A Christmas Story

Silence between Songs

A work of short fiction by Dan de Souza

Ya, I should be happy.  I’m sure all of the teachers slaving in classes at this time of year would gladly trade places with me.  What other lucky bastard gets to take the dog mid-week, mid-afternoon to the tree farm to get the goddamn tree….the mall walkers and me...senior citizens and me.  At least the dog won’t want to talk.  At least we can just get the tree in silence.

I pull the car into the tree farm parking lot over a rutted driveway.  Every Christmas we bring the kids here on the Saturday before the big day.  We ride on the wagon out to where the good trees are.  I chop one down that Emma and Steven have chosen and we drag it back to the car.  While the kids are having hot chocolate, Cheryl and I tie the tree onto the roof rack.  Not this year though.  It’s me and the dog, mid-week; no crowds, no kids, no noise.  The tree farmer comes out of the Quonset hut when he hears my car on the gravel.  He comes out to greet me, like he does every year.

“Where are the kids this year?”  I smile and nod at him, reach into the trunk and get the ax.  What I want to say is that my wife has ordered the whisper that is her husband out of the house as part of his recuperation; hoping he will return to her with a tree and a smile.  That is what I want to say but can’t.

The dog goes for a sniff.  I turn and the farmer is right beside me.  He says again, “where are the kids this year?”  I shrug, reach into the pocket of my jacket for my card and hand it to him.  I see his lips move as he reads: “I was hit in a hockey game, took a slap shot to the throat and will never be able to speak again.”  He looks up at this point, like they all do.  “I’m sorry “ he says.  I hand him the card from my left pocket, it says “Ya, I’m sorry too.”

No need for the wagon this year.  Just the dog and me.  I take the ax and place it over my shoulder.  We head down the dirt path to where the good trees are.  The dog is moving along in front of me, nosing the ground as he goes.  He keeps looking back to make sure I’m with him.  I choose a row of trees that looks good; the dog scoots down other rows but keeps returning to make sure that I’m still there.  My ax bites into the wood of the tree.  It is good to be doing something with my muscles again after all that time lying in bed.  The air in my nostrils and in my throat feels good, like breathing again after a long drawn out cold.  The tree comes apart, not with a shudder, like I imagine great trees falling the wild, but with a little puff of snow.  The death of a domestic, tree farm tree.  I place my ax over one shoulder and pick up the stem of the tree, dragging the body of it behind me.  

Where is that damn dog?  Christ, where the hell is the dog?  I begin to move back to the hut.  To hell with the dog, I’ll leave without him.  By the time I’m back at the lot, the dog is still nowhere to be found.  The tree farmer gives me a hand putting the tree on the roof rack.  “Where’s the dog?” he asks.  I shrug again and I can tell that he is embarrassed, they’re always embarrassed, as if someone is supposed to remember that an able bodied man can’t speak.  

I cup my hands around my mouth, like I used to do when coaching in the gym.  I prepare my voice to shout “Digby”.  I get ready to hear my teacher voice as my students use to call it.  What I expect to hear and what finally slumps out of me are two different things.  What I expect is the voice, the one that can fill any auditorium.  The one that makes small children and large adults turn their heads and pay attention.  Instead the sound that comes out is the sound of a dog choking on a stick.  My larynx implodes with pain; my eyes water and I begin to choke on the saliva I can no longer swallow.  I lean on the car and grab my throat and spit, staining the snow red.   The farmer takes up the call, “here boy” he calls.  His voice echoes through his suburban forest.  His voice bellows out full and robust, old and gnarled though he is.  Finally, the last humiliation’ my dog comes to him.  I nod in appreciation and disloyal, disobedient mutt bounds into the back and wags his tail completely oblivious to his treachery.

At the stop sign, at the end of the driveway, I wait for traffic to clear.  The dog begins to howl.  Every time we take the thing in the car, it howls like it is going to be put down.  Like we are taking it on its last visit to the vet.  If only.  The stupid thing won’t shut up.  I scream at him to shut up and almost faint with the pain.  I wipe my mouth after and there's blood on my glove.  When the traffic finally clears, instead of taking my car onto the highway, I beat my fists into the steering wheel. Christ, what am I going to do?  “Teach the deaf,” they all whisper at me as they look down at me on my hospital bed.  The tone of their voices says, glad this didn't happen to me.  Yes teach the deaf indeed.  That..would..really...suit..my...style.  I beat the steering wheel to emphasize each pathetic word.  When I look in the rear view mirror, the dog is sitting on the back seat, on ear flicked over, mouth open, happy as hell that we went on this mid-afternoon trek and finally quiet.

When the kids arrive home I am in the living room with the tree.  They come bounding into the room and hug me.  They are just happy that their Dad looks like their Dad again.  I hear my wife’s care come in the driveway.  The dog barks to greet her and to all appearances, this is a Christmas like every other.  The place smells like Christmas.  Christmas carols have been playing on the radio for weeks and the cards that we did not get a chance to send this year remain on the gate leg table in the hall.  There’ll be no brag rag this year.  If there was how would it begin?  “This year finds us just fine thanks for asking, my husband remains mute and life will never be the same.  Steven continues to score goals for his house league team.”  

The fire is finally lit.  My scotch is in my glass and the ice melting make swirling patterns you’d see in an advertisement for scotch.  Finally there is silence.  The kids are in bed.  My throat is not sore so much as it is throbbing.  The doorbell.  Christ.

The dog is barking like it does anytime visitors come to the door.  What kind of person would be calling on this cold of a night?  I let the dog out the back door so that he doesn’t jump on whoever is at the door.  When I open it, the warmth from our home meets the cold from the night and an immediate frost rises on my lenses.  I cannot see the visitors but I can hear them and they are singing.

I had forgotten about the carolers that come to our house every year the week before Christmas.  Forgotten them in the hustle and bustle that is Christmas for a family with young children and for a family that has only a whisper of what a father was.

I let the carolers in and can hear underneath their voices the sound of the dog barking at the back door.  They are singing “The First Noel”, my wife’s favorite and she joins me in the breezeway of our house.  I feel her hand on my shoulder as she stands on the step, above me that leads into the kitchen.  I step back, away from her hand, away from the carolers, they enter the space I have vacated.  The dog gives up his barking and is probably listening with his back to the metal screen door, quiet at last.  My fogged glasses blind me.  I can’t see my unwanted guests, nor can I greet them.  I can only hear their Christmas voices.

Finally I take off my glasses and rub them on my sweatshirt.  My feet are wet from the melting snow on the carolers’ boots and all I want to do is be back to my fire, with my scotch and my own brooding silence.  They stop singing.  My wife gives them a hearty round of applause.  I look up, putting my glasses back on and the faceless, murky carolers come into focus in the silence between songs.

For the first time, I see them.  They are my students, my senior students.  These are not the carolers of every other season, but my students that I have not seen in over a month.  The larger boys are in the back, uncomfortable in my house but nonetheless, they are there.  The girls, glowing in the light of the breezeway, with their jackets open and their mitts on, are looking at me from the front row.  There are tears on their cheeks as we see each other for the first time in what seems like a very long time.  My hand goes to my throat.

They say, all at once, but not together, “Merry Christmas, sir.”  We have one more song for you.  They begin “Silent night, Holy night.”