by Dean Hughes
That was all right. It could all stay like that forever. But Wally wanted to see something else.
“I know you think I sound like a broken phonograph record,” Dad said. “But I want you to feel how important this is. You are ‘children of the promise.’ I want to pass on to you what I received from my parents—and I’m not at all sure that I’m doing that. You simply can’t think of yourselves as being like other people, outside the Church.”
Everyone’s eyes came up. Even the little girls seemed to sense the urgency in President Thomas’s voice.
“I’m telling you, Satan is unleashing his forces against the Lord’s people. And we have to stand firm. If this family can’t set the example for our stake, who can? Everyone watches us—expects something better from us—and we can’t let them down.”
Dad was looking directly at Wally, and Wally knew why. It was he who was Dad’s greatest worry. Wally just wasn’t Alex—no matter how much Dad wanted one mold for all his sons.
The room was silent. Wally had heard the passion in his Dad’s voice, and that was impressive. But something about it seemed too fierce, too self-conscious. Wally had gone through life feeling he had to hold up an appearance to the members of the stake—to the world—and he was tired of it. President Thomas was still looking at Wally, as though he wanted a response. Wally looked at the floor, and when he finally looked back, he could see his father’s frustration.
President Thomas picked up his Bible. He thumbed through the pages and then stopped. He let the silence prepare everyone. Then he began the account of Christ’s birth, in Luke; read it himself, as always. And Wally, in spite of his complicated feelings, did love the sound of his Dad’s voice—the way he let the words roll from deep within himself. There was something genuine about that, and suddenly Wally felt guilty that he was always the one on the outside, always the one disrupting the spirit his father tried to create. One voice in Wally’s brain always said, “Don’t fight him.” But a stronger impulse shouted, “Resist! He wants to run your life for you.”
When President Thomas finished reading, Bobbi got up from the couch, kissed her father on the cheek, and said, “Thanks, Daddy. You make it sound so beautiful. And don’t worry, we’ll be faithful. You’ve taught us well.” Dad was obviously touched. He nodded but didn’t say anything.
Little Beverly said, “We liked all the presents, too, even if there were too many.”
And that was the irony. No matter how much Dad complained about “commercialism,” after Mom bought enough for Christmas each year, Dad went out and bought more. Maybe he bought galoshes and warm sweaters—practical things—but he bought plenty.
“I need to check my turkey,” Mom said, and she stood up and left the room. Wally was sure Dad would have preferred a few final words and then a prayer, but he let the meeting end by default. As everyone wandered off, Wally could see his father’s dejection, but Dad brought these things on himself by taking everything so seriously. The man could actually be fun at times, but he seemed to hold that side of himself back.
Relatives soon started showing up. “Bricks-for-brains cousins by the dozens” was Wally’s description to Gene. Soon all the usual family-get-together talk began. “My goodness,” Aunt Marjorie told Wally, “you’re too pretty to be a boy. My daughters would give anything to have your complexion—and those long eyelashes.”
“Hey, come on,” Wally said. “I’m a rugged guy. I shave twice a month now.”
Uncle Everett, Dad’s brother from Provo, was standing in the front entrance, pulling off his coat. His laugh sounded like an echo from the bottom of a barrel. “If you’re so rugged, how come the coach kept you on the bench all season?”
“He was saving me. I was his secret weapon.”
Uncle Everett hung up his coat on the hall tree, and then he walked into the living room. He was still chuckling. “Well, if you’re really good, you’d better come down and play for the BY. I’m afraid we had ourselves another miserable season.”
“Hey, BYU is doing better,” Dad said. “At least they tied the U this year.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve still never beaten Utah, and I doubt they ever will.”
“I think they will during the millennium,” Wally said. “They’ll be able to recruit angels to play for them.”
Uncle Everett liked that. He slapped Wally on the back, and he laughed again. Then he sat down on the couch across from his brother, who had taken up residence in his own chair. Wally sat on the couch with his uncle. He figured he would rather talk to Uncle Everett than get caught in the middle of all his cousins.
The house was filling up, the aunts gathering in the kitchen and cousins swarming everywhere. Everett’s boy, Douglas, was already into an argument with one of Aunt Maurene’s daughters—something about his tossing her doll on the floor. Uncle Howard hadn’t arrived yet, and Wally knew things would only get worse when seven more kids were added to the chaos.
President Thomas’s three brothers-in-law had gathered by the fireplace, and they were chatting and laughing. Wally always suspected that they didn’t feel all that comfortable around Dad. Uncle Max, Idonna’s husband, always smelled of tobacco, although he never smoked around the family, and Uncle Ray, Marjorie’s husband, had never been active in the Church. Uncle Vic was a bishop in Taylorsville, but he was a heavy equipment mechanic with grease under his fingernails; he seemed to gravitate to the backsliders more than he did to the president.
Dad and Uncle Everett talked for a while about the roads—about some bad icy patches at the Point of the Mountain—and then Uncle Everett asked, “What does Alex have to say about Germany? Does he think we’re heading into another war over there?”
“He doesn’t say much about politics,” Dad said.
“This business with the Jews is a terrible shame,” Everett said. “Now Hitler is saying that Jewish children can’t go to public schools, and Jews can’t own their own businesses or be doctors or lawyers—or almost anything else.”
“I know. I’ve been reading about that.” But Dad didn’t sound as disgusted as his brother.
“Did you read the latest? He’s claiming that the Jews owe him a billion marks to pay for the damage that was done on ‘Crystal Night’—after that Jewish boy killed the German official in Paris. The Nazis killed close to a hundred Jews that night, hauled off thousands of them, burned down their synagogues and tore up their shops, and now Hitler wants to collect for the damages—in gold and jewelry.”
“Well, it’s a mess in some ways,” Dad said. “But I talked to Sylvester Q. Cannon, from the Twelve. He was just over there, and he says Hitler has made some good changes. The country has never been so clean and orderly, and everyone is working.”
“Not Jews!”
“Well, I know. I’m just saying—”
“Come on, Al. Of course Hitler’s got people working. They’re all building tanks and airplanes. And don’t think he’s not going to use them. Look what he did in Czechoslovakia. He said he was only trying to save the German minority in Sudetenland from the terrible mistreatment they were getting. But watch what he’s doing. He’s gradually taking control of that whole nation. And it won’t be long until he’s after Poland.”
“Do you think we’ll end up in a war?” Wally asked his uncle. That was something Wally worried about.
“Just a minute,” Everett said. He got up and strode across the room. He grabbed his son by the arm and pulled him away from a knot of noisy kids. A raging argument had continued there. “Douglas, you leave Emmie and Sheralyn alone. I’m not kidding. If I hear you make another fuss, I’ll take you outside and tan your hide.”
Wally saw no reason to delay the punishment. But after another warning, Everett returned. Without missing a beat, he said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, Wally. But Hitler will keep pushing for the ‘living space in the east’ that he talked about in Mein Kampf. And England and France claim they won’t let Poland become another Czechoslovakia.”
“Mayb
e someone has to stop the man,” Dad said, “but I don’t think it ought to be us. And I don’t trust Roosevelt. I think he’s getting ready to send our boys over there.”
Uncle Everett laughed. He was a history professor at BYU and a committed Democrat. “Didn’t you hear FDR on the radio last night? He promised never to get us into another war in Europe.”
“Yes, well, he says a lot of things.”
“Al, you might as well face it. Utahns love Roosevelt—and this is a Democratic state. A vote for any Republican is going to go down the drain.”
Dad didn’t even try to argue the point.
Wally heard the front door open, and another huge voice boomed through the house. “Anybody home?” It was Uncle Howard from Farmington. He was carrying a little son, and his wife, Aunt Fay, followed with a baby in her arms. After that, the rest of the kids filed in, and cousins dashed toward them, filling the entry with their racket. “It smells great in here. Let’s eat,” Howard shouted above the noise.
Mom announced that dinner was almost ready. She needed Dad to set up extra tables. Dad, of course, recruited Wally to help him. By the time the tables—makeshift contraptions built of planks and sawhorses—were ready another half hour had passed. But Christmas dinner, as usual, was a grand event, with Grandma and Grandpa Thomas and all the couples—along with Bobbi and Wally—gathered in the dining room. Dad had added all the extra leaves to the table and used a card table as an extension. The small children were housed in the kitchen and the teenagers in the living room. Gene was sitting with some of his cousins, mostly girls, who were all nuts about him. He had a way of lighting up when he got that much attention, and he seemed to be having fun.
Wally ate well—turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, candied yams, cut corn, string beans, pickled beets, sweet relish and dill pickles, cranberry sauce, and those wonderful butter rolls he had been smelling all day. He took another dab of everything as the platters came around the second time. He didn’t say much; he listened to his uncles and aunts. Dad was gloating about Salt Lake making the silly decision to install parking meters. He was sure people would shop in Sugar House now. “Who’s going to pay to park a car?” he asked his brothers.
Aunt Idonna made sure the other women knew about the after-Christmas sale at Roe’s. “Everything’s on sale for eighty-eight cents,” she told them. “Two men’s shirts, or five pair of socks. All kinds of things. Pajamas. Spring hats. Nice house dresses. But I think those might have been a dollar-eighty-eight.”
Wally ate a slice of pie at the table, stalled until the kids had cleared out of the kitchen, and then slipped in for the provisions he would need for a long holdout. He cut three slices of pie—apple, pumpkin, and lemon meringue—and set them on a plate. Then he got out a quart bottle of milk. He was about to make a quick dart through the crowd and up the stairs when Douglas came through the door. “You can’t have extra pie,” Douglas told him. “Mom said. Aunt Bea, too.”
“Hey, this isn’t for me. It’s for a widow across the street. I’m taking it to her. I’m a wonderful guy, huh?”
“Uh-uh. You’re lying. You always lie.”
“You’re right, Dougy. I’m a thief and a liar. Call in the G-men to arrest me.” Just then Grandma came in from the dining room.
“Wally’s taking extra pie,” Douglas said.
Grandma was a tall woman with a square chin like Dad’s and hands like a man’s. She set one of those big hands on Douglas’s shoulder and said, “Wally wouldn’t take extra pie for himself. He’s saving it for the poor and the needy.”
Wally grinned. “See, Douglas. It’s the widow.”
“Uh-uh. He’s going to eat it all.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Dougy,” Grandma said. “Old ladies don’t lie. Especially grandmas.”
Douglas wasn’t buying that, especially now that Grandma was laughing, but Wally finally pushed on through the door, slipped through the crowd quietly, and climbed the stairs to his room. He turned on the radio and tried to tune in something besides Christmas music, but he had no luck. The local stations carried too much pretty dance band music to suit Wally. He liked the bands from New Orleans or New York—jazz bands that liked to “play it hot.”
Wally changed clothes, and then he ate his after-dinner feast. Not long after that he heard someone coming up the stairs. He feared it was Gene with instructions from Dad for Wally to come back. But it turned out to be Bobbi, making her own escape. She gave a light little knock and then opened his door. “What are you doing up here?” she asked, smiling.
“I had to leave before I killed Douglas. What’s it called when you kill your cousin? Do they have a ‘cide for that?”
“In this case, I think it’s called justifiable homicide.” She leaned against the door frame and laughed, making her usual hissy little sound. Bobbi wasn’t knock-out beautiful like LaRue, but Wally liked the way she looked—as though she would always be a little girl, with freckles on her nose and a sweet-kid kind of smile. She and Beverly were the only ones in the family who had light hair—light brown, almost blonde. Mom’s hair was like that too, in old pictures, but her hair had grayed a good deal now. Everyone else had dark hair, like Dad’s.
“Maybe I can just tape little Dougy’s mouth shut for a few years. Even his parents ought to appreciate that.”
“Leave a hole for a straw. They can feed him malts.”
“Or worms.”
Bobbi laughed at that, but gradually her smile disappeared. “You know, Wally,” she said, “sometimes you push Dad a little too far. You had him on the edge this morning.”
Wally had been lying on his bed, but now he sat up. He had put on a ragged pair of corduroys and a threadbare flannel shirt. He knew that later he would have to put his coat and tie on. The whole family, even all the cousins, would be going down to the Burton Ward for sacrament meeting. It was a Christmas cantata, and Melvin J. Ballard was speaking. After that, President Heber J. Grant would be speaking on the radio—which Dad would also expect him to listen to. Wally figured he would have to live through all that, but for now, he wanted to relax—and not listen to another sermon, this time from Bobbi.
Bobbi shut the bedroom door, and then she walked over and sat down next to him. The two sat facing Gene’s bed, which was just a few feet from Wally’s. “Wally, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” He stared across the room at his shelves. There were more balls on them—baseballs, tennis balls, a basketball, a football—than there were books. Wally would have given anything to be a great athlete. He went out for every sport. He always missed the cut, however, or he made the team but not the starting lineup. He played M-Men basketball for his ward, and he did a little better there, but he still spent more time on the bench than not.
“What’s this thing you’re doing lately? You make fun of everything.”
“Not really.”
Bobbi looked down and placed her shoes—her new black pumps with ankle straps—next to each other. “You’ve changed, Wally. I think back a year or two, and Dad was your pal. The two of you were always talking about going into the car business together.”
“I lost interest in that.”
“Why?”
“I’m tired of working at the dealership. Dad drives me nuts. He’s never satisfied with anything I do. There’s no way he’d ever think of me as his partner.”
Bobbi got up and moved over to Gene’s bed, so she was facing Wally. “Wally,” she said, “what’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m kind of antsy to get out of high school . . . and . . . I want to get away from here.”
“What do you mean? Like go away to college? Dad won’t pay for that.”
“I might join the service. The navy or something.”
“You’ve never said anything about that before.”
“That’s because Dad expects everyone to go to college. I don’t dare bring it up with him.” Wally got up and walked across the room to his shelf.
Bobbi had to twist to look at him. He picked up his football and flipped it into the air. “Mel is thinking he might go with me,” he said.
“Mel thinks you’ve changed, too.”
“What do you mean? What did he say?”
“Just what I told you—that you turn everything into a joke. He told me your big thing lately is trying to see how many girls in the senior class you can kiss.”
“So what? He’s trying to do the same thing. I’m just better at it than he is.”
“So you’re the master, are you?”
Wally tried to grin. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“You tell Mel—plenty.”
Wally rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe Mel would tell Bobbi all this stuff. “Hey, if the worst thing I do is kiss a few girls, I doubt I’ll be cast into outer darkness.”
“Wally, it’s not right to kiss girls you don’t really care about. It’s just playing with their feelings—for your own thrills. It’s all part of this attitude I’m seeing in you now.”
“Bobbi, come on. You read too much into everything. I’ll get serious when I have to.”
“I just worry about you. You’ve always been my buddy, but you’ve stopped telling me things.” She stood up and smoothed out her skirt. She still had on her pretty dress—dark blue and double breasted, with gold buttons. Her eyes were rather gray, but the blue of the dress brought more color out.
“You wear your skirts too short. I think you need to repent and start wearing pioneer dresses. This is Zion, you know.”