AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Some of you will have been reading this as a companion piece to Californiagirl's "Once More With Feeling" and will notice that there's a significant difference in the two stories in this chapter. CAGirl came up with a lovely idea which fits her Luka perfectly but I couldn't make it fit "my" Luka and so there's a different take on it. It doesn't affect the outcome of the story but I think it's interesting because it illustrates that, even though we're telling the same tale, things are rather different inside our heads! Anyway, I hope this doesn't feel like a "fracture" between the two stories or affect any pleasure you might have in reading mine.
Part 19
"It's comin' on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees,
They're putting up reindeer,
Singing songs of joy and peace,
Oh and I wish I had a river I could sail away on"
That used to be my absolute favourite song for Christmas. Never mind your Silent Nights and your Joy To The Worlds, that was the real deal for me right there.
Thanksgiving used to scare me more than Christmas. I could never think of anything to be thankful for except maybe still being alive at the end of it and I wasn't always too sure about that even. In the end I fixed on Eric and he fixed on me and we tried to block out the godawful day itself, the crazy mango, oyster and butterbean stuffing in the turkey, the year we all nearly died of food poisoning because the bird wasn't cooked properly. Not my first trip to the ER with my mom and not my last. Still, easier to explain to the doctor than the sleeping pills or the car exhaust or my broken wrist which had gotten slammed in a door when I tried to get away from her, or Eric's full blown panic attack when she wrapped him up in rug to keep him "safe" from her. One year she cooked dinner in her dressing gown and set it on fire. She'd set the table but forgotten the cloth and we had to ease it on without taking all the dishes off first. We ate dinner with her in her underwear, smashed out of her mind and making us sing Jingle Bells. I know she had years when she was good, taking her meds, she must have. I don't remember them.
Christmas never seemed so bad. I was a kid and got caught up in it, doing stuff at school, and sometimes it was like Thanksgiving had gotten her all crazied out and it went off OK. We got presents even. A doll with a set of clothes she'd sewn herself; I recognised the pattern of her bedroom curtains. She always waited until the last minute to get a tree because they were cheaper. Of course they were also either the biggest or the smallest or the scrawniest or the ones with no needles; anyhow, the ones no- one else wanted. One year she forgot and we had the coat stand from the hallway draped in tinsel and lights, a star on top, our coats just left in a heap.
A couple of times after I was married she came over for Christmas. Don't think I've ever spent days when I was so waiting for the other shoe to drop. Never did, leastways not while she was with us. A couple of days later we'd get a call from Eric saying she'd gotten drunk and picked a fight in a bar or she'd moved some guy in with her. Happy New Year.
I was drinking then. We got drunk as shit together one Christmas night and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. Jesus.
...............................................................................................................................................................
So this year it's my job to get the stuff to put on the tree because it's our first tree and we have no stuff and you have to start somewhere, right? He wanted us to go together but I . . . I don't know, it seemed unbearable somehow. It felt about as scary as anything I've had to do since I sobered up, since we took each other on again. Is that crazy? It is, isn't it, it's crazy, but it's how I felt. He was disappointed but I said I had to do it alone or he could do it alone but we couldn't do it together and not to ask me why because I didn't know. It's different for him, it means different things, I'd have pissed on his parade. I stuck to my guns and he had to accept it, although not with very good grace. Man can he sulk.
And that's how I come to be standing here alone. The green and gold and red, the lights, the gingerbread houses, I don't know, I'm standing in the middle of it all and I want to cry. Look at me. Standing in Marshall Fields fighting back tears among the artificial spruce and twinkling lights. A worried looking sales assistant touches my elbow and speaks quietly to me.
"Can I help you Ma'am?"
"No, no, I'm fine."
"Can I get you a chair, a glass of water?"
"No, really, it's nothing, I just need some air."
"I'll walk you out."
"Please, no, I'll be OK, I'm just a little . . . pregnant" and I manage a laugh.
In the end I find myself looking at baby clothes, baby outfits like Christmas trees, elves, little Santa suits. Jesus. If I go and look at the cribs I'm pretty sure I'll find one put together like a manger. Who buys this stuff? But look here – socks, little baby socks, and if you press Rudolph's nose he sings "Jingle Bells". Hah.
........................................................................................................
"It isn't straight."
"What?"
"It's leaning over to the left." I don't know the exact meaning of the words he's muttering but I'm pretty sure they're nothing to do with peace on earth and I don't think goodwill toward men is anywhere in sight either.
"Better?"
"Yeah. Perfect."
He stands up and steps back, a few pine needles in his hair. It's huge this tree, about a half inch short of the ceiling, the room smells of pine and I'm getting a kind of Christmas tingle thing going on.
We were both working last Christmas and sort of relieved because we were still a little new and not real ready to do Christmas. We'd decided to start this baby; as I recall that was how we spent Christmas night after a day at the hospital treating the over indulgers, and the black eyes and busted teeth people wait all year to dole out to family and friends along with the bath salts and novelty ties. God, it seems like a long time ago.
"That is very nice"
"You like it?"
"Yeah – you couldn't find a big one?"
"You get the stuff?"
"I got lights."
"Just lights?"
"Of course not. Wait here."
He's surprised by the three Marshall Fields bags I come back with and he winces as I drop them onto the dining room table, obviously anticipating shards of shattered coloured glass. Instead they land with a dull thud.
"That's it?"
"Take a look." He upends one of the bags onto the table.
"Baby socks?"
"150 pairs. And look – these play 'Jingle Bells'. Oh, and these play 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town'. I wanted to get all musical ones but you should see the price. I got a lot reduced because they're for summer."
"We'll never use all these."
"I know." From the other bag I pull three little boxes and throw one at him. He opens it and tips the contents onto the table.
"Hooks."
"Not a hell of a lot gets past you does it. Look." I take one of the little socks and thread a hook through it before hanging it on the tree. "Voila."
"Truly this is the daughter of Maggie."
"You have no idea." I settle down at the table. "I'll hook, you hang."
............................................................................................................................................................
Christmas day he's home and we do nothing much at all. Luka downs a couple of glasses of Loza for breakfast and I eat chocolate for mine. And we don't bother to dress at all. What? It's Christmas. My mom calls and Tatijana and all three kids say thanks for their presents and wish us a Merry Christmas and Happy new year in English and then in Croatian and Josip sings something which sounds traditional but I have a feeling he's doctored the words because I hear Tatijana gasp and she grabs the 'phone from him. Ivica's there too sounding as though his particular brand of Christmas spirit is about 140 proof and I think I know who helped Josip dirty up the words to his song, and he tells me he's doing it for me as I can't so it for myself and isn't Christmas total crap for a reformed drunk? I use a couple of Croatian obscenities Luka has taught me for just such an occasion and the old man cackles before the 'phone is grabbed again, this time by Damir who falls all over himself with saying sorry and I tell him it's OK because I have the satisfaction of knowing that tomorrow his father will have a hangover the size of Texas. ...............................................................................................................................................................
Anyhow, Clarence has got his wings and James Stewart is back in the bosom of his family with his wifely little wife and his gaggle of kids and his crazy uncle and heroic brother and the tart with a heart and everyone who has just saved Bailey Savings & Loan's homely little ass. As the credits roll he sighs and says "Cheesy."
"Of course."
"Cheese is good. So – you want your present now?"
"My what?"
"Your present." Shit.
"We said we weren't going to buy each other – "
"I know."
"So – "
"I didn't buy it."
"This is a shitty trick to pull, Kovac."
"Shut up." He reaches under the couch and pulls out a package about a foot square, flat. I look at it like it's a bomb. "Open it."
A minute later with the wrapping lying at my feet I'm looking down at this gift. I'm looking down at myself.
"How – "
"My dad did it. Doesn't matter if you don't like it."
Don't like it? I can't take my eyes off it. Watercolour, my face, indistinct, but the eyes are clear, laughing. I recognise the image from one of the wedding pictures Carter took. In that I'm smiling up at Luka but he's been left out of this so I'm kind of disembodied.
"Turn it over."
On the back is a signature, illegible, and a sketch, a self portrait of Ivica, cigarette dangling from his lips, something a little lewd about the expression in his eyes. Suddenly I wish he were here. Turning the picture over I look back at myself.
"Do I look like that?" He looks at me for a moment before he says softly "Yeah." OK, now those tears I held in in Marshall Fields come roaring triumphantly back. We manage to make love for what turns out to be the last time before the baby is born, giggling and uncomfortable and afterwards he laughs and says he should have me painted more often.
........................................................................................................
Heredity. It's a funny thing. Luka can't do what his mother could do, or his dad; hell, he hasn't even inherited the old man's capacity for drink. He tells me he's sketched a little off and on but not well and why keep a dog and bark yourself and his father has to be good for something.
And me, I realise that I picked up some stuff from my mom, even if I'm only now starting to use it. That stuff that sent her looking for Christmas trees on Christmas Eve, that made her always at least try to cook the damned turkey for Thanksgiving and sew doll clothes from curtains. She always got up again, except when she couldn't; she always went for it, even if the results were a disaster for her and us and everyone who came near her, and she always loved. I can do that now and I can do it because I decided I wanted to. Well sure, it helps having someone to love who loves me right back but it's not about Luka, this. It's me. I did it all myself and if I hadn't there'd be no Luka around to love, no baby to scare the living crap out of me, no getting through all the shit about his kids and no knowing that if it took him down I'd do it all on my own.
Me? I rock.
Some of you will have been reading this as a companion piece to Californiagirl's "Once More With Feeling" and will notice that there's a significant difference in the two stories in this chapter. CAGirl came up with a lovely idea which fits her Luka perfectly but I couldn't make it fit "my" Luka and so there's a different take on it. It doesn't affect the outcome of the story but I think it's interesting because it illustrates that, even though we're telling the same tale, things are rather different inside our heads! Anyway, I hope this doesn't feel like a "fracture" between the two stories or affect any pleasure you might have in reading mine.
Part 19
"It's comin' on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees,
They're putting up reindeer,
Singing songs of joy and peace,
Oh and I wish I had a river I could sail away on"
That used to be my absolute favourite song for Christmas. Never mind your Silent Nights and your Joy To The Worlds, that was the real deal for me right there.
Thanksgiving used to scare me more than Christmas. I could never think of anything to be thankful for except maybe still being alive at the end of it and I wasn't always too sure about that even. In the end I fixed on Eric and he fixed on me and we tried to block out the godawful day itself, the crazy mango, oyster and butterbean stuffing in the turkey, the year we all nearly died of food poisoning because the bird wasn't cooked properly. Not my first trip to the ER with my mom and not my last. Still, easier to explain to the doctor than the sleeping pills or the car exhaust or my broken wrist which had gotten slammed in a door when I tried to get away from her, or Eric's full blown panic attack when she wrapped him up in rug to keep him "safe" from her. One year she cooked dinner in her dressing gown and set it on fire. She'd set the table but forgotten the cloth and we had to ease it on without taking all the dishes off first. We ate dinner with her in her underwear, smashed out of her mind and making us sing Jingle Bells. I know she had years when she was good, taking her meds, she must have. I don't remember them.
Christmas never seemed so bad. I was a kid and got caught up in it, doing stuff at school, and sometimes it was like Thanksgiving had gotten her all crazied out and it went off OK. We got presents even. A doll with a set of clothes she'd sewn herself; I recognised the pattern of her bedroom curtains. She always waited until the last minute to get a tree because they were cheaper. Of course they were also either the biggest or the smallest or the scrawniest or the ones with no needles; anyhow, the ones no- one else wanted. One year she forgot and we had the coat stand from the hallway draped in tinsel and lights, a star on top, our coats just left in a heap.
A couple of times after I was married she came over for Christmas. Don't think I've ever spent days when I was so waiting for the other shoe to drop. Never did, leastways not while she was with us. A couple of days later we'd get a call from Eric saying she'd gotten drunk and picked a fight in a bar or she'd moved some guy in with her. Happy New Year.
I was drinking then. We got drunk as shit together one Christmas night and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. Jesus.
...............................................................................................................................................................
So this year it's my job to get the stuff to put on the tree because it's our first tree and we have no stuff and you have to start somewhere, right? He wanted us to go together but I . . . I don't know, it seemed unbearable somehow. It felt about as scary as anything I've had to do since I sobered up, since we took each other on again. Is that crazy? It is, isn't it, it's crazy, but it's how I felt. He was disappointed but I said I had to do it alone or he could do it alone but we couldn't do it together and not to ask me why because I didn't know. It's different for him, it means different things, I'd have pissed on his parade. I stuck to my guns and he had to accept it, although not with very good grace. Man can he sulk.
And that's how I come to be standing here alone. The green and gold and red, the lights, the gingerbread houses, I don't know, I'm standing in the middle of it all and I want to cry. Look at me. Standing in Marshall Fields fighting back tears among the artificial spruce and twinkling lights. A worried looking sales assistant touches my elbow and speaks quietly to me.
"Can I help you Ma'am?"
"No, no, I'm fine."
"Can I get you a chair, a glass of water?"
"No, really, it's nothing, I just need some air."
"I'll walk you out."
"Please, no, I'll be OK, I'm just a little . . . pregnant" and I manage a laugh.
In the end I find myself looking at baby clothes, baby outfits like Christmas trees, elves, little Santa suits. Jesus. If I go and look at the cribs I'm pretty sure I'll find one put together like a manger. Who buys this stuff? But look here – socks, little baby socks, and if you press Rudolph's nose he sings "Jingle Bells". Hah.
........................................................................................................
"It isn't straight."
"What?"
"It's leaning over to the left." I don't know the exact meaning of the words he's muttering but I'm pretty sure they're nothing to do with peace on earth and I don't think goodwill toward men is anywhere in sight either.
"Better?"
"Yeah. Perfect."
He stands up and steps back, a few pine needles in his hair. It's huge this tree, about a half inch short of the ceiling, the room smells of pine and I'm getting a kind of Christmas tingle thing going on.
We were both working last Christmas and sort of relieved because we were still a little new and not real ready to do Christmas. We'd decided to start this baby; as I recall that was how we spent Christmas night after a day at the hospital treating the over indulgers, and the black eyes and busted teeth people wait all year to dole out to family and friends along with the bath salts and novelty ties. God, it seems like a long time ago.
"That is very nice"
"You like it?"
"Yeah – you couldn't find a big one?"
"You get the stuff?"
"I got lights."
"Just lights?"
"Of course not. Wait here."
He's surprised by the three Marshall Fields bags I come back with and he winces as I drop them onto the dining room table, obviously anticipating shards of shattered coloured glass. Instead they land with a dull thud.
"That's it?"
"Take a look." He upends one of the bags onto the table.
"Baby socks?"
"150 pairs. And look – these play 'Jingle Bells'. Oh, and these play 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town'. I wanted to get all musical ones but you should see the price. I got a lot reduced because they're for summer."
"We'll never use all these."
"I know." From the other bag I pull three little boxes and throw one at him. He opens it and tips the contents onto the table.
"Hooks."
"Not a hell of a lot gets past you does it. Look." I take one of the little socks and thread a hook through it before hanging it on the tree. "Voila."
"Truly this is the daughter of Maggie."
"You have no idea." I settle down at the table. "I'll hook, you hang."
............................................................................................................................................................
Christmas day he's home and we do nothing much at all. Luka downs a couple of glasses of Loza for breakfast and I eat chocolate for mine. And we don't bother to dress at all. What? It's Christmas. My mom calls and Tatijana and all three kids say thanks for their presents and wish us a Merry Christmas and Happy new year in English and then in Croatian and Josip sings something which sounds traditional but I have a feeling he's doctored the words because I hear Tatijana gasp and she grabs the 'phone from him. Ivica's there too sounding as though his particular brand of Christmas spirit is about 140 proof and I think I know who helped Josip dirty up the words to his song, and he tells me he's doing it for me as I can't so it for myself and isn't Christmas total crap for a reformed drunk? I use a couple of Croatian obscenities Luka has taught me for just such an occasion and the old man cackles before the 'phone is grabbed again, this time by Damir who falls all over himself with saying sorry and I tell him it's OK because I have the satisfaction of knowing that tomorrow his father will have a hangover the size of Texas. ...............................................................................................................................................................
Anyhow, Clarence has got his wings and James Stewart is back in the bosom of his family with his wifely little wife and his gaggle of kids and his crazy uncle and heroic brother and the tart with a heart and everyone who has just saved Bailey Savings & Loan's homely little ass. As the credits roll he sighs and says "Cheesy."
"Of course."
"Cheese is good. So – you want your present now?"
"My what?"
"Your present." Shit.
"We said we weren't going to buy each other – "
"I know."
"So – "
"I didn't buy it."
"This is a shitty trick to pull, Kovac."
"Shut up." He reaches under the couch and pulls out a package about a foot square, flat. I look at it like it's a bomb. "Open it."
A minute later with the wrapping lying at my feet I'm looking down at this gift. I'm looking down at myself.
"How – "
"My dad did it. Doesn't matter if you don't like it."
Don't like it? I can't take my eyes off it. Watercolour, my face, indistinct, but the eyes are clear, laughing. I recognise the image from one of the wedding pictures Carter took. In that I'm smiling up at Luka but he's been left out of this so I'm kind of disembodied.
"Turn it over."
On the back is a signature, illegible, and a sketch, a self portrait of Ivica, cigarette dangling from his lips, something a little lewd about the expression in his eyes. Suddenly I wish he were here. Turning the picture over I look back at myself.
"Do I look like that?" He looks at me for a moment before he says softly "Yeah." OK, now those tears I held in in Marshall Fields come roaring triumphantly back. We manage to make love for what turns out to be the last time before the baby is born, giggling and uncomfortable and afterwards he laughs and says he should have me painted more often.
........................................................................................................
Heredity. It's a funny thing. Luka can't do what his mother could do, or his dad; hell, he hasn't even inherited the old man's capacity for drink. He tells me he's sketched a little off and on but not well and why keep a dog and bark yourself and his father has to be good for something.
And me, I realise that I picked up some stuff from my mom, even if I'm only now starting to use it. That stuff that sent her looking for Christmas trees on Christmas Eve, that made her always at least try to cook the damned turkey for Thanksgiving and sew doll clothes from curtains. She always got up again, except when she couldn't; she always went for it, even if the results were a disaster for her and us and everyone who came near her, and she always loved. I can do that now and I can do it because I decided I wanted to. Well sure, it helps having someone to love who loves me right back but it's not about Luka, this. It's me. I did it all myself and if I hadn't there'd be no Luka around to love, no baby to scare the living crap out of me, no getting through all the shit about his kids and no knowing that if it took him down I'd do it all on my own.
Me? I rock.