot of the school and towards the intersection that led towards town. Ray figured the man might be on his way to the post office but as the janitor came to the crossroads, he turned left onto Horton’s Lane, the street that leads away from town and towards the railroad tracks.
“Maybe he’s taking the letters home?” Ray uttered to himself as he followed the man. But that area held almost no homes. The only homes by the tracks were rundown and filled with people with dogs that didn’t stop barking.
The man walked the tracks until he reached two men standing next to a smoking metal barrel. The men stood with their hands out, warming themselves by the smoke. They stepped back once the janitor walked up to it. Ray watched in shock as the man pulled the sack off his shoulder, yank the cord and dump every one of the letters into the fire. The new addition to the barrel caused the flame to burn high. He slung the empty sack back over his shoulder and began to rub his hands next to the now roaring fire. Ray stood motionless until he heard one of the men cry out to him.
“Hey kid? Need to warm up? Fire’s going now.”
Ray walked stunned over to the barrel and took his place in the circle next to the janitor.
“I never remember it being this cold in December,” the janitor said. “They reckon it’s going to storm on Christmas Eve. Shame.”
Ray didn’t listen to the man as he peered into the fire’s contents. Curling and crisping in the flames were the letters addressed to Santa. Each carrying a hope, wish, or desire from a kid in his school. And somewhere in there was Olive’s. Ray felt the crunch of paper inside his jacket and took out his letter. He looked at it for a moment before tossing it into the fire.
“I hope that wasn’t your homework?”
Ray recognized the voice. He broke his gaze from the fire to see John Charles standing on the other side of the barrel. His eyes and smile seem to cut through the billows of gray smoke and yellow licking flames.
“Just one more to add,” Ray said as he watched flames dissolve his letter into ash.
“Are you on your way to Oscar’s?” John Charles asked as he held his mangled hands out to the fire for warmth. “I’ll give you a ride. It’s too cold to walk today. Give me a moment and I’ll meet you by my car.”
Ray nodded in agreement and walked to John Charles’s old Packard. As Ray waited for John Charles to finish saying goodbye to the men around the fire, he saw him shake one of the men’s hands and give him a note or bill. Then the man thanked him and put it in his pocket. John Charles walked over to the old Packard carrying his worn leather briefcase. He tossed the bag in the backseat as the two rode off in the direction of Jacob’s Lane.
“You know that fire was full of letters,” Ray said, looking out at the trees whipping past the window. “Letters to Santa Claus. From kids at my school.”
“I know,
” John Charles said with a hint of a smile on his face.
“Why didn’t you say something? You should have stopped him.”
“I can’t stop a man from doing his job.”
“His job was to throw those letters into the fire?”
“Yes, Raymond. It was,” he said as they drove over the Goose Creek Bridge. Ray looked out over the fading sun’s icy reflection on the water.
“Don’t worry about those letters, Raymond. Those kids will get what they asked for.”
“How do you know, huh? How do you know they will get what they want?” Ray’s thoughts went to Olive’s letter. It would be a miracle if that appeared under her tree.
“Ray, you need to trust me. I know.”
“Olive’s letter was in there. So was mine.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me what Olive wants?”
“Olive wants a telescope. For her to share with Paley. He likes looking for planes and she likes the stars. It’s not something Oscar can make.”
John Charles nodded in thought. “Ok, that makes sense. Now what about you? What do you want for Christmas?”
Ray didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t tell John Charles what he wanted. He didn’t write what he really wanted on that letter anyway. He wrote what he should ask for, what would make him smile if he saw it under the tree, but it wasn’t what he really desired. Ray hesitated before the lie squeaked out of his mouth.
“A new…a new bat.”
John Charles said nothing as they pulled into Oscar’s driveway. He shut the engine off but did not make a motion to get out of the car.
“Raymond, what is it that you really want for Christmas?”
Ray couldn’t hold it in. His face crumpled up like those letters burning in the fire. Hot tears burned his cold cheeks as he felt them melt a crease down his face. What he wanted he would never get.
After giving Ray a few moments, John Charles kept his eyes out over the steering wheel. His voice grew serious, as if he were giving him directions to a place that he’d already visited.
The Light in the Woods Page 14