A Westown Christmas

On Christmas eve, me and Estrada and Como’s sister and Sackville were hiding in the alley behind the school because the kids from across Thunderbird Road wanted to kill us. Como had the flu, but we liked his sister, so she got to hang out with us. She asked what we were all getting for Christmas.

I said I was getting some Star Wars toys and probably a book about baseball. She said they were getting the Guns of Navarone Giant Playset but it had to be for her and Como, since it cost a lot, but if they didn’t get that her mom would probably get her more Holly Hobby stuff, which she hated more than boys did. She got mad at everything her mom did. “Mom says I’m not supposed to like war toys. She better not get me anything stupid.”

Estrada said he didn’t know if he was getting anything else because it depended on how much money his mom had. He was almost twelve but flunked 5th grade so he was in my class now. His mom was a waitress at Westown Tavern at night and then in the mornings she worked at Thrifty Drugs. She only came home for sleep and to drink coffee and tell him what to do. She wasn’t mean but she didn’t smile much, either. She was in between.

“Last year, she got us a color tv,” he said.

I’d never heard of a kid getting a tv before. “For just you?” I asked.

“For everybody. But we don’t get to watch it if Paul is home.” Paul, his mom’s boyfriend. We came over after school one time and Paul was asleep on the couch in his underwear. He was supposed to work, but didn't. Paul looked too young to be a mom’s boyfriend, but he was.

“I don’t know. I asked for a Blondie poster, though. She’s such a fox,” he said, and we all agreed she was. I’d been thinking about Blondie. A lot. Last year Estrada got a Benji poster and some books about dogs. He traded me the books for one of my dad’s wrenches and we turned the Benji poster into a torch and used it to burn weeds at the park.  

Sackville had been listening quietly, digging dirt worms out of the tracks of his shoes. They were Payless, same as the rest of us, but not even the kind of Payless with the fake Adidas stripes. His didn’t look like any other shoes at all. They were just brown. They were so old there were holes where his big toe almost stuck out, but if you pointed it out he got quiet and his face turned red and he’d go somewhere to sit down by himself. Not really face red, but more like if you stained straw with red koolaid. It was more like a pattern than a color.

He cleared his throat. “I’m getting a new skateboard and some records and probably a rifle and a new seat for my Huffy.” We all looked at him. He was proud of his Christmas, and so were we. “Plus a trip to Disneyland and twenty-five dollars,” he added.

Estrada gave Sackville a push on his shoulder, then clopped him on the side of the head, but he smiled as he did it, which meant he wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. “Must be nice to be Sackville,” said Estrada. He stood up and scouted the alley. “We can go.”

At the corner, we stood around for a few minutes watching some older kids trying to tune up an old yellow Camaro. The radio was on and they shouted orders at each other over Molly Hatchet. One of them told us to take a picture, it lasts longer. Estrada yelled out, “The only thing that works in that piece of shit is your mom,” so we had to book it.

Even though the kids from across Thunderbird were gone, we still had to look out in case we ran into any other enemies, especially anybody who got out of juvie for the holidays. One time I was walking home and this girl who got out of girl juvie and her friends waved me into her driveway and she kissed me on the neck and rubbed my stomach and called me pretty and then her friends laughed and they tried to pants me.

Christmas vacation was hard because we weren’t allowed inside. We couldn’t go play at Como’s because Como’s mom said his sister had to stay outside all day, plus she didn’t want a bunch of kids anyway. Paul was sleeping, and we didn’t get to go to Thrifty when Estrada’s mom was working because of stealing, and my dad said Estrada wasn’t welcome to come over ever again after he caught him peeing on the side of the house. I told my dad it was an emergency but my dad said you still had to come inside and use the bathroom like a civilized person, even in emergencies.

“That’s the difference between us and them,” he explained, pointing at Estrada through the window.  He didn’t like Estrada’s type. Estrada said he had too much style for my dad anyway.

We decided to go over to the canal behind the school and throw rocks at birds. A kid drowned there in the summer because he wanted to catch a floating bag of tin cans and fell in. He was in Como’s sister’s class and his name was Richard. She and Sackville built Richard a memorial out of rocks and sticks and coke cans and then drew a pentagram and wrote “RUSH RULES” underneath. She made a swastika and then crossed it out by stomping on it because you weren’t allowed to do swastikas. Sackville didn’t know Richard, but he always liked doing things with Como’s sister, probably because he used to have a sister but she had to go live with their grandmother. I saw them together at the park once before she moved away, and it made Sackville look older because of the way he held her hand and helped her ride a bike. He didn’t seem like a kid who had a sister anymore.

Estrada hit two pigeons. I almost pegged one, but my rock skimmed right over its head and plinked a coke can in the weeds instead. “Bonus,” I shouted. You got bonuses when something weird happened.

“There’s no bonuses,” said Estrada. He was mad because none of the pigeons he hit got knocked out. They just dipped their heads and flew away to the roofs beyond. The rule was you couldn’t throw rocks at pigeons when they landed on someone’s roof. That was universal. I told him pigeons were doves.

Como’s sister ran over to us. “You guys, you guys,” she squealed, pointing at Sackville. “You guys!”

“I didn’t say that!” yelled Sackville. He stuck his hands in his pockets and started walking away from us backwards. “That’s not what I sai-ai-aid!” He was crying.

She pointed at him. “He thinks there’s a Santa Claus,” she announced. We all laughed at him for thinking it. “He says he never knows what he’s getting for Christmas because it’s up to Santa Claus, and that Santa might bring more than I expect. He said that!”

“No way,” I said, looking at Estrada. “Just no way.” Nobody believes in Santa when they’re ten. That’s universal, too.  

Sackville stomped away from us fast, his hands jammed deep in his pockets. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t say it,” he pleaded. Como’s sister made baby noises at him. 

I yelled at Sackville’s back, “I’m going home because I’m crying!”, then I hung my head and walked in a circle and acted like Sackville. I tried to get Estrada to look at me but he just stared at him. Usually he would tackle a kid when he got weak, but Estrada didn’t do that or even call him a dumbfuck. He let Sackville walk away for a little while before pointing at him with his chin and squinting as Sackville disappeared into the alley.

We followed Sackville all the way back to the park. He knew we were behind him but stayed a few houses ahead of us. Somewhere along the way, he stopped crying and Como’s sister stopped laughing. We met him at the little kid monkey bars.   

                “I know about Santa Claus,” he confessed. He tore at the fabric of his shoe with his thumb, making the holes gape like he didn’t care anymore. I’d known Sackville for about a year but until now I never thought about how he never smiled or laughed except when he scored a basket, and then he just grunted and opened his eyes wide and and bit his lower lip like he was embarrassed to score. He had a mom but it wasn’t the mom he lived with. Kids like Sackville probably only got happy at Christmas if they believed in Santa Claus.  

“I might get some new shoes from my grandmother,” he said.

Estrada sat down next to him. “That sucks,” he said. “Shoes are sucky presents.”

“They’re worse than Benji posters,” said Como’s sister. Everybody knew that.

Sackville looked at me and asked, “How do you know if you’re poor?”

I shrugged. Poor people lived in shacks and sat on their porch holding babies.  “Maybe you get a letter from the government.”

“Paul always says we’re broke ass poor,” said Estrada. “So that probably counts, when you just know it.”

“We aren’t poor. My dad just doesn’t want to move,” said Como’s sister. Como’s family had two cars, but everything in their house was dusty and one time I saw their mom put water in a half-empty koolaid pitcher to fill it back up. My mom did that, too. Plus they had too many kids to be rich.

“I think we are,” said Sackville. There was something else he was thinking but he didn’t say it. He blinked and cleared his throat. We sat in silence for a little while and watched the older kids push their yellow Camaro down the street. It didn’t have doors anymore and the radio was off.

Sackville looked at Como’s sister. “I just thought maybe you still believed in Santa Claus because you’re eight. So I said that in case you did.” It was the kind of lie you get to tell if it makes things better between friends, but it could have been true.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s ok. I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“I’m probably just getting shoes,” he said.

“Well that’s good because you need them,” she said.

When I got home later, my family put together a puzzle of an Irish castle in the snow and then we ate popcorn and watched Charlie Brown and had to say some Christmas prayers that were basically what Linus was talking about. I got yelled at because I took the Jesus baby out of the manger scene and put a German sniper in his place. My dad thought it was funny but my mom gave me to the count of five to put Jesus back.

I asked my dad if we were poor, but he said it was a stupid question and told me to pick up the dog crap in the backyard. All of it. On Christmas eve.

On Christmas, I got some Star Wars toys and a book about baseball plus the Great Brain series and a model of the Boeing B-29 Giant Superfortress and a shirt that said Shazbot and a Dodgers batting helmet. I gave my parents a hug and thanked them because it was more than I asked for and then we ate pancakes and bacon and real hashbrowns and something called stones from England and my dad took a nap and my brothers got into a fight because they were stupid fat idiots and my mom got ready for church. Estrada’s mom had to work for somebody else so she called my mom and he got to go with us. He had to wear one of my shirts because my mom said his mom said his good shirt got lost, and everybody knows you can’t go to church in a dirty tee shirt. He even tried to look respectable by combing his hair and tucking the shirt into his shorts.

Church reception wasn’t bad when they had donuts and the old people weren't smoking like chimneys. The best part was when we sang carols and Estrada kept singing “O homo night” until my dad noticed and made us shut up by thumping us both on the back. My dad told Father McMurray sorry for his son’s guest’s outbursts but Father McMurray said he didn’t even notice but maybe it was something to consider for confession.

“I’ll consider your mama,” Estrada whispered, and we laughed and laughed and laughed until home.

After supper, we decided to give Sackville some presents so we wrapped up some of my Iron Man comics and this giant gold pencil I got in California which I said could be from Estrada. Como’s sister came with us. She got him three cookies in a tin box. The streetlights were just glowing on as we rode up to his house, and in the carport we saw by his side a little girl, and the little girl was playing with a baby doll, and when we rode up Sackville was smiling and making baby noises.

He saw us and came running. “My sister is here. They didn’t tell me about it. My sister gets to live here now! She’s seven,” he told us, and we were so happy, we all hugged him, even Como’s sister, and we said hello to her and we gave him most of the presents, but Estrada kept the big pencil in case we got attacked by the kids from across Thunderbird.

"You got new shoes!" said Como's sister.

“Uh huh, I did," said Sackville. He pulled up his pantleg to show us, and Como's sister said they were the good ones. They had the fake Adidas stripes. "And a skateboard."

“You got a skateboard?” asked Estrada, even though that’s what Sackville just said.   

Before bed, my dad took a razorblade and cut the parts out for my model kit, and when he finished he told me in a serious voice that if your parents are sad at Christmas, then you’re probably poor, but if they are happy at Christmas, then you aren’t.

“I hope that answers that. Do we look happy or sad to you?” he asked.

They were kind of both, I thought. It changed every day. But I told him I thought we were happy.

“We are,” he assured me. “Even when we don’t know it. Merry Christmas,” he said, and he turned off the light and left me there to think.

I thought about Blondie.