Merry Christmas - Patrick Sean Lee (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

simply displaying another of her nervous tics. Pop seemed particularly happy, or particularly on his way to getting totally blasted, and he kept interrupting Mom and Aunt Corey, who were trying to talk about some ornaments that Aunt Corey had picked up when she was a child back in 1776. Pop was in a way very amorous, his arm around Mom’s shoulder, and his fingers dancing downward. He was all smiles, and so was she as she slapped his fingers and continued to talk to her sister-in-law.

     “Roseanna, the tree is just beautiful this year,” Aunt Corey said, adding her fingers to Mom’s arm. Mom was drifting away for the moment ‘cause of Pop’s dancing fingers, though, and didn’t seem to hear the comment. Aunt Corey pursed her lips and then finally gave up and glanced over at Jimmy and me.

     “I like your gray dress, Mrs. Merton. Yeah, gray is cool; so are the polka dots!” Jimmy said to her.

     Sylvie and Mrs. McGuire stopped near the front door when they finally got into the room, and Sylvie continued nodding her head. I think she was relaxed, now. She pushed her empty glass out and waited patiently while Mrs. McGuire poured a slug of Jim Beam all over the glass, Sylvie’s hand, and onto the floor a thousand miles away from her target. Pop leaned down and kissed Mom. Aunt Corey stood uneasily between all of us, unsure if it would be better to join her daughter and spill whiskey all over herself and the floor, try to rejoin Mom and Pop like a romantic referee—or step down into the world of two teenagers who couldn’t possibly relate to slaughtering fish, listening to Lawrence Welk, or collecting salt and pepper shakers. Finally she walked past everyone to the TV set and turned the channel until Perry Como appeared. He and a boat load of fancy-ass dressed adults and kids sang Winter Wonderland on a set that was suppose to look like Vermont, or Maine, or someplace really, really cold, and oozing with holiday cheer. She sat down glumly on the edge of the couch and disregarded everyone except Perry while she waited for the roast Mom had stuck in the oven to finish cooking. From the looks of it, she was going to have to be the chef tonight.

     “Let’s go over to my house, Skip. I wanna’ call Sara and wish her Merry Christmas,” Jimmy said when the joy and excitement got to be too much for him to stand any longer.

     “Oh sure. You’ll be on the phone for hours! No way. Besides, you can wish her Merry Christmas tomorrow when it’s Christmas.”

     Jimmy thought for a second. “Okay then. Let’s stay here and use your phone. I’ll just say Merry Christmas and then hang up.”

     “Yeah, right. Nix to that, too. Wait ‘til tomorrow. Let’s go downstairs and get out of this place. Your mom’s a mess. I think Pop is gonna’ be pretty soon, too.”

     He agreed to that, so we both left the merrymaking for the basement. As I passed Mom and Pop, I heard Mom whispering to Pop, “LaVerne, stop that, goddamit!”

 

 

                                       ***

 

 

     “We’d better take two cars,” Aunt Corey said after dinner. “We can’t all fit into the station wagon.”

     “Ah bullshit, Cora. Sure we can. You and me and Rosie in the front. Syl and Margaret in the back. The boys in the far back,” Pop said.

     “Good God, LaVerne, what’s the matter with two cars? Who the hell cares? We’re only gonna’ be in ‘em for ten minutes anyway,” Mom said.

     “Can’t I ever…”

     So that was that. The decision was made; we’d caravan up the icy streets to the church and, God help us, try to get through the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass without a major incident. Jimmy and I wouldn’t be allowed to bring any weapons—pea shooters or Whamos, not even paper for spitwads. Even so, the orange and gold lights from the hundreds of candles; the choir singing behind the enormously beautiful pipe organ; the altar boys and deacons; Father Blenker in robes that would make Caesar drool; the exotic late hour; the packed church with a healthy number of celebrants smelling of whiskey and beer—I was filled with excitement. Midnight Mass possessed a very special power over me. It was the smell of Benediction, the pageantry of any High Mass times ten, the time of year, all of this rolled into one, two-hour super-ritual. I was a Catholic, and so lucky to be one on a night like tonight. The only improvement, it hit me, could have been Perry Como standing like a handsome Italian saint high up in the choir loft singing Silent Night—claiming, of course, that he was Irish after all the cheering died down.

     So we got there, and up the steps we marched.

     True to my expectations, the interior of the church was ablaze like the gold room inside Fort Knox (which I’d never actually seen), a magical glow from the hundred candles unmatched by any other possible. The sanctuary was alive with evergreens—three trees on either side of the stepped altar, decorated with strands of tiny white lights, glistening ornaments and tinsel. Gold and silver and red and green everywhere. Wreaths with dark brown, raspy pine cones and soft velvet ribbons peeking out of the foliage hung from the face of the pulpit and the side altars; suspended with heavy wire from the truss rafters; on the crowned pew ends—on the columns stretching down the sides of the nave.

     Ribbon and lights and greenery in abundance. And incense burning. Exotic Arabian Frankincense and Myrrh smoldering in small, golden vessels on wooden stands, caught on the breezes wafting gently down from the altar. The breath of God. This romance was the divine child of the beautiful pagan goddess married to the one, true, Catholic and apostolic prince. The product of centuries of intense and passionate lovemaking, until, finally, the Christmas conception. It was enough, almost, to sober up any drunk, or give life back to a corpse. Of course the drunks and the dead sat and knelt and lay quietly in their various stations of worship. For the most part obscure, unobtrusive and pretty much guzzlingly happy.

     Jimmy and I walked obediently behind our folks into the church and up the main aisle like we were all part of a delegation of foreign, highly important ambassadors and dignitaries. Above us from the choir loft, the sound of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”, played soft and low by Sister Mary Carmelita, added another facet to the sparkling service. Pop swayed ever-so-slightly, and he acknowledged the many acquaintances he passed with a simple nod of his head. Mom had downed just enough Jim Beam to force her to sway in the same directions, but to loudly greet every single soul she recognized. Everyone. She stopped often, making Mrs. McGuire stumble into her back, which made Jimmy’s mom giggle and do a little shuffle on the eggs she walked on.

     The church was alive with buzzing little conversations and beehive movements in the pews. The atmosphere was light and festive, so no one really gave a hoot about the semi-sodden arrival of the lower Barnum neighborhood bunch, except maybe the Lord, and I was betting he found us all immensely entertaining, and was happy as all get out to see us.

       Jimmy and I found ourselves in front of Aunt Corey and Sylvie, behind his mother. Trapped in a sardine school, with lasting interest in the upcoming ceremony already waning. That was an uncomfortable position if ever there was one for us.

     I had to get us out of there. Last spring at Benediction we’d easily ditched the older folks...and, well…wound up wounding God’s favorite Son with our Whamo slingshots. Jesus had been inside the holy Monstrance Father Blenker held high, up there on the altar. Jimmy and I were in the choir loft, aiming for Extine Moye, Father’s altar boy standing beside the old priest.

     We both had learned an important lesson from that experience. Practice those long shots outside.

     Well anyway, as we took a seat and I heard Sylvie hiccup, I looked over at Jimmy questioningly. I could see that he was as uneasy as a preacher in a whorehouse, and that he all a sudden wanted to get a breath of fresh air, too. So I stood back up. I waited the second it took him to do the same, and that’s all it took for Mom to get hold of my coat collar and yank me across Mrs. McGuire’s lap to have a word with me.    

     “Where do you think you’re goin’, mister?”

     “To the bathroom.”

     “No you’re not,” she whispered, because a fair number of folks around us were turning to see what the commotion was about, and above all, we none of us wanted to become spectacles in Jesus’ house on his special night.

       She had me cornered. I felt extremely uneasy, half-lying across Jimmy’s mother, hooked by Mom’s indelicate fingers, searching for a way to break free without making a terrific scene right there in the middle of the church on Christmas Eve. The service hadn’t even started and the McGuires and the Morleys were already becoming the stars of a low budget B-movie. I had to think fast, or hope Jimmy could come up with a decent reason the two of us needed to go out of the church alone, down the stairs into the basement, down the long, dark hall beneath the hundreds of celebrants above us, and then up the back stairs to the rear door. Or, probably a better deal; straight out the main entrance fifty feet away.

     His mother was all beside herself, confused in the way some people get who’ve had way too much to drink. I glanced up at her very quickly and saw the eyes of a deer in the headlights—Dear Jesus Christ! Where do I go? What’s going on here? Her breathing was clipped and saturated. I coughed once and smiled at her. Time to make my break before I got drunk by exposure and, worse, give Mom any more time to put the total kiboshes on mine and Jimmy’s innocent departure plan. Neither of us, surely, had any desire to ruin Jesus’ night, we just needed to get out of that swill house and have some fun somewhere else. I’m sure he understood.

     Mom didn’t, and to make matters all the more complicated, Pop joined her with an index finger poking back and forth in my face, and the rancid sweet smell of whiskey on his breath. He gave up after a few seconds.

     “I’ll go with you. I have to…” and he spoke the next words in a whisper without moving his lips, allowing the finger to stop dead on the tip of my nose for deeper emphasis…“pee myself.”

     “Okay, okay! Let go, Mom. I guess I’ll just wet my pants.” I looked imploringly at her, but I knew the jig was up. She let go of my collar, much to Mrs. McGuire’s relief, and the satisfaction of most everyone else around us, and I swung myself off her into a defeated, upright position again. I looked at Jimmy. He mouthed, Shit.

     A man who was sitting right in front of us with his family, and who looked like he was stuck there by God Himself to keep the folks behind him in line, turned at the conclusion of Mom’s performance. He scowled. “Can you people please try to remember where you are?”

     Mom let him have it for a few minutes after that insult, until he turned back around and minded his own business.

     Extine was serving Mass, and in a déjà vu kind of way, slipped quietly out of the sacristy door into the sanctuary a few minutes after my thwarted escape plan. He carried a long, shiny-brass candle lighter in front