2005-12-27 - 5:50 p.m.
Jack Survives Another Christmas
I arrived hopelessly ready to be humiliated.
I had been ready since I woke up that morning.
There was no more putting it off. The clock was slowing chewing itself down to the quick. And there was nothing I could do about it.
The only way out of this was through it.
As I dressed, I thought about Tyler's words. The ones that put so much in perspective for me.
"There is nothing so sacred that someone else will not spit on it."
I thought about a friend of mine that I knew back in Isolation.
I remembered him saying "Get over yourself, Jack."
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I saw nothing special.
A no one dressed in a thrift shop suit coat that hugged me like Kevlar. False security for only $4.00. It was something I could pull at when I felt uneasy and uncomfortable. Something I could hide in even though everyone could see me still.
I was not trying to impress these people.
I did not even get a haircut.
And I did not care.
Even if I could run circles around myself it would not matter. The exhaustion would never pay off in the end.
There were no tricks up my sleeves. No distractions. Diversions. No props, lies or stories.
I am Jack Completely Disarmed.
With kamikaze resolve I left the house and arrived to an abandoned stillness. Was anyone even home?
Do not even tell me I managed to fuck this up again.
Several years in a row I was late for Christmas.
I checked my cellphone for the date and time. Everything seemed to be right. Maybe I read the card wrong. Like I have in the past.
I knocked on the locked glass storm door, then rang the bell. My Grandma peered out the window and told me to go to the side door where we always enter at Christmas. Relieved, I entered. Awkward grin already in place. I asked where everyone was as I took off the shoes and left them in the corner of the step.
My Grandma laughed a little and said that I was just early. Everything was fine.
I sat down at the kitchen table and kind of laughed that this made up for all the years I was late. She kind of smirked at me and laughed a little. Then said that it was alright, I was just acting "funny" that year because of that "silly girl." I think in her own odd way she was forgiving me for that disasterous Christmas before Isolation. I kind of laughed a little. "Yeah....that silly girl." If only she knew the truth. But I just let Marla take the fall for me. With me, almost everything is better left unsaid.
My Grandma offered me a mudslide. It felt too early to be drinking but I took it anyway. I had been awake for a few hours and had breakfast. So, I accepted my cup of icecream and comfort and began working on getting a buzz before anyone even arrived.
Not too long after that, people began arriving. I did not really have much of a buzz, but having some time to myself did help take the edge off.
People came in through the door, smiling and stamping their feet. For once, it was me watching all of them coming in instead of the reverse. I was spared that awkward, fashionably on time entrance moment.
My sister and brother joined me at the kitchen table, the others floated into the interogation room and made themselves comfortable on the couches.
The stage was set.
And so was the table.
I sat by the ever popular meatballs and was asked to move several times. I actually kind of wished I had a bowl on the floor in the corner like a dog. Don't mind me.
I did not really care about the meatballs. I do not even like them. Being asked to move every few minutes really did not even bother me too much. The worst part was the snippets of conversation exchanged over the gravy filled water cooler. I drank my little drink and smiled. An awkward expression of social duress. Please don't hurt me.
Every time someone came over to get some meatballs, I silently hoped they would be merciful. And they were. Still, when my asshole mechanic uncle came to the table, the tension was thicker than the gravy in the crockpot. We hardly exchanged any words that night. He looked at me funny a few times. Almost as if to say "Friends?"
Yeah, friends.
Sure.
Since he acted like nothing ever happened, so did I.
He probably wonders why I never want to talk about cars with him anymore. I never talk about cars with anyone anymore. It is just one of those things, I guess.
He would never understand. If I could not talk about it in the garage, why would I want to talk to someone who shoved a fucking wrench in my chest for the fun of it? And twisted it harder and harder at the sight of my blood soaking through my shirt. I think you want me to hate you. And then you take it back. I do not even have the energy to care anymore.
Maybe they could sense that I was not fun anymore.
Not one person interogated me.
After I was already pretty buzzed someone asked how old I was. My other asshole uncle made some comment about me turning the big "3" "0". But I only laughed.
As long as I was buzzed, I felt safe.
Champagne always gives me a headache but I kept drinking it anyway. My Grandma cut me off the mudslides. But the champagne was still there for me.
I drank my drinks.
Played my invisible game.
Don't mind me.
Just go about your celebration.
And they did.
They talked to my sister about her artwork. To my brother about his job, his college and his new girlfriend. My asshole uncle told him to keep up the good work. I felt proud for him.
No one really said anything to me. Which is fine with me. They never have anything nice to say to me, and I never have anything nice to say in return.
It did not even feel like Christmas.
After I ate and opened my presents, and could not drink anymore because I had to drive, I just wanted to go home. My head hurt and I was tired and bored. And this was a good thing. It could have been so much worse.
When we were done eating, we gathered in the interogation room and watched the video tape from that day, and one from the day before of my starry eyed little cousin putting off a fashion show.
In the video from earlier that day, I saw myself quickly skulk by like a wounded animal. It looked like I was trying to keep my internal organs from falling out. That or I had a really bad stomach ache.
I looked even more awkward than I felt.
I heard myself talking in the video and wanted to kick myself.
Somewhere in my mind, I should not be seen or heard. I felt that I should be punished for talking in that tape, though it was perfectly fine when everyone else did it.
Sometime that night when I left the room to use the bathroom I heard the asshole mechanic uncle asking my sister if I still had my car. And I died a little. I was done using the bathroom, but I stayed in there anyway. If I was dreaming, that would have been when I opened the bathroom window and disappeared without ever being noticed.
I stood there holding my head. Practicing my lines.
If I waited long enough maybe I would not have to say them.
I was used to this.
Hiding.
I spent pretty much the first 20 years of my life doing this back at home with the Antagonist.
When the time seemed right, I walked out. And nothing more came of it. Maybe they are afraid to talk to me now. I am that mysterious time bomb with shrapnel eyes.
The night dragged on, the way it always does at family functions. After almost everyone left, and the livingroom was the livingroom again, we watched a boring movie. I do not know why I did not leave then. For some socially pressing reason, I sat with the others, spellbound by Sunday afternoon syndrome. Even though the movie sucks, you still sit there and watch it until it ends. It must be similiar to sniffing something that someone else tells you stinks. You know it fucking smells. You smell it anyway.
When the movie ended, it was finally time to leave. The credits rolled and we all got to go home.
Despite the cracking pain in my head, I was disappointed that this was the first year that I did not go to my brother's afterward for tea.
That is one of the few things that I was actually looking forward to.
Every year after we are done at my Grandma's we meet up around the corner at the Old Antagonist's house for tea. Strong sobering tea. We laugh and tell dirty jokes. Remember old times. Old inside jokes that still have not died. That life long comradry of sharing life with the Antagonist.
There was none of that this year.
Even if I had gone to the house for tea, it would not have been the same.
His girlfriend is nice enough, but there is no denying that things have changed.
It's Only After You've Lost Everything... - 2008-03-12
Jack Is Afraid Of Losing Everything - 2008-03-10
Jack Does Not Know What He Is Living For - 2008-03-07
Jack's Festering Apathy - 2008-03-07
