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Life isn’t fair. So play dirty when you retaliate.
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Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year.
I got married young and have two perfect daughters, but my marriage was far from ideal. We were both young and in love at one point. When we decided to get married, I was entering community college and Denise was starting her senior year. Her family’s willingness to accept me was a huge factor – a family I never had and made me feel like I was truly one of them. I can admit it now; I probably loved being part of this family as much as I loved Denise.
Our breakup was inevitable, two teenagers who knew nothing about life thought their crush on each other would make everything else great. I’m not the all-star, super-athlete, Rhodes scholar with the 12-inch flaccid cock. The girl you’ll eventually marry.
When things got tough, we didn’t know how to respond, so we lashed out at each other. Her family often stepped in and helped where they could, but oftentimes, good sex wasn’t enough to make up for the differences in our desires, needs, and ambitions.
Eventually we gave in. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle what we’ve gotten through five years. Our dedication to our children allowed us to finally see our problems clearly and make a very amicable truce centered around our daughter. Even though Denise and I couldn’t live together, we got along better after the divorce. We share our daughters’ time, live on the same block, and work together as a team so that our personal differences have as little impact on our daughters as possible.
I initially shared an apartment on the upper side of town, but eventually bought one of the smallest houses in the same school district to make things easier. It’s more than I need most of the time, but it feels like home when the girls are with me. We only live a few miles apart.
The community atmosphere is great, with mainly young families living in older and smaller homes. Most people were welcoming and took good care of their belongings, and after a few years I knew many people by name and greeted each other at the grocery store or while shopping. I have suburbanized.
This is our fourth Christmas since the divorce. Denise lives with Eric and I wish I could hate him, but he’s a decent guy with a great job but terrible taste in sports teams. He pays attention to my girls without trying to take my place. It took a while but we’ve developed a friendship which isn’t a bad thing.’
My child support is a little over $1500 and the kids are covered by my health insurance. Even though we haven’t been married long enough to pay alimony yet, I still pay the extra $500 a month to give the kids a better life. To me, that’s what really matters.
The fees were tough at first, but by not focusing on anything other than work my performance improved by leaps and bounds. Two promotions in three years have greatly eased financial worries, but the increased travel has stretched the girls’ abilities. Denis was very good at this and he worked with me. In return, I covered most of the girls’ expenses, including music lessons and a piano.
Christmas is special. We celebrate Christmas as a family. I’ll come in early and we’ll have a big family breakfast and open all the presents together. I really try everything I can to make sure the girls get what they want most. At six and eight years old, they were young and had normal wishes, and the magic of Christmas was real. In the afternoon the in-laws would come over with even more presents and we’d have a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner. It’s nice to be part of something.
I’m off work at Christmas and Denise isn’t, so we’ve agreed that they stay with me from Christmas to New Year, whenever she gets off work, and we usually try to figure out a way to free up time for her and the kids. It’s understood that I won’t leave town, at least not for more than a day.
The summer was great and I spent two weeks with them, which we usually spend at the beach. Christmas is still different. Christmas is magical.
I always get wish lists from the girls, but I also start shopping for the essentials for the season in late November. And I’m not stingy; I’ll buy them all to make sure I don’t miss any. Stores, online auctions, Craigslist, I’ll use any way possible to get the most appealing gifts. The first two years I punished Denise for buying everything on the list and leaving nothing for them. Now I receive a separate list of items I am not allowed to buy.
And just like that, I finished wrapping my forty-fourth gift, in shiny Barbie paper for Brianna and Hannah Montana paper for Allura. December 5th is the earliest date I’ve done most of my shopping so far. Of course I’ll buy more, including stuff for Denise and Eric, but my girls are taken care of. The gifts were carefully spread out in my living room and displayed until just before Christmas, when I brought them over to Denise’s house in a grand ceremony.
The call was from Denise’s mother, Sharon. It took me 11 minutes to get to the hospital. I was still too late. Denise and Briana both died on the way. Eric died ten minutes before I arrived. But Allura, my perfect little Allura, was fighting for her life and was in critical condition. She has always been a fighter and will not back down from any challenge. She beat this one too, I just knew that.
It was a freak accident when a car swerved and missed a coyote in the road. An 18-wheeler following behind did its best to avoid the car in front but eventually backed out and collided with a Suburban in the lane next to it. The car crossed the center line and collided with my ex-wife’s family van. Six people are dead and a little girl is still fighting for her dear life.
Sharon and I guarded that little log, and when 6 hours later the doctor came out and announced that the worst was over and he was stable, we hugged each other and cried like babies.
We stayed with her, one of us was always present, and Sharon called me when my baby woke up and started talking. For three long days we watched her slowly recover in the hospital, the most serious bruises, cuts and bruises appearing the next day and then fading away. I am not a religious person by nature, but I found myself kneeling beside her bed, praying to God to take care of her and thanking God for helping her through this terrible disaster.
He died on 7 December at 4:18 pm.
Without warning, without reason, she was there and then gone. The doctors suspected a blood clot. I doubted my incompetence.
I finally understood how someone can have such low self-esteem and even feel that life is not worth living.
I went home and isolated myself from the world. After a while I hung up. God, honestly, I ripped those dangling wires out of the wall so I wouldn’t have to listen to a bleeding heart say they were “sorry for my loss.” Cell phones are more convenient. I just turned it off.
Several staff members came and assured me I could take as much time as I needed. They brought me food and news, and left when they felt they had spent the minimum social time required for the position.
Denise’s family is responsible for the funeral arrangements. They tried to call and even stopped by to ask my opinion. I gave them a $10,000 check to take care of the girls, which nearly depleted my savings. Now what am I going to spend it on? I couldn’t bring myself to go to the show, but I showered and put on a funeral suit. It was a dreary day, with gray skies and 20-mile-per-hour winds threatening to tear off the top of the outdoor tent. The ground was wet from the rain the night before. It was perfect.
“Thank God. When a man is sad, piss on him. Well, fuck you too.”
I held the hands that needed it and kissed the cheeks that needed it until I couldn’t take it anymore. These are dummies. Fake emotions. Tell me how miserable they are and then go back to their perfect little family and eat meatloaf. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.
Fourteen days. Two full weeks were spent in that dark house. I wouldn’t turn on any lights. No TV. I didn’t bathe or shave. I would sit in a chair or turn over in bed.
I had a few visitors after the first few days, but I rarely let them in and after a while they stopped coming. Only Kathy from next door would not leave me totally forgotten. Every day, at least 3 times, she would check on me. I won’t let her in, but she has a key to the back door in case of emergency, and I’m not afraid to use it.
She would open the window a little and urge me to get up and at least sit in the living room. She would bring food, put it in front of me and refuse to leave until I tried it. I insisted on getting the keys back and she happily gave it to me. And it showed up again the next day. She had photocopied it. Stupid bitch. She pestered me again to eat my breakfast.
She can talk. Oh my God, how can this woman talk! I am tired just listening to her.
All the neighborhood gossip, town gossip, political gossip, school gossip – she was everywhere and knew it all. Who was doing what, or who was complaining about who still had Thanksgiving decorations hanging, or who had Christmas explosions in their front yard. She would sit there, drink tea (or bourbon and coke if the sun was out), and tell me about church failures and neighborhood feuds.
I don’t care.
It’s been two weeks since the accident. I lost over ten pounds and wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But Kathy didn’t let me. She made it her personal mission to cheer me up, give me feedback, and give me a new life.
Then one day he asked me to eat both the buckets.
She came up to me and slapped me. Hard. “Dammit Alex! Cheer up! Life is hard. And it’s not fair, but as bad as your situation is, there’s always someone who has it worse. Usually in your own backyard, if you have eyes to look at it”.
“What do you know about this?” I said angrily. “I saw that your child is still alive.”
“I know my mother died when I was six and my father left when I was thirteen, leaving Mike to raise me and my sister. He was seventeen. But he was a man and did his job to the best of his ability.
“Life is hard. Life is a bitch and then you die. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When God closes a door, he opens a window. If I hear one more cliché, I swear I’m going to do it. Kill something.
“Alex, you’ve been mistreated. You had two little girls, and now they’re gone. Your past is shattered. Your little bit of immortality is lost. Even though you had that, I want to remind you that others are far worse off and need to keep trying too,” Kathy told me, kneeling next to me and holding my hand.
The woman barely acknowledged me. A middle-aged mother of three grown children and a working husband. Her life was her home, which she kept spotless and decorated for every holiday and season. Now it seems like I am her latest project. Why am I so important to her? Can’t she see that I don’t need her help?
“Of course, Ethiopians dying of starvation, Nigerian kids dying of AIDS, Tibetan monks being martyred, it’s a tough world. Shh.”
“You don’t have to look as far as Ethiopia or Tibet. Right here, in your neighborhood, there are people who are really struggling. Open your eyes. If you don’t like injustice, do something about it. Or even start your life again.”
Something he said must have seeped into my subconscious. I spent about 14 hours in bed, but when I woke up I remembered his constant comments about someone in my backyard who was in worse shape.
I listed everyone on my block in my mind, and no one was really that bad. Of course, three doors down, Neil was unemployed, but his wife was still working and he was looking after it. The Harris family around the corner has a guy in Iraq, but he’s fine as far as I know, and they have three kids at home. The Martin family on the corner kept fighting and once even had the police called on them, but they stayed together. What does Kathy mean?
I expanded my thoughts to include the neighborhood around us. Then it hit me. Across the back street, there were two houses directly opposite Kathy’s house. Six months earlier. Barry Morrison drove into a vacant lot behind the local high school and got shot. I don’t know much about the family—I just know there was a family.
When Kathy arrived, I had washed off two layers of dirt and sweat and was drinking a Coke in the living room.
“Good morning Alex, it’s a beautiful day outside. Why don’t we go for a walk on the porch?”
“Morrison. Tell me about them.”
She put the cup of tea in the microwave to warm up, then walked out my front door and sat down in a chair across from me.
I sat down in the chair next to him, annoyed. “The Morrisons?”
“Sandy and her daughter Erica. You don’t see her very often; she’s working two jobs and trying to keep their house afloat. They’re still fighting their insurance company over the payout. The suicide provision runs out in two years. There was insurance for many years, but about two years ago they changed the terms.
“How is the little boy?”
“Erica is not doing well. She sees a counselor twice a week and hardly talks anymore. The school is talking about stopping her,” Kathy said. She looked sad.
“Do we still know why he did it?”
“There was no crime, he wasn’t fired, there was no corruption, it’s not clear what happened. He was obviously depressed for a long time, but the underlying condition remains vacant as far as I know.”
“It’s hard for the family to go out like this,” I told her, not understanding the whole idea.
“To say the least. The poor lady is exhausted.”
“What does all this mean for me?” I asked.
“No. It doesn’t matter to anyone. They’re on their own. Alone.”
“Don’t you have any family to help you?”
“Not that I know of. If they were around, we wouldn’t have seen them, that’s for sure.”
“Kathy, how do you know these things?” I had to ask.
“People like to talk to me. I’m a good listener,” she told me, laughing.
We sat in silence, enjoying the fresh air and finishing our drinks.
“You’re a good neighbor, too, Kathy. Thank you,” I said softly.
“That’s what neighbors do,” she said, patting my arm.
That’s what neighbors are for.
** **
Kathy brought me another dinner and I realized I was hungry. When I finished the whole plate she smiled at me.
“Let’s go for a walk, Alex. You can stretch your legs.”
The weather is getting colder and we bundle up. She took the lead and we walked down the block to the nearest neighborhood. We went back to the next neighborhood and she told me the whole history and habits of the residents of each neighborhood we passed. She is probably a good listener, but I wonder when she is quiet enough to hear anything.
This was evident when we arrived at Sandy Morrison’s residence. The “For Sale” sign said it all. The messy yard and overgrown bushes indicated a lack of care for months. This did not help the chances of a sale. The paint on the door was faded and there were no Christmas lights or decorations. I don’t think the real estate agent earns a commission for making the place look like this. Through the window I could see a Christmas tree on the tabletop, about two feet tall and lit up in all white.
Strangely, Kathy stopped talking before we reached our house and didn’t speak again until the end of the block. “Sad,” was all she said.
We headed back to our house, and our conversation returned to weather concerns, community issues, and other safety matters, carefully avoiding any discussion of Morrison.
Feeling cold after the walk, I invited Kathy over for a cup of coffee, an Irish coffee if she wanted.
We drank coffee in front of the gas fireplace to warm our old bones. Damn my neighbor and her kindness! Not only did she make me think about something other than my own pain and the unfairness of it all, but she also made me think about the poor girls behind me and what they had to go through. Damn it! This isn’t fair.
I guess I’m not ready for pleasant company yet. Angry at the world, I threw the cup at the wall, breaking it, then doubled over and put my head in my hands, trying to hold back the tears. Big boys don’t cry.
Kathy stood up, ran her fingers through my hair for a moment, and then walked out the back door. Please let me groan in pain alone for a little while longer.
** **
December 22. Only three days are left for Christmas.
When Kathy arrived that morning, I was already up and dressed. I put on my work clothes and got my coffee and bagels ready.
“You’re up early,” he said, getting her some coffee.
“It’s almost ten,” I reminded him. “It’s not too early.”
She smiled. “Anything before noon is too late in my book. Any plans?”
I nodded. “I thought I’d go to Morrisons and see what I could do to the outside of the house. Clean it up. Make it a bit prettier if they’re really going to sell it.”
“You are a very good neighbor.”
“It’ll give me something to do. I’ll get out of this horrible house.”
After finishing my coffee, she put all my yard work gear on a cart and led me through the alley. The grass is dormant but tall and the undergrowth is out of control. I didn’t realize when Kathy left, but she came back a few hours later with some sandwiches for lunch and insisted I take a break.
I finished trimming the bushes and mowing the lawn, and tucking away the clippings. I had just finished edging when she arrived. I took a break and listened to her talk about the neighborhood goings on and how sad it was that no one was willing to do as much as I had over the last few months.
“I think the victims of our fate need to stick together.”
“Feels 100 percent better. If you want to work in the backyard, I have a key to the gate.”
“I think you would.”
“What does this mean?” he asked.
“That doesn’t surprise me. I’m sure you’ve been helping out when you can.”
She sighed. “Nothing much. He’s very arrogant. He doesn’t need anyone’s help.”
I shook my head. “Now you tell me. She might call the police for me.”
“So what if he did? You know you’re doing the right thing. I’ll help you if necessary.”
I asked him to open the back door and found that my work was complete. The backyard was even worse than the front yard. The fence also needed repair, some boards were broken and loose, and an entire section was loose. Fortunately, my equipment was only a few hundred feet from the street, and I quickly got to work, determined to get the job done before the residents got home.
The biggest problem was that one of the fence posts had rotted from the bottom. A new post and some quick-setting cement solved the problem. Within an hour I was able to reinstall the fence beam on my new 4WD.
I turned around and saw a young girl, maybe seven or eight years old, looking at me from the veranda. Nonsense.
