CHRISTMAS EVE, TWO Saturday, December 24, 1988 (Henry is 25)

CHRISTMAS EVE, TWO


Saturday, December 24, 1988 (Henry is 25)

HENRY: I call Dad and ask if he wants me to come over for dinner after the Christmas
matinee concert. He makes a half-hearted attempt at inviting me but I back out, to his
relief. The Official DeTamble Day of Mourning will be conducted in multiple
locations this year. Mrs. Kim has gone to Korea to visit her sisters; I’ve been watering
her plants and taking in her mail. I call Ingrid Carmichel and ask her to come out with
me and she reminds me, crisply, that it’s Christmas Eve and some people have
families to kowtow to. I run through my address book. Everyone is out of town, or in
town with their visiting relatives. I should have gone to see Gram and Gramps. Then I
remember they’re in Florida. It’s 2:53 in the afternoon and stores are closing down. I
buy a bottle of schnapps at Al’s and stow it in my overcoat pocket. Then I hop on the
El at Belmont and ride downtown. It’s a gray day, and cold. The train is half full,
mostly people with their kids going down to see Marshall Field’s Christmas windows
and do last minute shopping at Water Tower Place. I get off at Randolph and Walk
east to Grant Park. I stand on the IC overpass for a while, drinking, and then I walk
down to the skating rink. A few couples and little kids are skating. The kids chase
each other and skate backward and do figure eights. I rent a pair of more-or-less my
size skates, lace them on, and walk onto the ice. I skate the perimeter of the rink,
smoothly and without thinking too much. Repetition, movement, balance, cold air.
It’s nice. The sun is setting. I skate for an hour or so, then return the skates, pull on
my boots, and walk.

I walk west on Randolph, and south on Michigan Avenue, past the Art Institute.
The lions are decked out in Christmas wreathes. I walk down Columbus Drive. Grant
Park is empty, except for the crows, which strut and circle over the evening-blue
snow. The streetlights tint the sky orange above me; it’s a deep cerulean blue over the


lake. At Buckingham Fountain I stand until the cold becomes unbearable watching
seagulls wheeling and diving, fighting over a loaf of bread somebody has left for
them. A mounted policeman rides slowly around the fountain once and then sedately
continues south.

I walk. My boots are not quite waterproof, and despite my several sweaters my
overcoat is a bit thin for the dropping temperature. Not enough body fat; I’m always
cold from November to April. I walk along Harrison, over to State Street. I pass the
Pacific Garden Mission, where the homeless have gathered for shelter and dinner. I
wonder what they’re having; I wonder if there’s any festivity, there, in the shelter.
There are few cars. I don’t have a watch, but I guess that it’s about seven. I’ve
noticed lately that my sense of time passing is different; it seems to run slower than
other people’s. An afternoon can be like a day to me; an El ride can be an epic
journey. Today is interminable. I have managed to get through most of the day
without thinking, too much, about Mom, about the accident, about all of it...but now,
in the evening, walking, it is catching up with me. I realize I’m hungry. The alcohol
has worn off. I’m almost at Adams, and I mentally review the amount of cash I have
on me and decide to splurge on dinner at the Berghoff a venerable German restaurant
famous for its brewery.

The Berghoff is warm, and noisy. There are quite a few people, eating and
standing around. The legendary Berghoff waiters are bustling importantly from
kitchen to table. I stand in line, thawing out, amidst chattering families and couples.
Eventually I am led to a small table in the main dining room, toward the back. I order
a dark beer and a plate of duck wursts with spaetzle. When the food comes, I eat
slowly. I polish off all the bread, too, and realize that I can’t remember eating lunch.
This is good, I’m taking care of myself, I’m not being an idiot, I’m remembering to
eat dinner. I lean back in my chair and survey the room. Under the high ceilings, dark
paneling, and murals of boats, middle-aged couples eat their dinners. They have spent
the afternoon shopping, or at the symphony, and they talk pleasantly of the presents
they have bought, their grandchildren, plane tickets and arrival times, Mozart. I have
an urge to go to the symphony, now, but there’s no evening program. Dad is probably
on his way home from Orchestra Hall. I would sit in the upper reaches of the
uppermost balcony (the best place to sit, acoustically) and listen to Das Lied von der
Erde, or Beethoven, or something similarly un-Christmasy. Oh well. Maybe next year.
I have a sudden glimpse of all the Christmases of my life lined up one after another,
waiting to be gotten through, and despair floods me. No. I wish for a moment that
Time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel
guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even
if it eats us, even if all we can do is say I’m sorry until it is as meaningless as air. I
don’t want to burden this warm festive restaurant with grief that I would have to
recall the next time I’m here with Gram and Gramps, so I pay and leave.


Back on the street, I stand pondering. I don’t want to go home. I want to be with
people, I want to be distracted. I suddenly think of the Get Me High Lounge, a place
where anything can happen, a haven for eccentricity. Perfect. I walk over to Water
Tower Place and catch the #66 Chicago Avenue bus, get off at Damen, and take the
#50 bus north. The bus smells of vomit, and I’m the only passenger. The driver is
singing Silent Night in a smooth church tenor, and I wish him a Merry Christmas as I
step off the bus at Wabansia. As I walk past the Fix-It shop snow begins to fall, and I
catch the big wet flakes on the tips of my fingers. I can hear music leaking out of the
bar. The abandoned ghost train track looms over the street in the sodium vapor glare
and as I open the door someone starts to blow a trumpet and hot jazz smacks me in
the chest. I walk into it like a drowning man, which is what I have come here to be.

There are about ten people in the place, counting Mia, the bartender. Three
musicians, trumpet, standing bass, and clarinet, occupy the tiny stage, and the
customers are all sitting at the bar. The musicians are playing furiously, swinging at
maximum volume like sonic dervishes and as I sit and listen I make out the melody
line of White Christmas. Mia comes over and stares at me and I shout “Whiskey and
water!” at the top of my voice and she bawls “House?” and I yell “Okay!” and she
turns to mix it. There is an abrupt halt to the music. The phone rings, and Mia
snatches it up and says, “Get Me Hiiiiiiiiigh!” She sets my drink in front of me and I
lay a twenty on the bar. “No,” she says into the phone. “Well, daaaang. Well, fuck
you, too.” She whomps the receiver back into its cradle like she’s dunking a
basketball. Mia stands looking pissed off for a few moments, then lights a Pall Mall
and blows a huge cloud of smoke at me. “Oh, sorry.” The musicians troop over to the
bar and she serves them beers. The rest-room door is on the stage, so I take advantage
of the break between sets to take a leak. When I get back to the bar Mia has set
another drink in front of my bar stool. “You’re psychic,” I say.

“You’re easy.” She plunks her ashtray down and leans against the inside of the bar,
pondering. “What are you doing, later?”

I review my options. I’ve been known to go home with Mia a time or two, and
she’s good fun and all that, but I’m really not in the mood for casual frivolity at the
moment. On the other hand, a warm body is not a bad thing when you’re down. “I’m
planning to get extremely drunk. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, if you’re not too drunk you could come over, and if you’re not dead when
you wake up you could do me a huge favor and come to Christmas dinner at my
parents’ place in Glencoe and answer to the name Rafe.”

“Oh, God, Mia. I’m suicidal just thinking about it. Sorry.”

She leans over the bar and speaks emphatically. “C’mon, Henry. Help me out.
You’re a presentable young person of the male gender. Hell, you’re a librarian. You
won’t freak when my parents start asking who your parents are and what college you
went to.”


“Actually, I will. I will run straight to the powder room and slit my throat.
Anyway, what’s the point? Even if they love me it just means they’ll torture you for
years with ‘What ever happened to that nice young librarian you were dating?’ And
what happens when they meet the real Rafe?”

“I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that. C’mon. I’ll perform Triple X sex acts
on you that you’ve never even heard of.”

I have been refusing to meet Ingrid’s parents for months. I have refused to go to
Christmas dinner at their house tomorrow. There’s no way I’m going to do this for
Mia, whom I hardly know. “Mia. Any other night of the year—look, my goal tonight
is to achieve a level of inebriation at which I can barely stand up, much less get it up.
Just call your parents and tell them Rafe is having a tonsillectomy or something.”

She goes to the other end of the bar to take care of three suspiciously young male
college types. Then she messes around with bottles for a while, making something
elaborate. She sets the tall glass in front of me. “Here. It’s on the house.” The drink is
the color of strawberry Kool-Aid.

“What is it?” I take a sip. It tastes like 7-Up.

Mia smiles an evil little smile. “It’s something I invented. You want to get
smashed, this is the express train.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.” I toast her, and drink up. A sensation of heat and total
well-being floods me. “Heavens. Mia, you ought to patent this. You could have little

lemonade stands all over Chicago and sell it in Dixie cups. You’d be a millionaire.”

“Another?”

“Sure.”

As a promising junior partner in DeTamble & DeTamble, Alcoholics at Large, I

have not yet found the outer limit in my ability to consume liquor. A few drinks later,
Mia is peering at me across the bar with concern.

“Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m cutting you off.” This is probably a good idea. I try to nod my agreement
with Mia, but it’s too much effort. Instead, I slide slowly, almost gracefully, to the
floor.

I wake up much later at Mercy Hospital. Mia is sitting next to my bed. Her
mascara has run all over her face. I’m hooked up to an IV and I feel bad. Very bad. In
fact, every kind of bad. I turn my head and retch into a basin. Mia reaches over and
wipes my mouth.

“Henry—” Mia is whispering.

“Hey. What the hell.”

“Henry, I’m so sorry—”


“Not your fault. What happened?”

“You passed out and I did the math—how much do you weigh?”

“175.”

“Jesus. Did you eat dinner?”

I think about it. “Yeah.”

“Well, anyway, the stuff you were drinking was about forty proof. And you had
two whiskeys.. .but you seemed perfectly fine and then all of a sudden you looked
awful, and then you passed out, and I thought about it and realized you had a lot of
booze in you. So I called 911 and here you are.”

“Thanks. I think”

“Henry, do you have some kind of death wish?” I consider. “Yes.” I turn to the
wall, and pretend to sleep.

Saturday, April 8, 1989 (Clare is 17, Henry is 40)

CLARE: I’m sitting in Grandma Meagram’s room, doing the New York Times
crossword puzzle with her. It’s a bright cool April morning and I can see red tulips
whipping in the wind in the garden. Mama is down there planting something small
and white over by the forsythia. Her hat is almost blowing off and she keeps clapping
her hand to her head and finally takes the hat off and sets her work basket on it.

I haven’t seen Henry in almost two months; the next date on the List is three
weeks away. We are approaching the time when I won’t see him for more than two
years. I used to be so casual about Henry, when I was little; seeing Henry wasn’t
anything too unusual. But now every time he’s here is one less time he’s going to be
here. And things are different with us. I want something...I want Henry to say
something, do something that proves this hasn’t all been some kind of elaborate joke.
I want. That’s all. I am wanting.

Grandma Meagram is sitting in her blue wing chair by the window. I sit in the
window seat, with the newspaper in my lap. We are about halfway through the
crossword. My attention has drifted.

“Read that one again, child,” says Grandma.

“Twenty down. ‘Monkish monkey.’ Eight letters, second letter ‘a’, last letter ‘n’.”

“ Capuchin.” She smiles, her unseeing eyes turn in my direction. To Grandma I
am a dark shadow against a somewhat lighter background. “That’s pretty good, eh?”

“Yeah, that’s great. Geez, try this one: nineteen across, ‘Don’t stick your elbow
out so far. Ten letters, second letter ’u‘.”

“ Burma Shave. Before your time.”


“Arrgh. I’ll never get this.” I stand up and stretch. I desperately need to go for a
walk. My grandmother’s room is comforting but claustrophobic. The ceiling is low,
the wallpaper is dainty blue flowers, the bedspread is blue chintz, the carpet is white,
and it smells of powder and dentures and old skin. Grandma Meagram sits trim and
straight. Her hair is beautiful, white but still slightly tinged with the red I have
inherited from her, and perfectly coiled and pinned into a chignon. Grandma’s eyes
are like blue clouds. She has been blind for nine years, and she has adapted well; as
long as she is in the house she can get around. She’s been trying to teach me the art of
crossword solving, but I have trouble caring enough to see one through by myself.
Grandma used to do them in ink. Henry loves crossword puzzles.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it,” says Grandma, leaning back in her chair and rubbing
her knuckles.

I nod, and then say, “Yes, but it’s kind of windy. Mama’s down there gardening,
and everything keeps blowing away on her.”

“How typical of Lucille,” says her mother. “Do you know, child, I’d like to go for
a walk.”

“I was just thinking that same thing,” I say. She smiles, and holds out her hands,
and I gently pull her out of her chair. I fetch our coats, and tie a scarf around
Grandma’s hair to stop it from getting messed up by the wind. Then we make our
way slowly down the stairs and out the front door. We stand on the drive, and I turn
to Grandma and say, “Where do you want to go?”

“Let’s go to the Orchard,” she says.

“That’s pretty far. Oh, Mama’s waving; wave back.” We wave at Mama, who is
all the way down by the fountain now. Peter, our gardener, is with her. He has
stopped talking to her and is looking at us, waiting for us to go on so he and Mama
can finish the argument they are having, probably about daffodils, or peonies. Peter
loves to argue with Mama, but she always gets her way in the end. “It’s almost a mile

to the Orchard, Grandma.”

“Well, Clare, there’s nothing wrong with my legs.”

“Okay, then, we’ll go to the Orchard.” I take her arm, and away we go. When we
get to the edge of the Meadow I say, “Shade or sun?” and she answers, “Oh, sun, to
be sure,” and so we take the path that cuts through the middle of the Meadow, that
leads to the clearing. As we walk, I describe.

“We’re passing the bonfire pile. There’s a bunch of birds in it—oh, there they go!”

“Crows. Starlings. Doves, too,” she says.

“Yes...we’re at the gate, now. Watch out, the path is a little muddy. I can see dog
tracks, a pretty big dog, maybe Joey from Allinghams‘. Everything is greening up
pretty good. Here is that wild rose.”

“How high is the Meadow?” asks Grandma.


“Only about a foot. It’s a real pale green. Here are the little oaks.”

She turns her face toward me, smiling. “Let’s go and say hello.” I lead her to the
oaks that grow just a few feet from the path. My grandfather planted these three oak
trees in the forties as a memorial to my Great Uncle Teddy, Grandma’s brother who
was killed in the Second World War. The oak trees still aren’t very big, only about
fifteen feet tall. Grandma puts her hand on the trunk of the middle one and says,
“Hello.” I don’t know if she’s addressing the tree or her brother.

We walk on. As we walk over the rise I see the Meadow laid out before us, and
Henry is standing in the clearing. I halt. “What is it?” Grandma asks. “Nothing,” I tell
her. I lead her along the path. “What do you see?” she asks me. “There’s a hawk

circling over the woods,” I say. “What time is it?”

I look at my watch. “Almost noon.”

We enter the clearing. Henry stands very still. He smiles at me. He looks tired. His
hair is graying. He is wearing his black overcoat, he stands out dark against the bright
Meadow. “Where is the rock?” Grandma says. “I want to sit down ” I guide her to the
rock, help her to sit. She turns her face in Henry’s direction and stiffens. “Who’s
there?” she asks me, urgency in her voice. “No one ” I lie.

“There’s a man, there,” she says, nodding toward Henry. He looks at me with an
expression that seems to mean Go ahead. Tell her. A dog is barking in the woods. I
hesitate.

“Clare,” Grandma says. She sounds scared.

“Introduce us,” Henry says, quietly.

Grandma is still, waiting. I put my arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay,
Grandma,” I say. “This is my friend Henry. He’s the one I told you about.” Henry
walks over to us and holds out his hand. I place Grandma’s hand in his. “Elizabeth
Meagram,” I say to Henry.

“So you’re the one,” Grandma says.

“Yes,” Henry replies, and this Yes falls into my ears like balm. Yes.

“May I?” She gestures with her hands toward Henry.

“Shall I sit next to you?” Henry sits on the rock. I guide Grandma’s hand to his
face. He watches my face as she touches his. “That tickles,” Henry says to Grandma.

“Sandpaper,” she says as she runs her fingertips across his unshaven chin. “You’re

not a boy,” she says.

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m eight years older than Clare.”

She looks puzzled. “Twenty-five?” I look at Henry’s salt and pepper hair, at the

creases around his eyes. He looks about forty, maybe older.


“Twenty-five,” he says firmly. Somewhere out there, it’s true.

“Clare tells me she’s going to marry you,” my grandmother says to Henry.

He smiles at me. “Yes, we’re going to get married. In a few years, when Clare is
out of school.”

“In my day, gentlemen came to dinner and met the family.”

“Our situation is...unorthodox. That hasn’t been possible.”

“I don’t see why not. If you’re going to cavort around in meadows with my
granddaughter you can certainly come up to the house and be inspected by her
parents.”

“I’d be delighted to,” Henry says, standing up, “but I’m afraid right now I have a
train to catch.”

“Just a moment, young man—” Grandma begins, as Henry says, “Goodbye, Mrs.
Meagram. It was great to finally meet you. Clare, I’m sorry I can’t stay longer—” I
reach out to Henry but there’s the noise like all the sound is being sucked out of the
world and he’s already gone. I turn to Grandma. She’s sitting on the rock with her
hands stretched out, an expression of utter bewilderment on her face.

“What happened?” she asks me, and I begin to explain. When I am finished she
sits with her head bowed, twisting her arthritic fingers into strange shapes. Finally she
raises her face toward me. “But Clare,” says my grandmother, “he must be a demon.”
She says it matter-of-factly, as though she’s telling me that my coat’s buttoned up
wrong, or that it’s time for lunch.

What can I say? “I’ve thought of that,” I tell her. I take her hands to stop her from
rubbing them red. “But Henry is good. He doesn’t feel like a demon.”

Grandma smiles. “You talk as though you’ve met a peck of them.”

“Don’t you think a real demon would be sort of—demonic?”

“I think he would be nice as pie if he wanted to be.”

I choose my words carefully. “Henry told me once that his doctor thinks he’s a
new kind of human. You know, sort of the next step in evolution,”

Grandma shakes her head. “That is just as bad as being a demon. Goodness, Clare,
why in the world would you want to marry such a person? Think of the children you
would have! Popping into next week and back before breakfast!”

I laugh. “But it will be exciting! Like Mary Poppins, or Peter Pan.”

She squeezes my hands just a little. “Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it’s
always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home
and wait for the children to fly in the window.”

I look at the pile of clothes lying crumpled on the ground where Henry has left
them. I pick them up and fold them. “Just a minute,” I say, and I find the clothes box
and put Henry’s clothes in it. “Let’s go back to the house. It’s past lunchtime.” I help


her off the rock. The wind is roaring in the grass, and we bend into it and make our
way toward the house. When we come to the rise I turn and look back over the
clearing. It’s empty.

A few nights later, I am sitting by Grandma’s bed, reading Mrs. Dalloway to her.
It’s evening. I look up; Grandma seems to be asleep. I stop reading, and close the
book. Her eyes open.

“Hello,” I say.

“Do you ever miss him?” she asks me.

“Every day. Every minute.”

“Every minute,” she says. “Yes. It’s that way, isn’t it?” She turns on her side and
burrows into the pillow.

“Good night,” I say, turning out the lamp. As I stand in the dark looking down at
Grandma in her bed, self-pity floods me as though I have been injected with it. It’s
that way, isn’t it? Isn’t it.