The Warmest December

by Bernice L. McFadden

  I didn’t answer right away. I was enjoying the clouds, sun, and the late-August breeze that sent the blades of grass waving. I was thirteen and my whole life was ahead of me. I was thirteen and my whole life was keeping my head propped toward the sky.

  “Why not,” I said and closed my eyes.

  I did not have permission to be there. But I’d told a lie. Lying was becoming natural for me. Where I once stuttered and stammered my way through a lie, those words of deceit now flowed from my mouth like mother’s milk. “I’m going to stay over at Glenna’s,” I told my mother. I did a lot of that too, telling instead of asking.

  Delia looked at me, searched my face for fraud, and found nothing. I was a blank wall and my eyes never wavered beneath her watchful eye. “Okay,” she said and dismissed me with a wave of her hand and a puff of smoke.

  Glenna told Pinky that we were headed to the movies. A bunch of us were going to see a kung fu flick on Eastern Parkway. “Double feature?” Pinky eagerly asked as she dabbed perfume behind her ears.

  “Uh-huh.” We both nodded our heads and walked out the door.

  It was just past eight when we arrived at Jonas’s door. Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” filled the hallway. Loud laughter and carefree conversation bounced off the other side of the door just before it swung open.

  Ms. Murphy, Jonas’s mother, greeted us. “Hello,” she said. Her eyes were slits and she held a glass of gin in one hand. “J, your little friends are here.”

  Glenna stifled a laugh and gave me a comical look. “She looks like a—”

  “I know,” I said cutting her off.

  “Hey.” Jonas stood before us. He had on a pair of blue Lee’s and a white and blue pinstriped shirt. The crease in his pants probably took all day and half a can of starch to put there. His Adidas sneakers had been scrubbed clean, but he’d forgotten to wash the laces. They were a dusty gray and stood out like an eyesore on the burnished white leather.

  “Hey,” I said back to him. Glenna said the same thing and then we just stood there for a moment staring at each other.

  “You look nice.” His eyes traveled over my body. I wore a red tube top and black Lee’s with clear jelly shoes that showed off my painted red toes.

  “Thanks,” I said and Glenna snickered.

  “Close my goddamn door, J!” Ms. Murphy yelled from the background.

  The apartment was small, just a one-bedroom, with a bathroom and kitchen. The living room was barely the size of my bedroom, yet she had enough people jammed in there to fill two apartments.

  “Y’all got jobs?” Ms. Murphy slurred at Glenna and me.

  “No,” we said together and looked at Jonas.

  “Oh, okay, otherwise you’d hafta pay like everyone else.”

  She coughed and then laughed and stumbled away to a tight crowd of people near the kitchen.

  Jonas shook his head in embarrassment. We stood there in the midst of the music and paper plates filled with greasy chicken wings, coleslaw, and fried corn. We said nothing for a long time, just took in everything around us.

  It was my first grown-up party outside the family gatherings. During those the children were confined to a bedroom, often stretched across an aunt’s bed fighting with the guest coats, or shoved into a cousin’s dank basement with a bowl of popcorn and a few cans of soda.

  Now I stood beneath a blue light while droves of adults moved around me, counting me as one of them, not noticing at all that I could have been one of their own children out on a lie.

  The scent of reefer moved through the air and tickled at our noses. Glenna and I smiled at each other and lifted our heads and inhaled deeply. We moved further into the deep blue-blackness of the apartment, sidestepping swaying arms, jutting hipbones, and bobbing behinds. It was like walking into a living cave.

  Someone shoved a beer into my hand, and before I could politely refuse it a short bald man with big eyes and a potbelly grabbed my arm and swung me around. “C’mon, sweet thang, you wanna dance wit me?”

  I tried to object but he was already pulling me toward the sea of people bumping and grinding their way through “Love Is the Message.”

  “No thank y—” I was in the midst of it before I or anyone else could save me. I looked desperately toward Glenna and then Jonas, but neither of them made a move.

  “C’mon, c’mon.” The man before me had my free hand, swaying my arm back and forth as if it had some instant connection with my feet. “How you young people do it?” he said and did an awkward spin.

  I laughed and popped the tab to the beer can. My feet began to move, stiff at first, and then I took a sip of the beer and picked up on the rhythm, allowing myself to be carried by the music. My feet shuffled and slid across the tired wooden floor as I allowed myself to let loose.

  “Yeah, yeah!” The old man clapped his hands and danced around me to a beat he’d carried in his head since the ’50s.

  Before I knew it Glenna was on the floor with one of Jonas’s bleary-eyed cousins and Jonas had flung me around, stealing me from my dance partner.

  Who knows how many hours had passed, or how many beers I had consumed, before I even thought to check the time. I remember once making my way toward the kitchen to do just that when Jonas tugged me back and pulled me into him. A slow song finally came on so the old people could sit down, get something to eat, drink, or lean up against the wall.

  There were just a few people left on the floor and Jonas and I were among them. I was thirteen. I had never been held so tightly before, pulled into someone so completely that you became one. Jonas clung to me as if I was his lifeline. I felt him grow hard on my thigh and we both blushed with embarrassment, pulling each other closer still, hiding the secret between us.

  It was when I yawned and Glenna followed that I saw the hazy blue of early morning pushing beneath the halfdrawn shades of the living room. My heart stopped dead in my chest.

  “Oh. My. God.” I grabbed Glenna’s hand and started toward the door. “I’m going to die,” I said as I pushed through the crowd of people.

  “Kenzie?” Jonas had no idea what was happening. I moved by him like a bat out of hell.

  The streets were quiet and we tiptoed across to the apartment building as if it could veil us from prying eyes.

  Our hearts raced while Glenna slid her key into the lock of the heavy metal door.

  Our breathing echoed through the halls when we crossed the lobby and took the stairwell up to her apartment. Glenna looked at me and made the sign of the cross on her chest before slipping the key into the lock and slowly turning it. We took a deep breath and pushed the door open on its creaky hinges, crossing our fingers, eyes, and toes against the possibility that Pinky would be up waiting for us.

  The apartment was dark except for the thin streams of light that found their way through the hole-riddled shades of the living room and crisscrossed the floor.

  We stood still and listened to Pinky’s steady breathing and whoever shared her bed that morning. Once sure they were sleeping, we moved like snakes, winding and twisting our way through the living room and into Glenna’s bedroom. We closed the door softly and quickly undressed, jumping into the bed, our hearts still pounding hard in our chests, leaving us little air to breathe, much less giggle. But we did anyway, giggled for more than an hour into Glenna’s pillow before falling asleep, our arms and legs entangled like thick dark tree roots.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I left Brooklyn two days before Labor Day Monday. I hugged Glenna and winked at Jonas as he stood on the corner; his head was lowered and his hands were shoved deep into his pockets. He kicked at the dirt around him and smiled at me sadly, blowing me a kiss when Delia’s back was turned.

  Delia spotted him; she twisted her face and huffed, but kept quiet. Jonas and I had said our goodbyes the night before and my mouth still felt the joy of his lips. “I’ll see you in November,” I said to Glenna as I climbed into the back of Mable’s car.

  “Write before then,”
Glenna said, curling her fingers around the top of the passenger window.

  “Okay,” I promised and blinked against the tears that welled up in my eyes.

  Mable backed the Oldsmobile slowly out of the parking space, Delia rolled her window down and lit a cigarette, Malcolm opened up his Spider-man comic book, and I turned my head to see if I could catch one last look at Jonas, but the corner was empty except for the late-summer leaves that danced in the slow breeze.

  My heart sank a bit and I sighed heavily. Mable put the car in drive, Delia turned the radio on, and Malcolm flipped restlessly through his comic book. I turned to look again, hoping that just maybe Jonas would be there. There stood Hy-Lo, arms folded across his chest, cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, brown paper package beneath his armpit. He smiled; I grimaced and glanced away. “Turn that up, Ma,” I said as McFadden & Whitehead belted out “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.”

  The Addison School was a converted monastery with long, wide halls that resembled bright tunnels. The windows swung out instead of pushed up, and the main corridors were still lit by sconces that held three-inch candles.

  The school sat at the foot of the Catskill Mountains in the town of Maplewood, where whitewashed homes flew the American flag and white picket fences enclosed the wide yards that held above-ground pools, wooden jungle gyms, and doghouses.

  There was a pond that doubled as an ice rink in the winter and fourteen babbling brooks that were shaded by tiny red and white footbridges.

  Time had not completely passed Maplewood by, but it hadn’t spent more than a night or two there in the last fifteen years either.

  The townspeople snatched quick glances at me on the street. I was one of three blacks in Maplewood: two at the school and a man who owned an art gallery on the west side of town.

  My four years spent there were, for the most part, happy ones. I played soccer, skied in the winters, and white-water rafted in the spring. My vernacular lost its street slickness, my rough edges began to smooth, and the gray dreams of my feeble Brooklyn youth took on vivid colors that left me feeling powerful and hopeful.

  I avoided home as much as possible, spending most of my holidays with my friends and their families. But as much as I tried to avoid who I was and what I had come from, it still managed to find me and remind me.

  I saw remnants of my life wrapped around the arm of my science teacher. Dull green and blue fingers glowed painfully against her alabaster skin. I was familiar with the fear behind her eyes. That was the same look Delia had. I knew she stayed past five to do more than grade papers and put together our lessons for the following day. She stayed late to avoid the man who beat her, and then in the same breath told her he loved her as he dabbed her wounds with antiseptic.

  I saw it when I was in Vail on a ski trip with my friend Megan Wolanski and her family. We were seated before the stone fireplace of her parents’ winter home, wrapped in a black and red checkered blanket; our faces were flushed from the brandy we had hidden beneath the blanket. It was thick, dark, and tasted like licorice. We sipped and laughed, sipped and laughed until our laughter became loud enough to drown out the angry sounds of Mr. and Mrs. Wolanski as they screamed and cursed at each other.

  When the first slap rang out Megan scrambled closer to me, knocking over the bottle of brandy and covering her ears with her hands. I picked up the bottle and took another swig before replacing the cork and returning it to its place in the liquor cabinet.

  I eased myself back beside Megan and moved my hand across the gleaming blond of her hair. I did not feel any compassion for her; I searched and searched and could not find any. The liquor had hidden it from me. I moved her hands from her ears and looked deep down inside of myself and found some pity the brandy had missed and coated my words in it. “Everything’s gonna be all right,” I said and looked back at the liquor cabinet. I could tell Megan believed me, but I nodded my head for emphasis and halfheartedly patted her on the shoulder for further effect. My mind was on the bottle of brandy and how good the thick dark liquid made me feel. “It’ll be okay,” I added, trying to unwrap my mind from the gold-foiled label.

  Megan smiled back at me and wiped at her tearing eyes. She didn’t know I was a longtime sufferer of this war, she just thought I was strong.

  Hy-Lo was with me even though he was miles and miles away. He came in different skin colors, read the Bible or just the sports page. He was a social drinker, a weekend lush, a martini-swirling beer-can-crushing vodka-and-orange-juice man who beat his wife and terrified his kids. Hy-Lo was miles away and he was around the corner, in the next room, pumping gas at the Texaco, and leaning over the counter at Iggy’s Ice-Cream Shoppe asking me how many scoops of vanilla I’d like.

  I recognized him no matter what disguise he wore.

  The Addison School offered Saturday Temple for the Jewish girls and Sunday Mass for the Catholic ones. Father Gifford was our priest; he was tall with California sun-kissed skin, sapphire eyes, and silver hair.

  He was a handsome man and that helped us sit through his long Sunday sermons. He rambled on endlessly, never quite making or delivering a message. He spoke while leaning on his pulpit, his fists clenched beneath his chin while his elbows rested on the open pages of his Bible.

  The girls thought it was comical, but I knew different. I saw the flush in his face, the light pink sheen that traveled from his brow and down his neck, disappearing behind his collar and black suit.

  A sip before Sunday Mass and the rest of the bottle later. I knew.

  It must have been gin because I never smelled it. He smoked, so it was Merit Lights that sailed off his breath when he raised the host in front of my face and said, “The Body of Christ.”

  I avoided his eyes and said, “Amen.”

  I knew that Hy-Lo was with me when I entered the confessional and dropped down to my knees and told Father Gifford that I was the child of an alcoholic. I told him that I had a deep hatred for my father and that, Lord forgive me, I had wished him dead on many occasions.

  My knees cracked against the worn red leather of the kneeler as I waited for him to reply. What I heard was the familiar twist of a cap, the light falling sound that liquid makes against the soft tissue of the mouth, and finally the inhale of breath as it unleashes itself into the bloodstream.

  I did not wait for him to speak on my problem or to assign me ten Hail Marys. I got up and walked away. Made my escape, just as I did when I stepped into my grandmother’s car and we took off for the Addison School.

  I had started out for the hospital, but somehow ended up standing in the check-cashing store staring at the boxed black numbers of the large calendar that hung on the wall. I knew it was Wednesday, but which Wednesday? I looked down at the stub of my welfare check; it was dated November 28. I looked back at the calendar; there was a Wednesday, December 5, 12, 19, and 26. I shoved the stub into my pocket and turned to face the long line of men, women, and children who stood patiently waiting to collect their food stamps and cash their welfare checks.

  My eyes searched through the multicolored faces and fell on a dark-skinned woman with round eyes and a pierced nose. “’Scuse me,” I said and took a step toward her. “What’s today’s date?” She took a step backward and I saw that she had an infant wrapped to her torso with a brightly colored piece of kente cloth.

  She blinked before responding as if I’d pulled her from a daydream. “The twelfth,” she said, placing a protective hand on top of her baby’s head.

  “Thanks,” I said and walked away.

  I decided that I would try to make it special. I had time to make it special. It was the twelfth of December, thirteen days until Christmas. I picked up a tree; it was small and bald in too many places, but it was a tree just the same. It looked as lonely and pitiful as I felt. I had to haggle for twenty minutes with the Korean store owner.

  “Fifteen dollar,” he said without looking at me.

  “Ten,” I said and shoved a ten-dollar bill in his face.

>   “Fifteen,” he said and bent to sift through a box of onions.

  “C’mon, ten,” I pushed.

  “Twelve,” he said as he tossed the rotten onions aside.

  “Ten dollars and you know you ain’t throwing those damn onions out!”

  “Look, lady, you give me big trouble. I say twelve dollar, take it or leave it, and don’t you worry ’bout deez onions.”

  “Ten dollars because it’s Christmas,” I said, still shaking the money in his face.

  He snatched the bill out of my hand. “You take tree and get out. You big trouble for me, lady,” he said and his good eye sparkled with amusement.

  I had decided that I would not let Hy-Lo steal Christmas, not like he’d stolen Thanksgiving.

  Once I got the tree into the apartment, I pulled out the old Dewar’s Scotch box that held the Christmas tree trimmings. Most of the green, red, and gold balls were cracked, missing hooks or whole tops. I used what I could and discarded the rest. I dug deeper into the box, pulling out old Christmas cards, forgotten gift tags, and finally a dusty, halfempty bottle of vodka.

  I froze and almost dropped the bottle to the floor. It could have been one of Delia’s. Maybe the last one she’d bought before she decided to stop drinking. Or maybe it was one of the last ones I’d bought. I couldn’t remember. My body began to shake and I could feel my mouth filling with water as my mind urged me to unscrew the cap and just take one swallow. Just one.

  I shook my head against the thought, knowing full well that one drink would not be enough. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom, convincing myself to spill the liquid down the toilet and flush it away. But what of the smell? I couldn’t trust myself, the scent alone could force me to surrender.

  Halfway to the bathroom I turned on my heels and ran back into the living room. I looked left and I looked right; were the walls closing in on me?

  Just one sip.

  “Oh my God!” I screamed, trying desperately to keep that voice in my head at bay.