Chapter Six
The house is a zoo at the best of times. Smells like it too with all those diapers soaking in the bathroom. We bought the baby a box of disposable diapers for Christmas. It’s a hint. Yep, there’s racket and whining all the time; toys in the middle of every room. Christmas only means more chaos. Even sitting can be dangerous.
“Lego Man just bit me in the butt,” Chris said as we settled onto the sofa.
“DID YOU SAY EGGS IN A BOAT WITH A HORSE?”
We both jumped.
“Grammy Hall, sorry! Didn’t see you there.” She was sitting in a chair in the corner. Hanna had piled a bunch of stuffed toys on top of her. Chris got up and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Grammy.”
“SPEAK UP YOUNG MAN! I’M HARD OF HEARING.” Actually, she’s almost deaf. Also, loopy.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS, GRAMMY!”
“MERRY CHRISTMAS YOURSELF, ALBERT. ARE YOU GOING TO GO TO BINGO TONIGHT?”
“Who’s Albert?” I asked Dad as he brought in some potato chips and Coke. I knew his was spiked with rum.
“Who knows?” he shrugged. “Time to open your presents, guys.”
Who says having two families is so bad?
“Holy Cow!” said Chris. He had just opened his “big” present. We always got tons of little ones from “Santa” and one big one.
“Look at this, would ya?” It was a 35-millimeter camera. “Cool, cool.”
“Julian, open yours now!” Hanna wiggled in beside me. “I helped wrap it!”
“Awesome,” I said. It was a camcorder.
“Figured we’d take lots of pictures this week. And we need some of us in action, too.” Dad was grinning from ear to ear.
“They costed the very same, too,” piped in Hanna. “Mommy told Daddy.”
After another turkey dinner and another helping of squash which I ate just to be polite, we settled in to watch the basketball game. Dad had taped it for us earlier.
After the game everything came unglued.
“Dan!” shouted Erika from the kitchen. “Could you keep Lukie in there with you? I need an extra set of hands in here!”
“Jules, get Lukie!” ordered Dad. That voice. The one that makes me want to say, no frickin’ way. But it was Christmas. I had a camcorder. I went into the kitchen just as Erika popped her breast out of her shirt to feed Maddie.
“Oh, Jesus!” I covered my eyes. “Sorry, Erika. Lukie, come on.”
When I went back to the living room, Grammy Hall was pointing out the window.
“LIGHTS ARE OUT! LIGHTS ARE OUT! CAN’T PLAY BINGO WITH NO LIGHTS!”
“Relax, Mom,” said Dad. But it was true. Half the Christmas tree lights on the tree outside had blown. He couldn’t have cared less. It was all he could do to keep his eyes open by that point.
Well, Grammy Hall was not a happy camper. She sprang out of her chair like some sort of jack-in-the-box. With her mouth puckered up like an elastic waistband, she shuffled on over to him. Then she biffed him on the ear with a rolled up newspaper. Chris and I almost lost it.
“FIX THE LIGHTS, ALBERT!”
Okay, okay, Ma,” he said and stood up. Well, wobbled up is more like it.
“Jules, you stay here with Lukie. Chris, come help me with the damn lights, okay?”
Right. Leave me inside with the crazy woman and the kids.
We watched from the window. I got out the camcorder. It was quite a show.
Dad stumbled around in the snow and almost banged Chris on the head with the ladder. I could see they were arguing about who would go up the ladder and figure out which bulb was burnt out. Dad won.
Chris looked in at me and shook his head.
Big Dan Hall made it up all right. And back down again, too.
The toe of his boot caught the top rung of the ladder.
The ladder caught in the tree.
The tree crashed on Dad.
Dad landed on Chris. With the tree and the ladder.
“Daddy go boom boom,” said Lukie, the silent one.
“DADDY” screamed Hanna and burst into tears.
“ERIKA!” I hollered.
Dad was laughing when I got out to see if they were okay. I thought Chris was too. Until he tried to stand up.
“My knee!” he screamed. Tears were streaming down his face.
We spent the rest of the night in the emergency room. Chris had a cast on up to his waist.
The ski trip? It was pretty much down the toilet.
“Harmless drunk, huh?” I said when we finally got to bed.
I waited for him to try and put a positive spin on this.
“Chris?”
“He’s an idiot, okay? Just leave me alone.”
Then he turned his back to me. And cried like a little boy. I couldn’t handle it.
“Chris? I got it all on videotape. Maybe we could send it in to that show? You know, funny home videos? I mean it was pretty funny to watch.”
“Yeah. Real hilarious. Ho, ho, ho.”