Wishtank
In Christmas Colored Silence
by: Lee Clay Johnson
* This story is the follow-up to Black Pepper.
Why do we let go what we love most? wonders me in Christmas pajamas with my family all holding presents. Dustin’s back from where everything’s dirty. It’s the beginning of January and we’ve been waiting for him so we can celebrate Christmas together as a family. He’s never told me much about his time away, only the trips he took with his friends to get massages, and how he lost his hearing. Our record player spinning “A James Brown Christmas.”
Dustin sits in silence wearing a headband of gauze. Dried blood around his ears showing red in the light from the tree. A Rudolph ornament shines its nose at everyone praying. Me, knowing I’m not sure if I’ll ever be saved through Jesus and praying because I’m supposed to. Dustin, sitting across from me in our living room for the first time in years, deaf from what happened. James Brown, spinning and telling Santa Claus, Go straight to the ghetto!
I close my eyes halfway, head down. After awhile of pretend praying I start praying accidentally for real. I don’t want to go to school tomorrow and I pray for it to snow. I pray for my yard to be white in the morning. I thank God for Dad buying me a bass for Christmas and want badly to stay home so I can play it along with James Brown. No one’s opened presents yet but I know it’s a bass, the bass I prayed for a few nights ago, because it is wrapped with duct tape in torn paper bags from the garbage, leaving holes big enough for me to peak through at night and read exactly what brand it is. My new bass smells like everything we’ve thrown away for the past two weeks.
I pray for it to snow. I pray to wake up with the winter sun reflecting off our white front yard into my bedroom window, onto me playing my bass. Please God make it snow.
I look past our Christmas tree to pale patches of green in our yard. I know nothing is going to happen. Mom thanks God for Dustin being home and this makes me close my eyes all the way. Why? I don’t know. I have trouble believing he’s in front of me.
Dad talks about Dustin being out at sea and I pray to the God I don’t believe in to help us talk about something else, anything else. I pray to God to let us stop praying. My prayers are answered and we open our eyes to Dog licking herself under the January Christmas tree. Tell them James Brown sent you!
Dog has more presents than Mom does and we let Dog chew open paper-wrapped pig ears and cow jaws. Santa Clause faces smile at all of us. Dog tears through and Mom takes pictures and Dad laughs and stomps his good foot. Go Dog! he says. Go go go! And Dog throws shreds of Christmas colored confetti round the living room. She opens the cow jaw and starts rolling on it under pieces of red and green drool-soaked paper that come down onto our carpet like snow.
Mom got Dad a new TV and when Dog is done Dad tears through to it, enough to see the screen and use his remote control. He tosses shreds behind him. No one says anything and then the TV talks louder than our thoughts.
We wait for Dad to learn how to change channels before moving on to Dustin. Change it to Rudolph, Mom begs. Mom turns and pats Dustin on the knee mouthing ROOO—DOLPH. Her eyes open as big as her mouth as she makes the word Rudolph look like she’s saying OOOOO and AAHHH.
Dustin holds a .22 thinly wrapped in paper with the trigger tearing through and nods in silence at Mom.
Dad says no way is he telling Dustin what’s inside there, he’ll just have to guess. No way is he telling.
Dustin strokes his finger up and down against the thin metal trigger.
I break our silence with the sound of a red-nosed Christmas eraser pen writing a question on wrapping paper:
-Why did you sign up?
I hand it to Dustin.
-Nothing else to sign up for, he writes.
He hands me back the pen.
Mom starts giving directions to Dad on how to use the remote.
-This is a new kind, she says. Here, watch.
She takes the remote from his hand, stands over his shoulder and pushes the button with a double thumbed force. She starts each press with her arms above her head, then throws forward and down in a log chopping motion. She presses with one thumb on top of the other. Her face tightens with every pressed button. Me and Dustin watch Mom try to throw pressed remote control button signals at the TV. Each try is a harder throw. Dad says he wants to try and when he push-throws the remote signal he lets go and sends the control against the TV, right against the power button turning it off.
I turn to Dustin who is taking it all in with an open mouth and tilted head.
-What did you plan on doing? I scribble ask.
He shuts his mouth.
-I planned on writing stories underwater about Maggie.
-Did you like being away?
Yes, he nods.
-Did you ever get lonely?
Yes, he nods, with eyes that say nothing but yes.
-Did you ever write a story about Maggie?
No, he shakes his head.
He writes that most of his time was on a boat. He’d wanted a submarine, to be under water with all the time in the world. Away from the world. But he didn’t get it. He writes that the hardest thing about it was being in the sun and having nothing to do but wait.
Dad has now turned the TV back on. He walks over to read what we’re writing and says not to worry, they’ll give Dustin some action soon.
-Dustin, he says, they’ll find something for you.
Dustin looks at Dad then turns to Mom. He writes on the paper and hands it to Dad.
-I’m not going back they don’t want me deaf and with a child somewhere.
He gives Dustin a double thumbs up in front of his face:
-Okay. Okay that’s fine. That is fine.
Dog walks into the kitchen with a cow jaw hanging out one cheek and a pig ear sticking out the other. Her nails click across the clattered linoleum as she goes to hide her presents behind the fridge.
Dad’s thumbs are still in the air. Then he takes one down, motions to Dustin’s present and says to open it before he tells him what it is. One thumb still in Dustin’s face, one hand pointing to the paper covered gun. Dustin holds it like he was taught.
I watch Dustin and feel our childhood press deep into my chest. Before he arrived I went through the attic looking for pictures of him, looking for my memories of him, trying to remember what they were. The photos were faded orange from attic heat, black crusted spots from the outside roof tiles melting through rafters of unpainted two by fours. As it got colder outside and closer to him coming back, the crusted spots on the photos hardened, making it to where I couldn’t get a clear picture of him.
His mouth has too many teeth like I remember and I tease him about his baby picture, the one with him all bloody and slimy in my Mom’s hands, smiling instead of crying, almost a head full of hair. It’s strange to see him now with a shaved head.
And why didn’t I get one? Mom jokes across the room to Dad who is scream punching the new TV and answering, Why won’t it change channels?
-And this, Dustin writes, holding out his ring.
-And what?
-This ring is also why I joined. They gave it to me free when I signed on.
Dustin looks down at his ring and I know it’s the shiniest thing he’s ever owned. It is what the officer promised him when he first signed up. As he takes his arm in towards himself I see spotted scars on the top of his head. He bends down to spit wash his ring. I ask again why he signed up and he answers again about writing stories under water. With his arm stretched out to me I see small scar dots now lifting up. His mouth moves, lips forming silent words like invisible bubbles:
-Look how shiny.
But I don’t look.
Dad finds his station.
Wrapping paper rustles as Dustin takes the rifle up to his shoulder.
I let my eyes out of focus. The room is a Christmas colored collage. Us, Mom not wanting to look at the TV and Dad not looking at anybody and me not looking at Dustin’s ring and Dustin taking aim.
I close my eyes and listen to the silence we share.
Dustin pulls the trigger. I open my eyes as a silent “boom” comes from his lips.
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