Chapter 19: A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Saturday, December 25, 1971

I drove over to the house at eight on Christmas morning. Once again, I was thankful I lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line. A white Christmas sounds awfully nice, but believe me, it’s not. Snow causes accidents and people die because they can’t handle it. I spent fifty years in upstate New York, where it snows six months of the year, and is chilly another four months. The last remaining months are July and August, which is when the mosquitoes breed and grow to a size able to carry off small children and pets. We routinely got eight-plus feet of snow a year, and some parts of the state got much, much more!

I let myself in through the front door, to find most of the family already waiting. Of course, Suzie was only ten, so she had made sure everybody got up. My mother, Nana, and Suzie were sitting in the living room, Dad was preparing to cook breakfast, and Hamilton was downstairs in his room. I had several bags filled with wrapped gifts, which Suzie grabbed out of my hands and spread around the tree. Mom called Hamilton up and Dad came in and greeted me.

We had a few traditions around the Buckman household, and the Christmas tree was one of them. It went up the first weekend of December and would stay up until the first weekend after New Year’s. Once you had bought somebody a gift, you could wrap it and place it under the tree, a sacrosanct region. Nobody could cheat and peek, on pain of a loud and horrendous thumping, and the loss of the present. You were, however, allowed to pick up the present and shake it and make guesses.

When I was twelve, a large box appeared under the tree on the first day after we set the tree up, addressed to me, from Ham and Suzie. It was large and heavy, and something was rattling around inside it, thumping against the sides of the box. It was right there in the middle of the living room, so no way could I cheat and not get caught. For almost a month this thing intrigued me, and it was the first thing I grabbed and ripped open that Christmas morning. I have no idea where they got it, but my siblings had managed to scrape up a ten-pound lump of coal! My parents almost died of laughter, and my brother and sister were inordinately proud of themselves. Well, okay, they earned it. I was the butt of jokes every Christmas after that for the rest of my life.

The other major Christmas tradition, at least regarding presents, was that you had to get Hamilton two. Believe it or not, the little asshole’s birthday was December 25. Today was his 14^th birthday. The rule was that we would have Christmas presents in the morning, around the tree, and birthday presents in the evening, after dinner, at the table. Also, you had to buy him two presents. There was no cheating allowed; you couldn’t say that one present cost extra, so it should count for two. Nope, one in the morning and one in the evening. He didn’t get squat the rest of the year.

Almost the whole family was like that. My birthday was in November, and both my parents were in January. Only Suzie was smart enough to be born in June and get stuff every six months.

As soon as we were all in the living room, Suzie went to work, grabbing presents and handing them out. I just sat there on the couch, waiting for a few, but nothing came by. Well, I knew enough probability and set theory to not worry about it. I’d end up with a giant pile at the end of things. After a few minutes, however, even my parents were starting to wonder where my presents were. They even told Suzie to find mine, so I didn’t just sit there. It never occurred to any of us that they wouldn’t be there.

But they weren’t. There was absolutely nothing under the tree for me. I looked over at Mom and Dad with a raised eyebrow, and they just stared back at me in horror. “Where’s Carl’s presents?” she asked.

For once, at least, nobody could blame me. Dad and Mom and Suzie just started squawking, and I sat there wondering what was happening. That was when we all realized that the only person not speaking was my brother, Hamilton. I looked over at him to see a ghost of a smile on his face, an expression which completely disappeared when my parents started asking if he knew where my presents were. He just had a look of superiority on his face. “I don’t know where his presents are!” was all he said.

My parents continued quizzing everybody else, including Hamilton, and the din became quite loud. It took me about thirty seconds to figure it out. Dad was looking at me, when I told Hamilton, “You little shitweasel. You really did it this time, didn’t you?”

“What was that?” demanded my father, waving everybody else into silence. His head was swiveling between me and Hamilton.

Hamilton simply gave us an innocent look, and repeated, “I don’t know where his presents are.”

“No, you don’t...”, I agreed, “ ... because you don’t know where the dump is. For once in your life, you’re actually telling the truth. I am almost impressed.”

My father was stunned, and my mother simply gasped in disbelief. “Carling, take that back! Hamilton wouldn’t have done that! He couldn’t have done that!”

I just smiled at her. “It would have been simple. All he would have to do is sneak up here at night, the night you put out the garbage. All he has to do is take any presents for me and take them downstairs and rearrange everything so that it looks normal.”

Even my father couldn’t believe Hamilton could do that. “Impossible! We’d catch him!”

“Really? Who takes the garbage out now that I don’t live here anymore?” I leaned back on the couch and crossed my arms. It was sort of clever. As I’ve said before, Hamilton is not exactly the criminal mastermind, but for once he managed to pull one off. He could grab anything for me, stuff it into the garbage cans, and then deliver it to the curb himself. I wondered what I had gotten that I wasn’t going to get now.

My father simply stared at me in horror, and then slowly turned on my brother. I wondered if Hamilton had finally burned his last bridge with my Dad. Nana was sitting there very confused. Suzie was crying, because she had knitted me a small scarf; Nana and Mom had taught her how to knit. My mother continued to protest Ham’s innocence.

Ham might have gotten away with it, but he decided to push his luck. Most criminals talk their way straight into jail, and he was no different. “People who don’t live here don’t get presents,” he announced.

“Yeah, you’re right, I guess they don’t.” I stood up and went to the closet. I grabbed my coat and pulled it on. “I’ll see you guys around.” I was out the door before they could protest. Mom ran out of the house after me, in her robe and slippers, but I just waved good-bye and took off. I found a Denny’s that was open on York Road in Timonium and had breakfast there. When I got home, I found the message light on the answering machine lit but didn’t bother. Another call came through, and it was my mother pleading for me to call, but I ignored it and unplugged the phone.

In 1971, answering machines were rather unusual. In the future, in the digital computer age, voice mail and answering machines would become commonplace, but that was twenty or more years from now. In those days, an answering machine was a small tape recorder, and you had to wind through your messages. I had a very bland greeting on mine, simply stating we weren’t home, so leave us a message. In case Jeana’s parents ever called, they would think it was my parent’s number.

It might have been the loneliest I have ever been. I won’t lie about it. I cried. In some ways, it was even worse than when Marilyn or Alison died, because then I had family around me. Now it was my family which had abandoned me. I just sat there in the apartment until early afternoon, wallowing in my sorrow, and then decided the hell with it. Being miserable is only good in small doses. I opened a bottle of Chardonnay and went on with my life.

The first thing I did was plug in the telephone and listen to my messages. Except for one of them, they were all from my mother. The only one which wasn’t was from Jeana. I called her back. I didn’t tell her what Hamilton had done. We talked briefly, and I told her I would come to dinner on Sunday. If I had told her about today, she would invite me for Christmas dinner at her house, which would raise far too many questions from her folks.

I didn’t call my mother back, and I continued to use the answering machine to screen my calls. Later, that evening, after dinner, my father called. I answered him. “I’m here, Dad.”