The First Christmas After
By Jess MacIntosh
"What's that?" Darry slung off his tool belt and tossed it on the coat rack by the door. Although it was December, it was warm enough for just a light jacket, and his followed the tool belt.
"Twenty questions" Soda said. He adjusted the wobbly wooden stand that was nailed to the bottom of the tree, and stood ready to catch it if it leaned too far.
"I thought we decided not to do a tree this year. No unnecessary spending."
"Yeah" Soda surveyed his handiwork and decided the three foot scraggily pine would remain up right. "We decided on no turkey for Thanksgiving but we had one anyway."
"The roofing company gave it to us, and besides, Soda, you left the giblets inside and roasted it upside down. It was inedible. "
"Some of it was eatible, " Soda was ripping masking tape off an old cardboard box.
"Just because Two-Bit got a slice down without vomiting does not mean it was edible. I swear he could eat cat sh—"
"It's free!" Soda announced, like the Curtis family had won the sweepstakes. "A couple of customers dropped trees by the station and I got to take this one."
Darry just walked into the kitchen to get a beer. Soda didn't need reminding that this would be their first Christmas without Mom and Dad. That was the real reason they had decided on no tree this year.
By the time we get through decorating that damn thing we'll all be bawling like babies, Darry thought, sipping his beer. The memory of them all picking out a tree last year cut through him like a razor. I am going to bleed tears, he thought, weep blood like some weird Madonna painting.
He felt his throat tightening a little, but no tears came.
Maybe the worst is over, he thought, maybe I can make through this holiday. He'd try, just for the sake of his brothers if nothing else. Maybe they needed Christmas.
He walked back into the living room just as Steve came in the door.
"Hey, Mom sent you guys some fudge" Steve put a foil-wrapped paper plate on the coffee table.
He immediately kneeled beside Soda to rummage through the box.
"Here's mine" Soda said, holding up a car colored like a candy cane.
How can he do this? Darry thought. How can he do this without cracking his heart?
But he sat down next to Soda and found his—a charging reindeer holding a football. Their dad had brought home ornaments almost every year, and each of the brothers had a special one...
"Here's Pony's," Soda said.
Steve snorted. "It looks like him."
"Yeah," Soda replied, studying the elf reading a book, "The year he got it—he was eight, right Darry?—it really looked like him."
"Seven," Darry said absent-mindedly. "Okay, we hold off on any more decorating til Ponyboy gets here."
"We can skip the bubble lights," Soda said. "These twiggy branches would never hold them and besides, they never work anyway."
"Ho ho ho" Two-Bit boomed as he walked in the door "As I said to the young lady on the corner of 1st and Main."
He sat on the sofa and unscrewed the lid from the large thermos he was carrying.
"Anybody want some eggnog? Watchya doin'?"
""Settin' up the Christmas tree. I'll take some," Soda reached for the thermos.
Two-Bit leaned down and pawed through the box. "This is for ol' Bowser, ain't it?"
He was holding an ornament of a black cocker spaniel in a Santa hat.
"Bowser. Man, Dad and his original names. I think I'm the only one who remembers that dog." Darry chuckled, remembering the puppy he got for his fourth birthday.
"I remember him, " Soda took a big gulp from the thermos, gagged, almost spit, then swallowed, wiping his mouth, then his eyes.
"Holy cow, that must be half whiskey!" he gasped.
"Gotta kill the taste of the eggnog somehow."
"Give me that," Steve grabbed the thermos and took a long drink.
"Now that is the Christmas spirit."
Darry rummaged through the box some more. Yarn, glitter, paste, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, construction paper, stickers and crayon—sometimes pine cones and real bird nests--about half the decorations were hand-made, either at grade school or at their kitchen table. He and Soda had protested that they were too old and too cool for that baby stuff before they hit middle school, but Ponyboy had carried on the tradition a little longer.
Mom tried to hang onto her last baby as long as she could, Darry realized now. She could always coax him into one more, no matter how much Soda and I teased him.
Darry picked up one—unable to tell if it was a star or a snowflake.
Anyone who knows us at all, he thought, could tell who had made what.
Darry's rule of "measure twice, cut once" showed in even his earliest efforts, solid-built, well-constructed, and totally lacking in imagination.
Soda's were slap-dash, sometimes sloppy, but held a charming energy.
Pony's stood out the most, almost startlingly imaginative, with a little bit too much glitter and stars, or so Darry had always thought.
Since we're not buying presents this year, he thought, maybe I'll sneak some of our old stuff out of the attic and stick it under the tree Christmas Eve—Darry's Lincoln logs and tinker toys, Soda's paddle balls and pogo stick, Pony's old paint-by-numbers, even though he never followed the numbers and always ended up with pictures that little resembled the ones on the box.
"Hey," Ponyboy had entered the room so quietly he startled all of them. "You got the tree up?"
He set down his notebook and a couple of books on the table by the door and walked over carrying a paper sack from TG&Y.
Darry looked at his watch. Pony was supposed to find a pay phone and call if he was going to be this late. Darry had been too absorbed in what he was doing to worry.
"I stopped by the dime store on the way home. I saw the tree at the DX station and wanted to get a couple of ornaments." Pony explained.
Darry opened his mouth to scold him, then shut it again. He looked back down at the elf reading a book.
Dad didn't "get" him anymore than I do, Darry thought, but he absolutely adored him. He never yelled at him the way I do, hell he never yelled at any of us the way I do with both of them. If I'm going to try to be a parent, I better start doing it right.
Pony dropped down beside the box. He poked around and brought up an angel playing a piano.
"Look, it's Mom." He quickly searched some more, and found a Santa with a fishing pole over his shoulder. "Here's Dad's"
Darry's breath caught in his throat, but Pony's face only held a soft warm smile, like he had a glimpse of his parents again. He'd been too thin, too hollow-eyed for months, almost frail looking, and Darry gritted his teeth.
I can stand it, he thought, if it puts a look like that on his face, I'll stand it.
Soda suddenly yelped "Eggnog!" and jumped up and ran for the bathroom.
"I wondered when it was going to dawn on him that eggnog is a dairy product," Steve snickered.
Soda was allergic to dairy products, and tried to avoid them and the turbulent stomach they caused; but sometimes he couldn't resist ice cream and had to camp on the couch so Pony could sleep without listening to groaning or farting all night.
They heard the toilet flushing and the water running and pretty soon Soda joined them, his face bright pink from being scrubbed with cold water.
"Well, got rid of that" Soda said. "What'd you get, Pony?"
Darry looked closely, saw Soda's red eyes, and thought, he was crying, not throwing up. He is doing this for the rest of us.
He surprised his younger brother by pulling him into a brief hug.
"Watch what you eat, ok?"
Their eyes met and Soda grinned, getting the message.
Pony brought out a couple of small ornaments. One was a dark-haired angel holding a hymn book and singing.
"This is for Johnny."
He hung it on the tree.
"And this one," he held up a little devil dressed in a red gown, but wearing wings and a halo and a evil smirk "is for Dallas."
He hung it not too far from the shepherd.
Everyone was struck silent.
Then Steve said "Dallas would puke."
"Hell," Pony said softly "Johnny would puke."
Everyone suddenly exploded into laughter. Somehow, the thought of their dead friends gagging at the sight of themselves immortalized as Christmas tree ornaments struck them as hilarious.
"Here," Darry stood up. "Let's really piss Dallas off and hang him at the top of the tree."
"Yep, where people can look up his skirt. You know, if he was here, he'd set fire to that tree while you guys were asleep."
"If he was here, I wouldn't have the guts to hang it."
"I got to go." Steve gave Soda a hand up as he got to his feet. "We're headin' out to Muskogee tomorrow to spend Christmas with Uncle Bob and my squirrelly cousins."
"Mom's taking me and Bren to Grandma's." Two-Bit said. "I better go pack some whiskey."
"You need whiskey just to visit your grandma?"
"No, goofus, it's her Christmas present. She's counting on me. Mom won't let her have any."
Two-Bit paused. "I guess you guys will be on your own."
Pony looked up from the ornament box, his eyes shinning. Soda looped an arm around Darry's waist, then gave him an unexpected tickle.
Darry shoved him away, then caught him before he could knock over the tree.
"Don't worry about us," Darry said. "We're going to be fine."