Invasion of the Inflatables
by Cindy Brookshire, Co-founder, Write by the Rails
Peggy Groat squeezed
behind the wheel of the ’98 Volvo and hearing a rip, eased back out.
“Great,” she said, fingering the torn sleeve
of her red Christmas sweater, a gift the Morning Glories, her Bible study group. “What else is going to happen tonight?”
Sheffield didn’t
respond. Her 16-year-old son got in and
strapped his seatbelt. He was tall and bow-thin,
with low-riding jeans and a red hoodie with black symbols on it, both muddy.
They drove home
from the magistrate’s office in silence.
When they entered
the front door, she could see that her daughter Lilly, dressed up in red velvet,
was lighting candles at the kitchen table.
Hamilton, her fiancé, pulled cartons of Chinese food out of a
smiley-face bag. He was more casual, in
a soft sweater and navy dress pants.
“That was fast,”
Lilly commented.
“They didn’t
charge him,” Peggy said.
“What on earth did
he do?” asked Ham.
“You don’t want
to know,” responded Peggy, setting down her purse and pushing up sleeves to
wash her hands at the sink. “It’s like
when Lilly stole that glass bear off the cart at the mall.”
“What?” said Ham.
“I wish you’d
stop bringing that up,” said Lilly admonished her mother.
“I never heard
about this,” he protested.
“I was only
14. Me and these girls stole some things
for Christmas presents,” admitted Lilly.
“It was stupid.”
“So was this,”
said Peggy. The mirror over the sink
reflected wrinkles, gray hair.
“I didn’t get
caught, though,” corrected Lilly.
“And that’s
better?” asked Peggy. “I used to keep
that bear right here on this window sill. It was the one thing that gave
me…hope.”
“I made up for
that,” Lilly said.
“Where is it now?”
asked Ham.
“Salvation Army,”
Lilly pronounced. “She gave it away.”
* *
*
Sheffield came to
the table. He’d washed his face, changed clothes, even combed his dyed black hair.
“Where’s the hole
in your face?” asked Ham.
Sheffield moved his
tongue over the scar where his lip ring had been.
“Got tired of
it.”
Peggy reached for
hands, bowed heads, peace.
“Lord, bless this
Christmas Eve dinner and the hands that prepared it. Bless the retirement home manager and Officer
Ashley. Bless the magistrate. Keep us
ever mindful of the needs of others. In Jesus’
name we pray. Amen.”
After a responding
“Amen” they opened the white cartons, dumping clumps of steaming rice onto
paper plates with globs of General Tso’s Chicken or Beef Lo Mein. They pushed soy sauce, hot mustard packets and
fortune cookies to a heap, stripped the paper sheaths from cheap wooden
chopsticks and broke them apart.
Peggy measured
rice, chicken and steamed vegetables on her digital scale as part of her
program to stop eating compulsively and drop 50 pounds.
“Okay, what happened?” demanded Lilly.
Sheffield
shrugged. “Eric tackled one of the
balloons and when I jumped in, it popped.”
“Where were you?”
asked Ham.
“Sunrise Assisted
Living?” guessed Lilly. You weren’t
messing with the balloon people, were you?
Oh, my God.” She turned to Ham. “Remember? We drove past and you said
something about Santa in military fatigues with a polar bear on the motorcycle?
Penguins popping out of an igloo? The
Snowman snow globe?”
“Oh, yeah. Wow, that
place is dwarfed by all those …you know they’re called inflatables. There must be a hundred.”
“Fifty-four,” corrected
Sheffield, before pushing more lo mein noodles into his mouth.
“Were you guys drinking?”
Peggy asked.
“God!” Sheffield
protested, and threw down his chopsticks. “Why do you always think I’m on something?”
He got up so fast
his chair tipped over. He kicked it and was
gone, slamming the front door after him.
“Dram-a!” Lilly exclaimed. “How do you deal with him?”
“Anyone want some
hot tea?” Peggy offered. She put the kettle on, pulled a tin of assorted tea
bags out of the pantry and made no move to right the chair.
“We have Lipton, Wild
Berry Zinger, Gingerbread Spice.”
“Lipton,” Lilly
requested. “Mom, what happened?”
“Zinger,” said
Ham. Peggy lined up three cups and dropped tea bags in, picking Gingerbread for
herself. Drinking flavored hot water would
save 90 calories and douse her craving for the real thing.
“The boys popped one
of the inflatables and the manager called the police,” Peggy said. “They were arrested for trespassing and
destruction of property. I got a call to
go to the magistrate at the jail.”
“And?” Lilly prompted.
“Maybe I look
tired and miserable enough or maybe because it’s Christmas Eve, I don’t know,”
said Peggy. “Anyway the manager didn’t
want to press charges. He wants the boys
to come over tomorrow and pick up litter on the grounds and do an activity with
the residents. The police and magistrate
seemed satisfied with community service.”
“Wow, $184.98
with tax and shipping,” Ham said, holding up his iPhone to show a list on the
Internet. “For just one inflatable.”
“That’s not even their usual marauding grounds,”
said Lilly. “Usually it’s the mall or
the woods by the tennis courts.”
“They bought some
energy drinks at the 7-Eleven and cut through,” Peggy explained. “The officer said
lawn decorations like these are targets of vandalism. People just seem to feel the urge to pop
them.”
“Which one did
they bust?” asked Ham. “The igloo with
Santa’s legs kicking out?”
“The reindeer playing
poker?” asked Lilly.
Peggy poured boiling
water into the three cups.
“A Nativity scene.”
* *
*
Sheffield returned,
righted his chair and sat down. He reeked
of cigarette smoke.
“I’m sorry. But I
wasn’t drinking, okay. Lay off of me
about that.”
“Sorry,” said Peggy. “I had no right to say that.”
Sheffield picked
up the chopsticks and resumed eating lo mein noodles.
Lilly rolled her
eyes. She was dying to push buttons, but
Ham distracted her by opening the cellophane of a fortune cookie. “Allow
compassion to guide your decisions,” he read.
Peggy cleared the
table, stacking leftovers in Gladware tubs neatly in the refrigerator.
“Coming to church
with us?” Peggy asked her son.
He pushed his
plate away, wiping his mouth on a crumpled napkin. “I’m not dressing up.”
“You’re fine,” she
said.
* *
*
When the kids
were little, she and Reggie would take them to the early service with the
Christmas pageant. Lilly was once an
angel in a tinsel halo and wire-hanger wings.
Sheffield donned a Wise Man’s tablecloth robe. But now Reggie was remarried with a new
family and a new church. Now Peggy,
Lilly, Ham and Sheffield sat shoulder to shoulder on a wooden pew in the late
service. White linens, vestments and ornaments on the tree beside the altar
magnified the illumination. They sang the
familiar carols. As a tradition, the rector always made his sermon a humorous
one. He would bring out a shopping bag
filled with all the craziest things one could buy at the last minute from the
corner drugstore, like a can of green Floam or an edible greeting card for your
pet. He used a plastic gun to shoot
plastic discs out into the congregation, and then pressed a button on a stuffed
dog that started singing, “Well, you know you make me wanna (Shout) come on now
(Shout).” When the dog sang “shout,” his
ears shot straight up. Everyone laughed
and started raising their hands when the dog ears went up. The rector pressed the button for an encore,
and then, when everyone was laughed out, he put the dog away and talked about
the real meaning of Christmas: that God had become human so that he could dwell
among us. “That’s what Emmanuel means,”
he said, “God with us.”
Peggy felt
stinging tears. Reggie was gone, Lilly and
Sheffield were finding their own paths, even if they did sometimes veer into
inflatable lawn decorations. Without
even food to comfort her, she felt so alone – until she grasped what “God with
us” meant for her.
The air was cold
enough to blow smoke when they left, and the dark, clear sky was brightened by the
moon. Ham drove them home. At a stoplight near Sunrise Assisted Living,
Peggy saw the ghostly glowing inflatables, lit from inside. In one, Santa’s sleigh was pulled up to an
igloo with a drive in window. A sign
over top read “North Pole Hot Cocoa.” A movable
penguin popped up to wait on him.
“There’s close to
$10,000 bobbing on that lawn,” said Ham.
* *
*
He retired with
Lilly, giggling, behind the guest room door. Sheffield warmed a plate of lo
mein in the microwave and settled in front of the computer in his bedroom. That left Peggy to put presents under the
tree and fill the fireplace stockings.
She lingered with one of the Hershey’s York Peppermint Patties before
letting it drop inside. It’s not the extra green bean, it’s the thought
behind it. The next one she brought
up to her nose, to smell the chocolate. What’s one? I deserve a treat.
“Hi,
Charlene? It’s Peggy.” She had forced herself to call her sponsor in
a 12-step program for compulsive eaters.
“Is this a good time? Well, I’ve had a tough day.” As she connected to another person in the
rooms, she felt the release, the surrender to a higher power. While still on the phone, she finished filling
the stockings with candy, threw away the empty bags and shut off everything
except the tree lights.
“I’m worried
about my son,” she shared. “No, eating compulsively isn’t going to help him. No. My
plan is to go to bed and think about three things I’m grateful for before I go to
sleep. Okay. God,” she began haltingly, as they prayed
together by phone. “Grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things
I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.”
* *
*
A knock sounded
on Peggy’s bedroom door.
“Come in.” The door creaked open and Sheffield lay on
the bed.
“I’m sorry,
Mommy.”
Peggy patted his
head. “What if you’d fallen on something
sharp? Or frightened one of the residents?
” she said. “It’s not like you.”
“I pulled a cord,”
he admitted. “I wanted to see what would
happen. It was like, I’m melting, I’m melting,” he flailed in the bed. “Then I plugged it in again; it swelled up like
ghost … stretching out … getting brighter … with this weird motor hum. Nyat-ah-ah!”
“Okay, but why
not pop a snowman or penguin?” asked Peggy.
“Why the Nativity?”
He curled
up. Peggy covered him with the blanket
from the foot of the bed.
“Eric said, ‘Look,
I’m going to dive bomb Balloon Baby Jesus!’
I told him, ‘Don’t do that.’ It
wasn’t respectful. But he goes to the
driveway to get a running start. One,
two, three. I had to stop him. I rushed him and he pushed me down. I couldn’t
breathe. I just laid there and boom,
next thing I know Mary and Joseph and the whole scene was swallowing him. That’s when the manager came out.”
Sheffield stood
up, swaddled. “I don’t think Baby Jesus belongs
out there. Not with cartoon characters. It’s not funny. He’s real.”
“Love you,” Peggy
called as he wandered off, starting her gratitude list.
* *
*
Christmas morning
Ham got a guitar; Lilly, a laptop; Sheffield, computer games; Peggy, new card-making
supplies and a novel. She made a pot of
coffee, baked cinnamon rolls and ate plain oatmeal. She called her sponsor and then curled up
with the book.
Later, Eric came
and the two boys walked over to Sunrise Assisted Living. They picked up two bags of trash on the
grounds, and played Battleship with some old guys, who regaled them with pranks
they pulled as teenagers.
“You should have
seen this one guy’s tattoos. They were
awesome!” said Sheffield.
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