“Got any new games?”
Of course he would ask that; he has no concept of living on a budget. Yeah, no, dipshit. No new games.
JP leans in way too close for comfort. “Can I talk to you?”
“What do you want, JP?” I say, low as I can. “You want to use me? Feed me a load of shit so I do something dumb for you because some poor kid didn’t pay you back? Well, guess what: those days are over. Whatever you have to say is pretty fucking pointless these days.”
“Whatever, dude.” JP slips away and I’m alone again.
Fine. He’s got nothing. He wants to talk? That’s nice, since he’s nothing but talk. There’s no way he has anything relevant to say, it’s him being full of shit as per usual. I keep my head down and steady my hands on the machine. I start to go through the motions and count one…two…three…four…, but the background noise deep inside my head wonders what he wants.
THIRTY-ONE
The holidays at my house are always lonely.
In a lot of ways, I blame said house. Mom didn’t want to leave it when Dad died, and twelve years later the mortgage is still sucking her dry. It’s more important to her to keep the house she picked out with Dad when he was an upstart young engineer than it is to move somewhere else more affordable. So we stay permanently house poor. Some days it seems like a tent on the side of a highway would be most prudent. We don’t travel. We don’t get on planes and visit relatives back East often, if ever. It’s me and Mom and the ghost of a dead man that only talks to her.
She loses it, reliably, either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, which is the worst because it means the rest of the day gets a shroud draped over everything until at least dinner.
Unfortunately, this year it’s Christmas morning.
I knock on her door when she’s not up yet, a cup of coffee for her in my hand. After a feeble go-ahead, I enter.
The blinds are drawn and she sits on the bed, sinking into the middle like a bowling ball. “Merry Christmas,” she says in a dull voice. Yup, this is Christmas.
“You okay?”
“Yup.”
She is not okay.
“I brought you coffee,” I say.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
I sit down next to her and we stare at the wall. I’ve learned it’s best not to say anything. In time, Mom sips the coffee. She doesn’t need to bother blowing on it; it’s plenty lukewarm by now. She does the same thing she always does: turns her head, smiles at me with all the joy of an old shoe left in a puddle, and says, “Just miss him, you know?”
“I know.”
“We’ve been chatting, he and I.”
“What’s he saying?” Because I don’t know. Because it feels like I will never know.
“Afraid that’s between me and your dad,” she says.
“Does he say anything else?” That no matter what happens, I’ll be okay?
“You know you can always ask him anything, sweetie.”
Merry Christmas. Here’s a punch to the gut because goddammit, I’ve been asking him things for over a decade and looking for signs in every dead crow and lost penny I see and always coming up with nothing on top of nothing.
She gets up, I follow, and we go into the living room to open presents.
I got my mom a garlic press for Christmas and some new slippers. She got me a gift certificate to our local bookstore, a new pair of shoes, some extra wiring for the train set, and this amazing salmon jerky from a place we like to visit in Astoria. It’s seriously fish candy, but it’s pricey as hell, so I know what a treat it is. Someday when I’m rich, from football or being brilliant or both, I’m taking my mom to the smoked-fish shop and we’re buying the whole store.
It’s a good goal.
I have a lot of them now. They are short and don’t involve much more than do this, get a small reward. Like a scientific experiment. If you floss today, you get ten extra minutes with this book. If you look ahead and do five problems from tomorrow’s homework, you get five more sets of push-ups. Stupid stuff like that. Doesn’t matter what it is—it serves a purpose: don’t think about Jamie.
We have a few tapes of Dad. I watch them on holidays and my birthday. Not too often. Like if I watch the tapes too much, they’ll turn to dust because that’s what Mom told me when I went on a bender in the sixth grade. Even though we had them digitally transferred after that, I’m still afraid to take my chances.