by Carlos Eire
I grab my coat, gloves, and cap—finally, after so much waiting—slip the secondhand rubber galoshes over my shoes, and run out the back door. I’m not waiting for anyone.
Being in it is almost more than I can take. Every sensation is new. I’m overwhelmed. The sound it makes when you step on it. The way it muffles every sound around you, large and small. The way it feels underfoot. The very feel of it, on your bare hands. Its coldness, its wetness. The taste of it. The way everything is transformed by it, purified, redeemed. It clings to everything. It’s the ultimate mercy. I make my first snowball and throw it against the side of the garage. Splat. Oh, man. Splat. How, how sweet. I run out to the street, making sure that I don’t mess up the snow too much. It’s so unforgiving. All you have to do is touch it, and you scar it. I listen to the sound the cars make as they roll over it. Our street hasn’t been plowed, so the cars just squish it, with the most muffled sort of low roar. A car with chains on its tires. Holy God. Chains. And what a heavenly sound they make: whirr, clank, whirr, clank. . .
Tony and my two cousins come out. We throw snowballs at one another.
For this, and this alone, I was born.
A few days before Christmas Eve, Reverend Nordquist drives us up to Chicago with his son and a friend of his. We go to the Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry, and as we arrive in the city, it starts to snow. It’s a wet snow, and it clings to everything and melts immediately on the roadways and sidewalks. Everything is white, gray, or black, save for the Christmas decorations, which are red, gold, and green, and all lit up. Lake Michigan is gray and white too, and partly frozen. This city is even more impressive up close, at street level, and so incredibly huge. It makes Havana and Miami feel like small towns, or like Bloomington, come to think of it. Riding back through the Corn Belt at night, with the moon shining on the snow covered fields, so flat, seems like a dream within a dream. I pinch myself, and laugh, quietly.
Christmas Eve. We’ve had three snowfalls, so we have snow on the ground tonight, and plenty of it. It snowed a lot about five days ago, and everything is Christmas card perfect. But it’s starting to warm up. What’s this cruel last-minute twist? Isn’t nighttime supposed to be colder? We go to a Christmas party sponsored by the Americanization program. It’s in some basement in downtown Bloomington, near Montgomery Ward. I flash back to last year, same day, same hour, exactly. In my mind’s eye I see the trees on Coral Way. No angelic trees here. But I can see snow, just outside these basement windows. No presents here, just a party, with some clown dressed as Santa Claus, telling the little kids about his sleigh outside and Rudolph’s red nose, in a very thick German accent.
Holy crap.
We don’t have a Christmas tree at home. Can’t afford one, much less the decorations. So we do without. This party room has a Christmas tree, though, and it’s a nice one. I don’t hate it at all. As a matter of fact, I find it damn nice. I secretly revere it, as the idolater in me awakens once again.
Aunt Alejandra has a very bad migraine, so she’s not with us. She’s stayed at home, flattened by the pain. The Americanization Germans feel bad about this and decide to bring her some Christmas cheer. So, when they drive us back home, in a small caravan, they all get out of their cars and start caroling in the driveway. Three or four songs, at full blast, right under her second-story window. The snow around us is melting fast. Drip, drip, drip goes the snow on the roof. Slish slosh goes the snow underfoot. “Alle zusammen,” says one of the Germans.
“Angels, ve haf heardt on high . . .
“Silent night, holy night . . .
“Hark! Ze heraldt angels sing . . .”
Germans singing Christmas carols in English to a Cuban who speaks nothing but Spanish and has a blinding migraine, as the snow melts in the Corn Belt, under a starry sky.
Then, a sudden switch to a tongue that I fall in love with, instantly.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur
zur Sommerzeit,
Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Jesus H. God Incarnate Christ, can it get any better than this? Maybe. How about more snow now, instead of this thaw?
Lots of it—here, now—before the singing stops.
Beyond Number
Does every chapter need a number?
No.
Those that deal with happiness don’t. They’re above that.
Happiness includes all numbers. It’s infinite and eternal.
This raises another question.
Can happiness ever be adequately described?
No.
So say the greatest mystics.
But you don’t need anyone to tell you this, especially men and women who eat too little, never get drunk, and shun sex. You know this already.
When the ultimate goal is reached, words fail. They crash against the zenith of your expectations and fall to the ground mortally wounded by their own feelings of inadequacy.
Happiness is our ultimate goal, even though it often eludes us.
Oh, but it can be found, now and then.
Or, better to say that it can find you. Pursuing it is often futile. More often than not, you have to wait for it to show up.
But when it does show up, the poetry dries up.
Ask any poet. No angst, no poetry.
No unrequited love, no great poetry.
No absence, no need to say anything.
Presence makes you shut up.
Ay. But the pain caused by absence can feel so good because it’s a symptom of love.
Is there any pain more exquisite than that which is caused by the realization that what you desire most deeply will always be absent and totally beyond your grasp?
Is there any ecstasy higher than that which is caused by the sudden and unexpected presence of what you desire most deeply?
Is there any blessing more mixed than accepting any such ecstasy as fleeting? Or anything more painful and joyful than accepting its evanescence?
Where’s the boundary between pain and ecstasy when you realize that what is fleeting is also somehow eternal? That no matter how fleeting it seems, this presence has always been and always will be? That it will never be yours to keep, but that you will feel its absence and ache for it forever?
Is there any pain or any ecstasy more divine than acknowledging that you can never, ever hope to hold on to what every fiber of your being tells you is the very purpose of your existence, the sole reason for your coming into being in the first place?
No.
Letting go is the ultimate happiness, and the ultimate pain.
I can’t let go. No way. Not here in Bloomington. My attachment to this place runs deep. But, damn it, I have this book I carry around that tells me that I should let go of everything and everyone, including myself. It’s the book my parents gave me when I left home, The Imitation of Christ. An awful book, really. They don’t come much worse than this one. It scares me to death, every time I try to read it.
Let go of everything, says the book.
But everything in my life right now is everything I’ve always wanted. I know it can’t stay this way forever, but all I have is now, and now is as good as it has ever been or may ever be. I was born to be here and to live this life.
To someone else it could seem like a hard life, but to me it’s just perfect. I love everything about it, even the most painful things. By now I’ve figured out that pain can be a good thing—a blessing—if you accept it when it’s inevitable. No pain, no joy.
I know nothing about yin and yang, or the coincidence of opposites, or Nietzsche’s Law about what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, but I do know this: I’ve developed a fondness for pain, especially the kind that helps you realize that you’re capable of doing all sorts of things that should be impossible for you.
I’m attached to my perfect
pain and perfect joy, which are inseparable.
At age thirteen, I have an infinite list of perfect things I love being attached to, and want to stay attached to forever. Perfection, infinity, and eternity are as inseparable from one another as truth, beauty, and goodness, and the three persons in the Holy Trinity, after all.
I didn’t go to Catholic school for nothing, for so many years, back in that hellhole in which I was born. I know a few things about theology.
My infinite list has no beginning and no end, and no rankings. Here’s but an infinitesimally tiny slice of this list, the items chosen at random.
Secondhand clothes from Goodwill and the Salvation Army.
The toaster at the breakfast nook window.
The ten-cent loaves of bread at the A&P, which you buy with your own hard-earned cash and no one else in the house can touch.
Toasting up an entire loaf and eating it in one sitting.
MAD magazine.
Snow falling at night.
Freezing rain at night.
Seeing what freezing rain can do when you wake up in the morning and the world is entirely glazed, even each pine needle and blade of grass.
Sledding down a steep, snow-packed brick street recently glazed by freezing rain.
Missing a fast-moving car by just a few inches at the bottom of the hill.
Mr. Henker torturing you in gym class, calling you and everybody else “girls” all the time, stepping on your stomach as you’re doing sit-ups or on your back when you’re doing push-ups.
Swimming right after lunch.
The long pole with a hook at the end that hangs on the wall at the pool.
Mr. Henker holding this hook in front of the diving board, making you jump over it, raising it higher and higher each time.
Getting naked in front of thirty other guys, day in and day out, and not minding it.
The way some guys’ gym lockers smell.
Delivering newspapers after school and on Saturday and Sunday mornings, especially when the temperature falls below zero.
Wearing long underwear.
Feeling your breath turn into ice on your woolen ski mask at fifteen below zero.
Folding the newspapers into squares and launching them like flying saucers onto porches.
Breaking windows with misfired folded-up newspapers.
Having newspapers swerve upward unexpectedly and land on the roof.
Hearing an old man who is sitting on his porch say “Huuumpf” when you hit him squarely over his heart with a misfired, folded-up newspaper.
Practicing your hillbilly English pronunciation as you deliver newspapers, and having customers catch you in the act of talking to yourself.
Learning that some of your customers call you “that strange boy.”
Receiving complaints from customers who don’t get their newspaper, or often find it on the roof or other odd places.
Taunting the mean barking dog that’s always chained up.
Being chased by the mean barking dog that’s broken loose from its chain.
Trying to collect the weekly subscription fee for the newspapers from your customers, and having them pay you with pennies, or not at all.
Having to fork over part of your earnings to the newspaper when you fail to collect from all of your customers.
Talking to cousin Alejandrita.
Watching cousin Marisol cut out coupons from newspapers and magazines.
Washing and waxing Uncle Amado’s green-and-white 1958 Ford Custom two-door sedan, which he bought with the three hundred dollars he saved up by using coupons at the supermarket.
Having no telephone at home.
Walking four blocks to the nearest pay phone.
Saying hello to the scruffy old men who live at the transient hotel where this pay phone can be found.
Going to the movies every single week, either at the Castle or the Irving theater, both of which are only a few blocks from your house.
Seeing Lawrence of Arabia at the Irving theater with your entire family.
Seeing Dr. No and Goldfinger at the Irving theater with your brother.
Receiving only one channel on your ancient black-and-white television set.
Riding a bicycle with big fat tires that’s older than your television set, has no gears at all, and is very heavy and hard to pedal up any incline.
Shoveling snow after a blizzard.
Jumping into snowdrifts.
Snowball fights.
Getting hit with an icy slush ball on an already nearly frozen ear.
Hitting your older brother squarely in the face with a tightly packed snowball.
Doing your own laundry at home in an ancient washing machine that requires you to put every single item through a wringer.
Watching your underwear go through the wringer.
Hanging your clothes on the lines that are strung in the perfect but drafty and unheated study with the stained glass ceiling light.
Contemplating the dragonflies on the ceiling light through your own condensed breath.
Ironing your own clothes.
Discovering that your cousins will do your ironing if you pay them five cents per item.
Being told by the nun at Sunday school that doing your laundry on Sunday is a mortal sin, no matter what the circumstances.
Riding your bicycle on a recently frozen lake, at Miller Park.
Hearing the sound of the ice as it cracks right under you.
Catching one hundred and fifty sunfish in a single summer day at Miller Park with your friend Eddie, and throwing all of the fish back into the lake.
Catching crayfish with nets in the creek behind your friend Gary’s house.
Calling the crayfish “crawdads.”
Falling into the deepest part of the creek and having to ride your bike home for five miles, totally soaked, in nearly freezing temperatures.
Making your own skateboard with a piece of scrap wood and old metal skates from the Salvation Army store.
Finding out that your homemade skateboard can’t go in a straight line, even on the steepest hills, despite the nice straight green lines that you painted on its surface.
Falling and scraping your kneecap right down to the bone.
Girls with perfect features.
Absolutely perfect Peggy, in Mr. Noden’s class.
All the other perfect girls whose names you don’t know.
Falling deeply in love with a girl who has the most perfect eyes in the whole school, maybe the whole world, and a perfect sense of humor.
Thinking that she likes you back, maybe.
Spending a perfect afternoon with her, during which she touches your shoulder.
Never again wearing the shirt you wore on that day when she touched you because it’s now a holy relic.
Vowing to remember the month, day, and year when this girl touched you, along with the time of day, 3:17 in the afternoon, and the temperature, seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.
Realizing that you have no chance with her because you and your family are so poor.
Letting go of those perfect eyes and the girl to whom they belong.
Knowing that your brother is a carhop at the Steak ’n Shake in Normal, the very first Steak ’n Shake ever, the mother of all Steak ’n Shakes.
Knowing that your brother rides his bike to Normal every afternoon after school, and then rides home at midnight or one in the morning, no matter what the weather is, spring, summer, fall, or winter, even when it’s below zero.
Knowing that your brother makes good money, especially in tips.
Knowing that your brother has taken a second part-time job at Casella’s Italian Restaurant, where the tips are even better.
Seeing your first Ford Mustang ever on the day when Gary’s family takes you skeet shooting out in the countryside.
Shooting at clay pigeons as they arc over a cornfield.
Feeling the kick of the shotgun on your shoulder when you fire it.
Missing the targ
et.
Hitting the target.
Writing a letter to your parents every Thursday, in which you give them a detailed account of everything you’ve done, seen, heard, and felt.
Knowing that you’ll never see your parents again.
Being visited by second or third cousins of your own cousins, from out of town.
Watching one of those cousins of your cousins—no blood relation to you—suddenly go into a trance at dinner and be possessed by the spirit of a long-dead German woman, who speaks through her in Spanish, with a thick German accent.
Hearing all sorts of prophecies issue from the mouth of this possessed woman, none of which pertain to you or your brother.
Feeling relieved that the dead German left you alone.
Watching stupid girls on television scream their lungs out at these four English guys who wear identical suits and call themselves the Beatles.
Seeing these other English guys on television who call themselves the Rolling Stones and remind you very much of the Three Thugs with whom you used to live.
Walking to the public library with and without your brother, and checking out books.
Paying fines for overdue books at the library, again and again.
Looking at the icon of Corn Belt Jesus that hangs above your uncle’s chair and being strangely comforted by its presence.
Never going to confession, never examining your conscience or taking stock of your sins, one by one, or of their frequency or the circumstances in which you commit them.
Walking about two miles to church every Sunday morning with your brother.
Suffering through yet another unbearably long Good Friday ritual, and puzzling over all of the little foxes that are draped over the shoulders of little old ladies.
Noticing that many of the dead little foxes are biting their own tails.
Walking out of church on Easter Sunday into a snowstorm, and hearing everyone complain about it.
Being attacked by the Void time and time again.
Landing a few punches that make the Void reel.
Picking up that awful book of yours more and more often—that dismal Imitation of Christ—and finding it less and less frightening.
