"Yeah, well, I guess, I must have money in the bank, then. Anyway, the people who read my newspaper want to know more about the man who writes so many stories."
"They do?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Obvious? How so?"
"I'm crazy."
"Yes," he said laughing like a hyena. "Only, I need a Christmas story for my paper and I was hoping that you could help me out by telling me one."
"You want me to tell you a Christmas story?"
"That's what I'm here for," he said planting his palms on his knees, leaning forward, and staring at me.
I looked at him meeting his stare, until he backed away and straightened himself up in his chair. He looked so young, twenty something. I wondered how long I've been locked away. I don't remember. It's been too long. I don't even know why I am here.
"Christmas means different things to different people. To me, it was the day that my Dad killed himself." He looked at me shocked that this was the story that I chose to tell him, but I continued. "The memory of him lying in the snow with the blood all around his head, looking so much like a red halo, is one that I will never forget. He looked as if he fell in a giant cherry snow cone."
"Do you mind?" He asked placing a micro tape recorder on the table.
I nodded my agreement and he nodded for me to continue. It was surreal. I started listening to myself telling the story, as if it was someone else talking and telling it.
That was nearly 40 years ago. He had taken me and my younger brother to see Santa Claus on the Boston Common, where they had a display of his North Pole house with real reindeer. I remember being cold, but being so happy holding my father's right hand while my twin brother held his left hand. We were going to see the lights, the decorations, and the manger that they put up every year on the Boston Common. Then, if we were good, he told us that he would take us to Macy's to see their animated display.
Only, as the sun was setting and just before the cold wind brought the darkness of his eternal silent night, in the shadow of the golden dome of the state house, apparently, it all was too much for my Dad. He pulled out a .38 that he had recently bought, put it in his mouth, and left my brother and me to fend for ourselves.
My mother had left us a year earlier. She ran off with my teacher and they moved to Montana or Wyoming or one of the Dakotas, somewhere west and obscure. I don't remember. She never contacted us, again. Maybe, she died, I don't know. I only know that Christmas, a time that should be filled with fun, love, and happiness, for me, is filled with remorse, guilt, and depression.
Dad had been out of work for a while, before he shot himself, and he had started drinking, too. He was never a drinker that I remember. Still, I know that the holidays can be rough even for those who are fairly well adjusted and for those who do not have as much misery, as my Dad obviously did.
I saw it. I witnessed the whole thing. I remember because I was sitting high up on Santa's lap, when I heard the crack that the gun made in the cold, crisp air. I saw the explosion of blood that burst from the back of his head and the puff of smoke that hovered over him before disappearing, as did he, falling from my sight and landing in a pillow of soft, white snow.
It was bedlam. Everyone screamed and ran around in different directions. It hadn't been that long since the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King had been assassinated and everyone was still a bit nervous whenever they heard a loud bang. Immediately, they all knew that it was a gunshot.
I remember my father being nice and happy. I thought we had the perfect family, maybe because my Mom always wore an apron, a puffy dress, makeup, and jewelry, looking so much like Harriet from Ozzie and Nelson or Donna Reed or Mrs. Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver. I don't remember my Mom and Dad ever arguing. I didn't even know he was out of work, until a few days before he killed himself. He always dressed in his suit and tie, as if he was leaving for work or coming home from work.
Parents were funny back then. They kept secrets from their children. They never told the children anything. That was how they protected them, I guess.
Except for the obvious, my Mom running away with my teacher, my Dad being unemployed, and drinking, I always wondered why he decided to kill himself. I mean, we all have our crosses to bear and, most times, we endure them without taking extreme measures, such as suicide. Back then, people didn't readily seek psychiatric care, whenever they had a problem that they could not handle alone. Back then, they didn't have Prozac and Zoloft. I wonder, had he lived now, if things would have been different for him, easier, somehow, with sound mental health care and the availability of depression and anxiety drugs. Who know, maybe, he would have not chosen to take his life and still be alive, today.
