i'll be home for peacemas
Shannon O'Neil
Published by Shannon O’Neil.
Smashwords Edition.
Copyright 2009 Shannon O’Neil
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedicated in loving memory of
Grace Brown O'Neil
1912 - 2007
“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”
- Erma Bombeck
[ Chapter 1 ]
Monday / December 24, 2007
I should not have yelled at the nice lady behind the ticket counter.
Incidentally, I also should not have thrown a piece of luggage at a fellow traveler, cursed at a young skycap, taken a swing at a security guard, and basically caused a disturbance that brought the entire ticketing lobby of the Jacksonville International Airport to a standstill for half an hour on one of the busiest travel holidays of the year—Christmas Eve.
I have come to these conclusions by way of a long, quiet hour of reflection, which I have observed in near monastic silence and solitude. Of course, by solitude, I mean controlled confinement inside some sort of holding cell reserved for potential terrorists and unruly travelers such as myself.
It's possible that I might have arrived at said conclusions sooner if I’d been able to pace around and contemplate the many mistakes I’ve made this evening. Unfortunately, such pacing has been rendered impossible by the small size of the room and, to a greater extent, the giant, plastic zip-ties (handcuffs of the new millennium, apparently) that have me bound at the wrists and ankles.
Unlike the interrogation rooms you see on television, this room has no two-way glass or glaring light to point in someone’s face. Instead, my cell is disappointingly bland and vaguely disgusting--sort of like a public restroom. From the cinder block walls to the cracked ceiling tiles and linoleum floors, the room’s overall color scheme is a dusty, white hue, just enough so that even the air inside feels dirty.
Even less pleasant than the dingy appearance of the room is its rather distinct odor, which falls somewhere between cat pee and dead bodies—with just a hint of strawberries (which is also similar to a public restroom).
The off-white folding chair I’m zip-tied to and another just like it (though with notably fewer stains) sit on opposite sides of a vinyl-covered card table that’s pock-marked with deep gashes and stains. Just those three pieces of furniture (if you can even call them that) take up almost the entire room, the rest of which seems to be filled with the incessant buzzing of the lights that would be driving me crazy if it weren’t for the fact that I passed crazy and entered sheer insanity when I attempted to throttle several people at the ticket desk.
Hence the reason I’m here in the first place.
But before you rush to judge me, let me say that I think I have a pretty damn good defense. I know things aren’t looking great for me right now, but I assure you that I am typically a very docile, laid-back individual, not unlike yourself. I consider myself friendly, intelligent, and well mannered in most situations.
My biggest vices in life are chocolate, good books and Dog the Bounty Hunter. I’m a twenty-three year-old recent college graduate who borrowed more money than I care to think about in order to buy a creative writing degree from Boston College. A degree that now collects dust in my apartment, where I work as a struggling freelance graphic designer.
I’m not saying all this to pat myself on the back (literally speaking I can’t pat myself on the back thanks to these handcuffs) I’m saying it to try and make you understand that it would take a series of extenuating, unusual, and chaotic circumstances to send me into a tailspin like this. In fact, it would take something along the lines of a Perfect Storm of events to bring me across the border of sanity into my current predicament—and that’s exactly what has happened.
If you think I’m being overdramatic and you would like a little evidence to back up my claim, feel free to soak in my current attire from head to toe.
Although my taste in fashion is somewhat quirky, I would not ever voluntarily dress myself in a shapeless, ankle-length, long-sleeved dress, covered in blue sequins and lined at the hem, collar, and cuffs with faux white feathers. With its NFL-sized shoulder pads, it looks like it came straight from the back of Bea Arthur‘s closet circa 1983 (where it was buried along with the things even Bea herself would never wear).
This outrageous outfit is part of a costume I was forced to wear for my stepmother’s blasphemous Christmas parade float entitled: “Jesus Through The Years.” I know you’re just dying to know more about that, and I assure you, I will get to it in time.
But the point I’m trying to make right now is that if I was still the same, sane person I was when I arrived in Florida four days ago, I would not be wearing this attire. Unfortunately, I lost all the clothes I brought along for my trip in a tragic hujta (that’s hoo-ta) fire within my first twenty-four hours on Sunshine State soil. Therefore, my wardrobe since then has been largely sculpted by need and not fashion.
Now, I don’t think I need to go into more details beyond “blasphemous float” and “tragic hujta fire” for you to understand what I’ve been dealing with for the last few days (which, for the record, have felt like decades). Nor do I need to explain further why I was so irritable when I arrived at JIA by taxi just after dark and saw fit to skip the switchback line of customers piled in front of the ticket counter.
In a tone just a notch below hysterical, I informed the woman behind the counter that I needed to be on the next flight to Boston (or anywhere between here and Boston) at any cost. I had my credit card out, ready to charge my way back to sanity, when the woman informed me (in a rather sassy tone, I might add) that there are no more seats available on outgoing flights tonight. She said if I wanted to get in line and wait like everyone else, she could see about putting me on standby.
At that point in time, my only intention was to utilize a firm, but compassionate touch to convey to this woman how urgent my request was. However, some of the people in line who saw me climb across the counter, seize the woman by her ridiculous bowtie, and lift her off her feet, seemed to think that what I was doing actually fell under the category of assault.
The security officers at JIA apparently believed that to be the case, otherwise I don’t think they would have used a TASER gun to subdue me (I suppose I should be thankful it wasn‘t a real gun). Nor would they have dragged me into this little room, handcuffed me to a folding chair, and left me to sit here alone with my thoughts.
Although I can see how my actions may have been misconstrued, I maintain that I am an innocent person who was driven to the point of desperation by forces out of my control. It is not my fault that there are no lifeguards in the gene pool. I did not ask to share DNA with a troupe of individuals whose light bulbs have been permanently dimmed. I am the lone Halogen among them and I have paid the price for it.
These are the same people that I ran away from to go to college in another state. I haven’t been home since Christmas four years ago when I spent nine whole days (eight days too many) visiting my family and getting a refresher course in why I decided to go school in Boston in the first place.
Okay, you’re judging me again.
I am not a horrible person. Do I need to reiterate my previous paragraph of self-praise? I’m a good person, I swear. I love my family, I really do, but they’re crazy people. All of them. They make me, even in my current state, look like I’m as put-together as a Martha Stewart gift basket (pre-prison Martha, not the new Martha).
I know you’re mumbling to yourself that all families are a little crazy and maybe I’m just over-exaggerating, but who are you to judge levels of craziness if you’re talking to a book?
Listen to me, okay, I’m not completely uncultured. I know that everyone’s family has a little craziness to it. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, everyone has a black sheep, everyone has a few family gatherings that go awry. I know that. But my family has storage units full of skeletons, a flock of black sheep, and not one family gathering that has ever, EVER gone well.
E-V-E-R.
Including this very Christmas.
Although technically the holiday is not over yet…which is something that scares me more than the current odds on me getting a cavity search sometime in the very near future.
Just as that disturbing thought passes through my head (though not for the first time in the hour or so that I’ve been confined to this place), than the door to my tiny cell flies open and the hulking frame of Tony the Security Guard takes up a position in the doorway that completely eclipses my view of the hall behind him.
“You still thinking about taking a swing at me?” He asks. I shake my head vigorously.
“No sir, Officer,” I reply. “I apologize for that. I got a little carried away.”
“Just a little,” says Tony with a short chuckle. He moves into the room and shuts the door behind him with a thud. I reflexively kick my feet out as much as I can in an effort to move my chair as far back into the corner as it will go. It feels a little bit claustrophobic in here now that Tony (who I’m sure someone at some point in his life has dubbed “Big Tony”) has cut the size of the tiny room in half.
“Listen, Officer,” I begin, “I know I caused a major spectacle out there at the ticketing counter, but it’s been a long couple of days.”
“Tell me about it,” says Tony as he sinks into the folding chair across the table from mine. The chair creaks loudly and I’m terribly afraid it’s going to explode, but Tony seems unconcerned. He reaches across his inflated body to pluck a candy cane from the breast pocket of his uniform.
“I really don’t want to waste your time,” I insist from my side of the table. “I’m sure there are much more dangerous airline travelers out there that you should be questioning instead of me.” Tony peels back the plastic wrapping on his candy cane and happily shoves the straight end into his mouth, leaving the curved portion to hang off his lips like a festive cigarette.
“You’re not wasting my time,” Tony says with a crooked smile. “I’d rather be in here eating my candy cane than be out there listening to all those people bitching and moaning about getting to wherever they’re going. Matter of fact, I’m good to sit right here with you until my shift ends.”
“And when might that be?” I ask hesitantly. Tony glances at the silver watch on his wrist that would probably fit around my thigh, then folds his arms across his thick chest.
“About six hours,” he replies. His smile doubles in size and the candy cane moves from one corner of his mouth to the other.
“Well, Officer, as much as I would like to sit here with you for the next six hours and watch you eat that candy cane, I really need to be getting on my way. I’m not sure if the nice lady at the ticket counter had a chance to put me on the stand-by list for the next flight to Boston before I threatened her, but at any rate I need to be making the necessary arrangements to get on that flight as soon as possible.” I offer Tony a big smile of my own, hoping to come across as pleasant and completely sane. He doesn’t seem convinced.
“You have some explaining to do first,” Tony says in a serious tone.
“Like what?”
“Well for starters,” Tony clears his throat, “what the hell are you wearing?”
He has a valid point there. My outfit is cause for concern.
“It’s a costume,” I tell him. “I was in the Christmas Parade in St. Augustine earlier today and I haven’t had a chance to change.” (That’s not exactly true. I did have a chance to change, but believe it or not, that outfit would have been more disturbing than this one.)
Tony doesn’t seem swayed by my rebuttal, but he lets it go for the bigger issue that I was really hoping wasn’t going to come up.
“Alright then,” he says. “Then how about you explain to me why you were all over the news a few days ago for punching Santa Claus in the face?”
“Okay, first of all, he wasn’t Santa Claus. He was an alcoholic homeless guy in a Santa costume.”
“Oh really? And here I was thinking Santa took time out of his busy day at the North Pole to hang around outside a mall in Boston ringing a little bell for charity.” Tony’s sarcasm is palpable.
“The bottom line is, no charges were filed,” I insist. Tony hesitates before he poses his next question.
“You know what the problem is with people like you?” Tony leans forward and places his forearms on the card table. “You can be in a crowd of hundreds, and yet you can’t see past the three feet of space you’re taking up on this Earth.”
“I don’t think I’m one of those people,” I reply a little tersely. I’m in no mood to be patronized by a giant, candy cane-eating security guard.
“Of course you don’t,” Tony says coolly. “But you are.”
“If I was one of those people, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because if I was one of those people—a selfish person like you’re implying—I would be in Boston right now enjoying my Christmas holiday with my friends and a good bottle of wine.”
“I see,” Tony says with an amused raise of his eyebrows. “And for what unselfish reason did you come spend Christmas with us Florida lowlifes instead of your pals in Boston?”
“Well, it’s sort of a long story,” I say. “I guess I came down here to give my family another chance. I wanted to see if they’d really changed since the last time I came home four years ago.”
“How does that lead to you trying to throttle one of my fellow airline employees?”
“My family is crazy. Absolutely, unequivocally crazy. I would have sworn them off years ago if they hadn’t still been helping me pay for my college tuition.”
“That sounds totally unselfish to me,” Tony says sarcastically.
“It’s not what you think,” I tell him. “My parents are divorced—”
“So are mine.”
“—and they’ve both remarried.”
“So have mine.”
“I have ten brothers and sisters.”
“So your family is large, big deal.”
“I also have an adopted African boy living in my dad’s backyard.” This gives Tony pause. His jaw goes a little slack and the candy cane slips forward a bit. He quickly regains his composure and leans back in the chair, which elicits another loud creak.
“Okay that’s a little strange,” Tony admits, “but that still doesn’t give you cause to disrupt airport travel on Christmas Eve.”
“No, but the events of the last four days do,” I reply.
“Like what?”
“Where do you want me to begin?”
“I suppose the beginning would be a good place,” Tony says with that nasty tone of sarcasm again.
“You mean the beginning as in my parents’ marriage at a shady wedding chapel in Daytona, or the beginning as in when I accidentally burned down my adopted African brother’s tribal hut?”
Tony tries hard not to show it, but he’s definitely intrigued.
“Wherever you need to start to convince me that I should let you out of this room so you can get on a plane and take your crazy ass back to Boston.”
“Alright then…we’ll start at the wedding chapel and work our way forward.”
“I’ve got six hours, let’s go.”
“Tony,” I reply sincerely, “I’m not sure that’s enough time.”
[ Chapter 2 ]
Christmas 1982
I suppose it goes without saying that anything with roots in a lean-to wedding chapel sandwiched between an IHOP (site of the rehearsal dinner) and a bar (site of the reception) is probably destined for disaster. Unfortunately, my parents were so blinded by the powerful trio of love, rebellion, and alcohol that they failed to notice the army of red warning flags crowded into the hallowed halls of Wally’s Wedding Wonderland with them on that balmy summer night.
To their credit, my parents did not go down to Daytona Beach (St. Augustine’s sin-city neighbor to the south) on the night in question with the intention of getting married. My dad, Jack Hamilton, was a college sophomore and my mom, Liza Jane Bailey, had just finished high school. They were two years into a relationship born strictly out their mutual goal to upset their fathers, though I don’t think either of them knew how successful they would eventually be.
Along with several members of the 1980 state championship offensive line and a contingent of recently graduated varsity cheerleaders, my parents had made their way south for a long night of good old-fashioned bar hopping. In between drinking establishments number three and four, the underage drinkers stumbled into a nearby IHOP for fuel to continue their quest. Over pancakes and orange juice, the group happened to spot the neon pink sign for Wally’s. It was a little white chapel that would be washed away in a hurricane the following year, but in 1982 it was the only 24-hour wedding chapel on Daytona Beach. Someone (it’s still unclear whether it was a friend of my dad’s or my mom’s) made a joke about Wally’s that turned into a serious conversation that turned into my dad writing Wally a check for $25—the cost of the Spring Break Wedding Special--champagne and solo cups included.
In less than twenty minutes, papers were signed, a ceremony was performed (I’ve seen pictures, there’s nothing like a wedding party comprised of three drunk cheerleaders in halter tops and short skirts and five drunk football players in swim trunks and tank tops, all of them clutching red plastic cups and flashing crooked smiles at the camera), and a surprisingly legitimate marriage license was issued.
It’s my understanding that there was a tiny moment of clarity about a month after their impromptu wedding ceremony when my parents realized their secret marriage might not have been such a great idea. I try not to dwell on the fact that the chaotic circumstances which I now call my life might have been avoided entirely if that moment of clarity hadn’t been so rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of my older sister, Becca.
Just a few weeks before she was scheduled to move into her freshman dorm at Florida State, my young mother saw her worst fears illustrated by two lines on a stick. Before she could even wrap her mind around the sudden change in her future plans, however, my Nana Jane came flying through the front door of my grandparents’ church-owned home in a blind rage. Apparently, the pharmacist who worked at the local drugstore where my mother bought her pregnancy test had immediately called his wife (as anyone would have if they saw the preacher’s daughter buying such an item). His wife answered the phone on her way out the door to meet her Sunday School group for afternoon tea. It just so happened that the pharmacist’s wife’s Sunday School group included Nana Jane.
So much for living in a small town.
A conflict of epic proportions, tantamount to the battles fought by the French and Spanish when St. Augustine was first settled hundreds of years ago, erupted inside the tiny house. I’ve been told by several witnesses that the shouting grew so loud my Grandpa James actually heard it a mile away, inside his basement office at the First Baptist Church of St. Augustine.
By the time he arrived home, my mother and grandmother were in separate corners of the living room, squaring off like prized fighters across the shag rug. Somehow, Grandpa James managed to fling himself in between the two women and bravely hold them off long enough to discern what their argument was about. Without saying a thing (my grandfather has always been a man of few words, except when he’s in the pulpit) Grandpa James left the house, climbed into his aging Buick, and drove six blocks south to the waterfront Hamilton estate.
For centuries, the notorious Hamilton family had been sculpting the history of St. Augustine through politics, justice, and the power of an iron fist. People held passionate opinions about the Hamiltons in only one of two directions--adulation or fear. Many people who subscribed to the latter belief (including Grandpa James) felt that the family was a long line of criminals who forced their way into the city’s political landscape.
That’s not an entirely false perspective.
By 1982, my paternal grandfather, the honorable Judge Raymond Q. Hamilton III (known to most as simply “Judge”) was the reigning patriarch of the family. He had already ascended to the highest-ranking judicial position in all of St. Johns County, but his eyes were focused on a seat at the district court bench that was slated to open up before the next election. In fact, he was relaxing on the veranda of the family’s bayfront estate, sipping cognac, smoking a cigar, and discussing his political future with my uncle, Ray IV (my dad’s older brother), when Grandpa James pulled up.
According to Uncle Ray, Grandpa James started shouting at Judge that he was going to chop off a favorite appendage of his no-good son and toss it into the Atlantic. Judge unfolded his massive frame (he’s well north of six feet tall and beyond three hundred pounds) from his rocking chair and took a wide stance at the top of the porch steps. He issued a stern legal and physical threat to my maternal grandfather should he attempt to lay even one finger on my Uncle Ray.
Confused, Grandpa James explained that it was Jack, not Ray, that he wanted dismember. Suddenly relieved, Judge downed the rest of his drink and told Grandpa James that Jack was upstairs, have at it.
For years, the relationship between my father and Judge had been growing sour. Not only was Jack uninterested in the family business of law, he had turned his one good attribute in Judge’s eyes (his prowess on the dewy grass of a football field) into something of a shame.
An ardent Florida Gators booster, fan, and alumnus, Judge had nearly suffered a massive stroke when my father announced he was accepting a scholarship to play football for the Florida State Seminoles. My grandfather would sooner have seen his youngest son walk through town in full drag carrying a Jimmy Carter campaign sign than see him don a Garnet & Gold uniform. To Judge, it was an embarrassment, a crime, and an act of pure betrayal for Jack to march off to Tallahassee and play football for Bobby Bowden.
Distraught beyond words, Judge had all but cut my father from his will when Jack went away to school. Hence the reason Judge found no need to stand between his youngest son and my Grandpa James.
Who knows what would have happened between the men if my paternal grandmother, Paula, hadn’t stepped out of the house at that moment to see what all the fuss was about. When she saw the Baptist minister in a rage on her front lawn, Paula (who refuses under any circumstances to be called Grandma, Granny, or any other derivative of the word for fear that it might make her sound old) wrung her hands on her apron and in the spirit of southern hospitality, offered my Grandpa James a drink. Any other woman might have been scoffed at for interfering at that moment, but with her Alabama drawl, red lipstick and preference for low-cut house dresses, Paula tends to have a way with men.
Over a pitcher of sweet tea, Grandpa James calmly explained the situation to Paula, who immediately summoned her youngest son into the kitchen. If Jack was curious as to why his girlfriend’s father was seated at the table, he didn’t ask any questions. Brandishing her famous beauty queen smile, Paula poured her son a glass of tea, added a splash of vodka, and told him he was going to be a daddy.
Half an hour later, Paula had everyone--including my mother and Nana Jane--situated on the antique furniture in her living room. While the rest of the group sat with their shoulders stooped, already bearing the burden of the news, Paula drew on her hereditary, matriarchal, southern need to keep the family from drowning. She quickly began to draw up plans to salvage the wreckage left by Wally’s Wedding Wonderland.
First, Paula said the family would tell everyone that my mother had purchased the pregnancy test for a friend, not for herself. Then, just before they were to leave for Tallahassee, my father would perform an elaborate wedding proposal in my grandfather’s church during Sunday services. When my mother accepted, they would announce plans for a lavish Christmas wedding during their holiday break from school. Jack would go on to Tallahassee, while Liza Jane would stow away at her parents’ house to hide her growing belly.
The lynchpin of the plan was what inevitably doomed it to failure. Paula selected Christmas Day for the wedding because she assumed that most people in town would not skip out on time with their families on such an important holiday to attend a wedding. Therefore, the locals would know that the couple had been officially married in my grandfather’s church, but no one would be there to see the uninvited guest of honor at the ceremony. I’m not sure what the plan was for how to explain the baby that would come along three months after the wedding, but I’m sure Paula had something in mind.
Settled on a plan of action, the group dispersed and began playing out the roles that Paula had created for them as part of her elaborate scheme.
While some people in St. Augustine were encouraged by the sudden softness of the relationship between the Hamiltons and the Baileys that followed my parents’ very public engagement, most folks just saw cause for suspicion. Once that ring went on my mother’s finger, a very visible battle should have erupted between the two families that would have put the Capulets and Montagues to shame. When no guns were drawn nor police reports filed, people grew certain that something sinister was going on behind closed doors.
To add fuel to the conspiracy theorists’ fire, rumors flew around town about the mysterious disappearance of the bride-to-be at the end of the summer. Though she was supposed to be away at school, people still expected to see her in the front pew of First Baptist on an occasional weekend visit. When she wasn’t spotted over Thanksgiving break either, every beauty parlor and poorly lit bar in town sounded the alarm.
With all the gossip slipping through the cobblestone streets, it was no surprise that Paula’s theory on a small turn out for a Christmas wedding was blown to pieces. On the day of the ceremony, a massive crowd began to build hours before the doors of First Baptist were even opened. So many people lined up along the downtown sidewalks that the police had to come out and close down several streets in the interest of public safety.
Panicked, Paula tried to find someone who would stand at the door and at least keep out those who had not been invited. Unfortunately, no one was willing to stand between the gossip-fueled mob and what had turned into the social event of the year. Therefore, just after noon on Christmas Day, the large oak doors of First Baptist Church swung out into the chilly December morning and invited half the city into its warm chapel.
A sea of ruby poinsettias, ivory candles, and hunter boughs of pine set the scene for what was to come. Amid hushed voices and urgent whispers, the crowd of regular parishioners, gossip mongers, and other interested parties vied for the best seats in the house.
Meanwhile, downstairs in her father’s office, my mother Liza Jane donned her wedding gown. It was everything that an eighties wedding gown should have been from the puffy, Cinderella sleeves made of white satin to the v-necked, beaded bodice and overindulgent lacework. (I am forever thankful to my parents’ first dog, Skippy, who had the good sense to shred that dress one afternoon while he was home alone so that I would never be offered the chance to revive its glory.)
Moments before the ceremony began, Grandpa James stepped into the room and instantly burst into tears at the sight of his only daughter in her full wedding day regalia. To an uninformed bystander, it would have seemed he was overcome with joy and nostalgia, but in fact his true emotions were shame and embarrassment. Grandpa James knew that once he stepped into the chapel with his daughter on his arm, his life would be changed forever.
Just before the doors swung open and the crowd leapt to its feet, someone shoved a bouquet of red roses mixed with holly into my mother’s hand and wished her the best of luck. She would need it.
In the front pew, Paula stood up along with everyone else and tugged her skin-tight red dress down to reveal more cleavage than the Baptist church had ever seen. She held her head high and pasted a bright smile across her red lips, which she was prepared to maintain throughout every painful minute of what was to come.
Upon her first step into the chapel, my mother was greeted by a chorus of gasps and murmurs echoed by the high arches of the church ceiling. Jaws dropped to the floor as Liza Jane and the watermelon-sized bump beneath her dress began moving down the aisle. For all their careful planning, my family had only managed to postpone the inevitable growth of a tiny flame into a massive inferno.
As my mother and grandfather neared the altar, Paula continued to smile on bravely while Judge stood beside her and dabbed at the sweat on his brow. Across the aisle, Nana Jane closed her eyes and started to pray out loud as her sobbing husband and chagrined daughter drew near.
From his spot next to a foursome of grizzly-bear sized men (the same offensive linemen who were present for the first wedding), my dad decided to adopt his mother’s approach. He too plastered a bright smile on his face, even as his heavily gelled mullet started to condensate with sweat--all of which made its way down the collar of his suit jacket. He was sweating so profusely, in fact, that his dark jacket was noticeably damp when he accepted his bride’s hand from her weeping father and turned his back to the crowd.
Grandpa James took his spot at the altar where he paused to gulp down a glass of water and make a futile attempt to collect himself before beginning the ceremony. Fortunately for him, the crowd was still so stunned at the sudden turn of events that few paid any attention to him as he stumbled through the service.
By the time everyone re-grouped at the VFW for the reception later that afternoon, the truth had been set free. Some claimed to have known all along what the two families were hiding, but most admitted to being completely caught by surprise. Either way, much like those star-crossed lovers of Shakespearean fame, my parents’ ill-fated love affair was destined from its onset to become an iconic tale of romance and tragedy
Over boxed wine and fried chicken, people began to rehearse the newest story added to St. Augustine’s history books, just behind Pedro Menendez de Aviles’ 1565 founding of the city itself and Ponce de Leon’s endless search for the fabled Fountain of Youth.
In my own personal history books, that day marked the start of my lifelong aversion to the Christmas holiday. That one little event—my parents’ second wedding in six months—began the avalanche of truly disastrous holiday shenanigans that would shape the first twenty-three years of my life.
[ Chapter 3 ]
Thursday / December 20, 2007
So now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to the second beginning of my story—the day I was assaulted by Santa Claus.
One of my favorite job perks as a self-employed graphic designer is that I have the ability to make my own schedule. Since I’m a night person by nature, I choose to do most of my work during the hours after the sun’s departure. With the support of my colleagues (Nick at Nite and Diet Coke) I can usually work well into the wee hours of the morning before making the short commute (about five seconds) from the desk to my bed, where I collapse into a deep sleep.
As a consequence, I rarely drag myself out of bed before two or three in the afternoon. That is, unless some inconsiderate soul decides to get my day off to a rotten start by rudely interrupting my beauty sleep—which is exactly what happened on the morning in question.
Just before noon (far too early for my taste) I was forcibly removed from a delicious dream involving myself, Justin Timberlake, and a deserted island by the shrill harmonies of Alvin and the Chipmunks. A few weeks earlier, a friend had sent me the rodents’ ringtone as a joke, poking fun at my overall dislike for the holiday itself. When I listened to it, two things immediately came to mind: (1) the sound makes me want to saw my own ears off with a butter knife and throw them out the window, (2) strangely enough, I feel the same way when I speak to my mother on the phone. Hence, it became her official ring on my cellphone. Like a lighthouse warning sailors of rocks ahead, the song serves to remind me that even on the days when I might feel a little homesick, my life could be at risk if I dare to pick up the phone.
After two choruses, the song clip came to a blissful end and the phone went silent. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried desperately to find my way back to that island. Just as I was starting to make out the chiseled outline of Justin’s broad shoulders against the white sand, Alvin and company started up again. Perturbed and frustrated, I unceremoniously snatched the vile phone off my nightstand, turned it to vibrate, and tossed it into a pile of dirty clothes on the floor.
In a moment of utter futility, I buried my head under the pillows and vainly called out for Justin to return, but it was too late. By then, a thousand tiny tendrils of sunlight had found their way through the makeshift curtains on my windows and had started to pry at the corners of my eyes. Worse, I suddenly realized that the temperature in my apartment was dangerously close to that of Mount Everest at its peak.
With great reluctance, I slid out of bed—taking the covers with me, of course--and begrudgingly crossed all ten feet of the arctic space that sometimes doubles as my tiny, but beloved studio apartment.
For the first eighteen years of my life, I bounced back and forth between two households that were constantly packed to the rafters with other people’s lives. I shared beds, rooms, bathrooms, and most of my personal space in general with a rolodex of people who may or may not have been family members.
In college, I spent my first two years living in a series of tiny dorm rooms with at least one other person, then two more years in a medley of cramped apartments with a wide assortment of roommates. You can therefore imagine how excited I was to find my own place after graduation. I put a deposit down on the very first piece of square footage I could afford on my own and for the first time in my life, discovered this thing other people call privacy.
While I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed getting to lay claim to a space that’s mine and mine alone, it hasn’t exactly been the peaceful, rewarding experience I thought it would be.
For one thing, my entire apartment is roughly the size of your average walk-in closet, but with half the charm. It is home to all six pieces of my used (and abused) furniture, a tiny kitchenette (slightly smaller than the Little Tykes kitchen playset I had as a kid), and the world’s loudest (and most unreliable) radiator. But it has two saving graces that made me fall in love with it in the first place--even if they are the traitors who also allowed the sun to invade my space so early in the morning.
In April, when I first looked at the place, the pair of six-foot, east-facing casement windows took my breath away. On that clear, spring morning I could just make out the broad expanse of the Charles River in the gaps between a few neighboring buildings. When the landlord told me I could open my windows in the summer and hear the announcer at Fenway, I started digging through my purse for my checkbook.
Of course, the landlord failed to mention how easily the frigid winter air would seep through the single-paned windows, or how much light the rising sun would cast into my cave at the break of dawn. You try finding cheap curtains or blinds that will fit windows that size. I don’t have the proper tools to put a curtain rod on a brick wall, so I had to resort to duck-taping a couple tablecloths to the top of the wood moldings instead. It’s not pretty, but it helps.
After making it across the icy wooden floorboards that morning, I gave the radiator a few swift kicks for posterity’s sake before digging my phone out of the dirty clothes pile and calling my super, Larry. He answered groggily on the third ring (Larry’s not much of a morning person either) and said he’d be up to fix the radiator later (which in Larry-speak means sometime next week). I hung up on him and turned my grumpy attitude on my unwitting coffee maker. When the necessary components were in place, I turned the machine on and started the detailed process of getting myself ready for a shower.
With great bravery, I put my life on the line in exchange for comfort by setting up my small space heater in the corner of the bathroom (keep in mind that my entire bathroom is smaller than most handicap stalls in public restrooms). I turned on the water and waited impatiently for it to get hot. Knowing how fickle the water temperature can be, I swiftly jumped into and out of the stream like a skilled double-dutch participant before it could turn me to ice.
As I faced myself in the mirror, a loosely wrapped towel tucked under my arms, I made my daily assessment of all the ways in which I could not genetically disassociate myself from my family. I have my mother’s hair (her natural hair, I should say), which is something between a dark blond and a light brown color. It has a shape that could be called wavy on a good day and wildlife habitat on a bad one. My father’s eyes, a dark hazel with tiny flecks of gold, are set beneath Nana Jane’s eyebrows--high-arched and medium thick. My small, rounded nose with its slightly up-turned tip belongs to Judge (though mine is thankfully a miniature version of his). My lips, naturally a dark pink and closer to full than thin are Paula’s (but minus the coral lipstick she’s so fond of). The tiny cleft and low profile of my chin is a mirror of my Grandpa James.
Every time I wonder if I could be so lucky as to have been separated from my real parents (some blissfully normal, sane couple with no other children) at birth, I look at my reflection and reluctantly see the map of my own family history played out on my very own face.
That settled, I assembled a small army of hair products and tools on my bathroom counter. Like a lion tamer wielding a chair and a whip, I managed to corral my shoulder-length mane into something acceptable for going out in public.
Thirty minutes after I went in, I emerged from the bathroom feeling like a new woman—albeit a new woman who was still wearing last night’s pajamas and wrapped up in a queen-size IKEA bedspread.
Back in the kitchen, I poured myself a fresh mug of coffee and plugged my last frozen waffle into the toaster. Unfortunately, the toaster decided my morning (or early afternoon) was going too smoothly, and therefore decided to turn my waffle into a piece of worn leather. Instead, I had to settle for Apple Jacks and water (I made a mental note to pick up some milk, more waffles, and a new toaster at the store). With breakfast finally under control, I stepped from the kitchen into the living room (separated by three wooden floor boards) and gave a cheery greeting to my roommate, Fred.
Just to be clear, Fred is a soccer ball-sized stain on the arm of my Goodwill couch that, in a certain light, sort of looks like a smiley face. He’s kind of like my little man in the moon, only his expressions are captured in a brown circle of indiscriminate substance and unknown origin on my faux-leather surface.
Fred also happens to be my best friend.
I turned the TV on, checked the clock, and felt my heart flutter when I realized Fred and I were up just in time for Lifetime’s lunchtime showing of mine and Fred’s favorite show, The Golden Girls. It was, of course, one of the Very Special Christmas episodes that always relays the same message about love and peace over presents and candy. There were funny parts filled with laughter, as well as touching moments when Fred and I both found ourselves in tears.
Just as the episode ended and I started to hand Fred a tissue, I realized that I hadn’t been out of my apartment in almost a week. Since I work from home, I have no daily motivation to exit my apartment, which might just be the best perk of my job.
But every few weeks I am blindsided by the sudden fear that I might be turning into an agoraphobic. In all fairness though, I must say that it is very easy to convince yourself that staying inside for days (and sometimes weeks) at a time is totally acceptable in a busy city with an average winter high temperature in the teens. Why face the bitter strangers and bitter cold if you don’t have to?
I glanced over at Fred for moral support, but he just smiled at me in that hapless, hopeless way he always does. Usually, I know I’ve been inside too long when Fred starts to talk back to me. On the morning in question, Fred was still maintaining his admirably monastic silence, however I felt I was close enough to the edge that I needed to get myself out of my apartment before things took a turn toward padded walls and heavy medication.
Besides that, I was up before three o’clock, had breakfast, coffee, a shower, and had even blow-dried my hair! How could I waste such accomplishments on Fred and my indoor plumbing?
Jeans, a jacket, three pairs of socks, two sweaters, a scarf and a knit cap later, I shuffled out of my apartment and into the icy streets of Boston. I briefly debated my transportation options—walk, take the bus, ride the T—and chose the bus. The stop was nearer to my apartment building than the T and generally less crowded, especially in the middle of the day.
Of course, waiting for a bus in the cold is not very pleasurable. I’ve lived in Boston for five years, but I still can’t get away from my sandy, flip-flops roots. By the time a bus finally came up Commonwealth headed in my direction, I had started to develop icicles on the end of my nose (which was one of several extremities that I could no longer feel). In a largely ungraceful manner, I shuffled up the steps into the warm bus and assessed my seating choices in a quick fashion. There were two open chairs--one in the back, next to someone who could have passed for Charles Manson’s long-lost cousin and one closer to the front, next to a blue-haired lady in a purple, knit hat and matching sweater set.
As I plopped down in the chair beside her, the old woman’s wrinkled face broke into a bright smile. Beneath the lip of the cap, her emerald eyes sparkled as she offered me an exceptionally cheery Merry Christmas greeting. I returned the sentiment with equal zest and sincerity, thinking maybe my day wasn’t doomed after all. It’s rare to find someone who is both kind and sane on the city bus (which is another reason I prefer staying indoors) so I felt quite grateful.
“Where are you headed?” The old lady asked me. Her warm smile melted away all the ice on my nose.
“To the mall,” I replied. “I’m going to brave the crowds and do a little last-minute Christmas shopping. And you?”
“I’m going to my grandson’s house,” she said cheerfully.
“That’s great.” I settled back in my seat and turned my eyes ahead, content with our succinct, casual conversation. My new friend, apparently, was not feeling the same.
“I have seventeen grandchildren,” she announced. “And I can name every one of them in order of when they were born!”
“That’s…great,” I said again, with less enthusiasm. I prayed she wouldn’t think I was calling her bluff. Unfortunately, she was already fumbling for her purse, trapped beneath the heavy overcoat in her lap. She extracted a billfold stuffed with pictures as I gazed longingly back at the Manson cousin.
“First, there’s Eric,” said the blue-haired lady. She directed a gloved pointer finger at the photo of a teenager in a members only jacket. “He was born in August of nineteen seventy-one and he lives in California….” she paused, “…or is it Connecticut?”
I decided to change my strategy.
“It sure is cold today isn’t it?” I rubbed my hands together for emphasis. At least if I couldn’t get her to shut up, I thought I might be able to get her off track.
“Yes, it is.” She nodded and let the billfold sink into her lap. Relief passed over me as though she’d just lowered a gun from my head. She stayed quiet just long enough for me to think she was done, but it turned out she was just catching her breath.
“It’s colder where my second grandson, Joshua, lives. He’s in Colorado…” she paused again “…or is it Costa Rica?” The billfold came back to life as she flipped ahead a few pages to a girl with crimped hair affixed to the side of her head by an enormous bow. “Then there’s Penny…” (pause) “…or is that Jill? I think it’s Penny. She lives in…well, it’s right by…hold on, I’ll think of it in a minute…”
I sat up straighter in the chair and silently cursed myself for not bringing my iPod. (of all the roles the iPod can play, social barrier is my personal favorite). Fortunately, right at that moment, I felt the gentle vibration of my cell phone from inside my coat pocket. I was so excited to drown out the babbling of the old lady I didn’t even glance at the caller ID before answering it. Big mistake.
“It’s about time!” My mother shouted in my ear. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me!”
“I was,” I told her with a heavy sigh.
“Well, Merry Christmas to you, too,” she quipped. “Can’t a mother just want to catch up with her favorite daughter whom she never, ever hears from? Not even an e-mail or a text message or anything?”
“We both know that’s not why you’ve been trying to hunt me down,” I muttered. My elation at being relieved of my duty to listen to the old woman’s list of third generation spawn was fading quickly.
“Alright, have it your way,” my mother said defiantly. “I’ll get right to it.”
“Please do.”
“I want you to come home for Christmas.”
“Oh, gee, let me think about that one,” I counted out five seconds in my head, as though I were actually contemplating the offer. “I’m going to have to go with…no! Now aren’t you glad we got that out of the way? What else is new?”
“Bailey, please,” my mother insisted, her voice softening. “This is getting ridiculous. It’s been four years.”
“So?” I asked her. “Is there a law that says you can’t spend more than three Christmases away from your family?”
“Maybe there’s a rule in this family that you can’t,” she snapped. “You know all of your brothers and sisters are coming home for the holidays. It’s the only time of year that everyone gets together!”
“Good for them.”
“Bailey! Why does this have to be such a touchy subject?”
“Oh, please, Mother,” I said. “You know exactly why!”
We both paused to break the tension and allow the words that we couldn’t say to peter out in the sound waves somewhere between Florida and Massachusetts.
“Honey,” she continued in an almost whisper, “we would really love for you to come be with us for Christmas.”
“I appreciate that, but I have plans here with my friends, okay?”
That wasn’t exactly true. Two weeks ago I’d bumped into a girl I used to work with at Starbucks who extended me an invitation to her Pimps & Ho’s Christmas party. I politely told her I’d see if I could make it, even though I knew my only Christmas Eve plans involved Fred and a bottle of wine.
“You can see your friends anytime,” my mother insisted. “This is the time of year for visiting with your family.” She emphasized the last word like it was special.
“Right. And if I came to visit you people, would you pay for the therapy I would need when I left?”
“Bailey, please.” She said again, like “please” was my middle name. In my mind, I could picture her sitting at the glass table on the back deck of her oceanfront estate, probably sipping on a mid-afternoon cocktail and sucking on a cigarette. After the last “Bailey, please” she would have put the cigarette down and raised her hand to rub her temples. I have that effect on her.
“I’ve already said my peace, what more do you want?” I asked her.
“I want to see my daughter!” She released her temple and slammed her open palm against the glass table. I heard the tinkle of the ice in her glass as it jumped off the surface. “I want to catch up on what’s going on in your life! I want to know if you still like your job! I want to find out if you have a boyfriend or…or a girlfriend--”
“Mother!” I hissed.
“Well, I don’t know! How can I know these things when you keep all of us in the dark down here?”
“Okay, fine. Consider this my Christmas present to you: My life involves working from home all day and occasionally going out to dinner with friends. I still like my job just fine. And yes, I have a boyfriend. His name is Fred.”
Beside me, the old lady flipped ahead a few pages in her billfold and pointed at a chubby, brown-haired kid with dark-rimmed glasses and a tuba.
“That’s Fred,“ she said. “He lives in New York…or is it New Hampshire?”“Fred?” My mother asked incredulously. “What kind of name is that? Is he cute? What does he look like?”
“He’s kind of brown…maybe a little yellow. But he has a great smile.”
“Brown? Yellow? Is he biracial?”
“Sure.”
“Well, why don’t you bring him down and introduce him to the whole family!”
“I don’t think they’d let me bring him on the plane,” I told her honestly. Not to mention the fact that poor Fred would certainly lose his illustrious smile if I dared to expose him to my family.
“He’s fat isn’t he? One of those people who’d have to buy two seats or else spill over on somebody else, right?”
“Look, Mom, as delightful as this conversation has been, I’m really ready for it to be over.” I started to gather my things as the bus drew close to my stop. “I really appreciate the offer, but I’m not coming home for Christmas. End of story.”
With my purse on my shoulder, I sat and waited for the final blow. Our holiday ritual wouldn’t be complete without the closing argument. It was the very reason the rest of my family turned to my mother after all of their e-mails, voicemails, text messages and Facebook posts went unanswered. Elizabeth Jane Bailey Hamilton Danforth is known for a lot of things, but she is famous for only one.
“You know,” she began softly, pausing to take a puff of her cigarette, “Your little brothers and sisters really miss you. Eli was just asking about you this morning. He’s almost eight years-old now.”
And there it is. My mother is a licensed travel agent for guilt trips.
“I know how old he is, Mother. Time passes the same in Boston as it does in St. Augustine.”
“But you haven’t seen him since he was four!” She added, trying to build her momentum. “He’s grown up so much you probably wouldn’t even recognize him! And you know, Taylor came over the other day. She and Maggie spent the whole afternoon talking about how much they wish their big sister would come home for Christmas.”
Just to be clear, Taylor is my half-sister on my dad’s side and Maggie is my half-sister on my mother’s side. By a weird twist of small town fate, they wound up in the same kindergarten class and have not been separated since. They are fifteen now and though it has been nearly a decade since I was that age, I seriously doubt that when the two of them get together they spend a whole lot of time talking about me.
“Look, you can lay that stuff on me all you want, Mom,” I told her confidently. “It’s not going to change my mind. Besides, I’ve already put their presents in the mail and we both know that’s the only thing they really want from me.”
I stood up as the bus pulled to a stop in front of the mall.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, please, I’ve got to go.”
“Hold on, Bailey,” she pleaded again. The ice tinkled once more, this time louder. She was taking a drink, garnering her final bit of gusto for the icing on the cake. This was the moment when my mom usually slipped from subtle guilt to flagrant bribes. It’s like our own little version of “Deal or No Deal.” Over the last three years, the banker’s offer had gone up from a diamond bracelet to a seven-day cruise to a brand new car. This year I was hoping for cold hard cash, possibly in the high five-digit range.
“There is one other thing…” she said softly. I tried not to think about the kind of apartment I could get with a hefty chunk of tax-free change. “I really hate to bring this up, but you know your grandparents are getting very old and frail. Who knows how much longer they’re going to be around…for all we know, this could be their last Christmas.”