Guitar Christmas

I had unusual children. They wanted to stay at home and hand out candy on Halloween, and provided lists of their favorite charities when asked what they wanted for their birthdays. They seldom asked for anything and never made Christmas lists. They made gift buying almost impossible.

So, when my youngest sat on Santa's lap long enough to repeat her life story and share her endless list of perceived injustices in the world, an internal alarm went off. When he removed his glasses to wipe his eyes, my heart sank.

I had dealt with her questions and wishes for two months and still had a hard time controlling my sorrow; she had blindsided this poor man and his emotions. Santa looked around his elves and caught my eye. I shrugged, shallow, but the best I had to offer at the time. He hugged her close, kissed the top of her head, and sent her back to me.

"Did you see him kiss me?" She sounded relieved, maybe excited. "I told him I want him to bring my dad back, and he kissed me."

"What else did you tell him?" I hoped for a list of toys and a new conversation. "You were up there a long time."

She turned her eyes away. "I just told him about my dad so he'll find the right one." Her light, confident tone assured me she still believed a man in red could deliver anything she wanted. This would surely be the last year. I wished she could have wanted something possible.

As we walked through the mall, I asked more specific questions. What had she told Santa about her dad? Did she ask for anything else?

"I told him my dad had a beard and played guitar, and he liked Chucky Cheese. And he's dead."

"Santa can't bring your dad back," I said. "Nobody can. But maybe he could bring you a guitar." I waited out her labored sigh and defiant repositioning. "Did you ask for a guitar?"

"No way. He'd bring a toy one, like he did with the piano."

"Maybe not. You're older now."

"Santa only brings toy stuff. I want a real guitar."

I suggested we shop awhile before leaving and switched directions when her eyes lit up. "Choose a store. Anything except pets."

"Toys," she said, but changed her mind as we neared the organ music. "Can we go in the music store and look at microphones?"

"Look," I said, grateful for the microphone clue. "No touching and don't ask for anything because I don't have money for a microphone tonight."

Three frazzled clerks juggled impatient customers in the crowded store. My instinct said escape as I squeezed between the pre-teen male torturing a display drum set and a couple, obviously his parents, arguing over the length of time the noisemakers would hold his interest. By the time I cleared myself from the area and my head of the banging, my daughter had made her way to the other side of the store.

When I caught up with her, she had bypassed microphones and found a three-quarter acoustic hanging on the wall above the electric guitars. She stared, eyes glazed and lip pulled between her teeth, ignoring my presence, if it even registered with her. I stepped back to allow a frazzled employee through.

He started past her, stopped, and caught her eye. "Want me to get that for you?"

She shot me a glare. "I can't touch anything."

Without waiting for my response, he climbed a stepladder and handed the guitar down to her. "Okay, Mom?" He asked.

Saying no would have been like letting the air out of her arm floaties or denying the child another breath. She held the instrument and stared as though it might disappear if she looked away.

"Try it out," the defrazzling clerk urged.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and strummed, gently at first. As she grew comfortable and retreated into her own world, she warmed up her voice and let go. "Daddy's Hands," she sang, and played louder, her voice on key even if her chords weren't. Her song lured a gathering of customers to our corner of the store.

Still oblivious to everything around her, she stopped playing, traced the row of butterflies circling the sound hole, and said the magic words. "It was meant to be. I love butterflies."

"She wants it, Mom," the unfrazzled clerk said.

She climbed to her feet and handed the guitar back to him. "My mom doesn't have enough money."

I believe I heard gasps from the crowd and for a minute thought some of them were reaching for their wallets. "You can go back and tell Santa," I said. The clerk supported that idea, but she sighed and explained the problem with Santa and toy instruments.

"Maybe you can hold it?" I asked. "And we can tell Santa to come here and see what she wants?"

The too-freaking-excited-to-contain-himself clerk led the crowd in a series of cheers. "I'll take it down there myself and show it to him, after the store closes," he said. "And make sure he sees this exact guitar."

I pulled out my checkbook. "If you're sure, I guess we need to buy a strap and some guitar picks, so she'll be prepared."

"Positive. Santa's my buddy," the clerk said, walking behind the counter. He processed the transaction--with a twinkle in his eye--and handed the receipt to me.

My daughter received the butterfly guitar on Christmas that year. I got the real Santa.

Tiny's Tree House

No card game, sleepover, camping trip, or party was complete without at least one outrageous story about Tiny's tree house. That might sound juvenile unless you know Tiny was the huge groundskeeper at the prison, his tree house was on the criminal side of the fence, and only the baddest asses had first-hand experience with either. Everyone else thrived on rehashing stories they had heard from someone, who had met someone else who had been there.

Let me back up and explain my teen-aged theory about badasses. In addition to the vicarious thrills and wild stories they provided, if you treated a badass right you had a friend for life. You were as good as walking with a bodyguard or packing an assault rifle, even when alone, because nobody in his right mind messed with a girl who had developed a friend-for-life relationship with a true badass.

It seemed like the best of both worlds to me; without having to throw a punch, issue a warning, or muddy my image, I carried their threat through association. A couple of my friends-for-life, seldom-in-attendance bodyguards kept me supplied with first-hand stories about wild parties and huge fights at Tiny's tree house, which I retold every chance I got.

At home, Kim was the good one who did not befriend badasses. Jill and I tested every rule, stopping short of illegal, or permanent damage. However, if the people we were with decided to break laws, cause permanent damage, or crossover into baddass status, we hung on tight for the ride. Kim kept our escapades from Mom and Dad because we provided her with stories to tell her friends who never did anything exciting.

Jill and I stayed grounded much of the time, despite Kim's discretion. We were on no-friends-over house restriction the night we ended up at Tiny's, but Kim managed to pout us out. She shocked Dad, usually unaffected by her droopy bottom lip and forced tears, with, "I might as well do the bad things they do, since I'm stuck here every time you ground them."

Without looking up from his book, he replied. "You don't have to sit here with them. Go out and have fun."

She rolled her eyes, plopped beside him on the couch, planted her head on his shoulder, and asked what he was reading. I'm sure he knew Kim would not let him read another word in peace. He called Jill and me down from the stairs where we sat waiting, and said we could go out, if Kim decided where we went and what we did.

I could live with Kim's weird notion that eating a pizza was a good time, as long as I was out of the house. We felt like winners as we paraded off the block, Jill and I because we beat the rap, Kim for being our heroine and in control.

Three blocks before we reached Pizza Hut, borderline baddass Ron Johnson's car pulled up beside us. Kim grabbed Jill and me by our clothes and smirked. "Don't forget, we do what I want."

While the two of them fought over the damage Kim was doing to Jill's blouse, I invited the four guys in the car to join us for pizza. "Fuck Pizza Hut," Ron said. "Ride out to Tiny's with us."

Jill's blouse forgotten, Kim surprised us. "I get front seat," she called, marching toward the car.

I suffered a few moments of total panic until I settled in the backseat beside Lloyd Penn, who had earned his baddest-ass-ever status by having a good ten years on the rest of us, and a history inside the prison.

The forty-five minute drive was uneventful except for Kim's constant harping at Ron to drive faster. "We have to be home in the time it should take to eat our pizza," she kept reminding him.

Ron took it well. He didn't slow down until we skidded through a patch of gravel and came to a jolting halt inches from a chain-link gate. Kim screamed and the other guys laughed. Ron flashed the headlights three times, leaving them off on the last one. Being in on the secret code gave me goose bumps, followed by a full chill when the gate opened and the car rolled over the line into dangerous territory.

The gate closed and we rode across the field with only a bonfire in the distance to guide us. I decided that first chill was all the first-hand experience I needed and interpreted Kim's silence and Jill's heavy breathing as confirmation of their agreement, but doubted we could convince the guys to turn back. Their energy filled the car.

Lloyd's iron thigh pressed against mine, the heat branding me with confidence and energy by the time Ron stopped the car and shut off the engine. Jimmy, Lloyd, and Kim got out ahead of me and stretched beside the car. When I finally poked my head out and glimpsed an ordinary house that was not connected in any way to a tree, I turned, ready to save Jill the trouble of crawling out. But, before I insisted they take us home, Ron stepped his massive frame to the side and I spotted the tree house.

Anxious to see if lanterns or extension chords supplied the light coming from inside, I paid little attention to how our group paired up and fanned out. Jaime led Jill and me up log stairs, and through the opening left in the wall of the cabin that someone had built on three trees.

Introductions escaped me as I registered three full-sized couches, end tables with lamps, and a wall phone inside a tree house. Minutes passed before I gave any attention to the men on the couches, who were older, rougher than badass, and actively ingesting, injecting, or inhaling drugs in various forms.

Kim's distant scream concluded my interest in the tree house and it's peculiar occupants. I backed down the stairs and ran, Jill and Jaime at my heals, through a stretch of darkness, past the deserted bonfire, and into another area so dark that a glowing ash on a cigarette was the only way we knew anyone was there. Jill tripped over a tree root, Jaime pulled her up, and we continued toward the tiny red target. As we got closer, Kim's laughter sent Jill into a rage.

"Why'd you scream? We thought you were hurt." Jill pulled Kim's clothes this time.

Ron tried to explain. "She walked through a spider web." A racing car engine cut him off.

Headlights cut through the darkness and showcased Lloyd, standing fifty feet ahead. Jill screamed when the car sped toward him and skidded to a stop just before hitting him.

My first experience with Tiny came from behind. "Get the screaming bitches out of here," he blasted. The voice shook me to the core, even before I turned to see that none of the stories I had heard came close to describing how large, or hairy, this man truly was.

"I'll take them to the house," Ron said. Jill and Kim followed with no argument.

Jaime reached for my hand. "I didn't scream," I whispered. "We can't leave Lloyd."

"Lloyd doesn't need us here." Jaime's words held little conviction.

Tiny, whose name seemed more ridiculous than ever once I had seen him, laughed. "Long as she keeps her mouth shut, she's okay."

Lloyd traded places with the driver. Jaime and I watched a few more rounds of this game where everyone but Lloyd jumped aside before the car stopped and the crowd shouted chicken.

Confident my baddest-ass-ever friend was safe without me and had no intention of quitting any time soon, I nodded when Jaime suggested we go sit by the fire.

A different group, looking much like the tree house gang, had gathered around the fire. They played a less dangerous chicken game where they tossed hot rocks at one another and laughed when anyone jumped or dodged. One guy called out numbers, which I assumed were scores, but didn't bother trying to figure out the rules of the game.

Disappointment set in. The actual experience did not measure up to the stories I had heard about Tiny's. I found these sweaty, scarred men more repulsive than frightening, the tree house more absurd than legendary, and the games more childish than brave. I wanted to find Jill, Kim, and Ron and remind them we had exceeded our pizza eating time. I wanted pizza.

Jaime's voice interrupted my thoughts. "She isn't playing." He didn't sound like a badass and suddenly looked small and innocent compared to the stone tossers who were laughing at him. The fear in his face scared me, even though I had no idea what he had seen or heard before making his comment.

"I'm not playing any games," I said. "I need to go home soon."

A toothless version of Tiny howled. "Ain't nobody asking her to play. She's the fucking prize."

Jaime grabbed my hand, more insistent this time, and pulled me off the bench. "Let's go find Ron and the girls."

"She ain't going nowhere," Tiny Jr. said, no trace of the howling laughter left in his voice. To confirm his order, the wiry guy closest to me tossed his stone into the fire and placed a searing, death grip on my arm. After losing a brief game of tug-o-war for my body, Jaime took off toward the house.

Toothless guy decided wiry guy had not won anything, and had no claim on me. Wiry guy eased his grip to argue the current score with the other contestants. Figuring screaming would serve no purpose and I was raped or dead if I stayed, I jumped the bench and ran.

The self-proclaimed game winner chased me, catching up when I ran into a small tree a couple of feet into the darkness. He tugged at me; my inner arms absorbed a layer of bark from hugging the tree.

Headlights out and back door opened, Ron's car pulled in beside me. I kicked the winner and jumped in the car. We left Lloyd behind and sped through darkness to the gate, which miraculously opened for us, a puzzle that escaped me until much later. Tiny must not have been the monster everyone assumed. I left his image tainted, thinking he would prefer it that way.
Mom met us at the front door. I hid my barky arms and choked back the please ground me for the rest of my life sitting on my tongue.

Kim's life changed as much as mine did that night. Once she stopped gloating over the fact that she was as grounded as we were, she decided she was officially bad enough to date Ron.

He Deserves Better

"Come on. He deserves better."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"If you know it, why don't you let him go?"

She releases her hair, lets it fall over her face, stalls, wants to escape his eyes. He holds the pressure, refuses to smile, obviously expects an answer. "I've tried, I've done everything possible to push him away."

"You're breaking him. He really doesn't deserve this pain."

"I really don't deserve this pain, either." Was that defensive, or pitiful? She replays, analyzes, can't decide. "I don't want to be this way."

"He loves you too much."

"I know that." Defensive. No doubt. Too much love is the problem. What can she do with too much?

"I told him to divorce you." He loses the attitude. "Sorry. That's what he needs to do."

Tears. Always tears when she wants them least. "Don't be sorry. I tell him the same."

"Then why do you keep coming back? You confuse him. Give him hope."

"You really don't get it." Screw the tears. She glares back through the steady stream.

Finally, he looks away, sighs, maybe he wants to understand. "Why the hell do you keep hurting him?"

"I always think I can do it this time. One more chance and I'll get it right. But I don't."

He comes back with cold eyes. "I don't like you right now."

"No problem. I don't like me right now."

"You won't change, will you?"

"Someday. Probably not soon enough to save his broken heart."

He acts human, places his hands on her shoulders, and pleads with his eyes. "Let him go."

Her throat closes. She nods.

"Make him hate you so he can move on."

She closes her eyes, doesn't care about the tears that continue to pour, nods again.

"Promise?"

She dies inside, whispers, "Promise."

His hug feels sincere. She walks away, buries her love deeper. He deserves better. She can't handle too much.

Mrs. Donohoe's Pruning Tool

Mrs. Donohoe was the original Edward Scissorhands, wielding a pruning tool like an extension of her hands. She took great pride in her lawn and flowerbeds, clipping, digging, fertilizing, and transplanting, from dawn until dusk, spring through autumn. The only time she broke from her work was to threaten trespassers with her pruning tool and a harsh, "Step on my lawn and I'll cut off your ears."

Most children feared Mrs. Donohoe, often crossing to the other side of the street to avoid her property. Some eased past her house, carefully monitoring each step to avoid accidents. A few brave ones watched for her to settle into weeding position on her knees, touched a toe or finger to her grass, and ran when she finally rose with the pruning tool to come after them.

Adults either laughed at Mrs. Donohoe, "You'd think those begonias were gold," or resented her, "Who does she think she is?" Mr. and Mrs. Johnson took it even further; they hated Mrs. Donohue. "We don't care about her pansies. Kids will be kids and she'd better leave ours alone." They taunted her. "Move if you don't want our kids picking your tulips."

One summer, Mr. Johnson's brother and his family came to stay with our Johnsons, bringing the total number of Johnson kids on the block up to eight. Mrs. Donohoe wore herself out chasing the new kids with her pruning tool. She left her own yard and chased the Johnson kids off every lawn. The neighbors congregated in lawn chairs to laugh and talk about her. The crazy lady should mind her own business.



The new Johnson kids tired of picking tulips and pansies and taught the original Johnson kids new games. They flattened metal garbage cans, toilet-papered trees, and egged houses and cars. Mrs. Donohoe couldn't keep up with them. When she called on the neighbors for help, they refused her because the original Mrs. Johnson always waved when she passed and the new one was expecting another baby any day. Besides, both Mr. Johnsons were loud and owned guns, so nobody wanted to cross them. They said she should really just mind her own business; the neighborhood belonged to everyone.

Daddy Johnsons came home from an auction with baseball bats, gloves, and balls, and the Johnson kids turned the street into a baseball field. A few people sided with Mrs. Donohoe when they tired of parking at the corner because they couldn't get through the game to their homes. They slipped over to her house late at night, when the Johnsons weren't looking, and asked her to expand her pruning tool chase into the street.

When the sun came up, they stayed inside and left her on her own. Some continued to shout insults at her while they waved to Mrs. Johnson.

For Sale signs went up in three yards after the owners replaced baseball-shattered windows in their cars and homes. Others tired of replacing glass and covered their windows with boards. The only prospective buyers willing to brave crossing the Johnson kids and their baseball bats were those carrying weapons bigger than the baseball bats.

Soon, the Johnsons were the only people on the block who ventured outdoors. There were two ways off the block: through the alley and selling property at half its value.

Mrs. Donohoe let her yard turn into right field. She sold her pruning tool to replace the side panel in her front door.

Resourceful Disassembly

We met at the house to disassemble their lives. In one evening, we took apart what they had created, collected, and been in their years together. We held the pieces of their lives - our history - in our hands and decided what we would keep, and what we would leave behind forever.


Some things we all remembered the same, waved off or declared a keeper without discussion, and moved away from without a second thought. Others held different meaning for each of us, depending on our ages, interests, and perceptions. We all wanted a few things, and there were some none of us wanted but begged the others to take so they wouldn't disappear.

The white step might represent every category. Built from wood scraps in Daddy's workshop, sanded to perfection, and finished with the white, high gloss paint he often used, it might have brought in a quarter at a yard sale. None of us needed or wanted it, nor could we let it go. My brother and I remembered it first as a nuisance we had tripped around in the bathroom for a few years. Our much younger and shorter sister defended her step to independence; with it, she was able to wash her hands and brush her teeth without assistance.

My daughter won possession of the step with her memories of dragging it around while she helped her grandfather build the house. Whatever the project, she appeared, white step and plastic tools in hand, to stand or sit beside him until they had completed their work. He coached, complimented, explained, and wasted hours of his time putting his tools down to lift her and the white step and move them to a new position, where he needed her expert workmanship more. It seldom took long for her to inch her way back under his feet, and for him to smile, put his tools down again, and move her to another new spot.

To anyone else, it might have appeared we were cleaning up after what must have been the two worst packrats ever born. After sorting through the coffee cans and wooden crates of doohickeys and thingamabobs in his workshop, the recycles and sale items in her sewing table and junk drawers, their libraries and boxes of documents and greeting cards, I saw the wonder of two resourceful, loving people. The coffee can and junk drawer enabled special moments, like when I came in to see the finished pantry in my remodeled kitchen and recognized the knobs from my old bedroom closet, and when I bought the coat with the ugly buttons, and Mom found perfect replacements in her sewing table.

Between them, they could repair or create, define or explain anything. They left instructions for life, photographs and movies, music, recipes, tangible evidence of their births, marriage, accomplishments, and their appreciation of our expressions of love over the years. For anything we had not absorbed enough of, there was something in that house we could take with us to continue the session.

I came home with the baskets Mom wove and a ceramic clock she painted, a pair of wooden birds Daddy made, a toothpick holder, a bobby pin dish, a planer and a rosary I made for my grandmother when I was in fourth grade. The clock, birds, and baskets are the only items I will ever use and I doubt a stranger would have chosen any of these items from the house full of selections. They mean the world to me because, collectively, they symbolize my parents.

Be Still My Hand

She caught the misguided traitor--once known as her left hand--in time to save face, but too late to protect her emotions. Two decades of near-perfect denial washed away, dropping her in a life-changing spiral of churning, rallied love.

An instant replay of the morning's interactions assured her that she bore total responsibility for the break from reality. He had not crossed one forbidden line, uttered a word of encouragement, donated an emotion, or contributed anything to the imaginary wall she had placed between their seats and those carrying the children behind them in the van. She had looked over during a lull between how's Linda and have you heard from Rob and imagined sadness or regret in his prolonged blink. She turned her world inside out; he blocked the sun from his eyes.

What if she hadn't found the willpower to paralyze the shameful extremity? Were the children old enough to understand the implications of a spontaneous touch? Would he have felt I adore you branded where she touched him? She sat on the hand until it tingled and went numb, wondering how it could have detached from the rest of her, forgotten the divorce, taken on a life of its own, and assumed liberties that belonged to someone else.

When they arrived at the park, she shook blood flow back into the wayward hand, helped release children from seat belts, and grabbed the hands of the two youngest, thinking she might persuade one of them to stay with her when the others took off for swings and slides. He selected a picnic table near the play area, told the children they would watch from there, and sent them to play. The tiny hands in hers broke away and left her, vulnerable to the liberated hand.

She reset her perfect ponytail and emptied sand from her shoe – anything to keep the hand busy while he chose his place, back against the table, facing the action. When he looked settled, she sat on the tabletop, her feet on the bench beside him. Resting her elbows on her legs, she leaned forward and clasped her hands in front of her, far from his legs, so she could keep an eye on them and the children at the same time.

In this safe position, she forgot his leg. Instead, she focused on his head. How could a man his age still have that much hair? If anything had changed, it looked like he had more hair than he had twenty years before. That wasn't possible. The hands (both of them this time) went back under her legs. Like a bruise that begs a validating poke, his hair beckoned her aching hands. One touch would satisfy, but how would she explain it? There was a fly on your head?

She walked away when her thoughts went from embarrassing— If I trip getting down from here, I'll have to grab him for support-- to insane--If I'm lucky he'll need CPR before we leave.

The kids enjoyed having her join them on the swings. She was pleased to have those chains keep her hands occupied.

Bet You Can't Beat This

Our quarrel began the night before I was born and ended the morning she died unless, as I suspect, her spirit lingers to resent the funeral. A rational person would assume that if she knows about the arrangements, she should also know that I voiced her final wishes, defended her outlandish choice, and disputed their veto, but lucidity seldom entered our relationship. If experience and idioms are to be trusted, she is most likely flailing in her grave, blaming me.
Just in case, I will spend today resenting her back. (Lest you think I am disrespectful, I assure you she would appreciate this.) Today is not my birthday. However, it is the day she would deliver a birthday card laced with the only lottery ticket I would touch this year since I am not a gambler.

They all wanted me to enter this life on my grandmother's birthday. I teased them by sending my mother into labor and drawing everyone to the hospital on the correct day; but I waited until after midnight to make my appearance, setting the stage for a lifetime of drama. Mom and Grammy forgave me, I assume immediately since I recall no early problems with them. Struggles with Aunt Jackie, on the other hand, haunt some of my youngest memories and rifle the balance of the years we shared.

My penchant for never sleeping started with the long nights of vice-grip determination to keep her from taking my pillow. Sharing my room and my bed were enough - the pillow was not included in the deal. I tired of calling heads or tails, picking a hand, guessing a number, drawing a card, or rolling a die, and learned to feign sleep. Eyes tight, knuckles white, I listened for her to come in and then forced the weight of my entire body into my head. By morning, she ended up with two pillows, and I was left with my head resting flat on the mattress.

Insomnia, lottery tickets, and birthday celebrations on the wrong date were not the only or the most significant gifts I received from this aunt. True to her eccentric nature, she delivered excessive gifts, twisted in resentment, and adorned in life lessons. It took half a lifetime to understand that she was not purposely torturing me with the marathon dinners in lavish restaurants when I would rather have been at home, eating pizza with my friends, and that giving me extravagant clothes and jewelry that I thought were gorgeous but not me allowed her to play the mother sometimes.

For years, I believed the lifetime of resentment she harbored toward me stemmed from my having placed an inexcusable burden on her calendar. Either waiting for my slow birth had kept her from the most exciting date ever, or the thought of family celebrations on two consecutive days was more than she could handle. My calendar theory faded after years of watching her enjoy poker games, horse races, and bingos, and I decided she must have wagered a small fortune on my delivery date.

Whatever the reason, I had no power to amend my transgression so I balanced the playing field by endorsing her unique characteristics. Eventually, I earned her respect by beating her at her own games. For example, when she decided it was okay to lift a Christmas tree ornament as long as three like it remained, I bought the biggest tree I could find, decorated it in threes, and bet her a dollar she would not find a liftable ornament. She could not resist, or hide how proud she was of me for beating her.

When she announced her final request, I supported her. A game of showdown poker-winner takes all--on her casket seemed much more appropriate than a traditional will for this aunt. Unfortunately, husbands, sisters, attorneys, and funeral directors aren't always as open-minded as I am.

So, in case she is around, resenting me for not insisting on that poker hand, I will assume she is also wishing me a Happy Birthday and resent her having the wrong day. I might play a game of showdown poker and honestly lose everything she owned. For sure, even if she isn't lingering, I will miss her and appreciate the many gifts she has given me.