December 24, 2012
Greetings from over the river,
My Dad is driving the Buick, gripping the steering wheel,
wrestling the machine, willing the four tires to stay in the two black slots carved
in the snow in front of us. The
windshield wipers are whipping back and forth, cutting half ovals in the snow
on the glass.
The car is hot, the heater blowing at maximum hellfire to
fight back the fog of our breathing on the windows and melt the ice and snow
outside. The powder whirls around us as
the car barrels along the vague outline of the road. There are no other cars; it is Christmas Eve,
already dark, and other families are already observing the curfew. Our headlights broadcast in front of us, as
if to emphasize our singular defiance.
We are driving the two lane road that cuts through the
farmland south of our town, the twenty mile space that separates the city mice
and the country mice. I press my face against
the glass, watching the houses go by, a few of them with lights on the porch,
my five year old mind marshaling my limited attention span on one thing.
I am in the back seat, loosely packed in with various
wrapped gifts along with my sisters. One
is old enough to torment me, the other too young for me to torment. I am trapped by circumstance and the pressure
of Being Good, imposed by an omniscient elf somewhere north of us.
When I become bored I crawl up into the package shelf, wedge
myself against the rear window of the car.
In some other circumstance my Dad might have commented about being able
to see out the back, but the windows are frosted by the snow and there are no
cars behind us so I am spared.
I climb down into the seat again, pushing up to the door,
toying with the little ashtray lid built into the upholstery, flipping it open
and letting it snap shut until the noise becomes irritating enough to elicit a
comment from the front seat where my mother sits. The car windows are steamed up and I draw
circles in the condensation, making stick figures running across the
glass. They dissolve before the piece is
complete, running in drips down to the edge of the door.
When we reach the village where my grandparent’s live, the
gas station is closed, the few shops are dark.
Only the flashing yellow signal at the intersection offers any
suggestion that people have not completely abandoned this remote place.
We turn down the narrow road to my grandparents’ house, a
risky maneuver but the snow is no match for the Buick. We blow up white clouds as we plow down the
little road and turn into the long driveway, already crowded with powder
covered cars. The four doors open and we
spill out, children and parents and packages and bags. I am hurrying through the shallow snow to the
front door, wanting this to be done as fast as possible, my mind on that one
thing. The sooner I am in bed and
asleep, the sooner Santa will come.
My grandparent’s living room was crowded with people. Some are my relatives, some are neighbors, I
stop trying to figure out who is who. There
are lots of kisses, starting with my Grandma’s, leaving red tattoos from the
latest Avon red. The air is thick with perfume and cigarette smoke.
There is loud talking, laughter, as we listen to the Vaughan
Meder album about the Kennedy family at Christmas. I only vaguely understand why this is so
funny, and laugh along with the adults, hoping that if I participate we can
finish this sooner.
I am polite but after a while I am too tired to keep up
pretenses. Even the pressure of Being Good falters, and I find myself losing
interest in the adult questions about how old I am or what Santa might bring
me. Just the reminder of Santa quickens
my heart, and I am impatient to get home to complete the sequence required for
him to appear.
The rooms are small, more crowded with a Christmas tree now,
and a few extra chairs pulled in for company to sit in. I maneuver through knees, exploring little
dishes on the tables trying to find chocolate, but Grandma’s treats are taffy
and ribbon candy. I frown but remember
to Be Good and put a hard candy in my mouth to show my selfless spirit.
There is a TV in the corner, but it is only turned on for
boxing or the news. Now the hi-fi is
playing Christmas music. I can sense Santa’s impatience, almost feel him
drumming his fingers on the edge of his sleigh, waiting to take off but held in
place by me. He knows when I am
sleeping, and knows when I’m awake. And
I’m awake.
The pre-Christmas tension is almost too much. The children are given token gifts to open
but it seems as though they are like apples at Halloween. Practical things like pajamas and underwear,
as if we needed more of those, as if no one had ever asked a child what they
wanted to for Christmas. I smile,
holding up another pair of white sox with the little stripes around the top,
giving my most earnest impression of Being Good. “Look!” I say, projecting
Academy Award winning enthusiasm, as if I had just received a GI Joe or a
Matchbox car.
The evening stretches out into infinity, and I am chafing in
my good clothes, fidgeting under the pressure of Being Good and finally my
resolve cracks. I want to go home, and
somehow being subtle is not working. I
express my impatience and am warned and reminded about the rules. I sit in insolence in the corner by the tree,
shielded by the fir, my hot tears burning my eyes, roiled in five year old
angst, knowing that the reindeer will not pull the sleigh until I have lived up
to my responsibility.
Finally, mercifully, the time ends and we are bundled up and
kissed again and sent out into the polar breeze with a new set of gifts traded
for those we brought. We crowd into the
car, shivering on the vinyl seats, begging for the Buick to warm up.
My Dad urges the car down the snowy roads, surrounded by
dark, the landscape dotted with the occasional house light, a few doors lighted
with colorful bulbs, a few Christmas trees visible from picture windows. I don’t know if it is a hundred miles or a
thousand, but we cannot drive fast enough for the time to pass as I hope it
will.
Before long the car is warm, and my Dad turns on the radio, the
volume low so we can just make out the strains of Bing Crosby dreaming. I peer between the seats at the dash lights, a
cozy glow against the blackness outside the windows. I lean against the door, letting the warmth
soak into me, wrapped in my winter coat and hat, my anxiety lessened now that
we are pointed in the right direction.
Surely Santa will see I’m making an effort.
The car pushes on through the dark, toward the big city
where we live. The drone of the car and
the soft crooning combine to lull me, and the heat makes me drowsy. I close one eye, just for a moment, and feel
the pull of sleep, inexorable, a weight on me that I am powerless against. I drift for a moment. And the world changes.
And then I am somewhere, a room filled with toys, my heart
racing as I open a gift, and another, and here is a stocking filled with
chocolate, and then I am being carried, I am vaguely aware I am outside again,
and I see our front door, the little fire truck over the porch, and then I am
next to the Christmas tree, and look at all the gifts, wrapped in red and
green, and now I am in my bed, magically clothed in my pajamas. I ask if I am Being Good and am assured that I
am. The pronouncement is ratified with a
kiss just below my cowlick.
I smile and turn on the pillow, and in my five year old mind
I sense the release, the moment when I am synchronized with Santa, when he knows
he can snap the reigns and begin the journey.
He knows when I am sleeping.
Hope this finds you Being Good for Goodness Sake,
David
Copyright © 2012 David Smith
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