Читать книгу The Terrible Twos - Ishmael Reed - Страница 14

Oswald Zumwalt lifted the pot’s lid and dipped the ladle into the steaming hot pea soup. He opened the oven door and examined the turkey which was beginning to turn brown. The rice was becoming fluffy. He was about to prepare a salad when Jane walked in. She was what they called in the old days “a diminutive brunette.” She removed her coat, opened the refrigerator door, and poured herself a tall glass of grapefruit juice.

“Smells good.”

“O, hi, dear.” Zumwalt looked up and then returned to his chores. She noticed the third plate.

“Are we having someone for dinner?” she asked.

“The boss,” he said. “You know, since his wife died he’s been a lonely man.” She made a face. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“You know how I feel about your boss. I’m with the Alternative Christmas group. You’ve read our pamphlets. Schneider Brothers’ department store has a long history of discrimination against women and minorities. They hustle those awful war toys. We threw up a boycott there last Christmas. Don’t you remember?” He placed her hand on his shoulder. She brushed it off. He smelled something burning. The rolls. He rushed to the oven and removed some of them. He forgot to use a potholder and burned his hand. He shook his hand and then ran into the living room where Jane sat on the couch tapping her foot and pouting. The other furniture included a butterfly chair, a blue director’s chair, and book shelves. Three books lay on the coffee table: Abbie Hoffman’s Soon to be a Major Motion Picture; The Third Wave, by Alvin Toffler; and Richard Brautigan’s Dreaming of Babylon. A roach from a marijuana cigarette lay in an ashtray. Zumwalt noticed it and removed it before pleading with his wife.

“I thought we were going to have this Christmas alone,” she said. Her Levi’s fitted well, and she wore a blouse which was royally laced. Smith, ’76.

“We have enough. Look, it’s not every day that the boss takes a fellow’s offer for dinner.” Zumwalt had the head of a baby chick, especially around the nose. “Hey, what happened to your hair?”

“Thought I’d get a haircut.” She notices the small, gray Christmas tree.

“Cheerful, isn’t it,” he says, noticing her eyes glancing in that direction.

“What the fuck is going on?” she said. “We’ve never had a tree.”

“I bought it because—well, I haven’t had one in the house for years. I guess I’m becoming nostalgic.”

“Nostalgic, my ass; you’re trying to impress the boss. You’ve gotten hung up on that fucking job. This was supposed to be a stop on the way to Montana. We were going to save some money and then go to Montana. You promised. You took that stupid job at the department store and I went to work as a copy editor for Hour-Glass.”

He sat down next to her and took her hand. “But don’t you see how unrealistic that is? Montana. What would I do in Montana? Break horses? It was just one of our silly dreams.”

“Silly dreams, he calls them. So that’s what our relationship has been, silly dreams. You’ve changed, Ziggie. Monopoly capitalism is still on the march. Wasting the world. Oppressing the underclass. Remember we were going to take the fight to the West, all of our friends.”

“I’m thirty-two years old; I can’t go around playing at rebellion.” The kitchen. He rose and dashed into the kitchen. The rice was sticking to a burnt pan. It had turned brown. She followed him.

“O, shit. See what you made me do. Look, I don’t want to discuss it any more. It’s time for me to get serious. Over at the department store they listen to me. I have a future there.”

“So they got you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The manure heap. From now on your life will be measured in terms of profit and loss. Well, I’m not going to be a nine-to-five copy editor for the rest of my life. I’m tired of the East. It stinks here. All of the contradictions of the capitalistic system are in plain view. The pitiful vagrants and the limousines with their shades drawn, the fascist impersonal skyscrapers. Hideous glass boxes. I haven’t seen a bird or a wild tree in so long I forget what they look like. And then, suppose they find you. Then what? You’ll go to jail. For what you did, you might even be shot on sight. Suppose the plastic surgeon squeals.”

“I’m tired of running. I’ll just have to take my chances. I have a future in the department store business, and I’m not going to blow it. For the first time in my life I’m making my own decisions on how to run my life, and I’m not a dutiful imbecile doing what you, my parents, or some nutty left-wing organization wants me to do.”

“Man, are you into a power thing.” The buzzer rings.

“That’s him now.” Zumwalt embraced his wife. “Look, hon, please try to be civil. He’s an old and lonely guy. He and his brother both. If his brother hadn’t had to leave for Texas, I would have invited him too.” She smiles. “And don’t bring up that alternative Christmas junk either. He hates that shit.” Jane frowned.

Ebenezer Scrooge bahed and humbugged his way through the 1980 Christmas. A cold wave, a bitter season indeed; the icebreakers were kept very busy. In Florida, oranges and grapefruit perished. And around January the omen-watchers began to look for signs. They knew that JFK was doomed when Robert Frost read his inaugural poem, “The Gift Outright,” condemning Indian culture. The lectern caught fire. Nixon? Nixon’s goose was cooked when he dropped the first baseball of the season.

On January 17th, two workers preparing the bleachers for the fortieth President’s inaugural fell when the scaffolding collapsed. One man was killed, the other seriously injured.

It was a season of dry winds and biting snow. Scrooge’s winter, “as mean as a junkyard dog.” Giant (fifty-inch wingspan) Snowy Arctic Owls landed on eastern rooftops and the newspapers said that they rarely traveled that far south.

Not only was it the coldest in forty years, but it was the longest Christmas ever. In keeping with Jimmy Carter’s pledge that the White House Christmas tree be unlit until the American hostages held by Iran were released, the tree was finally lit on the night of January 20th. On that day, bells rang in New York City, and the hallelujah chorus was heard, throughout the land, for many days afterwards.