A Little Fruitcake Read online

Across from Grampy sits Uncle Ronald, who resembles Grampy in surface ways. Both sport widow’s peaks, sour looks, and plaid pants. Yet Ronald seemed ever above the fray. He didn’t ask about family gossip, didn’t get caught up in the drama. The one point of contention was unspoken: we saw his family less often than we saw Jean’s because Marie, barely visible in the photo, was hard-core Catholic and didn’t want to expose her children to Grammy’s religion, which she saw as a little crazy. This, of course, irked Grammy, who was used to being the one who feared the contaminating effects of unbelievers.

  On the other side of Marie, I lean into the picture to make sure I’m noticed. I’m in my favorite shirt, a busy little number rife with red and blue horizontal stripes, topped by a thick, round collar. It was as close as I could come to dressing like a cast member from my very favorite television show, Zoom, but it makes me look dangerously like Ernie from Sesame Street. I’m also sporting a new haircut from Roy’s barber shop, where I had convinced the kindly barber that I wanted my dark hair cut all one length without a part, which I thought made me look kind of like Dorothy Hamill, at least as much as an overweight ten-year-old boy could. That was the most outward sign of my inner desire to be more of a “girly boy” than I knew my family would like.

  Behind me in the photo, Adrienne slouches on a barstool against the wall, wearing her coolest disaffected look. She radiates lack of interest. Part of Adrienne’s allure for me as a child was that she was everything I was not: world-weary, jaded, and willing to sass back. These traits made her seem goddesslike to me, but they weren’t exactly evidence of a happy time for her, and they hardly ingratiated her with her parents, who put her in a “girl’s school” for a while to avoid fights at home. What neither they nor I knew then was that Adrienne felt about girls the way I felt about boys.

  My brother sits next to Adrienne on a barstool, a proximity that has liberated him. Forget any pretense of being well behaved: he is sticking out his tongue and looks dangerously close to flipping the bird. He had plenty to be mad about, including the unfortunate distinction of having the single most ethnic name in our entire überwhite town. I had gotten off easy with the more ecumenical name of David, while he was saddled with Ignacio, a name deemed unpronounceable by his little league teammates (who called him “Mac”), his best friends (who called him “Nash”), and even by one of his teachers (who called him “egghead,” which says less about Ignacio’s ethnicity and more about the man’s professionalism). Sick of being seen as both bad seed and half-breed, he finally had something to celebrate that holiday: the BB gun from Uncle Fred. Who cared how Grammy felt about it. At last, somebody understood him.

  Grammy, the centrifugal force of the family, holds center court in the photo. Yet the chinks in her armor are visible here. Her strong chin rests in one hand, and the look on her face is one of weary indulgence. She does not want to smile for any more pictures, and she’s tired as the day is long. The night before, when Mom was hours late coming home, we waited nervously by the blinking lights of our Christmas tree, tensed for the sound of her car or the ringing of the phone. Grammy was sure something bad had happened—and she was right. Mom had flipped her Rambler into a gully on the road to Waterville and would stay there trapped in the dark for almost two hours before anyone noticed. The weight of that near loss merely added to Grammy’s fatigue: Just when she was supposed to be relaxing in her golden years of retirement, she found herself sharing her house with an out-of-work daughter and two young boys who worked her nerves nearly as badly as Grampy did.

  Yet for all its hidden secrets and implied dramas, the photo didn’t lie about Christmas 1977’s being a happy holiday. Like any family portrait, it simply revealed a different kind of truth for each viewer. It would be many years before I would understand the complicated meanings embedded in this snapshot, but for me as a child, the story it told was absolutely joyful. Holding it in my hand, I could feel the specific magic of the party: the honeyed tone of Bing Crosby’s voice on the stereo, the colors blinking red and green in the glowing bar, the sound of people I loved laughing and talking all around me. What a Christmas.

  What an ambrosia.

  8

  The Shoestring Santa Blues

  Socks. No other word from my childhood Christmases so instantly raises my hackles, even though I am now supposed to be a mature adult. By the time I was eleven, a new pattern had been set: under the tree, my brother and I could each expect only two presents, one of which was a two-pack of white tube socks. This was as true for Mom as for us boys, but that didn’t lessen the sting.

  Even as a child I knew—or, to be clear, I had been told—the reasoning behind this purchase. First off, with my family now living on social security and food stamps, gifts had to be practical. Besides that, there were millions of children around the world who would be getting no presents at all and who would have been thrilled to unwrap the very same present I sighed at unhappily like an ingrate. The topper was the reminder that presents were not the reason for the season anyway. That very pointed comment was supposed to tap into all my youthful religious guilt, but it didn’t. With each yuletide, the ritual of tearing the previous year’s carefully recycled wrapping paper off these predictably mundane bundles grew more joyless.

  I decided to do something about it. It was up to me to set a good gift-giving example to teach Grammy, the admitted giver of socks, that it was possible to give decent presents while still sticking to a budget.

  My plan was simple: I would be a living role model of festive frugality, and Grammy would be so impressed that she would follow suit out of inspiration or shame or both. To make this happen, I would have to use up the small amount of cash I kept on hand. My new housecleaning gig for Aunt Jean and Uncle Fred was my one reliable source of income. For $2.50 a week, I vacuumed, cleaned the shower, and Windexed every mirror in the house.

  A couple of months on my new job had earned me $17.50, a sum that had decreased because I was expected to give my church both a tithe of 10 percent (lopping $1.75 off the top) and an “offering” of 5 percent (another 88 cents gone). That left $14.87, which I had lessened further by indulging in the Grease issue of Cracked magazine, which I found hilarious and Mom let me buy, even though Grammy called it “filth.” With roughly $14 still in hand, I had all the resources I would be able to muster to shop for my entire list. Therein lay a small problem: there were thirty-six names on that list.

  Obviously, I needed something for my immediate family members, and certainly I had to include my new employers, seeing as they had made my bounty possible, but there were also classmates and teachers to consider, and that was just the beginning. There were the Gallants, whose own grandchildren lived far away and who traded off with my grandparents every so often: Grampy and Grammy would get a quiet house for the afternoon, and the Gallants would get two proxy grandsons to take on excursions to fish hatcheries and salmon locks. I also wanted to get something for my favorite neighbor, Emma McKenney, who lived across the way in a trailer full of puppies and cigarette smoke; we watched TV together, and she delighted me with a cackling laugh like nothing I ever heard at home.

  I needed something, too, for Old Mrs. Stanley, the town librarian, who kindly let me sit in the storage room sifting through years-old People magazines. In a dusty room lit brightly by an ancient window, I could sort through the glossy stacks, hunting without embarrassment for issues about my icons: Cher, Carol Burnett, Laverne and Shirley, and Watergate figure Martha Mitchell, whose hair was big but whose mouth was even bigger. It was also in these stacks that I could most openly nourish celebrity crushes, soaking in tales of David Bowie and Warren Beatty. Mrs. Stanley clearly deserved a present for making it possible. Indeed, the world seemed full of people needing gifts, and I determined that I was just the boy to fill this need.

  “Can someone take me to Skowhegan?” I asked one December Sunday morning. This was a somewhat insincere request as the only person in the kitchen was Grammy, who was unlikely to grant it.

&nbs
p; She could read my tone and knew something was up. Pausing over a mixing bowl of fruitcake batter, she took the bait. “What foolishness are you getting up to now?”

  “I just need to do my Christmas shopping,” I said as innocently as I could. “I have thirty-six people to buy presents for, and I need to make sure they all get something they’ll like!”

  Grammy just made a “tsking” sound and went back to mixing her famous concoction. I say famous because all the grown-ups in our extended family and a slew of friends from church expected a loaf of the sticky brown horror every year. To my disbelief, they even seemed to like it, thanking her profusely and taking the leaden prize home with them where I couldn’t help but wonder if it became a doorstop or something to threaten their children with: “You be good, or Daddy’s getting out the fruitcake!”

  I did not yet know that fruitcake is almost always terrible, that fruitcake jokes are a staple of holiday humor, and that an urban legend suggests that the number of loaves in existence is finite, the same ones getting passed unopened from victim to victim each year. I only knew that Grammy, who made dreamworthy fudge and unsurpassed pumpkin pie, somehow blew it when it came to this stuff. I dreaded being served a gummy slice, with its shudder-making candied fruit in a shade of chemical green seen in no natural thing on earth.

  She noticed I was still standing there. “Ask your Mom,” she said. “I have to make fruitcake.”

  “You don’t have to make it,” I said, perhaps indiscreetly.

  “You don’t have to stand there.” I hated to admit it, but she did a pretty good imitation of me.

  Having received the expected response from Grammy, I sought out Mom, who was watching a blackand-white movie on TV. There were two reasons I asked her for a ride to Skowhegan instead of to Waterville, where the grown-ups did their Christmas shopping: there was no chance Mom could be talked into going to the city on a whim, and beyond that, I assumed that I couldn’t afford city prices for my presents anyway. If she took me to the smaller, nearer town of Skowhegan, I could head straight for the promised land of affordable shopping, LaVerdiere’s Super Drug Store. If there was ever a place to get more than thirty gifts for under fifteen bucks, that was it. Happily, Mom agreed to indulge me.

  Note that LaVerdiere’s was no mere drugstore—it was a super drugstore. This was not false advertising. Long before Wal-Mart, LaVerdiere’s was playing the everything-in-one-place game—just in a very small place. You could fill a prescription for antibiotics, pick up a copy of LIFE magazine, refresh your supply of Bag Balm, buy a gift set of Jean Naté cologne, grab a handful of Slim Jims, try on a pair of Isotoner gloves, and find a Waylon Jennings LP all in one stop. The aisles were narrow because the merchandise leaned in on all sides, and it was easy to hide out of sight if, for instance, you wanted privacy as you took a quick peek at Tiger Beat. I knew that if my quest was to be completed, I had to begin here.

  I saw shiny plastic eggs stuffed with pantyhose and was tempted to turn the tables on Grammy, stocking for stocking, but knew this gift would be too naked a rebuttal. Grampy’s gift was easier: a three-pack of paintbrushes, which he could use in completing the Paint By Numbers landscapes that consumed a good part of his day. Ignacio would get a pack of Monster Cards, each card depicting a horrible creature from the movies, accompanied by that stale pink gum that always reminded me of a tongue depressor. Then I stumbled on a holiday stickpin, which I figured Grammy might actually use since she occasionally dressed up her good church suit with a brooch. I still had $12 left, but I knew that for nonfamily members, I was going to have to speed up my process, or I’d never be finished before Mom grew tired of waiting for me.

  I turned down the aisle of Christmas supplies and found myself in a wonderland of shopping. The boxed ornament sets leapt out at me here: I could get six, eight, even twelve gifts at once for only a few dollars. This was perfect, I thought, because everyone likes Christmas, right? I just needed to give people the ornaments they’d most appreciate. I snagged a mixed set of twelve wooden animals, another of eight colorful bulbs. The third box was a variety pack of a dozen reindeer, angels, snowmen, and wee carolers. Just like that, I had thirty-five of my thirty-six presents in hand a mere hour after announcing my plan to Grammy. I paid for my loot and hurried triumphantly out to the parking lot where Mom was warming up the car. Already sure that I was the most efficient of Santas, I made the thrilling discovery that I still had three precious dollars left in my wallet.

  That meant I could get something really good for Mom that I couldn’t find in LaVerdiere’s. With my father distant and Grammy so mercurial, I felt bonded with my mother and very protective. I hated it when she was depressed and loved it when she was happy, and I thought it was my job to keep her that way. I knew exactly what I wanted. An Avon Lady had been at my great aunt Marion’s house many months before, and I had seen there the absolute epitome of glamour: a bell-shaped crystal decanter filled with pink “Roses, Roses” perfume. If it was under $3, I would get it for Mom, and she was sure to just swoon.

  It took a day or two for Aunt Marion to get me the number for the Avon Lady, who seemed surprised to receive a phone call at home from an eleven-year-old boy customer, especially one with such a specific request. She warned me that products were seasonal and that the bell in question was really last year’s bell; the new bell was emerald green and just as good, she said, but she could tell by the way I recoiled—um, roses aren’t green—that it was the pink bell or nothing. She said she’d see what she could do.

  To pass the following days while I waited for her word, I wrapped thirty-five individual presents. Ignacio’s, Grammy’s, and Grampy’s all looked pretty small, but I tried to perch these gifts on others under the tree to increase their stature. Once removed from their cartons, the other thirty-two multipack presents were not only small but awkwardly shaped for wrapping, and I was sure that at least one of the light glass bulbs would implode before they were all delivered, thus killing my count. Eager to have the gifts safely out of my hands a full two weeks before Christmas, I started visiting neighbors late that same afternoon, with many of them evincing clear surprise, seeing as we’d never exchanged gifts before. I took the remainder of my bundles to school the next day, then finished up with a visit to the library where Mrs. Stanley accepted her present with an air of pleased puzzlement.

  It was getting dark when I finally got home. Grammy wanted to know where I’d been. This was my chance to say that I had just finished delivering all the presents I had bought with my humble savings. I made a big show of expressing how proud I was to give good gifts and how happy people were that I had thought of them. Grammy shrugged.

  “Well, good for you, but you missed a phone call.”

  The Avon Lady had rung to say she had found last year’s bell. I had a momentary panic—had Mom heard this call?—but Grammy told me she’d figured it was a surprise and hadn’t said anything to Mom. When I spoke to the Avon Lady that night, she told me I could pick up the bell at Marion’s house and, yes, it was under $3, which I could leave with my aunt.

  I had done it. And I had no intention of being shy about my grand achievement. In the days before Christmas, I bragged endlessly about my vigilance and cleverness. I should have just gotten a T-shirt bearing the slogan “36-for-14!” and given everyone’s ears a rest. But I was a typical missionary boy: I needed to spread the good word to ensure my example was followed.

  I got socks.

  I stewed all Christmas morning, sure of the wrongness of what had just happened. I wanted to pick a fight. When I found Grammy in the kitchen, slicing herself a hunk of the last dreaded loaf, I chose the risky and unusual tack of speaking to her in overtly sarcastic tones. “Is that more of your little fruitcake?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Nope. You’re my little fruitcake.”

  Her retort surprised me so much I almost laughed out loud, but I didn’t; there was no way on earth I would’ve let her see me smile.

  That night, by the time we he
aded up the street to Aunt Jean and Uncle Fred’s house for our Christmas visit, my sourness was already lifting, as I am constitutionally incapable of maintaining a bad mood for too long. Grammy wore her stickpin, even though she wasn’t in her church suit, which made me feel a little better. Mom told everyone about her bell, which I had to agree was pretty spectacular in its own faux-crystal way. And Jean made sure to point out the place on their tree where the reindeer ornament I’d gotten them was hanging. It was the first time I realized that, as much as I hated getting socks, I loved giving presents. My quest, despite not having its intended effect, had been worth it.

  And then the universe itself gave me a gift, a memory that outshines all others from that year. Grampy and Grammy drove home from Jean and Fred’s, with Ignacio hitching a ride in the car to keep out of the snow that had been falling steadily all evening. But Mom and I decided to walk back down the street. The world’s usual murmur was muffled by the new snow, and there were no plows in sight, nor any other traffic. At the far end of our street, we could see the only stoplight in town blinking red, as it always did. We walked arm in arm, taking careful steps so that we wouldn’t slip on patches of ice beneath the white powder. It was so quiet, so truly still, that I was sure I could hear the pit-pit touchdown of snowflakes, and even the blink of the stoplight seemed audible, a faint heartbeat.

  It made me think of a Robert Frost poem we had just learned in school in which the writer can hear the sound of “easy wind and downy flake.” When I told Mom I was thinking of a poem, she surprised me by saying she could guess which one. Despite the fact that my mother had also attended school in Norridgewock and had even had the same elementary and junior high school teachers as I did, it had never occurred to me that she might have learned this poem herself. (In those days, I was always astounded—and sometimes a little dismayed—when a grown-up actually knew something interesting.) “Whose woods these are,” she began, to my great delight, and I joined her in reciting the poem aloud as we walked.