THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS I KILLED MY FATHER

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS – THAT I KILLED MY FATHER. --- A TRUE STORY.

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My first recollection was when I was 4 year old, walking on to the stage at a small club in the heart of London’s East end and climbing on my father’s knee, (Much to the chagrin of my mom who chided my dad for bringing me out at night when I should be sound asleep in bed.) I sat on my father’s knee and complete with black face he went into his Jolson act:

“Climb upon my knee Sonny Boy, though you're only three, Sonny Boy. You've no way of knowing, you've no way of showing, what you mean to me, Sonny Boy”

My response was a big yawn, and the audience lapped

it up.

Growing up in the high hectic years of London as it faced the onslaught of Hitler’s madness, my carpenter father was the authority on just about everything.  And he was always on. The world was his stage. At every party and family gathering he was the consummate performer. Above all he avowed that the most important virtue in the world was a sense of humor, and of course in my tender pre-teen years I took it as gospel because I adored him and every word he uttered was sacred.  He practiced what he preached to the nth degree. He devised ingenious methods to inflict his special brand of humor on unsuspecting family and friends alike, and often complete strangers.   His gags ranged from the benign to the outrageous and he most enjoyed when my Sister Sophie or I could create an ingenious leg-pull. His caveat always being, we do not embarrass the recipient.

 It started, I think when I was about five, when he told me I was the worst son he ever had. As my lip trembled, he quickly explained that I had to be, seeing as I was the only son he had, and that I was also the greatest and best son he ever had too. And of course he used the same ruse on my sister Sophie, who, being some 18 months older than me, and a lot smarter, had no problem following the logic. The gags and leg-pulls continued through the years, each of us trying to top the last leg-pull. I well remember his Present Pitchforks routine during his war years in the Home Guard. He’d show off in the backyard with a “present arms,” only instead of a rifle he used a pitchfork. (He had the shakes pretty bad. It was the onset of Parkinson’s disease and they turned him down for active duty.) “Dad, where’s your rifle?”

“It’s all we’ve got right now Son.”  So he spent the war years as an air raid warden wearing a tin hat, making sure all the windows were properly blacked out and directing the emergency crews to the fires from the incendiary bombs that rained down during the London Blitz.

  Sophie and I were evacuated to a small town in the Sussex countryside 50 miles from London where we would watch the German bombers flying high overhead coming in with their lethal load of bombs.

Yet through those hair-raising days he never lost his sense of humor. Even when a bomb just missed the small air-raid shelter at the end of our garden and fell on the house across the road, causing  the 17 year old boy who lived there to have both his legs amputated. Dad visited him as he lay dying and did a comedy routine in the hospital, and said he would laugh all the wounded and dying patients back to life, but the duty nurse warned him that that might not be a good idea because their laughter could cause their stitches to burst, so he resorted to singing to the patients instead. His rich tenor voice got him a spot on the B.B.C choir. We looked forward to the program all week but when it was aired the signal was so weak we could barely hear it.

Then Hitler sent us the V1 Buzz bombs. An unmanned high explosive aircraft. At least they were not as deadly as the V2 rockets that preceded them which were silent and more deadly. They were the waning days of the war. Burned out homes and leveled buildings were the charred and blackened landscape at the dawn of each day. But by then my parents had taken to the subway with the thousands of other families who crowded the underground system that ran through the city. Each night they would bunk on the platforms some 80 feet below ground. Only their home-spun entertainment and raucous merriment could muffle the sounds of the nightly carnage that rained down from the skies. Dad was in his element. Even though mother couldn’t read a note of music she would somehow accompany him on the old upright piano, and his favorite performance was his Jolson act when he took a can of soot from the chimney, applied it to his face with a cork and went into his favorite song: Sonny Boy, (Which I have seen so often in my dreams). “Climb upon my knee, Sonny Boy, though you’re only three, Sonny Boy, there’s no way of showing, there’s no way of knowing, what you mean to me, Sonny Boy…” Then there was a time he stood on a soapbox representing the Balderdash Party on the corner of our street, and actually had more listeners that the fascist spouting National Socialism on the opposite curb. He pulled so many gags and jokes through the years that were far too numerous to mention.

He had to find a downstairs flat because our mother could not climb the stairs due to her weak heart, and often he’d throw her over his shoulder like a sack of coals, to take her up the stairs. That was long before the day of the pacemaker. The tide of war turned in our favor when Field Marshall Montgomery defeated the Germans at El-Alamein in the battle for North Africa. I well remember how excited she was and told us that we were finally going to win the war.  The following day when I came home from school, Chummy, her favorite mongrel mutt lay howling just inside the front door. I knew before I put the key in the lock she had died. She was just 43 years of age. It was the only time I ever saw the man who lived and loved to laugh, sob his heart out.

When I married and immigrated to Southern California he paid us a visit in the late 70’ and his gags continued.

However I made careful plans to once and for all become the king of leg-pullers.   Laughter is often painful, which is perhaps the greatest paradox in life and caused my father’s untimely death in the spring of 1984.

 I wrote frequently to my father about my new life and Dad would read my letters to Louise. Suffice it to say that Louise was his second wife and not the smartest woman on the block, but she was a great cook, a warm bed buddy and liked to play gin rummy. One letter I recall, I had mentioned that on the previous Wednesday a tremendous wind had sprung up and blown down the fence in our apartment house in Beverly Hills.   Louise interrupted my father and said: “Yes, it was windy here too.” . I mention this only to show the mind-set of my stepmother which is necessary to set the scene for the following sequence of events.

And this how it happened:  I had planned a trip back to London over the holidays and also being the occasion of Dad’s 80^th birthday. I decided not to tell him I was coming. In one of my letters I informed him that he would be contacted by the American Public Television Station requesting a filmed interview that would be aired in the U.S on the differences on how Senior Citizens fared in both countries. I arranged that Glen, an old-time friend call my father to set up an appointment for the filming.

At length, disguised with wig, beard and thick bifocals, I arrived at his house on my second morning in London. Glen, was my cameraman armed with a super eight camera, tripod and lights. After preliminary introductions and using a fake name, I stood over my father with a questionnaire on a clipboard and proceeded to ask him a series of questions.

Sitting in an armchair beside him was Louise. My disguise was obviously foolproof, because he settled back and addressed each question I posed in full, with many comedic remarks interjected for good measure.  I asked him questions about how well he managed on his pension, what kind of food he enjoyed and how he spent his leisure time. And the interview continued while I made notations on the clipboard. At length when I came to the final questions I paused. “There are just two more questions and I won’t take up any more of your time”, I said “What was your most exciting experience?” I asked. “That’s easy,” Dad said, “Visiting my son in California.”

“Now here is the last question I have for you, and I want you to think about the answer very carefully?  But before I ask it, if I may, I would like to use your bathroom.”

“You wanna’ take a bath?” Said Louise. “Here I’ll show you how the taps work. You have to tug on the cold water tap, ‘cause it gets stuck.”   

“No, the toilet.”

“Oh you just want to take a pee?” Louise said.

“Yes, thanks and when I come back you can give me your answer.”

“It’s just down the hall on the right. You’ll see it.” She said.

“No, it’s on the left,” Dad said.

“So here is the question, What was your biggest disappointment? And give me the answer when I return.”

I instructed Glen to start filming the moment I came back.   I made straight for the bathroom and quickly removed my disguise.    I returned to the living room, bent over my father and said: “And now for the answer to my last question, or shall I answer it for you? In fact, wasn’t I your biggest disappointment?” It was the most pregnant of all silences before the onslaught.  My father’s face changed color, then he stood up, hugged me in a bear embrace and commenced to dance around the room with a mixture of laughter, kisses and tears. I had always enjoyed a great compassionate warmth, throughout the difficult years of my boyhood, but there was never the utter abandonment of decorum he was now displaying. His kisses were profuse. He was shaking, not only with emotion but with the progression of the Parkinsons that was slowly overtaking his body. He paused and sat on the couch. His breathing became labored. He needed time to collect himself. It was then I had doubts that laughter is indeed the best medicine. But he soon revived, jumped up and again began a long moment of sheer adulation, using invectives and accolades that did my heart good. I had indeed hit the comedy jackpot. He resumed his dance of joy. His words were almost incoherent as they interspersed with his jig of jubilation. His breathing became labored as he kept kissing, hugging and congratulating me in a dozen different ways. He was effusive with a tumble of words, interspersed with tumultuous laughter. “That was the greatest son. Never even knew you were coming. I gotta’ hand it to you, you are now the King. The King of leg-pullers. What a great gag.” And so the hugging, back-slapping and congratulation continued for several minutes. All this time Louise just sat there with her mouth open and a deep worried furrow on her brow. Finally she gripped the arms of her chair and spoke.” What happened to the bloke in the bathroom” She asked.

THAT WAS IT! Dad collapsed on the floor, shrieking with laughter. He totally lost control. He laughed for ten solid minutes. He was holding his stomach, his chest, and his head. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. Finally he gained control, and Louise got up, made tea and brought out the best bread pudding I had ever tasted, but she still didn’t get it and sneaked into the bathroom to see if the other bloke with the beard and the coke-bottle glasses was still there.

At a party that evening Dad repeated the events that had occurred that morning. Again he went into a paroxysm of laughter, only this time he never recovered. It was his second heart attack. He died laughing, is an understatement, for he died convulsing with laughter, with tears streaming from his eyes.

He was buried at Edmonton cemetery two days later. And as I sat Shiva, the traditional seven days of mourning with family and friends filling the small living room, my stepmother, Louise looked at me with fierce resentment in her eyes, “You came over here and killed your dad, didn’t ya?” There was so much I wanted to say. There were a million mollifying words I could have used, but instead I just bit my lip and nodded, and remembered what my father had once told me. That the pitcher can go once too often to the well.

_________________________________________________________Abraham Alan Ross

37 Dudley Avenue, Venice, CA 90291

(310) 579-1646

alanzip@gmail.com 

 ‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS – THAT I KILLED MY FATHER.

An excerpt from my book The Lasso Man. But seeing as I have also written the screenplay (soon to be a major motion picture