Merry Christmas! Or as we say here in tree-hugging, granola-munching San Francisco, Happy ChrismasKwanzaChanukah! Of course, when we at the FFO say "ho ho ho," it's usually followed a good ol' fashioned pimp slap.
Chris DeWildt returns to help ring in the jolly tiding, Gutter-style...
Chris DeWildt returns to help ring in the jolly tiding, Gutter-style...
Coal by C.S. DeWildt
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“Toby. Wake up. I heard something
downstairs.”
“Go back to
sleep.” Little brothers. Jesus.
“I can’t.
I’m scared.”
“It’s
probably just Mom. Deal with it.”
I rolled over on my mattress and then I heard it too, bumps,
thuds, the tearing of paper.
“Please, Toby,” Benny said. I rolled to my back, stared at the
ceiling and watched the twinkling colored lights we’d strung up for Christmas.
Benny was staring at me, waiting. “Maybe it’s Santa,” he said.
“There’s no Santa,” I told him. “Anyway, Christmas ain’t for
three more days.”
“Maybe it’s Dad then.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Please, Toby. Check, huh?”
I sighed, pulled myself out of bed and shoulder checked my little
brother as I passed.
“You’re a pussy,” I said.
Benny clutched his Ernie H. Frog plush and followed me to
the threshold of our bedroom. He clutched the door jam and leaned out after me
like the room was a building to jump from.
I stood at the top of the stairs. It was quiet.
“It’s nothing,” I said. And then there was a thud and more tearing
that made me realize how bad I had to pee. Benny’s eyes went wide, busted the
remaining sleep like a plaster mask. He squeezed Ernie. The frog didn’t look
scared. Ernie never was.
The stairs were cold and my sweating bare feet grabbed a
sticky hold on the polished wood before peeling away with a muted rip, like
flesh from bone. I counted each step and hoped I’d wake up before I got to the
bottom.
I stood still on the last step, watched the formless shadow
washing over the walls. My legs were shaking and I thought about Dad, what he
would do. Dad was never scared of anything, just like the Ernie H. Frog. One
time a guy came to the house at night, didn’t knock, just came in. Dad and him
argued. I was in the same place, on the bottom of the steps. The guy said
something about money and Dad said he had it. Dad pulled his brass knuckles out
of the junk drawer where he kept his car keys and pounded the guy. The next
morning Dad had me wash the wall. Most of it came clean, but there’s still brown
blood left in a couple spots.
I took the final step and saw the man, his back to me,
haloed in the golden lights of the Christmas tree. He was unwrapping our
Christmas presents, the one’s Dad left the last night we saw him. The man was
putting them into a big black sack. I took in a breath, to make the words that
would send him away, but they wouldn’t come. The man went still, just for a
moment before turning fast, looking over my head and then down to my level. The
cold stare became a grin.
“Which one are you?” he asked.
“Toby. You need to leave.”
“I will. Just getting what I came for.”
“Those are our presents,” I said.
The man kind of bounced his head back and forth, like he had
two thoughts duking it out. “Not anymore,” he said. He put an RC car into the
big bag. “Your mom upstairs?”
“Yeah.”
“She send you down?”
“No. She’s sleeping. My brother woke me up.”
“Benny?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I thought again about the brass knuckles,
about doing this guy like Dad did the other one. But I knew the knuckles were
gone, just like Dad was for over a week now.
“Do you know my dad?” I said.
“We worked together,” the guy said. He dumped the contents
of my stocking into the sack. I watched the candy fall, a shining foil stream,
did the same with Benny’s. The guy opened another package, one of Mom’s, from
Dad. It was a gold necklace studded with huge diamonds. He held it up to the
lights and then put it into his jacket pocket.
“You can’t take our stuff,” I said.
“Like I said, it ain’t yours.” The man looked over the mess
of paper and boxes, scanning for anything he’d missed. Satisfied, he gathered
up the sack and slung it over his shoulder, walked to the front door. I watched
him grab the handle and then stop. He turned back to me.
“Sorry, kid. For everything.” He reached into his pocket and pulled
out Dad’s brass knuckles. They flew high, bouncing the reflections of the tree
lights on the wall like spots of blood.
I caught the knuckles and slipped them on, squeezed the cool
metal in my hot fist. The guy smiled.
“Don’t, kid,” he said. “There’s time for that. I promise.” He
opened the door and I followed.
I stood in the doorway, gripping the jam and the cold night
air blew over my face, mussed my hair like Dad used to. The man had a piece of
wrapping paper stuck to his foot and the rustling sound accented the beat of
his boots. He tossed the sack into an idling car and drove away. The brass
knuckles pulled heavy on my arm as I smelled the exhaust and watched the taillights
float away in the black night.
Benny was waiting on his bed, sitting Indian and clutching
Ernie.
“Was it Dad?”
“No,” I said.
“Who was it?”
I squeezed the knuckles in my hand. “It was Santa,” I said.
“Dad’s been bad.”
I tossed the knuckles to Benny. He flipped them over in his
hands before slipping them on. He looked at them in the colored light and began
to cry.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t be a pussy.”
My little brother looked up and gave me a mean stare to
match my own. He dropped Ernie, jumped out of the bed and slugged me hard in
the arm with Dad’s brass knuckles.
