CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST FLAKES of snow that started falling were picked out in the headlight's beams of the Rambler station wagon as it pulled it front of the Gatlin house.

Margaret opened the passenger door and stepped out with a shopping bag full of gift-wrapped packages. She stooped back in to thank Hoyet, an old co-worker of Ralph's from the mill.

"I don't know what I would have done, Hoyet, you didn't come by like you did."

"Anytime you need to get somewhere don't you hesitate to pick up that phone of yours and dial me at home or at work." Hoyet wished Margaret would call him even if she didn't need a ride. He loved talking with the woman, loved the way she said his name. She was the closest he came to feeling for another woman ever since his wife, Loretta, passed away two years back. With his three little girls to raise by himself he never seemed to find the time to get out and find himself a new wife and his daughters a new mother. Truth was, there weren't that many good women to be found, one that he could both love as a wife and trust to raise his little girls. But Margaret was something else altogether. She'd be just fine in both departments. Only trouble was those departments were already filled.

"How bout you come in for some eggnog and fruitcake," Margaret said. "I'm sure Ralph would love to see ya."

"I'd really like to stay awhile, Margaret, but I gotta get home. I'm gonna have to catch hell from Connie Bodeen as it is." Connie was the woman who sat for the girls after they got home from school and he got in from work. "She's been there since noon with the girls and —"

"You go on then. Don't be silly."

"Will you tell Ralph all the guys from the mill send their best."

"I'll do that, Hoyet, I will"

"I'd tell him myself but —"

Margaret cut him off. "I told you don't be silly. Your little girls are home waitin1 to spend Christmas Eve with their daddy. Go on and get home to them."

God, he didn't want to leave her. But somehow he managed to put the car in gear. "You have a Merry, Margaret."

"You too, Hoyet. And thank you."

"Glad to be of service."

And in their smiles they both felt it, but neither said anything. Margaret trudged through the lightly snowed over path to the front porch. Hoyet stayed there until she had the key in the door and then, without looking back, drove off into the gathering storm.

Margaret stepped inside the foyer and flicked the wall switch.

No light came on. She tried the switch again but still nothing happened. She was thinking she'd have to replace the bulb when she saw the broken fixture on the floor. A shiver of panic telescoped through her body and she looked back out the door to see if Hoyet was still there. He wasn't.

"Corey! Ralph!"

Her heart paused as she waited for an answer but none came. She started feeling warm, her senses filling with a thumping sense of dread. Something was wrong…

"Corey! Answer me!"

She started into the hall and stopped at the entrance to the living room. She held her breath as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Even in the moonlight she could see it was a wreck. Scattered magazines, newspapers, over turned furniture. Like some rampaging bulldozer had gone right through it, ripping books and knick-knacks from the shelves, tearing the drapes from the curtain rods.

"Corey! Where are you!"

She started into the room fearing she would find her son crushed under the ruin and that's when Ralph came at her. He broke out of the shadows charging her like a bull out: of the gate. Before she could make sense of it Ralph grabbed her pocketbook from her rifling through it.

"Ralph, what are you doing? Where's Corey? What did you do to him?"

Ralph wasn't going to answer her. He had his face buried in the pocketbook like an ostrich in the sand looking for something. Finally, he came up with her change purse, opened it, looked inside and fixed Margaret with his eyes.

"This is it? This is all you got?" He poured out the pennies and nickels into his mottled hand. "Din't you get paid today?"

"I got paid."

"Where is it?"

"I kept some out and put the rest in the bank. We got bills to pay. Disability don't cover it all. Where's Corey?"

Ralph grabbed her arm. "Gimme what you left out."

"That's it. I bought some presents for Corey. You're hurting me —"

"Goddamn you —" Ralph made a grab for the shopping bag but Margaret held on to it. She wouldn't give it up. "Let it go—"

"No! They're for Corey —"

"Give it here —"

"Stay away from —"

She didn't even see it coming. The blow from the walking stick rocked her, sent her sprawling. The shopping bag ripped in half, gifts spilling out onto the floor.

A stinging, pulsing pain swam behind her eyes. Head lolling, Margaret blinked away her dizziness. She opened her eyes.

Ralph loomed over her seething, chest heaving. Stray wisps of his hair went out in every direction. It was a frozen moment, brief but stark. Margaret made a furtive grab for the gifts. Ralph whipped his walking stick back, cracking it against the ceiling, brandishing it like a club.

"I mean to mark you! Get back!"

Margaret cowered back. She would have kept going if the wall hadn't stopped her.

"Stupid woman..." Ralph rounded the packages up. "Go spendin1 good money on junk. No sense...no sense fall." He was practically devouring the gifts, tearing the wrappings to shreds. "Look at this —" A package of wool socks. "Look at this crap —" A rag sweater. Next came a pair of new boots for Corey. "He's got boots," Ralph shouted. "What's he's goin' to do with another pair? Wear 'em on his hands—"

He got to the last package and it was the only gift out of the lot that wasn't a necessity. But it was something Corey had his heart set on for so long.

"A Commando Cody ray gun! I'm outta work and you're buyin' toys with what little you make? I don't understand you. Go pissin' away good money on this crap. Must be twenty, twenty-five dollars worth of stuff here. Don't know where your sense went to."

And then Ralph disappeared into the shadows again, going into the kitchen. Pots crashed, utensils clanking across the slate floor. Margaret sat there paralyzed, terrified to move, flinching at every sound.

When Ralph returned he had his army issue duffel bag with him. He held the sack open to the floor stuffing the gifts into it with his stick.

"...what...are...you...doin?" Margaret could get barely get the words out.

"I been tryin' to get drunk all day but it don't seem to be workin' out. I'm takin1 this stuff back and tradin' it in. I just as soon do my drinkin' in town."

" ... .those. . .things. ..are. . .for. . .Corey. . . "

"Boy don't need nuthin' — don't deserve it. Let him know what it is to go without." Ralph crammed the Commando Cody ray gun into the bag and hitched the cord closed around the pair of white wool socks Margaret had bought. "I been goin' without a job, without any money, without a family, and without a fuck long enough. So you and your son can go without Christmas. "

The tongue of a sock lapped Ralph's hand. He pulled one of the socks out of the sack fumbling with the zipper to his pants. His hand disappeared inside the mouth of his greasy trousers. When it reappeared so did his penis along with it. He stuffed the white sock over it like a horse's feedbag and pissed long and steady into it. Dripping, lumpy with human form, he peeled it off and snagged it on a tack over the mantle.

"That's for you and your son." Ralph turned, pants hanging open and limped away. He went out into the hall and was gone.

When Margaret heard the front door slam behind him all the stone-up pain, all the shredded emotions came gushing out. She covered her face with her hands, eyes filling, spilling. She used the torn Christmas tissue to wipe her tears, but it just wasn't enough because the tears just kept coming, a storm of them.

From behind his cracked open bedroom door Corey watched his mother rocking to the rhythm of her sobs. He started to go to her, to calm her, but first he had to calm himself. He didn't want her to see him as jittery as he was until he calmed himself so he eased the door closed without a breath.

When the violent rap of glass came from behind him Corey whirled, whipped his shoulders around, and threw his back into the door slamming it shut.

Ralph was outside his bedroom window. Through the frosted pane his unshaven face was grotesquely distorted. He tapped on the glass again, clucked his tongue laughing. Then he began to write something on the glass, fingernail scratching away the ice, drawing the letters long and slow. Corey stood rooted to the floor following the white worm of Ralph's fat finger, the tracing of each letter, the letter already on Corey's lips before Ralph even began it. He was writing the word backwards so Corey could read it.

 CHANKS!

"He's comin' for ya, Corey! Sure as Christmas morning! He's comin1 to getcha! Keep an ear peeled for them bells! They toll for you!"

A quivering smile shivered along Ralph's lips. An ear-to-ear grin. And he laughed again, the wind ripping it apart, slaughtering the chuckle. He turned from the window and began to trudge toward town, the gifts-heaped in the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. And through the carved out letters Corey watched Ralph as he went, small dark eyes shining, until his father was lost behind a wall of falling snow.