LIGHTS IN THE DARK
FICTION BY ROBERT CRAIG
Every Christmas, for many years. His mother always teased his father about putting up a tree. And oh how grand it would be. The lights! The colored Christmas balls! His father would roll his eyes. She was brought up Protestant but married a Jewish man and had two sons. The boys were raised Jewish, but Roy and his mother had their own thing around the holidays. Coveted and covert Christmas secrets. Candy canes and cartoons, chocolate Santas and Christmas carols on the radio while they were alone in the car. Singing together. He still knows all the words.
And every year at Christmas, she always bought gifts for her sister's family. Roy and his mother would shop together, the malls full of crowds and Christmas trees. Enormous, decked and decorated. Roy fascinated with the bows, the glow, the tinsel and lights. Sitting on a mall bench, eating his ice cream cone, watching the waves of shoppers in a forest of fake firs and plastic pines.
And here is Roy now. In his living room. Watching Bruce put up strings of lights around a tree he brought home. Bruce had to return and borrow Roy's truck that says Horwich Lumber on the doors. And the looks Bruce got putting a Christmas tree in the Horwich truck. It's a small town. People were talking. He went out for beer and leeks and came home with a tree.
He had to go back out for a tree stand and lights and the leeks and beer while Roy moved around the living room furniture. The curious dog watching him.
And now, humming as he goes, Bruce tucks the lights into the branches. Walking around the tree. Adjusting and standing back, squinting then adjusting more. Filling in the bare spots. The places bald of light.
Roy sits on the sofa watching Bruce walk around the tree. Grinning a little. He's happy for some change, something different. The winter last year was long and lonely. He thinks about the shopping malls with his mother and all the fancy trees. Magical monuments of cheer.
Quiet Christmas music plays just above the TV volume in the next room.
While no one is paying attention, the dog gets up off the floor and sneaks into the kitchen. Both men hear the trash can lid pop open and snap shut. Get Out of the Trash Roy yells. Then the pop and snap again before the dog returns guilty. With a thud, plopping down on the rug and falling back asleep.
Roy asks questions about growing up and Christmas morning, Santa and stockings, his family's traditions. Bruce tells him about the year his parents went to a party and came home drunk and forgot it was Christmas Eve. His back peddling parents hung-over with guilt the next morning. And the year the gift tags got messed up and he opened his sister's doll set and was so happy. Beaming like a Christmas angel high atop the tree. His mother didn't say a word and she told his father to stay out of it. His angry sister staring at him with eyes full hate.
Roy gets up for more beer and checks the wood stove. It's going to get into the teens tonight.
And then the lights are done. Bruce stands back and admires the stocky tannenbaum covered in stars like a little milky way. The men have no ornaments or tinsel. But it doesn't matter. It's perfect the way it is. The tree is a monument of change.
Bruce looks around and sees a ravaged, slobber soaked dog toy. A fox missing a leg. He smiles. Hands it to Roy, who tops the tree with the gutted toy.
He walks around the house turning out all the lights except the tree. The dog follows him patiently.
Back in the living room. Roy hears the furnace click on and soon the old cast iron pipes are banging and clanking as the steam warms the house. Radiators hiss as the temperature outside drops. The men sit on the sofa together in the old house quiet.
The glow of the tree. A long kiss on the lips. A tender touch. The smell of Christmas. Bruce's hands sticky with sap.