“I haven’t been with him the last two Christmases anyway,” I said. “I spent them with Billie Kay.”
“Did you want to spend them with him?”
“No,” I lied. “Christmas is a commercial holiday. All the original meaning has gone out of Christmas.” I’d gotten that line from some preacher at chapel.
“I never liked the original meaning to begin with,” Grandpa Blessing said. “We shouldn’t celebrate the day someone is born, or the day someone dies. You can’t help being born, or dying; everyone’s born and everyone dies. We should celebrate accomplishments.”
“I never thought of that,” I said.
“I’d like to find out the day beer was invented,” my grandfather said. “I’d celebrate that day, all right.”
The White House scene was off the screen and there was a story about a train wreck being televised. My grandfather went into the kitchen for another beer. I sat there watching the train wreck without really seeing it. I was thinking about my father. I wondered what my father said to people like the President and the Vice-President. I wondered if he ever interrupted them by saying, “Hell, that’s manifest knowledge, don’t bore me with it,” as he often said to me; or, “Don’t mouth other people’s opinions. Form your own!”
When the telephone rang, I made no effort to answer it. A lot of people in Storm pestered my grandfather by calling him up to recite the symptoms of their cats and dogs. That way they decided whether or not the symptoms were serious enough to warrant a visit to Dr. Cutler. My grandfather was always polite and helpful, but I think it hurt him a lot. He never blamed Cutler outright for anything; he never said Cutler had stolen his practice, though that was the rumor in Storm. Marlon Fredenberg had told me that much the first week I was there. All my grandfather ever said about Cutler was that he had his reasons for not wanting anything to do with Cutler, and that included talking about Cutler. Marlon Fredenberg said the least Cutler could have done was ask my grandfather to assist him, but Cutler just bought him out; that ended that.
“Phone’s for you!” my grandfather called from the kitchen.
I went out to answer it, figuring that if it was my father asking me to guess where he was calling from, I’d just say, “I suppose you’re at Buckingham Palace, or the Kremlin, or the White House,” to sort of take the wind out of his sails. I don’t know why I wanted to do that, particularly. I just did. I wasn’t much of a loving son. I should have been glad he’d call me at all.
“A.J.? How would you like a visitor for Christmas?” It wasn’t my father. It was Billie Kay calling from New York City.
“You mean you’d come here?” I said. I was really glad to hear her voice, but in a way I couldn’t picture Billie Kay in Storm. She liked luxury too much. I couldn’t see her in my grandfather’s house.
“I’ll stay at the hotel,” she said. “Will you and your grandfather invite me for Christmas dinner?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. I knew Billie Kay would expect this gala feast; she was very big on holidays and celebrating. I didn’t see how I could ask my grandfather to spend the money on a turkey and all the trimmings, and my own allowance was too small. Then too, I remembered my grandfather’s last call to Late Night Larry. He’d told Late Night Larry Christmas wasn’t even celebrated in the early days in New England, because it was a feast day of the Church of England, against which the Pilgrims and Puritans were in rebellion. In 1659 a law was passed imposing a fine on anyone celebrating Christmas. (“You don’t say!” Late Night Larry had responded. My grandfather had said, “I do say! Thanksgiving was the important day! Not this phony Christmas!”)
“Let me talk to my grandfather,” I told Billie Kay. I put my hand over the mouthpiece so she wouldn’t hear our conversation.
“It’s Billie Kay,” I said. “She wants to make a big deal over Christmas, but I’d just as soon tell her we don’t go in for phony holidays.”
“We don’t go in for fancy holidays,” my grandfather said, “but we’ll cook up a meal she won’t forget. Tell her to come, A.J.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Is the Pope Catholic?” he said.
“Billie Kay,” I said, “we’d love to have you.”
“Great, A.J. I’m bringing Janice. I hope you don’t have any dogs there?”
“You can bring Janice,” I said. “I’ll make a reservation at the hotel.”
After I finished talking with her, my grandfather brought his beer into the living room and sat down opposite me. “So we’re going to have two dinner guests, huh?” he said.
“Janice is just a Siamese cat,” I said.
“You know, A.J.,” he said, “Christmas wasn’t even celebrated in the early days in New England.”
“Is that right?” I said. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been sitting right beside him when he’d gone into all that with Late Night Larry. I knew he’d blacked out, the same way Billie Kay sometimes did when she drank too much. I let him finish. Then I said, “I’m sorry I got you into this, Grandpa.”
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Times change. It isn’t 1659 anymore.”
“But I know you never even liked the original meaning of Christmas,” I said.
“The original meaning has gone out of Christmas,” he answered. “You said that yourself just a short while ago. Where’s your memory, A.J.? It can mean anything we want it to mean!”
I laughed. “It’ll mean a lot of work for you.”
“I like to cook,” he said. “Remember, you’re talking to Chuck From Vermont. . . . I’ll tell you something else, A.J.”
“What’s that?”
“I think we ought to have a tree. I think we ought to fix this place up so it looks a little more like Christmas!”
“Do we have the money?” I asked.
“No, we don’t have the money,” he said.
“I could wire my father for some,” I said.
“Not on your sweet little behind,” my grandfather said. “I’ve got a turkey in the deep freeze.”
“But we shouldn’t buy a tree.”
“We won’t. And we won’t cut one down for our own selfish purposes, either. We’ll make a tree from pine branches,” my grandfather said. “And we’ll decorate it ourselves.”
“What’ll we use for decorations?” I said.
“What do we have the most of around here, A.J.?” I looked at him, puzzled.
“Beer cans, A.J.!” my grandfather laughed. “Empty beer cans!”
Christmas was a week away.
Notes for a Novel by B.B.B.
“Where have you been?” Adam asked me a few days before Christmas. “Have you been sick?”
I was standing by my locker, getting out of my parka. I grabbed my wool muffler and draped it across my face like a veil. “I was asked to join the sheik’s harem,” I said. My Hairgo scab was gradually disappearing, but it was still there. I had covered it with pancake makeup, but on very close inspection there was a thin scar mustache.
“Seriously,” Adam smiled, “how come you missed school this past week?”
It was all thanks to Aunt Faith, who’d persuaded my mother that the humiliation of going to school in that condition would far outweigh any damage done by missing