Brown Christmas
By Christopher Harne

Wanting to make sure that he and the dog were the only creatures still stirring, Paul ran one final reconnaissance mission down the darkened hallway and listened at his son’s bedroom door. The boy’s snoring joined the bubbling of a fish tank aerator in a gentle two-part harmony, reassuring Paul that he could finally get to work. Making his way through the living room, lit only by the iridescent glow of the tree, he headed to the kitchen for a midnight snack.

Let’s get this over with, Paul thought as he sat down at the kitchen table and surveyed the pile of sugar in front of him. He took a bite of a cookie, downed a swallow of milk and pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. He had quit smoking for almost three years, but this month his life was reshaped in such a way that the lack of familiarity forced him to turn to a reliable old habit for comfort. Looking nervously at the door, he took another bite of cookie and wondered why he even bothered with this charade. Why don’t I just throw the cookies out and pour the milk down the drain? It isn’t necessary to actually consume this crap. His son, Paul Jr., had insisted at the grocery store that Santa loves Nutter Butters, and Paul hated Nutter Butters. He didn't care for milk much anymore, either. The kids would never know if he just threw it away. Besides, Paul Jr. was probably just yanking his dad’s chain. He didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy anymore, so why did he still believe in Santa?

But Paul ate the cookies anyway. It’s just what you do, he said to himself. Leave the crumbs on the plate. Leave a swig of milk in the glass. Santa doesn’t clean up after himself, kids. Not on Christmas Eve…he’s far too busy. He just eats your food and runs, the fat bastard.

With only half the wrapping done, Paul had a long night ahead of him. The ex-Mrs. Paul was in Captiva with the New Guy, the one who read her poetry after dinner and never uttered a harsh word. Not like Paul, who was so critical and uninspired. No, not like Glass-Half-Empty Paul at all. The New Guy was a breath of fresh air right up her skirt. Paul recalled that famous scene from The Seven Year Itch where Marilyn Monroe stands above an air vent in the street as it teasingly lifts her white dress over her waist. Then he imagined Mrs. Paul in the scene, and while she is standing there, smiling devilishly and trying to hold her skirt down, he throws the switch on the thermonuclear power thruster and blows her straight to Neptune. Some like it hot!

With a grimace, Paul finished off the milk and gave the rest of the cookies to the dog. After gathering the unwrapped gifts and supplies from their hiding place in his bedroom closet, he pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table to wrap. Not wanting to turn on the kitchen’s oppressive fluorescent lights, he worked by the glow of a nightlight and the streetlight outside the window.

What are they doing in Captiva? Paul wondered as he tried to wrap a computer game between swigs of beer. Probably walking on the beach in the moonlight, holding hands and telling each other how happy they finally are. Good. Screw ‘em, Paul thought. “I hope a jellyfish gets caught in the crotch of her bathing suit,” he said out loud. He looked at the dog for a reaction, and the dog laughed.

I used to read poetry, Paul thought. I used to be happier. I used to have good things to say. But to maintain that into your thirties, you must have something wrong with you, right? You must be some sort of simpleton. I mean, if she wants Mr. Happy-Warm-and-Sensitive, she can have him.

The dog wanted another cookie.

“No more cookies, Dog. You’ll get sick.”

Paul turned his attention to the next gift – a basketball. Not just any basketball, but a Michael Jordan autographed basketball. It was black and red, with Jordan's signature embossed in gold ink across a bull’s head. This was what Paul Jr. wanted more than anything. He wanted to be the greatest basketball player that ever lived; at least that’s what he told his substitute teacher in an episode last week that ended with him being sent to the principal’s office. Paul knew very few details of what happened that day as he drove from work to the middle school, so he imagined the worst. Maybe Paul Jr. got in a fight. . . maybe he skipped school. . . maybe he set fire to the cafeteria. . . Paul’s heart was pounding, and he felt like a child himself as he informed the office secretary that he was there to see Principal Bailey. “He’ll be right with you,” the secretary said, motioning to a chair and then proceeding to balance her checkbook. She wore far too much makeup, Paul thought, noticing that it was spackled into the crevices around her eyes.

Paul sat down in an uncomfortable wooden chair and waited. It must have been ten minutes before Principal Bailey opened the door to his office. He was heavy-set and wore a suit that probably hadn’t fit in five years, but he still exuded an air of self-importance that comes with being the leader of one’s own land. He motioned Paul into his office and sat him down, and explained that Paul Jr. was involved in an “incident” in his sixth-grade English class.

“Ms. Janikowski, our substitute, told your son to quit talking about basketball and focus on his vocabulary assignment,” Principal Bailey said. “Your son snapped something back, and Ms. Janikowski said something to him along the lines of, ‘sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.’” Principal Bailey paused for effect. “Your son responded by informing Ms. Janikowski that ‘substitutes are the lowest form of teacher.’”

Paul laughed instinctively, immediately sensed the inappropriateness of his reaction, and then made it seem like he was coughing. “I can tell by your reaction that he got his attitude from his father, and that’s what I was afraid of,” Mr. Bailey retorted.

Paul assured the principal that it wouldn’t happen again, and that his son held the utmost respect for others. He explained that it was a hard time for all of them, things weren’t going well at home, and Paul Jr. was bitter, angry, and confused…it was all true. For those reasons, Paul didn’t punish his son too harshly for the incident, and didn’t hesitate to buy him this new basketball that he admired now as it sat on the kitchen table in front of him. In truth, Paul knew that Paul Jr. would be better suited giving up basketball completely and taking up a sport that didn't involve height -- like maybe bowling. Paul was five-foot-eight, and Mrs. Paul was five-four. Paul Jr. was doomed. If he reached six feet, it would have to be because of some genetic mutation.

But Paul bought him the basketball anyway, knowing how excited it would make him, and wrapped it as nicely as he could. He held the finished product at arms’ length when he was through and surveyed the damage. You definitely can’t tell what it is, Paul thought. That’s a positive.

“Break time,” Paul said, dropping the package in the "done" pile and pushing himself away from the table. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag while staring up at the ceiling tiles, trying to remember what year it was they had bought this house. It was ’89 or ’90, one of those two. Only ten years, and he was already so sick of the place he could puke. Were it not for the big backyard and the coveted district that meant the kids went to a decent school, he would’ve put the house on the market immediately and started over. And if she gets the kids, Paul thought, I’ll do just that. The idea of losing the children put a knot in his stomach, but Paul had to think of logistics. The house was haunted, after all. Memories seeped from every crack in the molding, every cupboard and pantry, every electrical outlet, and all he could hope for was the will to beat them down one by one each time they materialized, until they finally lost strength and vanished.

He remembered the day they saw the house for the first time. It was raining, and the realtor was late so they waited in the car for her to arrive. He remembered how hard it was raining, and how loud it sounded beating down on the roof of their car.

Mrs. Paul, anxious to see this house because from the outside it was her runaway favorite, could not stop fidgeting and suggested they survey the front yard to create a landscaping plan of attack. Paul didn't feel like playing any games, and just wondered where the hell the realtor was, but he went along with Mrs. Paul because she was so excited. Her eyes were open as wide as Paul Jr.'s would be tomorrow morning, one leg pulled up under her in the passenger seat as she faced the house.

"I would take out that tree," she began, pointing to a haggard Japanese plum. "It sticks out like a sore thumb. I'd plant a bunch of little robellini palms in its place to complement the sagos on the right. So I'd keep them. Then I'd expand the front flower bed and add a lot more color to it, and maybe a stone walkway."

Paul looked at the yard as she spoke, letting his mind wander to other things. They had been married a little more than a year, and that commitment paled in comparison to the one they were about to make. Buying a house was the next step, a bigger step, a step that binds two people together with titanium cables. Paul rested his face against the car window and watched the rain bombard the leaves of a banana plant, each drop bouncing up and out like an Olympic diver off a springboard. Remembering this now he sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. He suddenly didn’t feel like wrapping any more gifts.

Mrs. Paul was around last Christmas Eve. She was up wrapping presents with him until the early morning hours, and she did such a good job wrapping that at one point Paul just let her take the reins while he made a pot of coffee. She always did this remarkable little trick with the ribbons, so that the presents looked like they were wrapped at a department store.

“That’s the secret,” Paul had told her as he poured her a cup of coffee. “That’s the secret to why yours look so much better than mine. I wrap them just as good as you, but it’s that thing you do to the bows. That thing with the scissors. If I had that skill, I’d be the Wrap Master, and you would be my humble servant.”

“Well you will never have that skill,” she responded. “Because you’re a boy and boys can’t do things like that.” Then she stuck her tongue out at him. She was always doing cute little-girl things like that.

"Just as well," Paul said. "You'd probably be a little worried if I were an expert bow maker."

"Like I'm not already worried about you, Freak." She pulled a ribbon taut and with the open scissors pressed firmly under her thumb ran them up the ribbon’s side. "Ouila! A frilly masterpiece!" She lifted her left arm, with her palm extended outward like a magician welcoming applause, and took a sip of coffee with her right.

"Amazing," Paul said, clapping sarcastically. He rubbed her head on his way out of the kitchen, and she turned around and poked him in the butt with the scissors.

"Hey!"

"Hey yourself." She peered up at him expectantly through her bangs. She was a pretty girl when they met, and through the years, before his very eyes, she had grown into a beautiful young woman. She had rich chestnut hair, hazel eyes that seemed a bit too big for her face, and a mischievous smile that caused her nose to crinkle up like a mouse’s. Every once in a while, although certainly not very often, he would look at her and realize that she was a woman, and they were adults. His chest would swell with pride and fear at this thought. Most of the time, however, he felt like they were still kids living together for some sort of high school sociology class experiment.

She turned her nose up and started to grin, and lifting her feet up on the chair and grabbing her ankles, she pressed her knees against her chest. "Don't be a grinch," she bellowed in her best James Earl Jones, an immeasurable stretch for her squeaky little voice. Paul laughed and turned away.

That was last year. This year he just skipped the buying of bows and ribbon. No bows, no ribbons. . . just paper.

“Jesus, think about something else,” he said, and stood up to get another beer. The dog followed him to the refrigerator and peered inside with him. “Getting anything for me?” the dog seemed to ask as it looked up at Paul’s illuminated face. Paul grabbed the box of Nutter Butters and emptied them into the dog’s bowl.

“There, that oughta hold ya,” Paul told the dog. He twisted the cap off his beer and chugged half the bottle standing up. The gift pile looked a little more manageable now, so he got back at it.

He began to separate all the small gifts into a stocking pile. Since he wasn’t going to wrap that stuff, he designated most everything as being somewhat small. He bought the kids a lot of gifts this year, even though money was a bit tight. He didn’t want them to think there would be any decline in quality of living just because Mommy wasn’t around.

“I bought good gifts,” he remarked, and gave himself a mock pat on the back. When he told his neighbor, Caroline, that he was doing all the shopping himself this year, she offered to help, knowing how guys are when it comes to Christmas shopping. She feared the kids would end up with nothing but a couple of cans of WD-40 and a Hickory Farms snack basket. But he proved her wrong -- toys, balls, computer games…he spared no expense.

The whole act of shopping for the kids’ presents by himself didn’t bother him too much. It was like an exciting challenge, not unlike a treasure hunt. But now he had to wrap them. Now he had to acknowledge the fact that Mrs. Paul was in Captiva with the New Guy, and not here helping him wrap in the quiet outskirts of the night. She had left him hanging out to dry in their very own kitchen, with the dog and the world’s shoddiest wrapping job staring him right in the face. He understood her leaving him. He was no prize, not by a stretch. But how could she leave Paul Jr. and the baby? He knew she would fight to get them back after she'd had her fun, but when would that be? They amicably agreed to split their time with the children over Christmas, and Paul was somewhat grateful, despite everything else, that Christmas morning was his. Half of her holiday was devoted to frolicking in the surf with the New Guy, and tomorrow night she’d be by to pick up the kids and take them to her new place for a few days. Paul wanted that episode to be over quickly. He couldn’t imagine seeing her. He assumed he must have done something horribly wrong to bring about this change in her, something so bad that she had no choice but to leave it all behind. He didn't want to understand when she said, "It's not what you did, it's what you didn't do." How could she dwell on minutiae at a time like this? She would be back, but not for him. She'd return for the kids, and Paul realized that the worst was yet to come.

“Jellyfish, jellyfish, jellyfish,” he said three times fast, hoping some voodoo magic would work. The dog jumped up and started spinning around.

“No, Dog, I wasn’t calling you,” Paul explained in his high-pitched, talking-to-the-dog voice. “I was calling on evil spirits to hurt Mommy.”

With new determination, he finished the wrapping and began carrying the presents out to the tree. Somewhat drunk and trying to carry too much at once, he dropped several boxes, including one right on the dog's head. When he had them all laid out and situated neatly, it still looked sparse to him. There just weren’t as many gifts as when Mrs. Paul was around. He did the best he could, but women are simply better shoppers than men. What seems like a back-breaking shopping spree to a man is just a run up to the corner market for a woman.

Exasperated and tired, Paul crashed down on the living room couch and flipped on the television. He surfed through the channels and groaned as he realized that all of the standard Christmas shows were playing, filling the television screen with mirth and joy. He came across A Christmas Carol and paused.

“Scrooge, you were such a pushover,” he mumbled at the TV. “Giving in like that, just because you saw a few ghosts. That's just another day, man. Ghosts are everywhere.”

Paul turned off the television and stretched out on the couch. His eyes wandered sleepily about the dark room, now cloaked in subtle shadows, and he let his arm drop down off the side of the couch so that his hand rested on the dog’s back. The couch was mauve, at least that's what Mrs. Paul called it, and it was her color of choice when decorating the house. Everything was mauve – lamps, candles, coasters, wallpaper. She had insisted upon it at the decorating center. She assured Paul that she was right, that she knew what she was doing, and so mauve it was. When she was around, the colors didn't really bother him. They matched her personality, and provided a suitable backdrop for her every move about the house. When Mrs. Paul would walk from the kitchen to the kids' rooms, mauve wallpaper seemed to be just about the only thing capable of carrying her there. But now that she was gone, it just looked gaudy and girlish.

“Dog,” Paul said, turning on his side to face the dog. “Tomorrow I’m painting this place brown, like shit, and I’m throwing all this pink stuff out. How you like that?”

The dog just looked at him, knowing he was drunk.

“Chocolate City, Baby. Detroit in 1978. Brown like the Cleveland Browns, brown like James Brown. Smooth brown chocolate. Brown like Alpo, 'eh Dog? You’ll probably want to eat the place.”

The dog heard the word “eat”, and its ears perked up.

“You already ate your Christmas dinner, Dog -- a box of cookies. You should be the happiest dog on the planet.”

Reminded of its cookie binge, the happiest dog on the planet rested its head between its paws and looked up at Paul with bellyache eyes.

“I know how you feel, Dog,” Paul said. Then he closed his own eyes and tried hard to fall asleep.