A little holiday story
by Jack Mauro
The scene is a home on Venice Road in the Cedar Bluff neighborhood of Knoxville.
The time is 5:20 in the afternoon.
December 11th, 2002.
Caitlin Treece, thirty-two and chunky, was harnessed in something like five miles of electric light cord on Jennifer Joiner's living room floor. The bondage was self-inflicted, if not intentional; Caitlin's job was to untangle the ropes of the Joiners' Christmas lights. It is a chore often taken on by the not married friend, the thinking being that childhood pals unencumbered by husbands and kids have untapped resources of patience and strength. She was failing miserably in the task.
Jennifer, angular and pretty, stood with her hands on her hips and kicked some boxes at her feet like a rodeo bull behind a wooden gate. The television was on in the corner; Jimmy Stewart was accusing his guardian angel of hypnosis.
"Cat. Today, Cat. I got 3,000 balls and four boxes of tinsel waiting."
A sense of Christmas music playing was felt by both women. But none in reality was. It was the echo of holiday song heard whenever holiday preparations are made, years of tunes reverberating in sentimentally disposed, lolling heads. Outside, dusk folded over the house like a tenderly applied, tissue gift wrap.
"I'm sorry. I'm trying." A pitiful figure, Caitlin, just then. Like an overly ambitious snake charmer, she held aloft two—or maybe even one—strands of lights in each hand, not quite twisted free from the mass spookily growing around her waist. "Why couldn't you guys pack these up right?"
"Because you don't, that's why." Jen dropped on her haunches and began rifling through a sea of tinkling, fragile balls and soft, baby-safe ornaments. "It's a holiday tradition, like fruitcake." She extracted a fuzzy Rudolph and dangled it above her head, looking for all the world like a slim and sharp-nosed T. Rex with an hors d'oeuvre. "My baby! Yes. You go up first."
Trapped, lashed in, Caitlin impotently protested. "No, Jen! The lights have to go on first."
"Sorry, sister." With steely resolve and teeth sunk into lower lip, Jen slipped the Rudolph string onto a pride-of-place branch. "I'll go slow."
Cat looked down and noticed that the thicket around her waist moments before was, somehow, moving towards her bosom. "You could help," she said, betraying only a trace of fear.
"Tell you what." Jen stared hard at her recent handiwork. Something was wrong. "There's a warm, spiked egg nog in it for you."
"I could use one now. I could, really."
Jennifer's eyes remained on the tiny stuffed animal. "One free string. One nog. Two strings, two..." She trailed off. She adjusted the Rudolph, stepped back, and waited.
"Oh, come on, Jen. I'm dying here."
But Jen didn't hear. Again, seeming deliberately, the reindeer's hindquarters persisted in swinging to the front.
"Damn, damn. Damn."
"What's wrong?" Jimmy Stewart took the cue and said he needed a drink, bad. He thought perhaps his new friend could use one as well.
"What's wrong? A reindeer's ass, that's what's wrong." Jennifer turned the toy again, expecting, as is our way, a different result from the same activity.
Momentarily cheered by Jen's annoyance—we're none of us going to heaven, liking a little as we do the run in our best friend's stocking or the ding to our buddy's Corvette—Caitlin serenely pushed down the sinister decor encircling her. "Oh, well. Remember what Mrs. Pfeiffer said: 'Ornaments are nice, but mustn't be taken to be the thing itself.'"
Jennifer smiled at Rudolph's rear end and whispered the words to the tree. When childhood friends recall the sayings of old teachers, long-dead poets feel pangs of envy. If only the bond of love were that strong.
Real night fell upon the house in a matter of moments, a poured shadow. Sheldon Leonard informed Jimmy Stewart that, in his establishment, they serve hard drinks to men who want to get drunk fast. Compliant, Jimmy ordered bourbon for himself and his odd companion.
"Yeah! Got one!" Caitlin waved twin ends of a single cord in her plump little fists, a triumphant Santa's helper. Then her face caved into a pout as Jen reached for the lights without even looking at her. All business, is Jennifer Joiner.
"Good. Red. It'll stand out from way inside by the trunk." And the skinny arms of Jen went to work, feeling their way inside, the side of her face scrunched against needles. Unseeing but deft. The magic of woman at work on what is important.
Inspired by her own success, Cat's hands dove with a new, nimble touch into the nest. It surrendered, revealing hidden treasure of plug and prong. Caitlin suddenly had an idea of herself enjoying New Year's with a young man hitherto deemed inaccessible.
On the television, Sheldon Leonard referred to Jimmy Stewart and his friend as "two pixies." Jennifer said, "Yeah....no, damn it....give, baby...," her arms deep in the recesses of sticky green, as though she were midwife to a tree birth. The delivery was accomplished; dull red glowed from the fir's center, like house lights seen dimly through a mile of forest. By way of reward, she plucked another ornament to hang.
"Lee's mother's bell?"
"Lee's mother's bell." Jen held it up, staring blankly at the frail, exquisite glass. In its etched, small dome might be everything a mother-in-law is to a wife, so blankly did she stare.
"God, it's so pretty." Victorious over electrics, Caitlin was serene.
"Uh-huh. Pretty." Jennifer carefully hung the bell. Something in her eyes betrayed another voice remembered, one soon to be making its coy annual suggestion for a different stuffing recipe.
Sheldon Leonard said, "Get a load o' me—I'm givin' out wings!" The patrons of the bar—a rough crowd, those Pottersville men—laughed in shared mockery as he repeatedly rang up no sales. Jennifer tapped the delicate bell newly hung, creating a tinkling like a baby's giggle.
"Get a load o' me," she echoed. "I'm givin' out wings!"
Caitlin smiled broadly at the timing. As Jennifer was pleased with her own excellent mimicry. But here's the thing: neither woman actually laughed. Neither actually laughed, not because it wasn't truly funny—we laugh at much not truly funny—but because we can't be sure promotion in the form of divine flight isn't a consequence of a bell being rung.
the Moral? Believe in something lyrical and senseless. Remain close to those who share the illogical conviction. Merry Christmas.
Jack Mauro's latest novel, Enola's Wedding, is available from www.iuniverse.com.
December 12, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 50
© 2002 Metro Pulse
| 
