David Gates - Jernigan

I brought the coffee into the living room and sat in the Morris chair to get the old day mapped out. One thing, I definitely wasn’t going to get drunk. Hand still hurt, but it was only the third day, could that be possible? Saturday Sunday Monday — so yes, third day. So I guess you had to expect. Now. As to the day. First: go out to a drugstore or something and get the wrapping paper and Scotch tape and to-from tags that you forgot last night. Then: back here and get those sons of bitches wrapped. And then: try to arrange them under the tree so it looked bountiful. And then? Despite the coffee, I suddenly could not stay awake. Bedroom too far. I just set the cup down, boy, and got up, lurched across the room and pow, dived down into that couch.

The next thing I knew, the kids had come in. “Sorry,” said Danny, in some context. I guess they’d been loud. Done something.

“No no,” I said. “Time I was waking up anyway.” A lowdown shame, really, for him to have to see this shit again and again. Well, maybe it would be a warning to him.

“What?” he said, putting hand to ear.

I shook my head and waved him away — dismissed — and off they went to their room or something. I must have looked pissed off. So let him think so. It was all too much even to begin to try to clear up.

I did finally get the stuff wrapped and under the tree and the rest of everything taken care of — meaning mostly that I washed out the blue coffee cup and turned on the tv. The one thing I really had to be sure and do was stay awake until Martha got in. Not a word exchanged since Sunday morning; even old Jernigan knew that wasn’t the way to get the holidays rolling.

I decided that the problem wasn’t having a drink or two per se. It was that I’d been drinking gin, which was no good for you. Vodka, on the other hand, probably didn’t leave you feeling so vile the next day, and it gave you a completely different head. Not so alienated. This is the kind of shit you tell yourself. So after the news I went out to the discount liquor place and got a quart of that Absolut vodka. Some expensive shit, boy; made you realize what a high roller Uncle Fred was getting to be. But hey. Also stopped and picked up a big thing of V-8 juice and a cellophane package of bran. Not getting enough fiber in my diet, that was another thing. So I mixed the vodka and V-8 half and half, stirred in a good big heaping teaspoon of bran, shook a bunch of black pepper on top to make it festive, and hunkered down in the Morris chair with the old Nothing but Wodehouse , for all the world like a man settling in with a Bloody Mary and some light reading. Kids were all snug up there in their room; that was the way I wanted to think about the kids up in their room. First I read Ogden Nash’s foreword, which told how hard it was to decide what to put in the book because P. G. Wodehouse was so good.

There are horrid omissions even in this monumental tome, and to you who mourn them, I can only say that this heart breaks with yours, and to ask you to consider for a moment the difficulties of the editor who is delegated to select the best from an author who seems always to be at his best .

Say what? I read this again, trying to figure out what the fuck tone he was trying to strike, and whether times had changed or this had been stupid even back then. (Not to mention that superfluous to: shouldn’t it be just “and ask you”?) See, what complicated the whole thing was that you weren’t supposed to think Ogden Nash was stupid just because he wrote light verse. You were supposed to think he might actually be smarter than somebody pretentious like Allen Tate or something. Some revisionist thing. Maybe I’m making this up. Well, anyhow, this was what reading was: not just going along with the words but thinking about things at the same time.

Now, after the foreword I would go on to maybe a couple of the Mr. Mulliner stories, then start on Leave It to Psmith , which I’d be in no danger of finishing tonight. I’d go until eleven, then put on the Independent News, with what’s his name, Jerry Girard Very Independent Sports. Jerry Girard was the best local sports guy because he said what he thought. Then The Honeymooners at eleven-thirty and at midnight Star Trek . And probably at some point during Star Trek (I hoped it would be when a commercial was on) Martha would roll in and we could get this latest thing smoothed over and then we’d just see from there.

But Martha threw this whole scheme out of whack. I thought I had her schedule figured out and then pow, in she waltzes during the first commercial break in the Independent News! “Hey,” I said, “just what the hell time do you get off work?”

I could hear, as I was saying it, that it sounded like real peevishness instead of parody peevishness. Really losing my sense of pitch here.

“It’s freezing in this house,” she said. So maybe she hadn’t even heard me. People seemed to be having trouble with that lately. She bent down prettily, her coat still on, and opened the stove. “How can you stand to sit there?” she said. Stand to sit, I thought. Huh.

“I’ve got my love to keep me warm,” I said.

Now, this I’d meant to be a sort of courtly compliment, I think, and not the cruel irony it must have sounded like. Though who knows what the hell I meant. Just Jernigan running his endless mouth. And a beep and a bop and a beep.

She started putting things in the stove. “You know,” she said, “I really can’t figure out what is in this for me anymore.” She clanked the stove shut. She fetched a sigh. “Did you remember to feed the bunnies?” she said.

“I was just about to go down there,” I said. “I thought you did a beautiful job with the tree.” All I could do, though, not to say something about the tinsel.

“Thank you,” she said. You couldn’t tell exactly how she meant it. Coldly correct was my guess.

“Beautiful,” I said. “Beautiful job.” This was not moving the conversation forward.

She headed for the door to the basement.

“I was just about to do that,” I said.

“Then I guess you got lucky, didn’t you?” she said, and closed the door behind her. Not quite slammed.

When she came back up she closed it with almost exactly the same degree of force, if I was judging accurately. You’d measure it in foot-pounds per square inch or something.

“I had wanted to talk to you,” I said, “regarding Christmas. I mean, what’s the usual drill here? Like do you have your Christmas Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? You know, like for opening stuff.”

She sat down on the couch, the end away from the tree. “You’re obviously so unhappy, Peter,” she said. “Why do you even care?”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” I said. “You know, who thought up the whole God damn tree in the first place? I mean, check the packages.” I pointed to the tree. It would have made a feeble show without that box from Hickory Farms. But the point was, there was a box from Hickory Farms. A God damn good-sized box, for smaller boxes to sit on. And there were three white envelopes, heavy with promise.

“I got the tree,” I said, “got my shopping done, got shit wrapped days in advance, so I don’t frankly see what you’re basing anything on.”

“Oh all right, fine,” she said. “I’ll play, Peter. We used to open our presents Christmas Eve. Now what?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said.

“I wasn’t even going to tell you,” she said, “but Tim has invited us over to his place Christmas Eve. It didn’t seem like you’d be very into it.”