KooKooLand (31 page)

“Is Hank crazy?” I asked Jimmy on Christmas Eve. “Crazy like Norman Bates in
Psycho
?”

“Hank's no crazier than I am,” Jimmy replied. “But if Brown asks me to testify to that effect, I'll swear he's nuttier than a fruitcake.”

“Speaking of fruitcake, who wants a piece?” asked Shirley trying to inject some Christmas cheer into the conversation.

“Count me out,” said Jimmy, pretending to gag. “I'd rather eat Victory Bound's saddle.”

“I'd rather eat Charlie Chaplin's shoe,” I added, figuring that would make Jimmy crack up, which it did.

“I'm stuffed,” said Virginia, who was sulking 'cause Jimmy wouldn't let her hang out with her no-account friends.

“Well, somebody's gotta eat it,” sighed Shirley. “I guess it'll have to be me.”

She sawed off a tiny sliver of fruitcake and washed it down with a big slug of the boozy eggnog she had just made.

Watching her chew, I could almost taste that soggy, pruney cake. Fruitcake was the only dessert I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Every December, Grammy would send one wrapped in tinfoil and tied with string. The fruitcake weighed a ton and Jimmy said if you clocked a person with it their skull would crack open and their brains would squirt out and make a tasty frosting.

“You better get to bed, girls. Santa only comes when you're sleeping,” Shirley trilled, acting like Jimmy hadn't already killed off Santa.

“OK,” we said, pretending we'd gotten amnesia and still believed in him.

Shirley put out some Lorna Doones on a plate for the make-believe Santa.

“Why don't you leave the old geezer some fruitcake?” Jimmy laughed. “Once it lands in his gut, he'll never get off the ground again and that'll be the end of goddamn Christmas.”

“Daddy's just kidding,” said Shirley. “Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.”

Virginia and I trudged off to bed. Since it was Christmas Eve, I tried to get away without brushing my teeth, but Virginia scared me into doing it by saying if I didn't I'd end up with false choppers like YaYa's that I'd have to plop into a tumbler at night.

Virginia rolled her hair around two OJ cans and then lit up a half-smoked butt that she had hidden under her bed. She sucked as many drags as she could off the butt, then stubbed it out in the small puddle that collected beneath the hissing radiator. She sprayed some Alberto VO5 hair spray around to cover the smell, and before long she had conked out.

I was way too excited to sleep. I was picturing Shirley wrapping presents all night. Every year, she went crazy at Christmas. Any toy advertised on the idiot box that I hadda have went on her list. She put toys on layaway and paid a dime or a quarter a week on them. When the toys were finally paid for, she'd lug them home on the bus, carrying them with throbbing arms from the bus stop. She'd find clever places to hide them, in the far recesses of closets and behind the leaky washing machine. I could've found them if I wanted, but only a dummkopf spoils her own surprise.

That year the toy I wanted most was the Deluxe Dream Kitchen, a doll-sized assortment of kitchen appliances. The Dream Kitchen had a dishwasher, something I'd seen in the North End houses Shirley cleaned. I had a dream of one day buying Shirley her very own dishwasher. I wanted to give her a kitchen as dreamy as the one I hoped she was placing under our scrawny tree at that very moment.

I had a dream, yes, I had a dream.

But I had a whole lotta worry too that Christmas Eve. I worried that maybe I wouldn't be getting the Dream Kitchen at all. Maybe Shirley hadn't been able to come up with enough dough to buy presents 'cause Victory Bound had eaten it all up. Maybe Jimmy would put the kibosh on giving us any toys that year 'cause we were too goddamn old. Worst of all, maybe God was gonna punish me 'cause I was thinking about toys like a greedy little pig while Susan was probably lying in a bed somewhere bawling her eyes out.

I wondered if Doris had already done her Christmas shopping before she'd been murdered. Were there still presents waiting to be wrapped in the house that had been scrubbed clean of blood? Did the police take the presents as evidence? Was Susan gonna get any presents at all? If only she knew I had that snow globe for her. If only I knew where she was, I'd creep out of the house and hitchhike there and bring it to her.

But all I knew was that she wasn't at college anymore. After the Colby Junior College dean had broken the terrible news to her, Susan had left school and returned to Manchester. Jimmy said she was staying with some family members 'cause the murder house was off-limits. Even if it wasn't, I was pretty sure she wouldn't ever want to stay there again.

I prayed that somewhere somebody was putting presents under a tree for Susan since her mother was now lying under the ground and wasn't able to do it. I made another pact with God then and there. If you give Susan some presents, I told him, you can take my Dream Kitchen and give it to another kid.

But maybe God was asleep again or maybe he didn't like me telling him what to do or maybe he just didn't take me up on my offer. Maybe he was rewarding me for my generosity, like at church when I didn't have to put any dough in the collection plate. All I know is I got my Dream Kitchen.

But knowing Susan might be present-less that Christmas morning took away some of my fun.

“What's the matter, honey?” Shirley asked. “Isn't that what you wanted? Did I get the wrong thing?”

“No, no. This is just what I wanted.”

“Then act like it, for Chrissake,” growled Jimmy. “Your mother paid good money for that. Some kids got no goddamn presents this morning.”

“I know,” I choked. “I know.”

I jumped up and hugged my mother as tight as I could. I didn't ever want to let her go.

“I love it, Mommy. I love it love it love it.”

Shirley's face was bright with relief.

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I am. I'm the happiest girl in the world.”

“Yeah, what about me? Don't you want me to be happy?” Jimmy asked Shirley.

Shirley's face tensed and she popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

“Of course we want Daddy to be happy. Let's get Daddy his presents.”

She piled a mountain of packages on Jimmy's lap.

“I don't want all this,” he groused. “I tell you every year, just gimme some dough. That's all I want for goddamn Christmas.”

She quickly pulled a card from her bathrobe pocket and handed it to him.

“I didn't forget,” she said. “But I wanted you to have some packages to open too. You needed a few things.”

“I don't need anything. All I need is this,” he said, tearing into the envelope like a greedy little pig. I caught a glimpse of the front of the card. It said
Merry Christmas to My Wonderful Husband.
Jimmy opened the card and counted out the money, not letting us see how much was in there. Shirley watched him nervously, hoping he'd be happy with how much she'd managed to squirrel away during the year.

“Is that all?” he said when he'd finished counting.

Shirley's shoulders sank.

Then he broke into a huge grin.

“That's my baby,” he said. “My Nova Scotia baby.”

He took her into his arms, dipped her back, and gave her a big, long kiss on the mouth.

After a few seconds, I looked away and so did Virginia.

Jimmy stuffed the money in his wallet. Then he put the card in an old seaman's chest where he kept all the cards and notes we had given him and my report cards with the straight As.

“OK,” he barked like a merchant mariner. “Let's open the rest of those goddamn presents. Hop to it, pip-squeaks. On the double.”

Virginia and I tore into our gifts. I would rather have opened mine slowly to make Christmas last longer, but that was out of the question. Jimmy wanted us to hurry the hell up, get on with it, move our keisters.

That year I got almost everything I wanted. A pogo stick, outfits for Barbie so she wouldn't go naked and do bad things, a Ken doll so she could do bad things anyway, and Barbie's sports car, which Jimmy said she'd better let Ken drive or she'd end up in Barbie's Graveyard.

While we were opening presents, the phone rang. It was Uncle Barney. He had obtained some new merchandise on Christmas Eve when the stores closed early and were a piece of cake to knock off.

“It's
Christmas
,” Shirley said, frowning. “Can't it wait?”

“Hey, some of us gotta work on Christmas,” said Jimmy, and took off to meet Barney. Before he left, he told us to hold off on opening the rest of the gifts. He needed to make sure they passed his inspection.

But once he was gone, Shirley brought out our Secret Presents. She always kept a few things under wraps that she knew Jimmy wouldn't approve of. That year Virginia's Secret Present was the palest of pink lipsticks and mine was a pair of black patent leather Mary Janes—something I'd been hounding her for for months. Shirley warned me to wear the shoes only when Jimmy wasn't around. He had banned patent leather shoes 'cause they were something loose women like Doris wore. Something they wore so men could see up their dresses and get a glimpse of their Shame and be driven crazy.

I hid the shoes under our bunk beds and a few hours later Jimmy came back. He tossed a couple of ugly snowsuits at Virginia and me—the dregs of some store's Christmas inventory.

“Merry Christmas from Barney. Let's finish this thing off.”

We raced through the opening of the last few presents. The only things Shirley got were some Jergens hand lotion from Virginia and a card I had made. Jimmy didn't even get her a bottle of Uncle Barney's shitty toilet water. He said he wouldn't be turned into a present-buying patsy by the capitalist Christmas machine.

Shirley said she didn't need anything.
We
were all she needed. And Christmas, she insisted, was really just for kids.

I didn't believe her, but I told myself I did so the whole day wouldn't be ruined.

After that, we piled into the Pontiac and headed for YaYa and Papou's. I dreaded Christmas at their house even more than Thanksgiving. YaYa always got us crummy presents—scratchy, too-big nightgowns and sad-looking dolls from Greece with strange hairdos. Papou would growl about how much dough YaYa had blown and Jimmy would start in telling the Rifle Story, even though YaYa told him to shut up.

The Rifle Story went like this: Jimmy had wanted a rifle for Christmas when he was eight, but YaYa thought he was too young. Jimmy begged and pleaded and wore YaYa down and finally she took him to Sears. But seeing Jimmy with a rifle in his hands, she got cold feet. She dragged him, kicking and
screaming, out of the store, and Jimmy didn't get a rifle until he was my age, nine. Jimmy said he'd be an even better shot if he'd had that extra year to practice. But YaYa had lied to him and broke his heart and that's why he couldn't stomach Christmas—or her—very much at all.

“Grow up and get over it,” YaYa finally snapped at him.

“Greeks never forget their oppressors.
Never,
” Jimmy said. “Maybe you want me to forget about what the Turks did to the Greeks too? Maybe I should go kiss a Turk on the keister?”

“How dare you speak those words in this house? Get out, get the hell out!” barked Papou.

And so we left.

There was still Christmas dinner to get through.

We returned home and Shirley got cracking getting the big meal on the table. Jimmy had shot a Canadian goose and Shirley had slow-cooked it the previous night while she was up wrapping presents. Usually there were still shotgun pellets in the geese Jimmy shot and I was afraid I'd crack a cavity-rotted tooth on one.

But Shirley made sure there were no pellets in the slices of goose she fanned across my plate. The goose was crisp and juicy and the potatoes Shirley cooked in the goose fat were better than any french fries you could eat and her spanakopita was bursting with feta cheese.

For dessert we had Shirley's pumpkin custard slathered with whipped cream. And her baklava, golden brown and oozing honey and better than YaYa's. And plates and plates of Greek cookies Shirley had been baking for weeks when she shoulda been sleeping.

Shirley put out the fruitcake too, but I don't think anybody touched it.

After dinner, Shirley called Grammy in Canada to tell her how much we all loved the fruitcake. Virginia and I had to get on the phone and lie and tell her it was delicious. Jimmy grabbed the phone from me and told Grammy he'd used the fruitcake to saddle up Victory Bound. Just kidding.

When Shirley was about to hang up, Grammy asked if she'd gotten her Christmas card, and Shirley said, oh yes, she almost forgot, it was a beautiful card, not knowing to thank her for the money that had been inside.

V
irginia always said the days after Christmas would make you want to blow your brains out. It didn't even matter if Shirley had given her everything she'd wanted for Christmas or if Jimmy was blissfully gone, holed up at the bookie joint blowing his Christmas dough. It didn't even matter that there was no goddamn school for a week. Christmas was over and there was nothing, really nothing to look forward to. Just short, gray days leading to long, black nights. Endless frickin' winter.

New Year's came, but nobody felt like tooting the horns Shirley had bought.

“One year closer to annihilation,” Jimmy said, draining his highball.

I kept hounding him about seeing Susan but nothing came of it.

One night when he was making me arm wrestle him at the kitchen table, he announced that Susan had left town.

“She's been shipped off to Doris's sister in KooKooLand,” he said, as my trembling arm hit the table.

Doris had been planning to say sayonara, baby, to New Hampshire right after Christmas and fly back to California. But now Susan was heading out there instead. Jimmy said she didn't feel up to going back to college. She couldn't concentrate on human anatomy with her old lady a corpse and her father having his head examined.