Wishin' and Hopin'

by Wally Lamb

  “The show must go on,” Madame said. And then, using the same tone of voice she had used on Mrs. Twerski, “Maintenant, Monsieur!”

  I told Madame that, okay, I would remove my chemise for the sake of our tableau, but I wasn’t taking off my pantalons for anything. Madame nodded in agreement, so I agreed to be Jesus.

  Downstairs, behind the curtain, the Kubiaks rushed about, setting up the props for the big nativity finale, then ran to retrieve the live lambs they’d sequestered in a coop upstairs in our classroom. Out front, jingle bells were jingling. Accompanied by Brenda Lee’s vocal—You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear/Voices singing “Let’s be jolly, deck the halls with boughs of ha-olly”—Madame positioned all of her players except Lonny, Zhenya, and me, her 66 percent recast Holy Family. Yanking the silver turban from Marion Pemberton’s head, she ripped the pillowcase apart with almost superhuman strength, transformed it into a veil for Zhenya, and ordered her to kneel beside the manger. “And you, monsieur, kneel in the crib!” she ordered me. When I did so, she told Franz to hand her his blond Shirley Temple wig. Grabbing it from him, she stretched the wig over my skull. Then, in a sort of frenzy, she pulled apart one of the hay bales and stuffed straw around everything below my chest. “The doll!” she called over to Bridget, the way Dr. Kildare called for an instrument in the middle of an operation. Bridget handed Madame her headless baby doll, and Madame stuck it into the end of the corn crib opposite my head, then fussed some more with handfuls of straw. When she stepped away, Baby Jesus had my head and shoulders and, sticking out the other end, infant-sized rubber feet.

  On the other side of the curtain, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was winding down and, one by one, the first and second graders began jingling off the stage to the sound of applause and cheering. In the nick of time, the Kubiaks returned with the live lambs. Roland handed his to Eugene and Ronald placed his in Jackie Burnham’s waiting arms. “Aww,” everyone kept saying. “They’re so cute!”

  “Shhh!” Madame said. “Ecoutez!” By now, her red beret had slid back so far on her head that I wondered how it was staying on. The sixth graders were halfway through their second verse of “Away in a Manger” when I looked over at Rosalie, who was tugging on her fake beard and ripping it away in clumps. She’d managed to yank off most of it, but not the part still stuck to her chin. Then she reached around and pulled the back end of her velvet Wise Man cape over her head and hurried over to my manger. Kneeling beside Zhenya, she reached over and gave her a two-handed shove. Out front, the sixth graders were down to, “And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh,” and the curtain, in another ten seconds or so, would part.

  Zhenya shoved back. Rosalie retaliated with a harder shove.

  My eyes found Madame, standing in the wings. One of our vocab words the week before was “transfixed” and that’s what Madame was: as transfixed as someone in a tableau vivant as she watched the two combatting Marys.

  Zhenya’s next shove knocked Rosalie back onto the floor. Trying to right herself, she reached out and accidentally grabbed Zhenya by her bazoom-booms. I was staring in shock—we all were—when Lonny called “Felix!”

  He’d been staring, too, I guess, and when he’d seen where Rosalie’s hands had landed, he’d begun having his problem again. As the curtain began to part, I lifted an imaginary meat cleaver over my head and brought it down with a vicious whack! To my relief, and more important, to Lonny’s, he doubled over once more.

  At first, the audience was stunned to silence as it stared upon what, I’m guessing, was the most bizarre nativity they’d ever seen. For there before them, below the electrified Star of Bethlehem, was a Baby Jesus with shrunken feet, a bent-at-the-waist Joseph, and not one but two Marys, one of whom seemed to be wearing a goatee.

  The seventh graders began singing “The Little Drummer Boy,” but, of course, the little drummer boy was a no-show, his shelf-papered hat box and chopsticks abandoned backstage. The crowd started mumbling and murmuring. The murmuring turned steadily into snickering and, by the choir’s closing pa-rumpa-pum-pums, many audience members were…what’s that word? Guffawing.

  By the time “Joy to the World” began, the laughter had begun to die down—until, that is, Ernie Overturf’s brother Richard accidentally bumped into Mr. Dombrowski, who, startled, let go of his rope for a second or two, then grabbed onto it again, then let go for a second time, then made another grab—the effect of which, on stage, was that the Star of Bethlehem seemed to keep changing its mind about whether it wanted to be a shooting star or one that remained high in the heavens. And when I looked over in the wings again? Madame wasn’t transfixed anymore. Now she was doing something really weird: drinking perfume from one of those two bottles I’d seen in her purse that day when I had to go up and get her sunglasses. Not her lily-of-the-valley perfume but the other one: cognac.

  After “Joy to the World” ended and the curtain closed again, Father Jerry began his closing remarks to the audience. “Well, I’m sure every one of you will agree that this has been just about the most memorable Christmas program in the entire United States of America—or maybe I should say, the United States of Hysteria.”

  Everyone laughed at that.

  “But the kids and their teachers have all worked very hard on today’s event, so let’s first of all give a hand to Mrs. Lillian Button and her wonderful singers and players, to whom we say, “If music be the gift of life, play on!” Out front, there was lots of cheering for the musicians. I was glad Father Jerry wasn’t saying anything about us, because I didn’t want to get booed at.

  But then Father Jerry said, “And, of course, there’s our actors to thank as well. Ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon you’ve seen the world premiere of “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season” by Saint Aloysius Gonzaga’s very own fifth-grade playwright, Rosalie Twerski, and you’ve also witnessed on this historic afternoon Saint Aloysius G’s first-ever tableaux vivants, which I sure hope will now become an annual tradition at this great school. And who knows, maybe by next year we may even have those couple of little kinks worked out for you.” That made people laugh. “So why don’t we get the curtain open again and have our players and their director extraordinaire, Mrs. Marguerite Frechette, step forward and take a bow. (“Oh my god,” Simone noted later. “The audience gave you guys a standing ovation.” When I asked what that was, Ma was the one who answered. “It means everyone liked you so much, they got up off their culos to cheer for you.”)

  When the others stepped to the front of the stage to take their bow, I was too embarrassed to get up, so I stayed put in my corn crib. But when Lonny looked back and saw me, he had him and Ronnie Kubiak carry the manger up to the front, too. And when they did that, everyone cheered kinda loud, and so I waved at them and that made them cheer even louder. And while I was looking out at the audience, I found Ma, Simone, and Frances. They were in the fourth row, right in the middle. Nonna wasn’t with them, though, so I guess her corns were bothering her. I kept looking for Pop, but he wasn’t there, so I figured Chino musta still been sick. And then? I did see Pop. He was way over on the side, three quarters of the way back, between this old lady who must have been somebody’s grandma and this other, younger lady with big giant hair and a kerchief. And when I waved, Pop waved back, and so did the kerchief lady next to him and I was like, I wasn’t waving to you, Mrs. Big Hair.

  Then Father asked Mrs. Button and Madame to join us on stage, and when they did, Sister Fabian and Mother Filomina each came out with these bouquets of roses. Red ones. Sister Fabian gave Mrs. Button her bouquet and Madame got hers from Mother Filomina. And Mother Fil not only gave her her flowers, but then she hugged her for a kind of a long time, and it wasn’t one of those fake hugs that people give, but a real one. And when they stopped hugging, Madame blew a kiss to the audience and gave them one of those curtsies like people give to Queen Elizabeth, and one guy even whistled.

  And then Father Jerry said, “Well, folks, I guess that wraps thin
gs up except for one final detail. So let’s all stand and sing, ‘God Bless America.’” And everyone did, even me. And in the middle of it, Jackie’s lamb started squirming so much that he let him go. Then Eugene let his go, too, and the lambs started running around the stage bleating, and the first and second graders, and even some of us older kids, started chasing them, and one of the lambs jumped off the stage and people in the audience started chasing him, too.

  Back up in our classroom, Pauline Papelbon must have been feeling better because I seen her eat some of the refreshments, including two of Ma’s pizelles. Zhenya’s father kept telling me to have some of his raisin and milk curd strudel, and I didn’t really want to but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings either, so I tried some. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that good either, and when Mr. Kabakov was talking to Marion and his family, I chucked it in the garbage can. I asked Ma where Pop was, and Ma said that it was too bad, but he must not have been able to get away from the lunch counter. “Yes, he did,” I said. “I saw him.”

  “You did? Then I guess he had to go back to the depot and finish up.”

  While all the other kids and their families were eating and talking and laughing about stuff, I kept looking over at Mr. and Mrs. Twerski and Rosalie.

  They were sitting by themselves in the back, looking kinda gloomy. Rosalie had changed back into her regular clothes and had gotten the rest of her beard off, but there was this kind of big red mark on her chin where her goatee had been. When I walked toward her, her eyes squinted like she was getting ready for me to say something snotty. But what I said to her was, “I really liked your play.”

  “No you didn’t,” she said. “You told me you thought the ending was dumb.” Mrs. Twerski put her hand on Rosalie’s arm and shook her head.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But then I thought about it some more and changed my mind. Now I think it was a good ending.”

  She blinked. Nodded. “What do you say, sweetie?” Mr. Twerski said.

  “Thanks,” Rosalie said. I said you’re welcome and started to walk away. “Hey, Felix?” she said. When I turned back toward her, she said, “You were a pretty good Jesus, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Better than that doll, anyway.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Out in the school parking lot was where Simone and Frances had their disagreement about whether Franz Duzio had only picked his nose or if he had both picked it and eaten it, and Ma said, well, she hadn’t seen Franz do either of those things, but maybe that was because she liked to focus on the positive and not always on the negative like some people she knew. (She looked at Frances when she said that last part.)

  When we got home, there was a note from Pop that said to meet him down at China Village in Easterly so’s our family could celebrate what a great job everyone did in the Christmas show, “especially whoever that kid was who played Baby Jesus. He was terrific!” To this day, I remember in vivid detail what happened next….

  We get in the car—Ma, my sisters, and me—and drive to Easterly. Along the way, I count the number of houses that are decorated with Christmas lights. That song by the Chipmunks, and “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock” play on the car radio. Plus that French song by the Singing Nun, “Domenica nica nica….”

  Pop’s already there, sitting in a half-circle booth with red plastic upholstery. He’s drinking a bottle of beer—Rheingold—and has already ordered Ma this fancy red drink that comes with pineapples and cherries on a stick. “What do you kids want to drink?” he asks us. Me and Frances both want Shirley Temples, and Simone just wants a Coke.

  “Ready to order now?” the waitress asks after she brings us our drinks. Pop tells her we need a little more time. I’m still pretty full from all the refreshments in our classroom, but in a few minutes, when the waitress returns (she’s wearing a shiny red kimono), I will order a number 16 with gravy, an egg roll, and pork fried rice and eat it all, no doggy bag.

  Frances asks Pop for a quarter and, when he fishes one out of his pocket, she gets up and goes over to the jukebox. There’s a fish tank right next to it, so I get up, too. There’s carp in there, huge ones with bulgy eyes, plus a ceramic mermaid that doesn’t have any shirt on. “Woo woo,” I go, pointing at the mermaid, and Frances calls me a moron. You get three songs for a quarter. Frances feeds Pop’s coin into the machine and punches a bunch of buttons. Dusty Springfield starts singing. Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’ plannin’ and dreaming each night of his charms…

  After I slide back into the booth, I stick my finger in this orangy stuff in a little dish and taste it. It’s good. Sweet. “Duck sauce,” Simone says, and I go “Qwack, qwack, qwack.” Ma says she’ll qwack me if I put my fingers in there again. Then she turns to Pop. “So Felix said you got to the school after all.”

  And Pop says, “Yeah, right about when that jerky kid threw the bottle cap at the stage and got the bum’s rush out of there. When he walked past me, I felt like getting up and giving him a good, swift kick in the culo for good measure.” Ma asks him, did he have to go back and close up the lunch counter? Was that why we didn’t see him up in my classroom for the refreshments?

  “Nope,” he says. “That wasn’t it.” He’s smiling kinda mysterious, like that time when, for Mother’s Day, he bought Ma a dishwasher and hid it under some old blankets in our garage.

  “Where were you then, Poppy?” Frances asks.

  “Do you want me to tell you or should I show you?” Pop says. And we all go hub? Then he reaches down on the floor, picks up this big envelope, takes out three glossy black and white photos, and hands one to each of us kids.

  Simone’s says, “For Simone, With my fondest wishes, Cousin Annette.”

  Frances’s says, “For Frances, With my fondest wishes, Cousin Annette.”

  And mine says, “For Felix, Who was the best performer in the whole Christmas show!! Love, Cousin Annette.”

  Pop asks me if, when I waved at him from the stage, did I see that both him and Annette were waving back? And I go, “That big-hair lady was her?”

  “Sure was, kiddo. Her father called me. She’s in the middle of a press tour for her new movie. She’d just left Manhattan and was heading up to Boston, but I didn’t want to say anything because she wasn’t sure she’d have time to stop on her way and I didn’t want you kids to be disappointed. What a sweet gal she is—as sweet as sugar. And man oh man, you should’ve seen the limo she was riding in. First class all the way…. Simone, honey, maybe you better close your mouth now, or you’re going to start catching flies in there.”

  “She was actually there?” Simone says. “In the same auditorium we were? You’re not just kidding us?”

  Pop asks, what does she think? That he autographed those pictures?

  “But for real, Pop? She was really, really there?”

  I tell Simone yes, she was. Because other than Pop, I was the only one in our whole family who saw her.

  “Until now,” Pop says. He’s looking toward the front of the restaurant, and when I look, too, there’s this big black limousine pulling up to the curb. The waitress returns. “Ready to order now?” she asks. “Everyone here?”

  “Almost,” Pop says.

  The front door opens, and there she is. Pop stands, calls her name, and waves. She waves back, smiling, and starts toward us.

  Epilogue

  Sister M. Dymphna (née Jean McGannon) returned to her Saint Aloysius Gonzaga fifth graders in January of 1965, at which time she halted the teaching of conversational French but also discontinued her policy of ranking pupils academically on the blackboard and by seating chart. In 1980, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (then called manic-depressive disorder) and responded well to treatment. In 1984, her order forsook traditional nuns’ habits for street-clothes and launched a number of social justice initiatives. Today, seventy-nine years old, Sister Jean volunteers at Ecole Agape, a school for impoverished Haitian girls.

  Father
Gerald “Jerry” Hanrahan left the priesthood to marry in 1967. A retired social worker, Hanrahan lives with his family in Seattle, Washington.

  In 1968, Monsignor Angus Muldoon succumbed to emphysema and alcohol-related diabetes. In his honor, St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School’s advisory board established the Monsignor Muldoon Memorial Medallion, an award given each year to a graduating eighth grade boy who exhibits, in the manner of the school’s namesake, “high moral conduct.” In 1968, the inaugural prize was shared by Roland and Ronald Kubiak.

  Mother M. Filomina (née Phyllis Benvenuto) left her post as principal of St. Aloysius G in 1979 to become the residential supervisor of the Holy Family Home, a shelter for the homeless in Worcester, Massachusetts. She held that position until her death in 1986.

  Following the retirement of her husband, a haberdasher, Madame Marguerite Frechette returned to her native Québec. Active in community theater there ever since, she has directed and/or performed in no fewer than seventy-seven productions. The Frechettes, now in their mid-eighties, visit Paris yearly.

  Pauline Papelbon and her sister were withdrawn from St. Aloysius Gonzaga in March of 1965 and sent to live with out-of-state relatives. Under Sister Dymphna’s direction, Pauline’s former classmates wrote and signed a group letter to her, but she never wrote back. Recently, however, she resurfaced on the Dr. Phil Show in a program titled “Love Your Life, Not Your Carbs.”

  As a district manager for the Dunkin’ Donuts corporation, Franz Duzio oversees the operation of more than 200 stores in central and western Massachusetts. The former lead singer of the Skinnydippers, a surf band, he is also a published poet whose work has appeared in the literary magazines Upwind, The Boll Weevil Review, and Art & Noise. With his son, Franz Duzio, Jr., he edits Screw You: An On-Line ’Zine of the Arts. Duzio and his wife (the former Geraldine Balchunas) have five children and one grandchild, Franz Duzio III.