I thought the day would never end. The whole class had drawn on incessantly about every Christmas they had ever had, about every gift they had ever received and what they were wishing for this year. Each one was like a punch in my belly. Mrs. Priddy told of snow and sleigh rides in the Dakotas where she lived as a child, and of building big fat snowmen. Well, if I’m a witness, it has never snowed in Amite County, Mississippi, and surely wouldn’t this year either. I sank in my chair, hoping I wouldn’t be singled out for a Christmas recollection. I did not have any I’d like to recall. Christmas was something to be endured, not enjoyed.
My luck didn’t hold.
“Lane. Why don’t you tell us about your favorite Christmas?” Mrs. Priddy asked.
“No ma’am. I don’t have a favorite.”
“But you must remember at least one,” she persisted.
“No ma’am.” My feet shuffled. I was as low as a man could get, suffering beyond description. Would she let it go? Please? Mama could hardly afford a bicycle or BB gun or new clothes, or… anything. She’d make such a big deal out of the fruit bag I’d get at church Sunday and talk all the way home about how it was so nice of the church to do that for Christmas. Another question from Mrs. Priddy and I’d leave in a run.
But she didn’t pursue. Instead, rather quickly, she quieted the murmurs and spoke about, of all things, a Christmas Star. My attention was drawn to her and hers to me as if no one else was in the room. Until that time, it was the strangest moment of my life.
“A bright star rising in the east”, she started. “Ever since the first Christmas, it has brought goodwill and blessings to all who cast their eyes on it. The star led wisemen and shepherds to the Christ child. It has risen every year for more than 2,000 years bringing hope for a better life, and peace to families around the world.
“Look beyond your gifts this year,” she continued to the entire class but especially to me. “Look for the Christmas Star that brings joy beyond gifts. Look to those you love and bring the greatest gift to them — love.”
It was very strange and new to us all. She had taken on a rather somber tone, not Christmassy at all. We all sat in awe, but none more than me.
The old bell rattled and we were up in a flash, but Mrs. Priddy somehow managed to snag me as I wedged through the crowded door. “The Christmas Star, Lane, don’t forget.” It took less than two seconds, but the spell was cast.
I found my seat on the bus, alone, and began my gaze out the window like every day before. Fields of corn stalks bent and whipped by cattle browsing gave way to the occasional sedge field dotted with big boughed pine timber. Twelve miles, I’d been told, from the school to my house, 12 miles of red clay road, dusty or muddy, and never flat. The bus stopped 10 times before my house. All the houses, faded white, had some semblance of Christmas showing. Curtains pulled back to show a tinseled tree on a coffee table, or a ribbon of red around a homemade wreath on the door, all had something however humble or gaudy and I knew ours would have no such decoration.
From a distance I saw that day a sight that would forever remain part of my childhood memory. Papa’s green truck was parked askew across the front yard, back wheel almost in the ditch, but not quite. So much like him, freewheeling, carefree, almost but not quite…Papa. Maybe Mrs. Priddy was right, Christmas was looking better already.
I swung around the slick silver bar over the two steps and landed squarely in a run toward the house. As I neared the front door I was stopped by Mama and Papa arguing, as was their habit whenever around each other. Mama had not one ounce of play, not one inch of carefree, not one pinch of anything Papa was all about. Papa was all the talk, tall in his khaki pants and snap button shirts, boots shining, and polished nickel buckle he had won over in Poplarville. I stood just a moment to catch the gist of their argument.
I heard Mama. “A dog? No! Brady, we can’t afford another mouth to feed around here.”
Mama persisted. “It’s shoes and books, and new britches that he needs, not a dog.”
“A puppy Sybil, not a dog, a puppy,” Papa pressed. “A Christmas present Sybil, the boy needs a proper Christmas present.” He was gaining.
A puppy! That star was sure shining somewhere I thought. I entered the room, ran to Papa who reached out his long arm and stopped me before I could jump into his arms. With an arm to my shoulder he declared, “Ain’t you gettin’ big boy.” I was proud of anything he said and especially of the notion that he recognized my growth.
“Go get some splinters Lane,” Mama said.
“We got splinters,” I answered.
“Don’t sass, go fill the wood box.”
I left the room, but their battle continued, Mama first. “It wouldn’t hurt you to bring a dollar now and then to help with his raising.” Mama was sour when it came to Papa. She couldn’t see his good side. Mama lived alone with me and she always looked for something to be sour about. It was, “do your lessons, son;” “we don’t need that; son;” “say your prayers, son;” “clean your ears, son” — never a cheerful moment.
Papa, on the other hand, was always in a good mood. He had never lived with us that I could remember, and I could see why. He lived near Liberty with Miss. Marcy most of the time when he wasn’t training and showing Mr. Reed’s birddogs. He pulled a trailer that held the finest horses and dogs in the country, and Papa was the best of all the handlers.
“This kind don’t come around often Sybil.” He had sat down at the table by the time I had reentered to help.
“Mama, couldn’t I get a puppy? He wouldn’t be no trouble,” I said.
“Wouldn’t be ‘any’ trouble.” She never had a weak moment. “We don’t need another mouth to feed, son. He’d have to be chained to keep him away from the chickens, and….”
I sulked. “I ain’t never had a Christmas to remember.”
Papa finished it. “Sybil….” Before he could go on, she dropped her head toward the sink threw a limp hand at us like a surrender flag.
“Come on boy, let’s go!” I was ready. “I’ll have him back early,” Papa offered as we headed out the front door.
There was a sour unfamiliar smell inside the truck but the idea of Papa and me together on a grand mission, such as we were, was sure making for a fine Christmas. After all, seldom did Papa have time to stop all he was doing, just out of the clear blue, to spend time with me.
We drove for a long time before Papa spoke, “High, wide and handsome. Wait till old man Reed sees this pup. He’s tried to buy him twice and couldn’t get him. Ha ha, just wait ’til Reed hears I’ve got him.” I guess he saw my confused look, so he continued. “It’ll be your pup you know, yours and mine. Maybe we can sell it to Reed and turn a buck or two. You’ll see.”
The cold winter air bit me and came into the cab just about anywhere it wanted to. Papa’s truck looked a lot better on the outside than the inside. In the floorboard at my feet was a hole about as big around as a silver dollar. Through it I could see the gravel road pass beneath us as we headed on toward Laurel. Afternoon was giving way to evening and the chill was giving way to cold.
“Not much farther,” Papa said. “We’ll be there before dark. I told old man Klaus we’d be there before dark. He didn’t want to sell this pup until I told him it was for a boy’s Christmas present. Said he remembered when he got a pup for Christmas one year. Said if it weren’t for the boy he’d never sell. So, you don’t let on it’s ours, yours and mine. Ok boy?”
Silhouettes were all you could see but it was enough to make out most of what was going on. There wasn’t a lot of visiting. Klaus was a fat man with a gray tobacco stained beard, and he seemed put out by our arrangement.
“Thought you said you’d be here ’fore dark,” Klaus said. “Fed up over an hour ago. Come on, it’s muddy, watch your step. So, this here’s the boy huh? What’s your name boy?”
“Lane, sir,” I answered to the dark image leading the way.
“Ever see a birddog run? How old are you boy? Ever see one point,” the fat man continued to talk and chew tobacco. It occurred to me that although Papa had been running dogs for years, I had never been with him until now on any event where his dogs were concerned. “No sir, but I’m hoping to start learning real soon now.”
“Ha ha, yeah, well I expect you’ll start learning real soon,” he spoke to nobody.
“This here’s a real fine pup you get’n, boy. He’s a son of Paladin,” Klaus continued.
We made our way through the gauntlet of barking rearing dogs. There were two rows with six dogs on each side, each one chained to its own square wooden box, each pawing at us, begging. When we arrived at the end of the long row of dogs, Klaus paused and spit a long stream of tobacco juice that landed beside a smallish liver-headed pup. Unlike the other dogs this one didn’t rear or bark. It sat quiet in the shadows admiring its future.
“There boy, take him,” Klaus said. “Don’t have a collar? Take chain and all.” Klaus opened the snap against the wooden box and handed me the end of a heavy, rusty chain, much too heavy for such a pup I thought.
By faint moonlight I led the pup through and fended off the snapping fangs and paws along the way. We made our way back to the cluttered front porch of Klaus’ ramshackle, and there Papa counted out 75 dollars. “For the boy, huh?” Klaus muttered. “I know better than that,” Klaus laughed.
“Get in the truck boy,” Papa spoke for the first time since arriving at the dog peddler’s house. “I got to get you back to your mama’s.”
I could hear Klaus laughing for a long way off. He yelled, “Merry Christmas,” and continued his roar of laughter “Ha Ha. Ha Ha.”
Dark now and frigid for a Mississippi winter night, we bounced back toward home. The pup sat on his haunches looking up at me with the links of the chain bearing against his neck. I sensed that his welfare was my responsibility now, like Mama and me. He would be warm only when I provided warmth and full only when I provided food, cold and hungry when I was negligent.
For whatever reason, maybe just fate, I reached down and slid the chain from around the pup’s neck. “I think I’ll name him Rusty,” I declared. “Rusty because of his chain and the rust ring on his neck. Can we get him a collar Papa?”
Papa didn’t answer, and nothing was said for a long time. Rusty laid down flat against the floor and ignored the world. I was sleepy, too. I gazed at the sparks of gravel through the hole in the floor and was transported into another world.
I was 10 years old at the time and a young 10 at that, not educated or experienced in any way except in those my mother and Mrs. Priddy could direct me. My slate was clean, my conscious pure, but in a few moments all the truths evident to me would be stripped away. A new baseline of truth would be established. From then on everything would be measured by a different standard. The door from naivety would open and never close again. That bad, irreversible things happen in our lives was not yet a truth to me. That some men used other people selfishly, and that love unrecognized was a terrible waste, were not truths to me either. That a chain could somehow vibrate through a silver dollar-sized hole, and that trucks had universal joints and that the two could somehow intertwine to cause significant damage to an old truck was inconceivable to me. But they all, very quickly, became vivid truths.
Banging loudly, the truck surged to one side. Papa lost control of the wheel and we skidded across the road, throwing me headlong into the dash and into a world I was ill prepared to meet. He cursed violently and profusely, loud and vulgar. His hatred spewed thickly through the night air and fell as a wet heavy cloak of wickedness over my body and spirit. I became as nothing, less than a breath of the crisp air I was inhaling now by gulps and gasps. I was too startled to cry. I hadn’t fully understood what had happened.
Papa got out of the truck and slammed the door. I didn’t know whether to follow or stay still. I huddled in the seat putting the pieces together as the event unfolded in the cold darkness. Papa crawled under the truck and cut away at the ball of chain. He continued to curse, repeating over and over to no one in particular, and yet to me with every word. I stayed huddled, shivering in the cutting winter night.
On the way again but with a pronounced and uneven gait, Papa pushed the old truck even faster than before, slamming one hand on the steering wheel occasionally, silent.
After a while, he swerved instinctively into a gravel lot fronting a drab little building with a blinking neon light in the window. He left the truck slamming the door and went inside. I huddled. The hole in the old floorboard was gaping now and Rusty had jumped up onto the seat beside me. He lay his head on my lap, comforting me as I had often imagined a brother would, and as I would comfort him in the years to come. After a little while, noises of laughter and cursing began coming from within the little building. The icy air now had me shivering and my mother’s voice came hauntingly to me, reminding me to “bring your coat son.” I bitterly shook it off, looked into the clear sparkling sky and somehow managed to drift off into a deep sleep.
It was Papa’s whiskey smell that woke me. We were speeding down the road again, swerving ditch to ditch. I was afraid this time for a different reason, a reason that would come full circle in years to follow when on another night we’d get word from a sheriff’s deputy that Papa was found dead in a fiery crash near Mr. Reed’s place.
But it was not to happen that night, that Christmas Eve night so cold and clear and fateful. We arrived in front of our house, Mama’s and mine, about as late as you could and it still be the same day.
“Take that damn dog with you,” were the last words my father ever spoke to me. Rusty and I slid off the seat onto the road fronting our home. With distant taillights blinking off and on at every bump in the road, Papa left forever. No, that night would not turn out to be another sour Christmas.
Standing outside I heard through the thin walls of our home, Mama’s mantle clock begin to strike the hour. As it pealed clear through the night I looked up and there, bright and glowing, was that star, the Christmas Star. No doubt it was the one. I recalled Mrs. Priddy saying it could make our Christmas wishes come true, so I breathed in the cold air and said aloud, “I wish that Mother never learns of this awful night, and of my bitterness toward her and that her son was trembling, afraid, cold and alone, so alone. It would crush her. My wish is that she knows only that I love her and always will.”
With that said, the clock struck midnight and I felt my first Christmas settled in.
