I wanted to move it, turn it around to show its best side, but that would mean coming close to him again and it had taken all that I had just to lean over and place the plant down on the stand. I couldn’t come so close again so soon, so I left it as it was.
Nurse D. Green came in and commented on how beautiful it was. She looked at it as if it were the first time she was seeing it, as if it weren’t her hard-earned money that made its presence possible. Its leaves lifted a bit in her presence.
“Uh-huh,” I responded in awe and was about to thank her again, but a buzzing sound from the next room caught her attention and she dashed out before I could even open my mouth to speak.
My mind traveled between the poinsettia, Nurse D. Green, Christmas, Malcolm, and Delia. They were swirling, restless, destructive thoughts, like the twisters that battered the Midwest during the summer. The thoughts made my head ache and I pinched my wrist to try and distract myself.
I watched Hy-Lo and the liquids that bubbled through the tubes and kept him alive. I thought again about ending it all. Just pulling the plug from the wall and putting a stop to the memories.
My hand jerked beneath me and I thought for a moment that I would actually do it, but then I felt shame open up inside of me and spread through me until my body shook with the intensity of it.
I didn’t recognize this thing in me that was changing my hate, molding it into compassion, trying to sculpt it into understanding and forgiveness. I shook my head against the thought and cleared my throat against the thick film it left there.
I would force myself to remember the smell of hate, the feel of pain, and the sense of rejection he instilled in me every single day of my life. I would remember and then this feeling of forgiveness that was laying root inside of me would dissipate and the hate would blossom again, like gardenias in spring.
I moved my chair closer, leaned back, and waited. It was the carolers who roamed the hallways of the hospital singing to the sick and dying that helped take me back to Rogers Avenue. It was their small voices filled with Christmas cheer, the way they sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and how that song happened to be playing in the background on that horrible December 25.
Christmas seemed to have come quickly that year. Perhaps because all of my energy had been focused on refereeing Hy-Lo and Delia—“Let’s keep it clean, guys!”—housework, and school. I’d become withdrawn and distanced myself from Glenna. My bruises were worse than Delia’s because I was bruised on the inside where they could not be bandaged or treated with antiseptic.
Snow came two days before Christmas; it covered the ground like a blanket of cotton that came up to our knees and spilled over and into the tops of our rubber boots. I had prayed for snow, so much snow that the city would come to a halt and no one would be able to make it to my house for Christmas dinner. Every year there was a scene, some altercation that required police presence. Hy-Lo slapping Delia, Hy-Lo punching one of his brothers. Always Hy-Lo, always liquor, always police.
I smiled up at the sky and thanked God aloud. My words came out in frosty bits of air that disappeared before my eyes. And then the next day the temperature climbed to fifty and melted it all away. We would have Christmas dinner after all and a new nightmare would be created to fill my adult dreams.
Gwenyth came outfitted in a flowing red dress that was so long it dusted our parquet floors, gathering pine needles and bits of fluff as she moved between the kitchen and living room. I watched her adorned in her fake pearls and glass stud earrings and told myself she was Christmas Past: a specter of what once was.
Mable and Sam came dressed in jeans and matching white sweatshirts with red bows and green fluorescent letters that screamed
Ho! Ho! Ho!
across the front.
They came laden down with shopping bags filled with colorful wrapped boxes that held gifts for Malcolm and me.
Delia had not spoken to Mable for more than two weeks and the air between them was sour. Delia barely brushed her lips against Mable’s cheek and only offered Sam a stiff hug and a quiet hello. They were representatives of Christmas Present.
Charlie, Randy, and Charlie’s wife Carol had arrived right after Mable and Sam. We heard them in the hall of the building before they even rang the doorbell. They were raucous and half-drunk when they stepped through the door. They threw greetings over their shoulders at us and made a beeline straight to the television stand that had been set up as a bar for the occasion.
Charlie looked like Hy-Lo but he was taller and heavier and bald. Randy was the odd one of the three; he was short, barely five feet tall, and as dark as the deepest summer night. Carol, Charlie’s wife, was tall and sinewy. Her neck was thicker than Charlie’s was and her hands were just as large as his, but you forgot about her size when she opened her mouth to speak and her words came out sounding like Mickey Mouse.
“Where are the kids?” Delia asked as they struggled to remove their coats with one hand while the other hand held their mixed drinks.
“Home,” Carol said and then, “You got any cherries, you know the sweet ones?”
“Like the one between your legs?” Charlie said and slapped her on the behind. Everyone around the liquor broke into a fit of laughter; the rest of us remained solemn.
Delia rolled her eyes and looked embarrassedly over her shoulder at Malcolm and me. I shrugged my shoulders at her; we had heard worse from Charlie.
Mable sucked her teeth loudly. “There are children present!” she said in a stern voice and rolled her eyes. Sam patted her knee and scratched at the top of his head.
Malcolm and I stopped unwrapping our gifts and sat quietly down on the floor beside the tree, crossing our legs Indian style and resting our chins in the palms of our hands. We had been denied the pleasure of the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, but we would have front seats for the show that was about to take place in our living room.
They ignored Mable’s comment and talked loudly amongst themselves, never moving away from the TV stand and the six bottles of liquor it held. “Well?” Carol said in exasperation and turned to face Delia, who had positioned herself against the wall.
Delia’s arms were folded across her chest and she chewed nervously on her bottom lip. “Huh?” she said.
The glass that Carol waved back and forth before her eyes broke Delia’s spell. “Cherries, Delia, cherries,” she said in an annoyed voice as my mother took the glass from her hand.
“Cheez!” Carol added and then joined in on the tail laughter of the joke.
They behaved as if we weren’t there, as if they still stood among the lowlifes who found themselves on a barstool at the Blue Moon on Christmas Day, instead of on the sofa, sipping cider, surrounded by family.
Gwenyth stood, smoothed her Christmas dress, and took a step toward them. “Randy.” She called his name sharply and I saw some color drain away from his face.
“Mother,” he said, then stepped forward and planted a loving kiss on her cheek. “Merry Christmas,” he slurred and Gwenyth’s face contorted against the rankness of his breath.
She said nothing else; her eyes condemned his behavior and dismissed him all at the same time. He lowered his head, and had he a tail he would have stuffed it between his legs. Instead he suddenly became aware that we were in the room and began to move between us, offering greetings and words filled with holiday cheer.
Gwenyth’s eyes passed over Charlie and Carol and then fell on the bottles of liquor. She licked her lips and turned her attention to Charlie. He would be more difficult to approach. He was the oldest of her sons and knew more of Gwenyth’s life than the others. He held that fact over her head like the sharp blade of a guillotine. “Charlie.” Her voice was still sharp but there was an air of cautiousness surrounding it. “Charlie,” she repeated when she found she was still looking at his back.
Carol had stopped laughing and turned to look at Gwenyth. She looked her up and down and then her eyes settled on the fake pearls around Gwenyth’s neck. She sniffed and became aware of her own clothing. A tattered denim jacket that would not have kept out the slight chill of a spring day. A black scarf covered in lint, fraying in the middle and at the ends. She pulled at her jacket and then touched the beige corduroys that had a large ink spot on the knee.
Gwenyth pursed her perfectly heart-shaped, red-painted lips at Carol and stepped around Charlie, bringing those lips close to his ear. Carol seemed mesmerized by Gwenyth: her clothes, her sheer perfection in a sea of imperfection. Carol’s hands went to her hair that was pulled back into a ragged ponytail and then to her face. She was as black as the lumps of coal Hy-Lo threatened to leave beneath the tree for us, but with all of her midnight skin, the darkest blue bruise stood out on her face like a smudged thumbprint.
Charlie’s head was bobbing up and down in response to Gwenyth’s moving lips. She had managed to rest one delicate hand on his shoulder, and had moved in closer so that she could see the entirety of his face.
We all watched and waited. Delia had Carol’s empty glass in one hand and a jar of maraschino cherries in the other. Randy had taken a seat on the hassock nearest to Malcolm and me. Carol had moved away from mother and son and had settled herself on the couch near Mable. Mable had scooted closer to Sam while staring intently at the bruises on Carol’s cheek and neck, the keloid scars on the back of her hand, and the worn sneakers that covered her feet. Mable wriggled her nose at the stench of alcohol that seeped from Carol’s pores and the sour smell that came from not bathing, which clung to her skin. I closed my eyes and hoped that Carol wasn’t the ghost of Christmases to come.
“Mother!” He turned on her and broke the odd tranquillity that had settled around the room. Charlie’s eyes were wide and red and suddenly he looked like someone other than the playful uncle who slipped me a dollar whenever he didn’t need one from me.
Gwenyth took a step back, anger flashed in her eyes, and for a moment I saw her hand jerk as if to rise up and strike him. “Charlie!” she bellowed back at him but did not recover her spot on the floor inches from her son.
“Um, Charlie …” Delia started to interrupt but thought better of it and fell silent again.
Malcolm and I leaned forward, our eyes widened, and we held our breath.
“Where the hell you think you going, Mother? To the fucking Christmas Ball?”
Charlie snatched at the material of Gwenyth’s red dress. His words were filled with a spitefulness that liquor alone could not have produced.
“Always trying to show yourself off, like some type of goddamn queen.” He looked at her for a long time before he spoke again. “You ain’t shit!” he yelled at her and slammed his glass down hard on the makeshift bar. Two bottles toppled over the side and went crashing to the ground.
There was more to be said, but not right then. The story, the one that I was born into and could not escape, would come out later in life when I needed to understand.
Hy-Lo walked in just as the jagged pieces of glass scattered across the floor. It was almost two in the afternoon and the ham was still baking in the oven. The greens were done and so were the yams and the potato salad. The cornbread was the last to go in, he knew that, but the ham should have been done and now there was this mess to clean up.
He stood there and looked down at the glass and the clear liquid that covered his floor and ate through his wax. He did not say anything, just jingled his keys in his hand.
Gwenyth was struck stupid and remained glued to the spot she stood in. She did not want to move. If she even flinched that would mean she would have to look into our faces and see the disappointment that was etched there and it would say:
Three sons. Three sons. All drunks. You must be so
proud.
“Get out, Charlie.” Hy-Lo spoke quietly. The quiet words before the loud ones. Always. “Get out now.”
Charlie snickered. He thought so many things and so many people were funny. Only Gwenyth got him mad and I guess Carol too. “Hy, man, listen—”
“Out!” Hy-Lo cut him off and at the same time snapped his fingers at Delia to start cleaning up the mess. Mable opened her mouth to object and Sam squeezed her knee and shook his head in warning.
Charlie snickered again. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he looked at Gwenyth and bowed, bowed so low I saw my reflection in the baldness of his head. “Merry Christmas, Mother,” he said and then saluted her. “C’mon, Carol,” he ordered and started toward the door.
Now the apartment smelled like the belly of the Blue Moon, the part behind the bar where the floor was always sticky and wet, where the dirty lipstick-stained glasses waited to be relieved of the soggy cigarettes that floated dead at their bottoms. Hy-Lo must have felt at home for the first time since we moved in.
Gwenyth was shaken and did not want to remain on center stage. The bottle of rum that sat on the kitchen table in the dark of her own apartment was calling to her now, telling her she did not have to remain here and be subjected to this type of treatment. “I’m going home,” she announced. Her hands fiddled with the fake pearls around her neck, pulling them away from her throat as if they had suddenly shrunk and were cutting off her air supply.
“Make Mother a plate,” Hy-Lo ordered Delia as he walked into the bedroom and closed the door.
“I don’t believe this shit,” Mable hissed beneath her breath. Not even the soft touches and gentle nudges from Sam would sustain her tongue for much longer.
Delia looked up from her kneeling position on the floor, broom in one hand and dustpan in the other. “Okay, Hy-Lo,” she said helplessly and stood to do what she had been told.
Finally, we were assembled around the table. It was a disappointing unveiling. Delia lifted the ceramic turkeyshaped cover to reveal a turkey that had been victimized. The right and left drums were gone as well as a large portion of the breast. Gwenyth would not stay long enough for us to bless the meal and cut the bird. “No, no, I need to leave now,” she had insisted when Delia asked her to stay just until Hy-Lo had changed his clothes and washed his hands.