It was our first Christmas in the house we called ”Mr. Bry`s House.” We called it that because the agent who rented it to me referred to it that way. I was taken with the place. It sat between a park and an expansive lot, both crowded with trees and shrubs, and, coming from Boston as I did, I could almost regard it as a country house.
The rooms were very large, with odd nooks and crannies, and there was an eccentricity to its design that said Mr. Bry had been an individual who knew something about the means of comfort and privacy. But it was the windows I kept staring at. Large bay windows, and outside of each was greenery and, as if that weren`t enough, each window was edged with small leaded panes of stained glass of a heady mix of deep purple and gold and red and peacock blue. Anything the agent said was merely a distraction; I wanted to give him a check and get him out of my house.
Later he assured me that he had mentioned the absence of insulation and that repairs were my responsibility, not the concern of the heirs of Mr. Bry. I told him I`d come to regard the place as an architect`s nightmare and that no one, simply no one, could control the plumbing and the wiring and that the unending minor repairs demanded a phalanx of men handier than any I knew. He said, ”Oh, I know. I know.”
But in the beginning all had gone well. I remember plugging in Christmas lights for the first time and feeling star-struck by the way colors of the tree and the lights combined with the flow from the windows; instantly the room took on a look that I dared to describe as majestic. I stood there thinking it was just as well that I hadn`t bothered to get drapes; they only would block the sight of ice-coated trees and whirling snow. The scene was too beautiful to hide. So what if the snow sometimes came in through spaces in rotting window frames? We were warm, plenty warm enough.
We were having Christmas breakfast when the storm hit and power went off. My friend Linny was holding her new baby. Peter, Linny`s husband, was there. My friend Benson was there. My son and daughter were there. Snow danced and beat against the windows and made a buzzing noise. The house across the way was obscured. The lights went off, and burners on the stove quickly went from deep red to cold black.
Benson and Peter, being proper men, took flashlights into the cellar to see what could be done. Linny went to the front of the house and peeked out;
no one on the road had lights. We yelled to the men, and they came up from the cellar. We finished breakfast and talked about the inadvisability of having a heating system tied to electricity. They were kind enough not to mention that I had talked about having the fireplaces repaired but never had gotten around to it.
Gary arrived. He`s a poet and self-decreed renegade. Traveling alone is part of his policy: He imagines that he must suffer the standard torments of the allegedly gifted. He is a nuisance, but there is something endearing about him, and I could not exclude him from a holiday meal. He came in covered with snow and with his beard and hair frozen. He beat his chest as though he were Tarzan and told us, sure, it was bad out there, but nothing could compare with the winter storms of his Midwestern boyhood on the farm.
My son yelled, ”Tell us about it.” Gary beamed; he`d gotten the response he wanted. He pulled a fifth of Scotch from his coat pocket-his contribution to the feast-set it on the table and started in on one of his stories. The kids glanced in disappointment at the bottle but said nothing. Later he gave them each a quarter.
It became chilly in the room. Benson said he had an old kerosene heater at his house and maybe he should go get it. He and Peter looked out at the snow and ice and said, yes, it would be good to have the heater. The kids wanted to go along; they all left.
Linny and I drank the last of the coffee. The baby woke and cried, then fell back to sleep. Linny and I closed off all the rooms but the kitchen and living room and started in on the lukewarm cocoa. The trees outside the kitchen window shook. Linny covered the baby with her coat. I got knee socks and warm slippers for us. I said it would be nice if the cocoa were still hot. She asked why I`d gotten rid of my gas stove in favor of an electric one. I said I couldn`t remember. We sat.
My son stampeded in and gleefully announced that the car had slid off the road and he`d been sent to tell us. I asked if they had the heater. He said,
”I don`t know” and ran back out into the storm. Linny and I watched from the window. The car was less than a block away. We could see the men stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together and then shoving on the front of the car. The air came in around the edges of the window, and we kept inching back until we finally abandoned the watch and sat on the couch.
They returned. Benson was carrying the heater in his arms; it was designed to be carried by a handle, but the handle had rusted where it joined the body of the stove. I took one look and knew we`d freeze to death before the day was over. The car still was down the road, impossible to rescue without help. My daughter said she was starving and hoped that dinner was almost ready. Benson told her not to worry; as soon as he got the heater going he`d warm up the cocoa and then turn his considerable gray matter to fixing dinner. Benson fiddled with the heater, and soon the smell of burning dust filled the room. But there was some warmth, if you stayed within a couple of feet of it.
Gary said that, by God, he`d get some action, and he grabbed the phone and called the electric company. The line was busy. He stomped into the kitchen and came out carrying the baby. He said he`d take care of her and made quite a display of nestling her into a pile of coats. She woke and began to cry. Linny held her and nursed her.
Benson and Peter decided to cover the windows with blankets. My daughter said we shouldn`t because we wouldn`t be able to watch the storm. They did it anyway. Gary stood around talking about how meanly cold it is in the state where he comes from. He had the bottle of Scotch. Linny remarked that it was only early afternoon; he ignored her and broke the seal.
I brought the fruit, nuts, candy and all the hors d`oeuvres from the kitchen. I poured the cocoa into an old fondue pot and lighted the candle under it. Peter and Benson rounded up the candles and arranged them around the room. They tacked a blanket in the doorway separating the living room and the kitchen. I stuffed towels into cracks under the doors and along the window sills.
Gary sat next to Linny and stared at the floor and kept talking. Every sentence or two he stopped and took a sip of Scotch. I noticed that my son was standing very still, watching Linny nurse the baby. My daughter lay on the floor under the bower of the Christmas tree, eating salami and deviled eggs.
Cold air moved across the floor, and I looked down and realized that it was coming in under the edge of the baseboard, in spots where the floor had sunk away from the wall. I got some towels and covered these places. My daughter joined me, and as we worked she talked of how she could hardly wait for the turkey and the pies. She wanted to know why we didn`t have the Christmas lights on. I explained that the oven and the lights wouldn`t work without electricity. She said, ”Why not?”
We spent the day huddled near the heater. We pulled the couch and chairs into a circle around the black and rusted thing, and I can`t remember ever liking an appliance as much as I did that little Preway Heater that Benson`s father bought around the time of World War II. We kept putting on sweaters, wrapping scarves around our necks, taking mittens on and off, using quilts and tablecloths as capes. We looked absurd but didn`t care.
Benson and Peter and Linny couldn`t leave because they came in the car that was in the ditch. Gary lived close by; but no one wanted to make the move to his apartment (”my cave,” he proudly called it) because it was always filthy and smelled of booze and because we`d have to walk and the weather might be too rough on the baby. Besides, we had no idea whether the power was on in his block.
Gary made no mention of leaving, would have considered it a traitor`s act. In the half-light the room looked awful. Every crack in the plaster, every sagged door frame, every split floorboard managed to be visible in the gloom. The blankets over the windows and the towels stuffed along the baseboards proclaimed the room to be but one room in a decrepit house that wasn`t fit for human habitation. I was sorry I`d rented the monstrosity.
My daughter reminded Benson that he`d said he would fix dinner. Peter chuckled. Benson rummaged in the pantry and came out with a bag of popcorn. My daughter squealed. Benson thought that the heater probably was hot enough to pop the corn. He intended to find out. He told us a story. His wacky and filthy-rich grandparents had a mansion outside of Baltimore, and one year he went there for Christmas. He ate caviar and pate till he had to be put to bed, and he was embarrassed because one of the ladies at the party, the one in the scarlet dress, had laughed and treated him like a baby. But then his grandparents came into the bedroom and gave him a gift. It was a stuffed hedgehog, complete with vest and trousers, even a pocket hanky. The kids looked at Benson with awe, and he promised to show them the hedgehog one day soon.
Peter went into the kitchen and emerged with a box of cereal and a few cans of black olives. Linny foraged and found several cans of freestone peaches. The popcorn was beginning to pop.
Linny started talking about a horse she`d had and about how every Christmas she`d take the horse out into the back field and they`d go for a long ride and then she`d feed him baked apples as a holiday treat. I marveled that anyone could reach adulthood and still be so sweet and unspoiled. The men were looking at her and smiling like idiots.
We ate like pigs-out of cans with spoons and forks, shoveling popcorn as though we`d never have another meal, dipping with our fingers for black olives and dry cereal.
My daughter asked if we`d like to hear about her favorite Christmas. We said of course. She daintily wiped her fingers on the edge of the tablecloth she was wearing as a shawl and told about the year she received the biggest set of Legos ever made. She made a castle and a spaceship and disguised them so well that no one could guess what they were. We congratulated her.
My son said that his best Christmas had been the one when his great uncle had given him a $50 gift certificate to the best toy store in town and taken him to the Brass Rail for lunch. Peter asked about the Brass Rail. My son explained that it was a restaurant where only old men go and where the ladies who work there all are beautiful. He added that he`d been offered a glass of whiskey but had opted for Pepsi instead.
I went into the kitchen. The turkey sat on the counter in its roasting pan, looking mottled and cold. I found a bag of chocolate chips. I wanted to tell about the first Christmas after my son was born. My husband and I and the baby drove to the river bank and sat in the car and talked. My husband rambled on about all the things he hoped to do in the years ahead. I despaired of making our marriage a success but lacked the strength to tell him. I looked at the river and the huge chunks of bluish ice and inexplicably felt afraid. I watched my sleeping son (his arms were folded across his chest, an odd habit for so young a baby) and I laid my hands on his tiny body and felt safe again. But I couldn`t tell that story. I went back into the living room, and we ate the chocolate chips. I said that every Christmas was a wonderful one, and I was unable to decide which was best. The kids nodded.
Gary drained the fifth and surprised us by pulling another from the pocket of his coat. He settled back on the couch, adjusted his afghan cloak and his scarf and his lap robe. He said, ”Do you suppose old man Bry died of hypothermia?” He started in on the second bottle.
Peter told of a Christmas spent in Morocco. His parents were writers for a magazine, and they were covering some war or other; he wasn`t sure which one because his parents always were covering some war or some near-war, and he just wasn`t positive if it was Algeria or what. His mother went to dangerous territory and took photographs. His father was gone all day. When his mother returned to the hotel, she told everyone that she hadn`t been afraid at all. Peter was so startled that his mother was wearing Army fatigues that he forgot to tell her ”Merry Christmas” until later, when they were having dinner on the balcony at the hotel.
His mother had forgotten that it was Christmas. So had his father. To make up for it they ordered champagne and let him have a glass of it. He told them he didn`t care about Christmas; all he wanted was for them to be safe and alive. His parents looked at one another for a while; then his father said the three of them were going back to the apartment in New York, were going the very next day.
Gary began talking. He said that his mother was a prostitute and that his father ditched him with the church and joined the Army. The church found some people in town to take Gary, and he lived with them until his father came back. Every Christmas, those people gave him only one present: a coloring book. ”Can you imagine it?” he asked. ”Giving a little boy a coloring book every damn year for Christmas?” One year it was even worse because a couple of days before Christmas the man had gotten mad and thrown out all of Gary`s things, and that meant that he didn`t even have crayons to go with the coloring book. As Gary talked, he looked around at us and his eyes were enormous, but when he finished his face crumpled and he started to cry.
We sat like stones. But then my son jumped up and ran toward his room. Peter and Benson sat by Gary and talked to him in whispers. My daughter went over and patted him on the back and to my astonishment, said, ”Gary, I know just how you feel.” Tears were running down Linny`s face. My son ran in carrying a shoe box full of crayons and said. ”Hey, Gary. These are for you.” Gary cried till he passed out. Benson hid the Scotch, and we laid Gary on the floor and covered him with a few jackets and a rug from one of the bedrooms.
We sat around a while longer, dispirited and cold. We ate the last of the popcorn and the cereal. We agreed we were tired and needed some rest. We made beds on the floor. Peter and Linny and the baby had their spot. My son stretched out, arms folded across his chest, and was annoyed when I covered him with a couple of quilts and a rug. Benson gave me a wistful glance and bedded down near Gary. I slept with my daughter. We lay under heaps of clothing and rugs.
The baby began to cry. I heard Peter say. ”But it`s not possible-how could we be out of diapers?” Gary snored or alternately muttered in his sleep. There was some thrashing about, and Benson shrieked, ”For the love of God, keep your hands off me!” Gary said something unintelligible. Peter laughed. My daughter asked what happened. My son said, ”Haven`t you ever heard of Homo sapiens?” Peter and Linny laughed. Benson laughed.
Finally all was quiet. Just as I was about to fall asleep, my daughter rolled over and poked me with her sharp little elbow and said, ”Mom, this is the best Christmas we`ve ever had.”
