Chapter II, Dewey the Destroyer
Garlands were hung, the plastic tree was trimmed and
presents were wrapped neatly in gold, red and silver as Jana paused from her
baking to inhale a moment of peace along with the scent of her fresh cut pie
apples. She sighed and stared out from the kitchen door to the living room.
Daughter and son had apparently called a cease-fire just in time to watch “The
Simpson’s Christmas” and devour the last batch of Grandma’s lefse from the
freezer. Grandpa was snoring in heavenly peace from his overstuffed chair by
the window. Monty, bent over his laptop on the dining room table, was rubbing
his temples. It was the first moment of quasi-quiet since they arrived
yesterday. She wondered how long it would last.
A ringing phone answered her question. Jana
called out from the kitchen. “Will somebody get that? I’m covered with flour.”
It rang again. “Can somebody get that?” And again. “Will somebody please get
that!” She popped her annoyed face out from the kitchen door. “Leo!”
The boy nodded but didn’t move. “All right.”
It rang a sixth time.
“Leo!”
“Ariel’s
closer.”
The
girl objected. “Am not.”
“Am
too.”
“Am
not.”
“Am
too.”
Jana stormed into the room covered with
baking flour, slammed a bowl down on the coffee table and lifted the receiver
with her cleanest hand. “Yes? What is it?” Her voice changed immediately from
basic bothered to pseudo-civil. “Oh, hello pastor. Yes. Yes, thank you. Yeah,
it’s good to be home. What? Yeah. Yeah. Merry Christmas to you, too. It’s been
. . .” She blew the flower from her watch and squinted to read the digital
display. “I guess it’s been exactly a month since the funeral. Who? Me? Oh, fine. I guess. Trying to hold everything
together for Grandpa and the kids. You know, make it as much like mom used to
have it around here as much as possible for the holidays. Some semblance of
normalcy. Yeah. What?”
Monty could see the veins begin to bulge in
his wife’s forehead from across the room. He traced a set of invisible Ginsu
knives flying from her eyes toward her father’s chair. Grandpa stirred and
yawned. “No, dad didn’t tell me about the Christmas food baskets for the
shut-ins. How many? Twenty? Well, Roy and his girlfriend are due here any
minute now and we still have a lot of... I know mom always used to deliver
them, but I don’t think we’re going to have time to. . .” Jana rolled her eyes in a way that would have
made Ariel and Leo proud. “Dad said what? That I’d be glad to take them? Oh.
Well, yes, I suppose if mother... Okay. Okay. Yeah. They’re at church? I’ll be
there as soon as I can. Bye.” She stepped over to her father, rolled up the
newspaper covering his face and whacked him sharply on the side of the head.
Grandpa was suddenly awake. “What? What did I
do?”
Jana mimicked her father’s voice. “Oh,
pastor, my daughter would love to deliver your twenty food baskets on Christmas
Eve.”
Grandpa felt his head for a lump. “Well, your
mother always considered it an honor to be asked. And she never turned anyone
down for anything. Not once in her seventy-three short years, God bless her. I
thought you’d want to do it one last time. In her honor.”
“But why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“I forgot. Give an old man a break.”
She wadded up the newspaper again and waved
it toward her father’s nose as if to threaten a break of another kind. Grandpa
quickly retrieved his glasses from the end table and put them on, pointing to
his face. “Glasses!”
Jana gripped the paper in her right hand.
“Weapon.”
The old veteran scooped up his grandson and
held him as a shield. “Hostage.”
The word “diversion” popped into Jana’s head
and she stared suddenly at the window. “Oh, is that
Roy pulling in?” She belted him over the head
with the paper the moment he turned his head toward the window.
“Pain,” he muttered.
Leo had only one word as Grandpa released him
to the floor. “Weird.”
An hour passed. Still no Roy. Ariel was paging through her Redbook
magazine, calling every other model fat. Leo and Grandpa were fitting a
10,000-piece picture puzzle together upside down to kill the time when Jana
finally finished the baking and picked up her coat. Monty was not to be seen.
“Where’s your father?”
“Died and gone to Philadelphia," smiled Gramps.
“I was asking the children.”
“W.C. Fields had that put on his grave, you
know. I’d rather be here than Philadelphia." Grandpa motioned to the den. “Business call.”
Jana stuck her head in the study door but
Monty waved her away. She decided to try her luck back in the living room.
“Dad, if I’m going to do this food basket thing for you, you’re going to have
to get the kids to help finish everything in the kitchen before
Roy and Fern get here.”
Gramps spoke in his best Nixon impersonation.
“I am not a cook.”
Ariel looked up. “Where you going?”
“To church to get the Christmas baskets.
Someone ‘volunteered’ me to deliver them.” Jana rummaged through her purse for
keys.
“I can drive! I can drive.” Ariel jumped up.
Grandpa had been waiting for that one.
“That’s a matter of opinion.” Leo gave him a high five and the two belched out
a three on the Richter scale before settling back at the puzzle.
“Grandpa,” said Leo. “It says eight to twelve
years on the puzzle box. I think we’re going to be done by tomorrow.”
“What can you say?” said Grandpa. “We’re
stinkin’ geniuses. Or is it genie-ai?”
Mother was not amused. “Look you three, the
turkey’s gotta go in the oven in fifteen minutes and the cranberries have to be
prepared and the pie gets out of the oven before the turkey goes in and
somebody’s got to peel the potatoes...”
Grandpa gave his daughter a “can’t you do
this when you get home” look and tried to wave her off.
“The list’s on the counter, dad. Into the
kitchen and don’t you dare come out until it’s all done or I’ll bring home your
Christmas dinner in plastic containers from Burger Doodle. You hear me?”
The word “plastic” was all it took to bring
Grandpa to his feet. He rose, saluted and motioned the troops out of the room.
“All right, all right. Say the word.” He picked Leo up by the collar. “Ours is
not to reason why.”
Ariel resisted. “This is just like a prison
camp.”
“Silencio! Macht shnell. Our is not to make
reply!” He prodded the children into the kitchen.
“Even Mr. Scrooge gave Bob Cratchet Christmas
Eve off,” Leo objected.
Grandpa saluted his favorite progeny and
shoved him sharply forward. “Our is but to do or die.”
“And don’t you dare mess anything up in here
while I’m gone,” Jana’s eyes swept the living room. “We’ve got this place
finally together. Don’t touch anything. Better yet, don’t even breathe on
anything in here. I want to find this room exactly as I left it when I return.
You copy? Exactly as I left it!”
Grandpa exited, then returned with a frying
pan in hand. Let me rephrase that: “Ours is but to do and fry.”
Jana tied a red scarf securely about her neck
and tugged at the plaid beret, muttering to God or anyone who might be
listening. “I try my best. That’s all I can do, right? Try?”
A shout echoed from the kitchen. “Ours is but
to make the pie.”
(Tomorrow's Installment: Chapter 2, Part 2: Time Machine)
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