Archive for the ‘Jen Larsen’ Category
Not a Happy Ending
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
I didn’t want to be an elf, but when you’re broke and hungry and it’s Christmas Eve, that’s how you end up—a fill-in, last-minute elf, cold in tights and a jumper, swimming through the squirming mass of screams and germs that is a pile of kids waiting to sit on Santa’s lap.
Me, in tights. Clearly desperation working somewhere. Maybe that’s why the old guy started to screw with me in the breakroom. He wasn’t wearing a wig, or a beard. The belly was his, the cheeks were his; the twinkle was probably bourbon in his coffee. He winked at me when I walked in. He said, “Carol!” and he held out his arm like I was going to sit on his lap or something.
“Yes,” I said. “Hello, Santa.” He knew my name, but that was something the manager of the mall must’ve told him.
“Do you still have that Holly Hobby doll I brought you when you were six?” But he just knew that because every six-year-old loved Holly Hobby.
I was hungover, and I did not need this shit. “No,” I said. “Are you going to tell me what the meaning of Christmas is now?”
He put his finger on the side of his nose and twinkled at me.
“I’m Jewish,” I said.
“Don’t lie to Santa,” he said.
The door banged open and Harry the manager came in and shooed us back out into the sea of snot. I tried not to meet his eyes again all night, but I felt him twinkling at me across the heads of screaming children. The lights spasmed and the tinsel burned and if he was trying to fill me with the Christmas spirit, he should have given me a sandwich.
Once the kids were shoveled out the door and the lights went out, I tried to dodge out of there before he could catch me, but he was waiting by the door, looking tired, still twinkling.
He said, “Merry Christmas, Carol,” and his voice was kind, and he held the door for me. I couldn’t answer him. I ducked my head and I raced home.
I don’t know what I was thinking, but my heart was pounding. He hadn’t gotten to me, but my heart went thump, when I swung the door of my apartment wide. I don’ t know what I was expecting—not a happy ending.
Messages
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
It’s been hard on my relationships. We kiss at the door, and his hands move down my sides, cup the back of my head, his hips fit against mine and I have to push him back, and tell him “I’m sorry. I really can’t.” And then I go upstairs, all by myself, the way I do every night.
Every night, I set a half-full glass of water on my bedstand. I turn the covers down, and smooth the sheets. I brush my hair out, and when I lay back against the pillow, I have to tell you I think about the picture it makes. Do the dead think I look like Sleeping Beauty, with my curls spread around my face, tumbling over the duvet, spilling across my pillowcase?
My pillowcase is cool against the back of my neck, and I close my eyes. Do the dead think about anything? I have to think they do, or else why would they demand this of me, the ritual every night, the darkened room and my hand, palm up, laid across the bed. My fingers relaxed, not trembling at all at the thought of cold hands touching me. Or maybe they are dumb creatures of habit, maybe they run along the rails I lay down for them.
I lay down for them every night, spread my hair across the pillow, and close my eyes in the dark room. I never try to look. I try not to think about what might be brushing against the curtains, rifling through my dresser drawers, standing over me and watching me with dead eyes. I hold my hand steadily and still, and I breathe evenly, slowly.
Slowly the pressure fills up the room and then my fingers curl around what they have left for me. They have given me a button, a length of twine, a bobby pin. A child’s impossibly tiny sock, a curl of hair tied with a ribbon, a piece of quartz, the delicate, paper-thin gear from the guts of a pocket watch.
Watch me line these pieces up along my dresser in the morning, rearranging them. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know why they are, but they are, and I do. Every night, every morning. These tiny things fill up my life; these ghosts fill up my room, my head. The cupped palm of my hand.