Christmas in Culm: Three Stories

  I ignored her, pulling her even harder. The air was waming, the trailer creaking as it lengthened itself into a long corridor.

  "Jane, what—"

  "Keep going and don't stop, Mom," I said. "Just keep going. We’re not going back. Just like you said."

  Suddenly, the trailer doors opened wide, and Dad’s shadow stretched down the corridor. All around us, his shadow touched everything.

  VI. The Forever Island

  Mom was dazed by the lengthening corridor in front of us and the lengthening shadow behind us. Her head snapped back and forth as I pulled her forward, her feet tangling, her legs rubbery and unbalanced. Dad had stepped inside the trailer, his heavy boots thumping on the wood floor. "Bernice," he said loudly, but calmly. "Bernice, come back here. I just want to talk."

  We zig-zagged down the corridor, the way illuminated by deep amber ambient light that seemed to come from nowhere but was everywhere. The metal walls creaked as the corridor lengthened and as the trailer doors steadily receded. Dad was still standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the white of his truck lights pouring through the treeline. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was simply gaining his footing. Or maybe he stood in bewilderment as the interior of the semi-trailer stretched before his eyes, his wife and daughter hurtling down its length, getting farther and farther away.

  Dad increased his pace, his boots thumping like deep heartbeats that echoed off the steel walls. He called our names again and again in flat, almost robotic tones.

  He kept walking faster. And faster.

  Mom began limping. She was having a hard time catching her breath, and the run through the fields and down the corridor was beginning to wear on her knees. She’d reach down, trying to rub away her left knee, but she’d see Dad closing in and then lope forward with a gasp, my hand pulling her forward.

  I smelled the salt and felt the air warming, and I scanned the walls for the doorway that led to the pier, but the corridor only continued to lengthen. Several yards ahead, a doorway seemed to appear to the right, then to the left, then vanish, and after a few seconds, another dark doorway would appear, then vanish. I heard myself say, "No," every time a black doorway appeared then disappeared. "No," I’d say, "No." All around us, the walls creaked and groaned. Something like the sound of metal sliding over metal came through the walls, and when it stopped, another door would appear, then disappear.

  Dad was now jogging. "You better not make me run, Bernice," he shouted.

  Mom yelped as her left knee buckled.

  "You never could run fast," he shouted.

  As I turned I could make out the features on his face. The dark, almost plastic-like eyes, the straight mouth, the black hair flecked with gray at the sides. He was wearing his heavy coat from work, his name Tom sewed into a blue oval above his left breast.

  Suddenly, a doorway opened to the left. Cool breeze seeped from the dark opening. I pulled Mom into it, and we stumbled down another corridor, this one shorter and darker. When we got to the end, Dad rounded the corner, only a few yards behind us, breath was heavy and steady, his hands balled into fists that pumped back and forth with every step. In the amber light, his gold wedding ring shimmered on his finger.

  The corridor turned sharply right, and we turned with it, Mom banging against the steel wall. She limped heavily, almost becoming dead weight in my hand. Then, she began to slow, her breath wheezing, her eyes filling with tears. "Keep going, Jane," she gasped. "You keep going."

  I shook my head. "No! Get moving, Mom. Just a bit more."

  She shook her head. "I can’t, Baby. I can’t." She fell to her knees, and the steel walls around us groaned and creaked. Dad’s footsteps thumped around the corner, and I pulled at Mom’s coat. She tried to get up, but her knee buckled again, and she fell back, bracing herself against the wall. She howled in pain, closed her eyes and winced, then looked over. She seemed to stop breathing and shuddered, her face shaking. I pulled at her coat again, then stopped, following her eyes with mine.

  Dad stood only feet away, his mouth clamped shut, his breath rapid and heavy. He smelled of oil, of sweat, of dime store aftershave. He stared at Mom, unzipping his coat.

  "You know they’re all laughing at me at work?" he said. "You know I might lose my job? That make you happy, Bernice? You happy with me not having a job? You happy trying to send me to jail?" He began to pull off his coat. "All you’ve ever done, Bernice, is make my life hell. Doesn’t matter what it is"—he dropped his coat to the floor—"you just have to have things your way." He stepped closer. "And I’ve had it."

  "Get out," I shouted. "Get out!" I wrapped my arms around Mom, but Dad said nothing. He just kept walking towards us, slowly and steadily.

  He reached down, only a couple of feet from Mom’s face. "You act like your mom, Jane," he said, "you get what your mom gets." He opened his hands, and his oniony breath poured over my face. I held Mom tighter, and she closed her eyes.

  Then, all around us, the walls howled with the sounds of scraping metal and thunderous bangs like invisible doors opening and closing, and a steel wall slid between us and Dad. He fell back as the metal struck his hands, and he screamed as the wall closed shut. His voice became muffled barks, and he struck at the wall, pounding with his fists and feet. The walls groaned again, metal scraping on metal, and there was another clang, and the shouting stopped. Dad fell silent, then began shouting again, his voice more muffled, more distant.

  Mom and I stopped breathing for what seemed minutes. We stared at the wall, listened to Dad’s panicked wails on the other side that sounded less like whales dying in the deep. He kept striking the wall, but the punches and kicks became slower. And slower. And slower.

  I stood up and yanked on Mom’s coat. "Mom," I said, "you have to get up. You can do it."

  "Where is he?" she asked, her tear-logged eyes locked onto mine.

  "I don’t know," I said. "Please, Mom, you have to get up."

  Mom braced herself against the wall, then slid herself up, still panting, and still trying to recover her breath. She pressed her hand against the wall that had slid between her and Dad and ran her fingers over it. Her jaw tightened, and she backed away, reaching out for my hand, which I grabbed and pulled, leading us down the new corridor.

  The corridor took another right turn after a few feet, then another right turn immediately afterward, Dad’s muffled shouts behind each wall. I stopped.

  "What’s the matter, Jane?"

  "He’s trapped," I said.

  "Where?"

  I pointed at the steel wall. "In there," I said. "We just walked around him." I walked up to the wall and looked it up and down. "An animal in a box," I said.

  Mom stepped forward and put an arm around me. "What do you think we should do?" she asked.

  "Nothing," I said.

  "He’s your father."

  "I never had a father. Only a mother."

  We turned and walked back down the side corridor through which we’d run, walked through the doorway, and turned into the main corridor. To our left, the corridor seemed to continue on forever, to our right were the trailer's rear doors, dad’s pickup truck headlights still burning brightly through the treeline.

  "Where now?" Mom asked.

  I looked up and down the long corridor, still smelling the salt air, still feeling the warmth.

  I squinted and saw that, tucked in a shadow, a dark doorway had appeared. I walked towards it and peered in. The moist, warm air rolled over my face. I smelled sea salt and pine and night air. I waved Mom over, and she limped to me, her eyes darting up and down the corridor.

  "What if your father gets out?" she asked.

  Behind her, the metal squealed and creaked, and the doorway we’d just exited disappeared behind a sliding sheet of metal, leaving only a red steel wall in its place. "I don’t think he’s getting out," I said, taking in a deep breath. "Ever."

  "Jane, what is this thin
g?"

  I held my hands up. "This is Fred. Fred"—I lowered my hands to my mother—"this is Mom."

  ***

  We stood at the island's center, the moon bright and shimmering, the lighthouse carving its narrow beam through the starry sky. Fireflies floated through the pine and ferns, and crickets sang their symphony. We took off our coats and placed them on the porch of one of the houses and stepped inside. The house was warmly lit by lanterns, the cupboards stocked with flatware and food, the beds large and covered with thick blankets. It smelled of fragrant wood. It sounded of nighttime silence.

  It sounded of peace.

  We sat on a couch in the living room, and I told Mom about my walks over the culm fields, about my talks to the semi-trailer I'd named Fred, about how I’d clean its wheels and ask it where it was from and if it was lonely like I was, about the islands that I drew in my tablets, about how I never wanted to go home and just run away to my islands, taking Mom by the hand, taking us away from Dad forever.

  "But Jane, what is all this?" Mom asked.

  "Our homes, Mom," I said. "One for you. One for me." I walked through the living room, the walls lined with bookshelves packed with hardcovers, some I’d seen, some I’d never heard of. "This can be my house," I said.

  "Jane, we can’t stay here."

  I turned to Mom. "What?"

  "Baby, we can’t stay here. We don’t even know where here is. We don’t know what any of this is. And wherever and whatever this is, your father’s still in here."

  "He’s not getting out, Mom."

  "And how do you know?"

  "Fred wouldn’t do that."

  "You don’t know anything about this . . . place."

  "Fred saved us," I said. "Fred made this place for us."

  "You don’t know what Fred is," Mom said. "Or what it wants."

  "Mom—"

  Mom grabbed my shoulders and softly shushed me. "Baby, what you found here . . . I don’t know what to make of it. My God, I don’t know what to make of any of this." Mom let go and placed her hands over her face before resting them in her lap. "This island? Jane, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And whatever . . . Fred . . . is, we have to thank it for that. We have to thank it for keeping your father away from us. But we need to be careful."

  "Fred’s a friend," I said.

  Mom nodded. "You know, when I met your father, he was the world. He was beautiful, and kind, and considerate, and all of that. He was my island. I thought he was my dream come true. Then I married him, and things started changing slowly, a little angry comment here, a little insult there. Then it turned into a push here and a push there. Convinced me to quit my job, convinced me to let him have the checkbook all the time. It took a couple of years until he started hitting me. He’d hit me, then apologize, then be wonderful for weeks. Until he hit me again. And that’s how it happens, Honey. Everything’s wonderful and perfect at first, and slowly, the bad things start to happen, and then, before you know it, you’re afraid to speak. You're afraid to live."

  "What’re you saying, Mom?" I asked. "What does this—"

  "I’m saying that I won’t fall into that again. I’m saying that I won’t let you fall into that now. This Fred thing, whatever it is, you don’t know anything about it. It may be kind, it may not be. We don’t know. We need to be careful. Look at my face, Honey. Look at it."

  I looked. Her eyes purple with bruises, her face swollen, her jaw misshapen on one side. I knew her arms and back and torso were probably bruised as well, that she ached from head to toe. So many years of pressure had turned her to stone, so many years of pain had etched cracks into her surface, cracks that might never fill again.

  "My perfect island did this to me," she said, pointing at her face. "I understand you love this place, that this Fred has done and can do some, all I can say is, amazing things that I don't understand, but I do understand what making a snap decision without thinking can do. It can trap you. It can ruin you. And I won’t let that happen to you. Now," she sat back, slapped her knees with her hands, "if Fred is what you say it is, then we can always come back to visit, to say hello, to spend time here. But, Baby, we need to live out there. That is where we belong."

  "Mom," was all I could say, my voice a dry croak. I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the tears on my lips. Mom reached over and wiped my face dry, then wrapped her arms around me and rocked me gently. Through the windows, fireflies and stars glowed, and in the night air crickets sang a farewell dirge.

  ***

  Mom helped me down to the ground, one hand on my waist and one holding my right hand. I jumped into a patch of stirred snow. In the white of the pickup truck headlights, Dad’s bootprints cast deep shadows. Next to one footprint were the locks that had fallen to the ground. I reached down and picked them up. Mom stood and watched as I walked back to Fred, crawled back up to the under-ride bar, then closed the doors. I slid the door latch closed, inserted the locks into it, and snapped them shut. I ran my hand over the door and sighed before I jumped back to the ground, kicking muddy snow into the air.

  Mom walked up to the trailer, placed her hand on the metal door, patted it, and whispered, "Thank you," before backing away.

  We walked through the clearing and between the trees to the pickup truck. Mom looked into the open driver’s side door and saw the keys dangling below the steering wheel. "Let's go, Honey, "she said as she slid into the cab and unlocked the passenger door for me.

  The truck started with an electrical wheeze, then roared as the starter kicked over. The truck rumbled and shuddered as Mom put the truck into reverse and backed us away from the trees, their branches like anorexic fingers waving good-bye in the glow of the receding headlights as we drove back to the station wagon.

  ***

  When we got home, Mom called the police. They came to the house, they drove out to the culm fields and down the dirt road where we left the truck. We told them how Dad chased us down the road, how we escaped into the culm fields, how we came upon a semi-trailer in a large patch of trees and hid from him there. We told them we didn’t know where he was, if he was on his way back, and that we were scared and not sure what to do.

  "Oh, we’ll find him," one officer said. "And he better pray I don’t get my hands on him."

  Mom found money in the house, and the police were able to find a motel room for us in the next town. At the motel, I asked Mom why we just didn’t stay home, and Mom’s answer was simple: "We don’t know if your dad’s going to be in there forever or just for the moment. I’m not taking any chances."

  That night we ordered pizza from a chain restaurant just down the street that was still open. We ate it on a king-size bed and watched television shows about flying reindeer and a man with a wonderful life and a cartoon about a boy who couldn’t even buy the right Christmas tree. We fell asleep at one in the morning listening to cars whoosh by on the road outside.

  As I began to doze, Mom whispered so softly: "Merry Christmas, Baby."

  And I slept deeply and dreamt of islands and stars.

  ***

  After weeks of searching, the police gave up. They figured Dad had fallen into a sinkhole, an uncapped mine shaft, something. A couple of officers muttered how they hoped he was rotting in hell.

  Every week, I visited Fred. Sometimes Mom came with me, and we spoke to it. We thanked it. We asked it if there was anything it wanted.

  But it remained silent, its skin still rusting, its doors still locked.

  A year later in the heat of a humid July, two large tow trucks and a police truck crossed the culm fields, their tires throwing up roosters of dark dust. I watched them from my window as they crawled across the culm and stopped at the thick cluster of trees at the fields’ edge. The state was beginning to clean up the culm fields, hauling old equipment and trash to faraway dumps, reclaiming the lands with newly planted trees and grass.

  I watched
as the tow trucks pulled the rusting red semi-trailer from behind the patch of trees, watched as they rolled it over the field for almost an hour, the trucks stopping occasionally, then crawling forward again. Mom sat next to me, and she placed her right hand on the window pane as the semi-trailer, the tow trucks, and the police truck made it to the shoulder of the main road and then eventually disappeared around the corner. After a few minutes, I walked to my room, placed a blanket over my head, and cried.

  I heard they were able to open the semi-trailer before they attached it to one of the tow trucks.

  I heard they found it empty.

  I heard they took it to a salvage yard in Scranton and dismantled it piece by piece.

  Mom and I left the old house the following year. We moved to a small town in Washington state, and she married a man a few years later whose biggest fault was an obsession with bird watching. Soon I began to attend the University of Washington in Seattle, and I discovered that I loved the clouds and the rains that wrapped themselves around the city.

  And now, sometimes Mom and I and her new husband travel up and down the Pacific Northwest coast, past small towns and past large cities, and we look out at the islands dotting the vast coastline, islands covered in pine, and ferns, and fireflies.

  LEMONTREE LANE

  I. The Routine

  The holiday loads had been diminishing over the years. The days of the Sears and JC Penney’s and Montgomery Ward’s Christmas wish catalogs long passed, shoppers now placing orders over computer networks and getting their gifts overnight from private shipping companies. Those who couldn’t afford the overnight shipping sent their packages through standard mail, and while some at the postal service didn’t relish seeing the piles of parcels, Eddie Mercury didn’t mind.

  He remembered when people sent everything through the mail, when people ran out to the mailbox to grab handfuls of cards or armfuls of gifts sent across the miles. Usually the people would smile, they’d say "Hello," they’d sometimes leave small gifts in the mailboxes for him: a small Thank You card, a gift certificate to a restaurant, a gift card to a bookstore. And when the holidays were done, when the confetti had settled in Times Square and the calendars had flipped to a new year, he knew he’d be back going door to door, mailbox to mailbox, through the wind and snow and sleet and rain. His mailbags marked his years, and as his years became shorter, his hair became thinner, his mailbags became lighter, and the mailboxes became emptier.