The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [37]
Something was dying. It was more than Christmas. The magic that had filled the Barnstable house was dying. Our childhood was dying.
What was killing it? Father’s getting to be famous? The changing times? The fact that we weren’t children any more? Nothing goes on forever, but we didn’t let it die gracefully, we just had to try to squeeze one more Christmas out of it, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening, trying to make like it wasn’t the last Christmas, trying to be twelve again. It seemed like we were compelled to play a cruel joke on ourselves and insult what had been so precious and real with a farce.
I honestly tried to coast through it and maybe in another mood at another time I wouldn’t have taken it so seriously. I could have played the game like everyone else and just let it go. But this wasn’t that time and mine wasn’t that mood. I was too upset, too desperate, too scared and unsure of what lay ahead.
There we were, my family, my blood. Cousin brother Jim, twenty-five, tormentor of my late childhood and adolescence, my replacement as eldest son, two-time college flunk-out, no particular direction, a couple thousand dollars in photographic equipment, his inheritance, shrinking fast. Cousin brother Steve, twenty-two, three months older than I, Most Popular Barnstable High School Class of ’65, B.A. Dartmouth, teaching English in Barnstable High, his alma mater, hating every minute of it, planning to quit but without the faintest idea what he was going to do next. Cousin brother Tiger with a year to go at U. Mass. No real plans but with a pilot’s instructor license and reasonable prospects, undoubtedly in the best shape of anyone there. They were my father’s sister’s sons. We had adopted them when their parents died when I was eleven. It was a real bitch at first but things worked out.
Sister Edie, twenty, two-time college dropout, no direction, hooked up with and apparently unable to get free from Brad, a second-rate Charlie Manson. Sister Nanny, fifteen, very unhappy about school and lots of other things. My father having difficulties adjusting to super-stardom, not wanting to be a writer any more, very restless, not very happy about anything. My mother going through menopausal stuff, wondering what the hell to do with her life with the kids all grown and the marriage not in the greatest of shape. And myself, twenty-two, B.A. in religion, fed up with do-gooder work in Boston, no plans and less hope for what the future held.
Christmas Eve. Everyone got drunk the way they used to get drunk, everyone talked the way they used to talk. It was a sham. Christmas morning all the “kids” gathered at the top of the stairs, waited for the “OK,” and rushed down the stairs squealing with glee.
It was Edie I talked to first. “Look, this is really a nightmare. I can’t take it any more.” We had a good talk. She understood. If this was the last time we were going to be together as a family, and it most likely was, then there were real things to talk about, real things that should be said if our being a family was going to mean anything. This manic desperation wasn’t doing anybody any good.
After talking with her I felt a whole lot less lonely. Eventually I managed to have sober conversations with everyone and the whole thing became less of a nightmare. That didn’t stop it from being the last Christmas, but I needed a family now and not just something that was a family five years ago. And I got it. Not that everything was all cleared up and everyone had hope and direction, but at least we had love and not just memories of a past love distorted by some twisted resurrection.
Right after Christmas Luke’s rotten teeth reached the critical point. He claimed that he had been born with lousy teeth but I doubt that his speed days in Berkeley helped much. They were all crumbling. The only thing to do was to yank the stumps and put in some falsies. He looked awful. He was in constant pain. His spirits were deteriorating too. All those rotting teeth were poisoning him.
One way or another enough