by Wally Lamb
When we finally got out of dress rehearsal, both Simone and Frances were waiting for me in our station wagon. It was strange to see Frances and not Simone behind the wheel. Fran had gotten her learner’s permit the week before, but Ma and Pop were too busy to give her driving lessons, so Simone was doing it. I got in the backseat without saying anything. And I kept not saying anything, too, on the way home until finally Simone looked back at me and said, “How come you’re so quiet today, Felix?”
“I’m just tired,” I said.
“Yeah, standing still on a stage is really exhausting, huh?” Frances said. And I went “Shut up,” and Fran said why didn’t I shut up, and Simone told her to stop bickering and concentrate on the road.
The real reason I was being so quiet was because I was worried. What if, just as the curtain opened and they started singing “The Little Drummer Boy,” I got diarrhea like Ma at the Bake-Off? I wasn’t going to tell my sisters that, though, because Frances would probably lose control of the car from laughing so hard and get us into a crack-up. In my opinion, I didn’t think Simone should be teaching Frances how to drive because Simone wasn’t that hot a driver herself. Whenever she had to parallel park, she either ended up on the curb or else three feet away from it.
Most Saturday nights I got to stay up and watch Gunsmoke, but that night Ma made me go to bed at 9:30 because the next day was gonna be such a big day for me. Here’s who was coming to the tableaux to see me: Ma, Simone, Frances, and my Nonna Napolitano, if her corns weren’t bothering her too bad. Pop said he was gonna try to come, but he couldn’t make any promises. On account of, with everyone traveling for the holiday, the bus station was gonna be real, real busy and so the manager, Mr. Popinchalk, told Pop he wanted him to keep the lunch counter open all day and not close early like we usually did on Sundays. And Chino was still getting over the flu, so he was “iffy,” Pop said. If Chino couldn’t work, then Pop definitely wouldn’t be able to come. “But I’ll do my best to get there, kiddo,” he promised me.
At first, I couldn’t get to sleep because I was too excited. Then I started worrying again about sneezing, or having to laugh, or getting the runs. Then, finally, I started getting tired. I closed my eyes and was just about falling asleep when my stupid imagination made me see it again: Joseph Cotten’s chopped-off head bouncing bumpity bump bump bump down those stairs….
When Ma finally let me get up and have warm milk and Saltines, the 11:00 o’clock news was already on. So, really, I coulda watched Gunsmoke because I was awake all that time anyway. And it was way after midnight when I finally went into Ma and Pop’s bedroom, and woke up Ma, and whispered, “I’m still not sleeping.” And Pop moaned and went, “Oh, brother. Here we go again.” But he was the one who said I could go get my sleeping bag and then come back and camp out on the floor at the foot of their bed.
And after I did that, I fell asleep in about two seconds.
ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA
PAROCHIAL SCHOOL
Christmas Program
Sunday December 20, 1964
WELCOMING REMARKS:
Mother M. Filomina, Principal
OPENING BENEDICTION:
Monsignor Angus P. Muldoon, Pastor
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE:
Kevin Wojcik, Grade 8 Class President
MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
Rev. Gerald “Jerry” Hanrahan, Pastoral Vicar
I.
“Angels We Have Heard on High”
Grade 7 Choir
Tableau # I: The Annunciation
Students of Grade 5
“Ave Maria” Grade 8 Orchestra
w/ Margaret Rocketto, soloist
II.
“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”
Grade 6 Chorus
Tableau # 2: Shepherds in Their Fields
Students of Grade 5
“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”
Grade 6 Chorus
III.
A DRAMATIC INTERLUDE:
“JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON”
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga: Ernest Overturf
(Grade 5)
Saint Martin de Porres: Marion Pemberton
(Grade 5)
Saint Teresa Lisieux: Geraldine Balchunas
(Grade 5)
Written, narrated, & produced by Rosalie Elaine Twerski (Grade 5)
IV.
“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”
Grade 7 Choir
Tableau # 3: The Wise Men’s Journey
Students of Grade 5
“We Three Kings of Orient Are”
Grade 8 Orchestra w. Grade 6 Chorus
V.
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
Grades I and 2 w/ Father “Jerry”
VI.
“Away in a Manger” Grade 4 Glee Club
Tableau # 4: The Nativity
Students of Grade 5
“The Little Drummer Boy”
Grade 7 Choir
“Joy to the World” Grade 7 Choir &
Grade 6 Chorus
Closing Remarks:
Father “Jerry”
“God Bless America”
Entire Company & Audience
Families are invited back to their sons’ and daughters’ classrooms for refreshments after the program. Parents who bring desserts are reminded to take home their trays before they leave the building as food attracts insects. Thanks to everyone!
A Happy and HOLY Christmas to All!
THIS PROGRAM COURTESY OF TWERSKI IMPRESSIONS, 176 HOLLYHOCK HILL, THREE RIVERS, CONNECTICUT. AT TWERSKI IMPRESSIONS, WE’RE ON THE HILL BUT ON THE LEVEL. STOP IN & SEE US, NEIGHBORS, FOR ALL YOUR PRINTING NEEDS!!!
Pauline Papelbon’s mother was too sick to make those cupcakes, and so Pauline, instead, brought in a whole big bag of Hostess Sno Balls for her refreshment. And I guess if she’d have brought them up to our classroom like Madame had told us to, instead of keeping them with her on the stair landing, maybe things would have turned out different. Or maybe they wouldn’t have. Who knows?
The first thing that went wrong—not too wrong, just kind of—was that Monsignor Muldoon might have been a little bit drunk. When he walked past us on the stair landing on his way to give his benediction, instead of smelling like Butter Rum Life Savers, he smelled a little like Mush Moriarty. Monsignor slipped a little on the stairs when he started down there for his opening benediction, but then he caught himself. And when he went out on the stage? Frances said he was kinda teeter-tottering a little and holding on to the microphone stand to steady himself. (The rest of us tableaux kids all had to wait up on the stair landing and couldn’t see anything; we could only hear things.) Ma said maybe Monsignor was just having a little trouble with his balance, and that “that’s the way false rumors get started, young lady.” But when I mentioned that I’d smelled him and he kind of smelled like Mush, Ma said, “Well, whether he was or wasn’t tipsy, it’s certainly none of our business.”
Then the eighth grade president, that Kevin kid, got stage fright while he was leading the Pledge of Allegiance. He must have, I figured, because he was sorta laughing in the middle of saying it, and there’s nothing really funny about the Pledge of Allegiance, except when Zhenya says it: I plidge leejinks to flig h’uv United Stets h’uv H’Ametekka. Ma said later that she didn’t think anyone even noticed the class president was laughing, and Frances said, “Oh, yes they did!”
During the first tableau, Happy Rocketto’s sister’s voice cracked a little during “Ave Maria.” Twice. And Frances and Simone both said later on that Franz Duzio looked like he was picking his nose a little in the middle of his scene. “And eating it!” Frances added. Simone said no he wasn’t, but Fran said yes he was, she’d swear on a stack of Bibles.
Simone said she thought Pauline Papelbon did good—that she didn’t hardly move her arms at all, even though she had to hold them up in the air in this position like Oh, my gosh! Really? because Gabriel is telling her she’s go
nna get pregnant with God’s baby. Then Frances said, after Simone said that Pauline did a good job, “Yeah, but how come she was wearing a costume that made her look like Scheherazade?” (Which was the same lady I thought her costume made her look like—the one from 1001 Arabian Nights.) And when Fran said that, Ma said, “Frances Ann Funicello, do you have to criticize everyone and everything?” And Frances went, no, she didn’t have to, she just wanted to. So Ma went, “I suppose if you were in charge, everything would be perfect. Right?” and Fran went, “Yeah, probably.”
The shepherds’ tableau went pretty okay, I guess, except in the middle of the sixth graders singing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” we all heard this noise like bang. And before that, I heard this guy from the audience yell, “Yoo hoo, Evgeniya! Ooo-wee! Nice job, leetle geuhl!” and I was pretty sure who that was. At least he didn’t get up on stage and give her one of those little kicks in her rear end the way he did when he walked her to school. After all the shepherds came back upstairs, Arthur told me what that bang was: one of the plywood sheeps that Mr. Overturf had made fell over. I said, “Did someone bump into it or something?” and Arthur got all red and mad and he said, “Well, I didn’t! What are you accusing me for?” So I thought that maybe he did.
Rosalie’s play? At the beginning, you could hear people in the audience oohing and ahhing when she walked out on stage in her fancy gown and crown and up on the stair landing, Franz started singing, There she is, Miss America, and everyone laughed a little, even some of the girls. At dress rehearsal, Ernie Overturf had complained to me that whenever Turdski made them practice their parts, she was always acting bossy and yelling at them to speak louder. And boy, when him and Marion and Geraldine came on, they sure were loud. It sounded like they were all yelling at each other!
Geraldine messed up one of her Saint Teresa lines. Instead of saying, “If you subtract 1873 from 1897, you get 24, which was very young for me to die,” she said, “If you subtract 1897 from 1873.” And when she said, “You get 24,” some wiseguy high school kid yelled out from the audience, “No you don’t. You get negative 24. That’s really young!” And you could hear some people laughing and other people not laughing.
Then when Geraldine said to Marion, “Why are you so sad, Saint Martin de Porres? Is it because prejudiced people are so mean to colored people?” instead of Marion saying what Rosalie had written for him to say, he said, “They are, are they? Well, wait’ll the NAACP hears about this!” And then you could hear everyone out there laughing, not just some people. Everyone, that is, except Rosalie. Frances and Simone both said she looked like she was gonna bop Marion one. I guess the rest of the play went okay. At least I didn’t hear about anything else that went wrong. Oh, yeah—wait a minute. Yes, I did. Some kid threw a bottle cap at Rosalie and it hit her on the forehead. Sister Godberta saw who it was: this kid Lenny Thomas who graduated from St. Aloysius the year before. He got kicked out—escorted by Sister Lucinda on one side and Sister Agnes on the other, and behind them, this bald guy who passes the basket at Mass and looks like Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.
When the play got over and the curtain closed, Rosalie was half-crying and half-screaming at Marion that he wrecked her whole play, but she was also having to hurry, because she had to get into her Wise Man clothes and get her makeup off, plus stick her fake beard on with that spirit gum stuff, and all’s the time she had to do it in was the time it took for the seventh grade choir to sing, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It wasn’t that bad, though, because Madame gave Mrs. Twerski permission to come backstage and help her change. Plus, the seventh graders were singing all the verses of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” not just the first couple, on account of Rosalie having to change.
Here’s why things might have been way different if Pauline hadn’t kept her Hostess Sno Balls with her on the stair landing. I seen her eating at least one package of Sno Balls before The Annunciation even, and then a bunch of other kids in our class said they saw her eating at least four more Sno Balls during the shepherds’ and Wise Men’s scenes and Rosalie’s play. No one really knew how many she ate, but afterwards when I looked inside her bag, it looked to me like there was more empty cellophane than there was unopened packages.
Anyways, downstairs? Right at the part where Father Jerry was bringing out the fake Christmas tree and going to the audience, “Do you folks hear what I hear?” Upstairs, Pauline started crying and holding her stomach and saying how she didn’t feel good. So Madame went over to her and said what’s the matter, and Pauline said she was having the worst stomachache of her whole life. Madame told her to put her head down between her legs and take deep breaths. And when Pauline did that, she started crying louder and saying that made her feel even worse and she was maybe gonna have to puke. And so Madame looked around and spotted Rosalie’s mother standing there. And she said, “Mrs. Twerski, take Pauline to the girls’ room, s’il vous plait.” And Mrs. Twerski started saying something about how maybe Madame should be the one to—and Madame cut her off and said, in this kind of yelly voice, “Maintenant, Madame!” Which in French means like, “Now! Step on it, lady!” And so Mrs. Twerski took hold of a little bit of Pauline’s veil with her fingernails and they started toward the girls’ room. But halfway there, Pauline stopped and she did puke, and some of it got on Mrs. Twerski, who used a swear word right in front of all us kids. And I thought, wow, between Danny Baldino on the bus on the way to Hartford and now poor Pauline, I sure had seen a lot of kids puking in just one month. (And I wasn’t even counting that trick that Lonny played on me Halloween night, cause that was just fake puke, not real puke.)
Madame started looking at us all with these kinda crazy eyes. Then she snatched Bridget’s baby doll away from her and, holding it in one hand, pointed at Zhenya with the other. “Mademoiselle, you’re Mary!” she said.
Zhenya shrugged. “How I be hair? No custoom h’except shepairdess.”
Madame’s crazy eyes found Franz. “Change costumes with Zhenya,” she ordered him. Franz’s eyes kinda bugged out and he told her he couldn’t—that all’s he had on underneath his fat aunt’s nightgown was his underwear. But Zhenya had already slipped her feed sack over her head and was standing there in her underwear—pink polka dot underpants on the bottom and just this white bra on top! “Come on, beeg boyzy,” she said to Franz. “Ticher wants h’us to sweetch, we sweetch.” And so they did. (And for the rest of that school year and into the next, kids talked about seeing the two of them standing there for a few seconds with almost no clothes on.) But while Zhenya was getting into Franz’s nightgown and and he was getting into her burlap sack, I looked over at Lonny and thought to myself, uh oh. Because in just a few more minutes, while he was wearing my too-short-for-him bathrobe, Lonny was going to have to walk out on the stage and be Joseph, and there it was again, triggered, no doubt, by the sight of his “geuhlfriend” in just her underwear: what Zhenya had once referred to as “feeshing pole” in Lonny’s “paints.” Panic-stricken, Lonny saw that I saw what was going on down there, and, hunchbacked, he sidestepped over to me and whispered, “I can’t go out there like this! What the crap should I do?”
At first I couldn’t think of anything, but then I did. “You know that movie we saw? Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember the part where that guy got his head chopped off by the meat cleaver?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“Pretend someone’s swinging that meat cleaver at you. Except instead of your head, it’s about to come down right on your—” Lonny winced and doubled over even further. And by the time he stood up straight again, I saw that my idea had begun to work. Lonny said I was a genius.
Madame handed Bridget’s baby doll to Zhenya. That was when the big fight started. Because Rosalie, who was still wearing her Wise Man costume, went kinda cuckoo and started screaming at Madame. “It’s not fair! I work harder than anyone in this whole class and you never appreciate it! And why her o
f all people? She’s an atheist, and a Communist, and she’s only been in our class since November! And you’re just a stupid substitute so I don’t care what you say! I’m Mary!” And with that, Turdski made a grab for Baby Jesus.
But Zhenya, who’d told me she was “Russian Ortudox” not “no beleef in Gud,” was not about to relinquish the Christ Child to her chief critic. She held fast to the doll’s feet as Rosalie pulled it by its head. The rest of us, Madame included, stood there stunned. Something had to give, I figured, and then something did.
As the doll’s head ripped away from its torso, Rosalie fell backward and let go. In horror, I watched the head bounce bumpity bump bump down the backstage stairs. Now, like Lonny a few minutes earlier, it was me who was wincing and doubling over. Joseph Cotten, Jesus: I would probably never, ever, get to sleep again. And when I finally was able to look up at something other than the floor, I found myself looking into the wild eyes of Madame Frechette.
“Monsieur Dondi!” she said. “Remove your hat, chemise, and pantalons.”
I began to shake. “My what?”
“Your shirt! Your pants! Dépêchez-vous! There is very little time!”
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m the little drummer boy!”
She shook her head furiously. “No more! Now you have a much more important part. You are our Baby Jesus! Hurry!”
Now I was shaking my head furiously. “I can’t! I’m too big!” A stupid argument, given the fact that I was the smallest kid in our class, boys and girls.