The blog

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Let’s begin again (again)

On this final day of the year, I honor my 20th anniversary of coming to Portland, easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

On December 31, 1991, I headed out of Missoula for the final time as a Montana citizen. I had a couple of bucks in my pocket, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera I’d inherited from my dear mom, and a lost feeling in the pit of my stomach. The preceding years hadn’t been awful, but I had lost both parents, finally graduated from the U of M and cast myself adrift in the world of restaurant work. I didn’t know what I was seeking, only a real, true sense that I needed to search. At the time it was hard to describe to anyone who asked.

“Why are you leaving?” they begged. “I dunno. Something to do, I guess,” I answered.

And that was true. I didn’t know why I was leaving. I only knew the time was right, and I didn’t want to squander an opportunity. There were many times, during the 80s and early 90s when I thought I would stay forever in Montana. But I had an itch to “get on with it.” So I put all my worldly goods in storage, bundled up a few changes of clothes, my first laptop computer, (a glorious Texas Instruments beauty I’d sunk all of my savings into), and began to harbor a fervent hope for a more fulfilling life. I set out that morning with my friend Elaine Kloser and headed to Portland to begin a new job with the Young People’s Theater Project. (I’m delighted to tell you that particular organization is still going strong.)

My life was to take a surprising number of turns before I found myself, now 20 years later, thanking my lucky stars I chose the way I did, and left the most comfortable life I’d ever known to wander.

In the following year, I was to travel to some 22 states in 5 months, performing, letter-writing, learning to knit, and thinking about what I wanted out of my life. My life. My life. I can’t stress that enough. I was bound and determined to start defining my life.

I spent the following summer (my last full-time summer) in the mountains of New Mexico, working with my friends at Brush Ranch Camps. On Labor Day the following year, I found myself pulling into Portland at the peak of a very dry summer, not knowing whether I would stay or end up in Seattle. A few weeks later, I was auditioning for a musical directed by Alana Beth Lipp, who I married the following Labor Day. I began teaching high school at Thomas A. Edison that fall—a challenging but utterly fulfilling job. But in 2001, I found myself once again yearning to “get on with it,” so I drifted quietly across the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington and started yet another new life as a writer at a small, yet mighty concern called AHA!—a marketing and strategic communications firm.

And now today, as I endeavor to put in words all those things that have been stuck in my head, I can’t help being overcome with gratitude. For everyone, everything, every word. It’s funny, I ran the death clock yesterday … found out I’m a little more than half way through. I have a long way to go. But for now … I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I feel like I’m just now starting to find what I’m looking for.

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The easy part

Oh. My. God.

The writing is easy, it’s the formatting that’s killing me.

Who knew? Not much progress today, as everything has taken on the just-formatted sheen of an actual manuscript. I’m still about 30k words away from where I want to be, but I’ve got a good start on five (possibly six) more tales before the collection is complete. And I gotta tell you, collecting works that have been written by at least three different versions of Word and pulling them into a pretty picture has taken most of my day away. So far, here’s what I think I’ve got:

There’s a lot of sameness here that’s just going to have to go! Lots of talk about shoes (for some reason) and feet. Maybe I’ve spent a good deal of my life looking at my feet? It’s possible. Reminds me of a joke: How do you know the sound tech is an extrovert? He looks at your chin when he’s talking to you.

Also, many of the pieces seem to start in the dark. It’s really odd to me. I’m a complete believer in S.A.D., by the way, but … man, there’s just too much darkness and winter here.

Happily, I can work on that. I’ve got the time.

Onward

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First love

I wrote this a while back, during one of AHA!’s writer’s retreats. This one is mostly true, with some stretchers.

Dolly and Ray Berzanti were friends of my dad’s from before he married my mom. Ray delivered mail by day, and tended bar at the Ranch House in Butte at night. That was how my dad met him. My dad’s studio apartment in Butte was above the Ranch House on Broadway. But that was many years ago. Dolly was a waitress at some lunch counter near Hennessey’s Department Store. They were utterly devoted to two each other, and to bourbon. But that’s not really all that important. What’s important was what Ray Berzanti did when he wasn’t delivering mail or tending bar. He was a sideman for many of the better jazz bands in and around Silver Bow County. A retired sergeant from the U.S. Army band, he had played with some of the greatest swing orchestras in history. After the war, he played first chair with Les Brown and his Band of Renown. But now Ray just some Italian guy from back east, stuck in a shit hole bar in a shit hole town. His clarinet playing was limited to pickup gigs with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus or an occasional dance band job at the Elks lodge.

He didn’t need the clarinet any more. At least that’s what he told my dad that afternoon across a high ball Dolly had mixed in glasses with golden pheasants on them you got when you filled up the car at the Conoco Station. I sat looking through the stacks of heavy photo albums, turning over the pages of Ray’s life with his horn. There he is shaking hands with Glenn Miller. Here’s Tommy Dorsey and Doris Day. Bing Crosby. Emmet Kelley. Evel Kneivel, Butte’s favorite son. The photos showed a young, handsome man with bright eyes and a big-hearted smile.

“What do you think?” my dad asked me.

“It’s a really good horn,” Ray said. “I think the kid is going to love it.”

Dolly and Ray didn’t have any children, so I could forgive him the fact that he talked about me as if I wasn’t right there in his living room, flipping through his life.

“What do you think?” my dad asked again.

“Well, I’d need to play it, but it sure is a beauty, that’s for real,” I said to both Ray and my dad.

“Yeah, it’s a good old horn,” Ray said. “Solid wood. Never been split. I cleaned it after every use, and I oiled it once a month without fail. I’d say that horn is nigh onto 40 years old.”

I was sucking on a new number three reed we’d picked up at Gustafson’s Music on the way out to Dolly and Ray’s. It was almost soft enough to play.

“What about you, Ray? Don’t you want to keep playing it?” I asked. My fingers were running up and down the keys, flipping pads and levers as fast as I could muster. I was warming it up. Getting ready to play.

“Nah. My music days are behind me kid,” Ray said. Behind his sad expression I caught a glimpse of what it must have been like to play with Glenn Miller or even the U.S. Army Band.

“It’s going to need a total re-padding,” I said. “That’ll cost about $150. But that doesn’t have to be done right away.”

“This kid’s wise,” Ray said. He knew no one ever bought a used clarinet without re-padding. It just wasn’t something you did. You could never get a clarinet to be truly yours if it had someone else’s pads on the keys. The pads respond to your pressure, your unique touch. Over time, they develop their own way of closing with the lightest flick of a finger.

Ray’s clarinet was well worn. The pads were burnished brown and hard around the edges, just like they should be. I could tell just by looking, this instrument had been praised, rather than abused.

I placed the reed on the mouthpiece and tightened the ligature. I ran my fingers over the keys, flipping the pads hard. The lack of wind caused the horn to pop and snap to life. Resting the instrument above my right thumb, I started on a low E and played a smooth chromatic scale all the way up to high F.

The clarinet wailed.

It was sad in the low register, sassy in the mid-range and clarion in the high notes. It was so much better than my plastic piece of shit I’d been playing since fifth grade.

This was a serious horn.

This was a serious relationship.

I was in love for the very first time.

I was in love with the sound as much as with the feeling of playing something that had a piece of history I would never be a part of. At that moment, I was in love with my dad. I was in love with Ray. I was in love with Dolly. I understood with a single, effortless chromatic scale, just how courageous music could be.

And, for a brief second, I was even in love with the thought of what I could make of myself.

Twenty years later, I’m having a similar conversation with a similar parent and a similar young musician. I’m in a shit hole job, in a shit hole town and I need to pay the rent.

Only this time, I tell the kid about the horn. I tell the parent about Dolly and Ray. I tell them about the circus bands, and the big bands and the solos I played in high school. After a brief transaction, I let my first love go.

But the sound of the horn, from that first low E to the fleet, singing high F, well … I keep that for myself.

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Maybe I’ve got this all wrong

I’ve been reading Work Song, by Ivan Doig. All you Anacondans (you know who you are) should take a look. Borrow, beg, or buy this book! Mr. Doig has been an inspiration to me since I read his This House of Sky in my Montana Lit. class at the U of M.  Though the book takes place in Butte, it is a fine, fictional account of the life of a non-native, working various jobs in 1919. Those of you who know your history, know this was a time of great turmoil in the mines, and subsequently at the smelter.

The details of the work stoppages are intriguing to me, not only from the point of view of the non-union narrator, but also the inner workings of the men, unions, Wobblies, and the families, whose lives were inextricably linked to the hill.

I begin to wonder, by the time our town was hit with a strike in 1967, if some of the inner-workings of the emotions had become inbred in us. The fierce loyalty we have for each other. The contempt we had over the lack of control we experienced in our lives. How we held each other up, whenever our community was laid low by the machinations of a company that was so much bigger than our will. The underlying need to keep the company going, even when it so obviously was crushing our spirit, and sense of freedom.

I was only a casual observer to what was going on behind the doors of the smeltermen’s families. My dad wasn’t reliant on the hill for our daily bread, it’s true. But many of my friends and neighbors, cousins and uncles, were. Is this where my independent streak was born? Was this the power behind the voice that criticized, cajoled and extolled the foolish opinions of the outsider?

Among my various treasures, collected from the years away from Anaconda, (there are now, in fact, almost twice as many years living away from Anaconda as there were living in), I wonder if the stationary box, given as a Christmas gift from my employers eleven years ago, isn’t more prescient now as then. Engraved in the lid of the box is a quote from Mother Jones, “I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth whenever I please.”

But maybe I’ve got this all wrong. I was young, when the smelter shut down for almost a year. I was young when the smelter closed. Naive. Impartial. Unattached. Somewhat uninterested.

Still, there were things we said to each other. Things we did for one another during those times that became a part of me. My job is to honor those moments. Seek them out and illuminate the corners of the memories. I believe there is enough truth to tell in those.

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I miss my gay, Jewish dog

It’s the final night of Hanukkah. As some of you know, we bid farewell to our beloved wheaton terrier, Bucky, this past year. Since this final week of the year is such a time of reflection, today, as I roam the house I feel his presence and miss his nuzzling.

There is no doubt in my mind Bucky was Jewish. Whenever we would do anything remotely observant in our house, he would become animated. For many years, when he could, he’d dance on his hind legs when we lit the Hanukkah candles and sang the blessings, one front paw in my hand, the other paw in Alana’s. For many years we’d sway and sing, remarking that Bucky must be celebrating with us.

Alana’s brother, David, is a Cantor. When his family came to visit, we’d have Shabbat dinner, and there was always an ample amount of song to accompany the meal. Bucky would dance by the table, skipping around and sniffing the air, as if something ancient and familiar was stirring his imagination.

Bucky also had a fondness for other dogs of the same gender. He was loathe to hang out with females, and often treated our Gracie (the other household wheatie) with diffidence, but whenever there was a male dog around, Bucky would follow him. He stalked (and mounted) males at day care. He was affectionate and physical with male dogs. He obviously enjoyed their company.

So today is for you, my sweet, gay, Jewish, departed dog. I miss you more than I can say.

Treadmill

September, 2011

I’m fairly sure the first time I saw a treadmill, or anything like a treadmill, was at the end of the Jetsons. Oddly, it was like the end of the Flintstones, which at the time reminded me of the Honeymooners. Anyway, at the beginning of the Jetsons, George is on his way to work, he drops off Elroy at the Little Dipper grade school, his daughter Judy at Orbit high school and, after a lengthy exchange in which his wife robs him of his wallet and leaves him a dollar, he drops her off at a shopping mall. He parks his flying car and gets on a treadmill-like moving walkway that deposits him at his desk at Spacely Sprockets.

At the end of the Jetsons, we see George taking a moving walkway into his house, getting sat in a chair by Rosie, the robot maid, getting slippers from Elroy, a pipe from Judy and a leash from Jane, his wife. At his point Astro, the huge blue family dog grabs George and takes him for a walk … on a treadmill. Of course there is a cat nearby and Astro gets distracted, starts running on the treadmill until George loses his grip on the leash and starts defying gravity by spinning around and around on the treadmill by himself, while Astro and the cat sit nearby smiling. George shouts, “Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!”

It wasn’t until I was an adult that the irony of the metaphor sunk in.

My 33rd birthday gift from Alana was a membership to a gym. Part of the membership package was an hour-long session with a personal trainer. One-half hour of which was on a treadmill. I’d never been on a treadmill before, yet there I was in the Princeton Athletic Club in downtown Portland walking briskly, just like George.

I got a lot of attention on the treadmill. I don’t know why. It turned out that the Princeton was nicknamed “The Princess” by most of the gay men in the city. And, quite unbeknownst to me, to walk on a treadmill at the Princeton was to put yourself ‘out there’ for all the gym-gawkers and lurkers to remark on.

I didn’t mind it. In fact I was flattered at the time to think that any gay man would be bold enough to say “Lookin’ good!” as he passed me huffing and puffing at 4.5 MPH and a four-degree incline. My wife told me to certainly enjoy the positive reinforcement, but to avoid acknowledging any pass that was, as she put it, ‘overt’. So, I continued to walk on the treadmill with my eyes fastened on the television, trying to pay attention to CNN and not the timer on the treadmill.

One day, during a cool down, a particularly bold man walked by and said, “Nice ass” as he passed. I must have been particularly bold myself that day, because I said, “Thanks!” without even thinking about it. The man quickly scurried away. What ensued was definitely not ego-boosting. I became anathema. Poison. No one wanted to be near me. Gone forever were the furtive glances. No more titters. No conversations in hushed tones.

I had become treadmill roadkill.

For a couple of months now, I’ve been taking my dog, Bucky to physical therapy. Bucky is what the veterinarians consider an ‘old, old, dog.’ It’s a nice way of saying, “We’re surprised this dog is still alive.” He hasn’t been the friskiest dog for a couple of years, and the vet suggested we consider water therapy to build his muscles so he can get in and out of his bed and the house when he needs to. Aside from daycare once a week, it’s really the only exercise he ever gets. Water therapy involves a glass booth with a water-tight door that fills with just enough water to make your dog buoyant, but not floating. The floor is an underwater treadmill. Once the tank is filled to the appropriate height, the therapist switches on the treadmill and the dog starts to walk. The speed of the treadmill and the length of the walk is determined by the therapist and the dog with the goal of walking twenty minutes total, and as much as ten minutes at a time. The resistance of the water builds muscle.

Bucky took to this activity as if it were second nature. Certain breeds will not sit down in the water nor will they let their noses get wet. As soon as the therapist hit the start button, Bucky held his head up higher than he has in the past few months and started walking with a swift, even pace.

Part of the joy (and part of the pain, I guess) of having your dog be your dog is watching them accept new and unusual challenges. Throughout his long life Bucky has never been overly curious, nor has he ever been an excitable dog. In fact, he remains quite shy. But not unfriendly. Long ago, a friend hit the nail on the head when he said, “That dog has a lot of soul.”

But watching him twice a week for three, five-minute increments, accept the challenge of participating in the treadmill of life has helped me redefine what Bucky has.

He may have a lot of soul, but he also has a stout heart.

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Did it happen? (Does it matter?)

I have to admit, “going public” like this is causing me a wee bit of existential angst. These events I’m writing about really happened. The plot is truly true, but the dialog is, admittedly, fabricated through the fog of my own perceptions. Like Huck Finn tells us:

“YOU don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly — Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is — and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.”

So, buoyed by my belief in the forgiveness of those who read my stuff, I forge ahead. Putting words into other people’s mouths.

As for the whole “Does it matter?” part … well, I think that’s a little more slippery. Many of the people who encourage me to write, tell me it doesn’t matter. All of the writers I speak to have said as much, many with a witty remark or a sly wink.

But I hesitate now, only because there have been times in my life when someone has said, “And then you told me … ,” and I think to myself, I absolutely did not say that! And having that happen is my real fear. (Well, that and boring people.)

It’s the meaning behind the words that always belongs to the reader, right? Right? Right.

My sister and I used to have this mantra with our parents, which I still use almost everyday. When we wanted to make sure they understood us, we’d say, “You get me? You understand me? You see what I mean?”

Today’s challenge: legibility. Tomorrow’s challenge: facing the music.

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Excerpt from Smelter City Boy

1966 Chrysler Imperial

December 1966
I was too preoccupied with the monkeys to pay much attention to the shoes. We were Christmas shopping in Butte, in the only store that had shoes that fit my sister’s feet. It was really snowy and cold outside, but inside the store the steam heat, the monkey pee and the new leather melded into a hot, sticky smell that made me think of barf. While my mom and sister argued about heels and toes, I split my attention between the monkeys and the Hush Puppy poster. I wanted Hush Puppies, but they were out of my size.

I would have liked to have seen penguins, but I didn’t mind the monkeys. They lived in a cage that ran all around the top of the store, high above the stacks of boxes and racks inside Keene’s Shoes. My mom said they got the monkeys—she called them recess monkeys—just to bring people into the store. My dad called the store a menagerie, and dropped us off before heading to the Ranch House Bar and Grill to talk about business.

My sister hated the monkeys. But I think that’s because the only shoes that fit her feet were really ugly. She was always in a mood when we went shopping for shoes. I usually just said okay to anything put on my feet. This time, it was a pair of hard, patent leather Sunday shoes.

We were at the checkout stand paying when the monkeys started screaming. They huddled to the front window and stared out into the street. I glanced out the frosty window and there, on the sidewalk just beyond our parked Chrysler, was Santa Claus. My heart stopped.

I’d never seen Santa for real before. I’d only heard stories and seen pictures in books. But there he was, with a bag of gifts on his back, talking to some kids across the street. I tugged my sister’s sleeve.

“What?” she asked. I pointed across the street, and she shouted “Mommy! Look! Santa Claus!” B.J. was clearly excited about Santa. I was terrified. I grabbed my mom’s leg just in case B.J. was thinking of dragging me across the street to talk to him. She was a year older than me, and always dragging me into stuff I really didn’t want to do, and places I didn’t want to go.

“Don’t be silly, honey,” my mom said. “That’s not the real Santa.”

I was skeptical. He sure looked real to me. Besides, I didn’t know of anyone else that even looked a little bit like Santa. Except Mrs. Claus. And this clearly wasn’t her.   “But I want to go talk to him,” my sister whined.

“Okay, go take your brother and meet Daddy and me at the car,” my mom said.

The traffic on East Park Street whizzed by. B.J. and I had to stop at the crosswalk in the middle of the block. Butte was a half-hour drive from where we lived and twice the size of Anaconda.

“I’ll wait in the car,” I said as the light changed.

“No you won’t,” B.J. said.

She was right. She had been put in charge. I knew what that meant. I had to do everything she wanted to. So that was it. I was going to see Santa.

As we crossed the street, I started getting a stomach ache. My eyes started to burn. My tongue swelled up in my mouth. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

He walked right past our car and joined the crowd of kids. When I got a closer look, I thought maybe my mom was right. The whole thing was fishy. Why would Santa be out of his house two weeks before Christmas? What was he doing in Butte, Montana? Where was the sleigh? The uncertainty of it made my knees weak. I looked really closely at Santa. His beard was real, his glasses were real. His suit looked like red velvet. Maybe my mom was wrong.

Suddenly, I was star struck. I started to pull my hand away from my sister’s grasp, but she was steadfast. As the kids filed away with a new toy from Santa, I started to think up excuses for leaving the scene. Needing to pee was out. There weren’t any bathrooms nearby. Needing my mother was out, too. She was off talking business at the Ranch House Bar and Grill. The only excuse I could think of as possibly working on both my sister and Santa, was that I needed to go feed the monkeys in the shoe store.   B.J. had an entire catalog of gifts she was expecting for Christmas. As she rattled off the names of toys and treats she had seen advertised between Saturday morning cartoons, I decided my shoes were way too tight. I was going to spend another year of Sunday School in shoes that were too small.

“How about you? Have you been a good little boy?” Santa asked.

I stared at my shoes.

“What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

I stared at my sister. Certainly she would think of something to say. The pit in my stomach grew deeper by the second.

What I wanted for Christmas was to climb into the backseat of our car.

“He’s shy,” my sister said. “And he used to be tongue-tied, so he doesn’t talk much. The doctor clipped his tongue a couple of weeks ago, so he should be able to talk.”

Right again. I really didn’t have any good reason to not talk to Santa anymore. Up until a couple of weeks ago I would tell B.J. in secret what I wanted to say and she would interpret for me to my parents. I was going to start kindergarten after Christmas, and I was going to have to talk there. I was sure of it.

“Do you want to whisper in Santa’s ear?” Santa leaned down and put his ear right up to my mouth.

“Monkeys,” I whispered.

“What?” Santa asked.

“Monkeys,” I whispered.

“Speak up, son. It sounds like you are saying car keys,” Santa said.

“MONKEYS!” I screamed.

Santa stood up straight, narrowed his eyes and reached into his pack. He thrust a small, plastic fire engine into my mitten-covered hands without saying another word. Off the hook to continue our conversation, I turned abruptly and headed back to the car.

Nothing my family owned was more beautiful than the inside of our Chrysler Imperial. The front seat was for grown-ups only. But the backseat belonged completely to my sister and me. It was roomy and beautiful. My dad said the car smelled like a million bucks. In the back, we had our own Kleenex box, door locks, window cranks and ashtrays. The front seat had a huge pocket sewn into its back big enough to hide in.   My favorite part was the back window. I loved to climb up on the back of the seat and lay on the ledge and watch the cars behind us. The window was always cool on my face. Sometimes, on long trips I would fall asleep watching the world move away from us.

Climbing into the back of the car, my sister and I staked out our territory. I sat behind my dad, mostly because I wanted to look forward and see my mom. I felt special when she looked into the back seat and saw only me. Santa was still standing in the crosswalk, but the crowd of kids was pretty much gone by the time B.J. rubbed the fog off the window just in time to see my folks come out of the bar and cross the street.

My dad opened the car door for my mom, then walked around the front of the car and checked the tires and the headlights. As he pulled on the driver’s side door handle he dropped the keys. I heard him say “Damn!” when he lost his footing and bumped into the car for support.

“Dad just said Damn,” I said.

“Honey, just because adults use swear words doesn’t mean it’s okay for you,” my mom said. Then she thought for a second. “If you are repeating something they said, you can use their words, though. I mean, don’t use it as an excuse to not talk.”

My dad swore again, once he settled into the driver’s seat. My mom looked over her shoulder and winked at me after she lit a cigarette.

“Did you talk to Santa?” she asked.

“Yup,” my sister said. “And he agreed to bring me everything I asked for.”

“Oh he did, did he?” my dad asked. “I hope you didn’t ask for a new bike, because I heard Santa was promising new bikes to kids all over town and the kids end up with each other’s bike and not the one they wanted.”

“Stop it, Bob,” my mom said, taking a drag off her cigarette.

“I’m just saying if Bobbi Jean asked for a bike, she might get one, but not the one she thinks she wants.”

“What did you ask for Grantsy?” my mom asked.

“Monkeys,” my sister said.

“What?” my dad looked into the rear view mirror.

“He asked for monkeys,” my sister said.

“Well, that’s … new,” my mom said to my dad. She glanced back at me and smiled. I just shrugged and played with my fire engine.

As my dad started the car, I turned around and leaned up against the back seat. Santa was standing right behind the back of the car, waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk. For a second I thought he looked right at me, before turning around to look up the street for on-coming traffic.

“Sit back Jean, I need to see if there’s any traffic coming,” my dad said. My mom leaned as far back as she could and my dad looked out past her into the street. “Looks like we’re good to go,” he said.

“You’re completely clear up front,” my mom said. My dad hit the turn signal to pull forward out onto the street. “Grantsy, do you see any traffic coming up from behind?”   I looked up the street. Both lanes of traffic were stopped a block away.

“Nope!” I said. My dad looked straight ahead, put the car into reverse and gunned the engine.

The car lurched backward into the crosswalk. From my vantage point, I could see Santa fly sideways, landing all splayed out in the muddy snow bank on the side of the road. The car stalled.

“Jesus Christ!” my dad bellowed. “Who hit us?”

“You hit Santa!” I said. Santa was almost immediately up on his feet staggering around, brushing snow and mud off his suit.

“What?” my dad asked.

“You just hit Santa with the car!” I said.

“Oh holy shit!” He threw open the door and trundled around to the back of the car.

I jumped up and looked out the back window. My dad had his arm around Santa who seemed to be pushing him away, holding him at arms length. I couldn’t hear what my dad was saying, but he was clearly sorry for hitting Santa with the Chrysler. It didn’t look like Santa wanted any part of it.

Through the window I did actually hear Santa shout something at my dad.

“What did he say?” my mom asked.

“Santa just called Dad a son of a bitch,” I said. My mom turned and stared out the front window.

“That’s not the real Santa,” she said.

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Showtime

This is undoubtedly the biggest day of the year here in the Byington household—a tradition gleaned from my mother more than anyone else. I’m most certain my sisters and my brother are thinking many of the same thoughts today as they sit with their respective families and chat away the long winter night.

In Anaconda, Christmas Eve took weeks of preparation. We’d start the day after Thanksgiving. There was the usual hubbub about the tree, certainly something that goes on in most people’s houses. But it was beyond the tree that concerned my mother, who would cover every flat surface with some kind of decoration. As she aged, this did not get better.

There were knick-knacks and angel hair and pine cones and ceramic figurines and … well, you get my point. Two of these stick out in my mind this morning. One was a sleigh made out of felt that had been glued to a turkey breast bone. It held Christmas cards and letters. The other was a mistletoe thing. (No shit, the word “thing” is the only way to describe this.) It was, I believe, a styrofoam ball, around which empty plastic medication cups (like the kind of the top of NyQuil bottles) were glued or stuck with pins. The cups had been rimmed with Elmer’s glue and red and green glitter. The result was  … spectacular.

The cooking would start around 8:00 a.m. and not stop until dark, when boatloads of relatives would appear and pack themselves into our house. The food would be laid out on the kitchen table and everyone would use my mother’s china and silver to sit with a plate in their laps, wherever they could find a space. (It was a casual/elegant type of deal.) Then the exchange of gifts and goodbyes. Seems fairly standard.

But it was the spaces between those events that fill my mind on Christmas Eve. The idea that I could have more than one canned shrimp. The incredible, incomparable taste of my aunt Glenna’s pies. If we were lucky, we’d get my uncle Orlin drunk enough that he would yodel. (My uncle Orlin was a first-class yodeler, but he only did it when he’d had a few.) My uncle Julian, generally a quiet, gentle man, would actually roughhouse with us. I adored him. He was the only man I’ve ever known who consistently and successfully wore a hat. My dear aunt Pauline’s hearty laughter … it is all so tightly wound into the fabric of my day today.

When it was all over, and the relatives would leave, my brother and his wife would linger longer at the open door than any of the others. My parents and my sister would go to bed, and I would turn off every light, save the Christmas tree, and watch the midnight mass from St. Peter’s Basilica, the Latin pouring over my head, anointing me with the rich and powerful unction of places far, far away.

I can only hope the same for everyone, everywhere today. As I sit down to my adopted family of theater friends tonight, I’ll intone the same wish I’ve had since I’ve started hosting a Christmas Eve gathering: God, thank you for this night and these friends. Please keep your watchful eye over all who do not have a roof over their heads, or who are coming to a table less bountiful than ours. We add to this our fervent wish for peace.

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11:11

It’s eleven, eleven. Time for a kiss! Okay, that’s really something that I share only with my wife, but now you know it, and there’s no backing out. It’s one of those little things that people say to each other.

Growing up, there were more than a couple of things my mom would say to us. Most of them were strong enough to echo in my daily life. Here’s a few:

“Good God! It looks like a bunch of Okies live here!”

“I don’t see a piano tied to your ass.”

“I wonder what the poor people are doing now.”

“Don’t blame me, I only live here.”

“Can’t we all just get along?”

“Well, at least you’ll be better before you get married.”

That last one is sticky. No one really knows why my mom said it. And she said it a lot … upset tummies, mumps, chicken pox, broken hearts … it was her salve for just about every thing. I think she probably said it because she thought it was funny.

Today, I’m working on a scene that’s particularly tricky. When I was six, I dove into a wading pool in Missoula, Montana. I don’t know why. No one really knows why. When I ask my sister, she remembers the blood and gore, but not the impetus. It’s hard to figure out the motivations of such an act. I was scraped and skinned from head to toe. And my poor, long-suffering mother poured bottle after bottle of hydrogen peroxide on my legs, my ass cheeks, my nose. But here’s the thing—I was numb. I don’t remember feeling anything. After every wound-cleaning session, she said, “Well, at least you’ll be better before you get married.”

She never lived to see that happen. Part of me is thankful for that … hard for anyone to measure up to her critical eye. But I think she would have been happy to know that I found Alana, who seems to love me—scabs, scars and all.

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Today’s the day

All right. Sabbatical. Right. So … this actually started almost a week ago. Everyday since I’m reminded of the need to do a little more every day to work on the book. After all, that’s what I said I wanted this time to do. To finish the book. Finish what I started. But just now I wonder if the story I really want to tell isn’t what I have written so far, but maybe something different. Something more elusive and interesting than what I think would interest people. Most of my life I’ve told these stories. Most of them are funny. Some of them aren’t. Ten minute scenes during which my perspective shifted ever-so-slightly. Being disappointed. Being conflicted. Being truly happy. Today there’s something standing between me and those stories. They seem so fabricated. So much the same. So … not what I want to say.

Just now, on the brink of this tale-telling, I am interrupted by memories of my father. He’s everywhere. He’s nowhere. I read a passage in Google Books about the strike of 1967 … clearly one of the longest in the history of labor in the United States, lasting almost eight months. And I think of the day he sat with me on the steps of the Daily Bank Building and told me to take a good hard look at the smeltermen going from the Welfare Office to the bank. The things he said … what did he say, exactly? It was important, I remember. He told me: This is important. But did he tell me, or did I just know?

It was about want. It was about need. It was about not hating the place where you were, or where you came from, but nuturing a dislike for it, so that, when the time came, you could leave and not have to come back. Did he say that? Or did I just remember wanting him to say that? What is that? What is the difference? Why is that conversation so important to me today? Was it then at six years old, that I started to take myself seriously enough to know that I would never, ever, ever, never, ever get stuck doing something I didn’t want to do?

Isn’t it so true that the things we want for ourselves and the things we actually need to survive are so very different? The needs are basic, but the wanting part can get so complicated. So much more than ten minutes on the steps of the bank, in that tiny, tortured town.