The Tragic Age (16 page)

But what really kills me is that nobody knows what the decorations even
mean
anymore. They don't know the star is a sign of a prophecy fulfilled, that God has supposedly sent us his Son, the Hope and Light of mankind. They have no idea that tree ornaments reflect this light, that their color is His blood and that green symbolizes everlasting life. The needles of evergreen trees point to heaven. Bells guide lost sheep back to the fold and the candy cane, the Shepards' crook, herds them. The ribbons tell us we're all tied together, and the wreath, another circle, also green, is the symbol of never-ending love.

Subjective opinion.

Christmas has become nothing more than an excuse to shop. Right after Thanksgiving and sometimes before, Mom and her tennis buddies, all of whom consider bargain hunting a blood sport, start buying gifts right and left for everybody, and in an incredible display of stamina, keep on going till the twenty-fourth. Dad, on the other hand, heads out at, like, ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, usually to get something for Mom and me not because he wants to but because he has to. And he has no idea what to get either of us and always comes home with a mountain of useless shit. One year he got Mom car tires, a twelve-gauge shotgun, and as a joke, a one-way, first-class ticket to Uzbekistan, the only doubly landlocked country in Central Asia. Mom, who was not amused, returned the gun and tires and got a cash refund on the ticket. Which she kept.

Really, it's like everybody is supposed to get something even if they don't need or deserve it. Especially kids. It's not about you being naughty or nice, it's about how many bucks your parents can afford to spend. You can be good and get nothing because your parents are cheap or poor bastards, which means, to a little kid, that they've been bad. And then there are people like Deliza and John Montebello, who get buried in expensive gifts. Which leads them to believe they can get away with anything for the rest of their lives.

It goes without saying more people are arrested, placed in mental institutions, or commit suicide at Christmas than any other time of year. And frankly, a padded room would be preferable to our house because worse than the decorations, the cards, and the gifts, Christmas is when Mom's folks, Frank and Lorna, come and stay for a week.

Frank and Lorna are both the children of Oakies who moved from Oklahoma to California in the 1930s. “Oakies” is another word for poor, uneducated white trash and it's pretty much agreed that their moving to California increased the average intelligence of both states.

Frank, who's a retired electrical lineman, is the kind of guy neighbors turn to. If you were marooned on a deserted island, he'd have a house with running water built out of palm fronds in, like, two minutes. And by the time he finished, Lorna would have dinner ready.

Frank, who never trims his nose hair, will go around the house, looking for anything that's loose, dirty, dull, broken, needs to be oiled, sharpened, sanded, painted, tightened, or fixed, and not finding anything, will then go hop on the lawn mower and cut the grass in the backyard. By the end of the week, the grass is begging for him to leave. And even though we have a housekeeper, Lorna will make beds, do laundry, iron, vacuum, and do dishes. By the end of the week, the housekeeper will be begging her to leave.

But the real problem is this. Frank and Lorna take all these semiredeeming qualities and then they screw them up by being morons. In fact, Frank and Lorna are
proud
to be morons.

“Too much education makes people think they're better than regular folks,” they'll say.

“Regular folks don't get their money for free.”

“Immigrants are taking jobs away from
real
Americans,”

“Global warming hasn't been proven. It's just words.”

“We go our own pace in traffic.” As if they're proud to inconvenience people.

“All it takes is common sense and good character.” “It's nothing but Jew talk.” “Homosexuals
choose
to be what they are.” Not to mention my favorite—

“Parenting isn't easy, Linda, just look at Billy.”

It makes me feel like a member of the starship
Enterprise
listening to Klingons without the help of a universal translator.

“We
work
for a living.”

But they don't. Frank lost whatever meager pension he had when the housing bubble burst and he and Lorna live on Social Security and generous handouts from Mom and Dad. And thanks to Medicare, the doctor's office is a big part of their social life. They like to have their urine checked and their blood drawn on a weekly basis because it's an opportunity to catch up on current periodicals, not to mention hobnob with all their other medically challenged friends. Frank and Lorna consider lunch in a hospital cafeteria a date.

But the very worst thing of all at Christmas is this. Frank and Lorna believe that Dorie dying was, in its own way, a blessing. We'll be opening all these stupid presents on Christmas morning—Frank and Lorna always give gift cards from Walmart because they want to make sure we
get something we really want—
and Mom, who still hangs Dorie's stocking on the mantel every Christmas, will start getting teary-eyed because Dorie isn't there.

“Now, sweetheart,” Frank will say, “you know she's in a better place.”

“The moment she left us, she was at the foot of our Savior,” says Lorna. “She's keeping a spot warm for the rest of us.”

They say this to Mom because they think it will make her feel better. Maybe they even believe it. But Mom doesn't care about heaven, all she wants is Dorie there on the couch next to her, and so all it does is make Mom cry harder. Which makes Dad break out the Bloody Marys. Which makes me so quietly angry, I want to banish Frank and Lorna to the starship
Enterprise
and see how
they
like spending Christmas with aliens. Really, all I want for Christmas is for Frank and Lorna to take their well-intentioned stupidity home and never in a million years come back. It just all sucks, it really does, and I wish for Mom's sake and maybe even Dad's, it was better.

I flee the asylum and spend late Christmas afternoon at Gretchen's house. I'm not expecting much but I'm surprised. All they have is a small, simple Christmas tree. It's in a pot so it can be replanted. The rule in Gretchen's house is that each person in the family buys just one gift to give to another family member. Because Gretchen and her family have Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve before they go to serve food in a soup kitchen we eat leftovers. Red pepper soup. Spinach and mushroom pie. Vegetarian meat loaf. Roasted brie with cranberry dressing. Pilgrims would hate it.

Afterward, the Quinns break out this game called Trivial Pursuit which is all about answering pointless questions. Not thinking, I win the game in a landslide.

Gretchen has gotten me three sets of ProMark Hickory 747 “Rock” Wood drumsticks. She's put them all together and wrapped them so I have no idea what they are at first.

“I think they're your favorites.”

They are. It's truly an excellent gift.

I get Gretchen a little gold pin. It takes me weeks to find it, and when I do it's in a used jewelry store. It doesn't look like much. It's bloodstone—green, dotted with small red spots. According to legend bloodstone was first formed when drops of Christ's blood fell from the Cross and stained some jasper, which is a form of silica. I don't believe any of it for a second but the green matches Gretchen's eyes and contrasts beautifully with her hair. She touches my face when I give it her. She kisses me before she opens it. She cries when she sees it. She tells me it's the most beautiful gift she's ever gotten in her life.

It's impossible that there are people like this in the world. I don't trust it. But that doesn't mean I don't sort of enjoy it.

 

44

“Hah! The Night Visitors!” says Ephraim.

We're sitting on a tiled deck by an enormous pool. Behind us, the rear of the house is all paneled glass and white stucco. Across the pool and out beyond the expanse of lawn, life-sized, cast-bronze sculptures of two winged horses, cactus garden, and high, white wall, the cliff drops thirty feet down a seawall to the rocks and sand. Beyond the sand is the Pacific Ocean. Out somewhere beyond the ocean are the radioactive remains of Japan.

The house is owned by an acquaintance of Deliza's father. Deliza says her mother,
la reina de discreción
, has intimated the guy's a high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel and that Deliza's father launders money and deposits it in Stateside banks for him. Deliza says she knows for a fact that he and his family are hardly ever there, that the place is left empty for months at a time, and that the front gate into the courtyard is always left unlocked.

“Why should we sneak into the place,” I say, “when it sounds like all we need is your father's permission to visit?”

“It's not that kind of relationship,” Deliza says. “My father's scared to death of him.”

“If your father's afraid of him, maybe we should be too?” I say.

“Grow some balls, Billy,” Deliza says.

“You don't have any,” I say, “and you seem pretty fearless.”

It's put to a vote and I lose three to one. This is happening more and more lately. Twom and Deliza are a team and Ephraim always sides with Twom.

I'm not sure I like democracy.

We park the Mercedes two blocks north of the house. Even in a community of high-priced, beachfront real estate, Casa de Esperanza stands out like an albino elephant at the zoo. Wearing shorts and T-shirts and flip-flops and carrying towels, we walk south as if going to the beach. When we get to the house, we quickly push the gate open, turn into the stone courtyard, and move around to the side of the house. I have the EZ pick, Ephraim has the security code. We don't need either one. The door is open and the security system isn't turned on.

The house is not just deserted, it is next to empty.

There is a grand piano, a couch, and a single chair, all covered with white sheets, in the cavernous living room. There is a long, dust-covered table but no chairs in the dining room. There are no rugs on the hardwood floors. No books in the bookcases. No brooms in the broom closet. There are no computers, no televisions, no photos.

There are two cans of Tecate beer and a tiny ice-encrusted pizza in the fridge.

“No wonder they never visit,” says Twom.

That this monstrous, multimillion-dollar oceanfront house is unused seems almost sacrilegious and I make a mental note to post an ad in the local weekly or maybe Craigslist, telling people it's open and available to squatters. The truth is, I've come to resent houses that are not homes. I don't like it when things feel unused or fake, when the furniture is draped with artificial animal hides and the books on the shelves aren't even real, just leather-bound decorations, the author and titles printed on the spine in gold filigree, nothing inside but blank pages. Even cavemen painted their caves with items and drawings that reflected their lives.

This cave is dead.

With nothing else to do, we have adjourned to the pool. The filter is on a daily timer and the water is pristine and clear. Deliza and Twom are playing backgammon at a poolside table. Ephraim and I are lying on deck chairs with cushions but no covers. I have a biography of George Washington that I've brought along as “beach reading.” Beatrix sent it to me and I'm starting to think it's her idea of a joke. In skimming it, I've already learned that the favorite foods of of our country's father were mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, salt cod, and—cue the Ebonics—hoecakes. Washington lost all of his teeth cracking Brazil nuts with his jaws. Washington wore dentures made out of a hippopotamus tusk. They hurt so much he used opium to alleviate the pain. He snored like a champ, had a speech impediment, and like Twom, was probably dyslexic. For pretty much his entire life, he owned slaves.

Sounds like the father of our country to me.

“The what?” says Twom. He is shirtless and drinking the beer from the fridge. His tattoos glisten under a sheen of sweat.

“The Night Visitors,” Ephraim says again. Ephraim is reading a local newspaper—probably a first for him—pinched from in front of a neighbor's house. Imitating Twom, he's taken off his shirt and his pale worm of a body is already pink and glowing, on the verge of being sunburned to death.

“Who are night visitors?” says Twom, as if whoever they are, they're morons.

“We are. That's what they're calling us,” says Ephraim. He's excited about it. “Listen, listen.” He begins to read out loud. “‘Law enforcement officers emphasize that the night visitors don't appear to be stealing. So far their criminal behavior hasn't gone beyond empty refrigerators and reformatted home computers.'”

“Reformatted?” says Twom.

“I wonder who did that.” Deliza sneers.

“You're a shithead, Ephraim,” I say. I'm truly disgusted. Since what I now refer to as the Night of the Desolate Woman, it seems important that we leave things better than when we arrived. I've started making beds, cleaning up the kitchen, and leaving money for food before we exit a house.

“It's my calling card,” Ephraim says, only a little defensive. He continues reading. “‘Nevertheless, this unlawful activity is unsettling and potentially dangerous. Community residents should take proper security measures and report any gardeners, domestics, and tradespeople they don't recognize in their neighborhoods.'”

“Sure,” says Deliza, “blame the Mexicans.”

Ephraim looks up, suddenly worried.

“It says they have a number of leads.”

No one says anything. Till now, I don't think it's occurred to any of us that we could actually ever get caught.