Christmas Lights

Bill struggles down the attic stairs carring an oblong box with a picture of a pine tree on its side. Holding the box on his shoulder, he shouts, “Which corner do you want me to put the tree in, Mom?” His mother, Dolores, is following behind, hauling a plastic tub with an ill-fitting green lid.  Written on its side in black magic marker are the words “Xmas lights.”

Dolores smiles wickedly as she declares, “Let’s put it in the corner behind your father’s chair.” Oscar jumps up, sputtering and snarling. He nearly knocks over the bowl of ribbon candy he has been munching on, even though Christmas is still over a week away.

“Like hell, you will!” he bellows. Knowing what his mother is up to, Bill stifles a smile. Dolores folds her arms and lifts her chin. “And why not? It looks like a perfectly good spot to me. People can see it through the window as they go by.”

Oscar glares and huffs, “I don’t give a damn if they can see Santa’s big hairy ass through the window! It’s not going behind my chair! I won’t spend almost two weeks listening to bubble lights gurgling in my ears while red lights flash on the TV screen. I won’t be able to watch Matlock!”  He then crams a piece of ribbon candy into his mouth and crunches it angrily. Bill wrinkles up his nose, “Dad, how can you eat that crap? It reminds me of eating light bulbs. Oscar hmms. “It ain’t so bad if you’re careful.” Suddenly, Oscar squeezes his eyes tight and balls up his fists!

Bill grabs his own throat. “That’s what I’m talking about! You just stabbed your tonuge, didn’t you? Why do you do it? I swear it is like chewing glass!”

“Don’t even try," Dolores drones. You’re talking to a man who likes Brussel sprouts for breakfast.” Oscar sticks his finger in and starts feeling around in side of his mouth.

“Oscar!” screams his wife. “Don’t put that filthy thing in your mouth! What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m twying oo see if it’s bweeding,” Oscar replies around the finger.

Dolores rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not, so go wash your hands! Geesh!” 

Oscar removes his finger and wipes it on his shirt. “ At any rate," he continues, "You’re not putting it there. Why don’t we put it in the corner by the fireplace like we always do?” Bill can’t contain his laughter any longer. “ I apologize, Dad! Mom and I are just teasing you. That’s where we had planned to put it all along.” Oscar’s eyes dart back and forth between them and frowns. He almost jams another piece of candy into his mouth but thinks better of it.

Dolores coos, “Alright, Oscar, dear. I promise that nasty old tree won’t interfere with your Matlock.” Then she snickers. “Anyways, are you going to help us put up the tree this year?”

Oscar sits back down with the bowl of candy in his lap. “Nah. You guys can handle it.” Dolores shakes her head and stares at Oscar.

Bill, who’s assembling the Christmas tree, pipes in, “You know, Mom, I don’t think I can remember a time when Dad did help with the tree.”

Dolores starts to unpack the lights and tells Oscar to hold one end. “Your father used to help but stopped for some reason.”

“I stopped", Oscar says indigently, "because things were picking up at the shop, and I had to work overtime. You see, Bill, your mother and I married when I returned from Vietnam. The recession was still going on, so we didn’t have much money. I was taking advantage of my G.I. loan by going to night school to learn to be a machinist and working at a garage during the day.”

Dolores smiles. “That’s right. I was working as an assistant for the high school while taking care of our small apartment over a convenience store. It had a sitting room, a kitchen, and a bedroom, and that was it! And the rent was sixty dollars a month with heat!”

Oscar wraps the lights from his elbow to his thumb while Dolores untangles them. “Yeah, but that shrewd old landlord fixed the thermostat so you couldn’t move it above seventy-four degrees!” Dolores laughs loudly, “Oh, yeah! And when the wind blew in the winter, it was so drafty that it was freezing in there!” Oscar lowers his voice. “It wasn’t so bad, though. We’d just throw another blanket on the bed and snuggle a little closer.” Dolores softly hmms, then, “Is the tree ready, Bill? Come on, Oscar, you know the drill!”

Oscar makes a big deal of getting out of the recliner with Christmas lights wrapped around one arm and the bowl of candy in the other. Dolores sighs. “Oscar, why don’t you take your eyes off Matlock for a minute and put down the ribbon candy?” Oscar frowns as he puts down the bowl but but manages to put another piece of candy in his mouth. Walking over to the tree, he smiles shrewdly at Bill. “I figured out that all you have to do is suck on it.” All of a sudden, his eyes snap shut, “Son of a bitch!”

“DAD! For God’s sake, stop eating that stuff! You’re giving me the willies watching you!” Oscar waves Bill off as he walks around the tree, unraveling the lights as Dolores attaches them to the branches. When they reach the bottom of the tree, Oscar plugs it into the socket and steps back. They flicker and sputter and, at last, light up- all except for one strand.

Oscar’s chin drops to his chest. “Why?” he implores, exasperated. “Why is it always the middle string of lights? Weren’t they working last year when we put them away? What could have happened to them in a closed, undisturbed box for a year?” He starts pushing and pulling plugs and lights while muttering and swearing under his breath to no avail. Dolores examines a string of lights where they joined another. “I already tried that!” snaps Oscar. Unfazed, Dolores unplugs the two to find a bunch of tree needles pushed inside. She shakes them out, replugs the two strands, and the lights come on. She turns to Oscar, wearing a little Mona Lisa smile, and bats her eyelashes. Oscar just curls his lip.  He turns his attention back to his son.

“Like I was saying. Money was tight, and it was going to be our first Christmas. We couldn’t afford an artificial tree or a real one. So I came up with a plan.”

Dolores, who is putting hooks on the Christmas ornaments, joins in. “He planned to go into the state forest and cut down a live spruce tree. So he borrowed my father’s saw and headed out.”

“That’s right! So I was driving down this back road with no other cars in sight.  I pulled over and stopped. No sooner have I stopped when a police cruiser comes up out of nowhere and pulls in behind me. The officer exits his cruiser and smiles at me through the driver’s window. I smile back and, while leaning forward to crank down my window, I try to slide the saw off the bench seat onto the floor.

“Good evening, sir. Are you having some car trouble?” the officer asked. When I told him everything was fine, he pulled his eyebrows together suspiciously. He looked into the backseat and continued, “You see, I’ve been stationed out here because some people think they can come here and cut down a tree for Christmas instead of buying one. Now, if we let everyone who wanted one do that, why we wouldn’t have much of a state forest left, now would we?” I’m sure I turned pale as I swallowed and said, “No. Ah, I think I’d better be going now. It’s getting late.” The officer smiled, “Sounds good. You have a Merry Christmas. Oh and by the way, if you do need a tree, my uncle has a lot next to the drugstore. Tell him Officer Willy sent you. He’ll give you a discount.”

Bill chuckled. “Sounds like he knew what you were up to.”  Dolores hands her son an ornarment. “Oscar actually did go to the uncle’s lot. When your father told him his nephew sent him, plus the fact Oscar was a veteran, the uncle gave him a huge discount.” Oscar nibbles on the corner of a piece of ribbon candy. “It was a beautiful tree. I continued to buy one every year after that until the old man died.”

With the tree finished, they all stand back and look. The bubble lights had warmed up enough to start bubbling, and the star on the top seemed to shine a little brighter this year,

Bill calls to his father as he holds a piece of mistletoe over Dolores’s head. “It is Christmas, after all.”

Oscar looks at the mistletoe and then at Dolores. “I don’t need no mistletoe to kiss your mother. She’s worth kissing all year long.” Dolores smiles demurely until Oscar adds, “ Though not during Matlock.”