Christmas Past

Once upon a time , I had a girlfriend whose kitchen sink had a very unpleasant personality. The first time I used it , the annoying water-filter her husband had put on the faucet leaked, squirting water into my eye.
Then the pipes started squealing; a painfully loud, high-pitched scream, a banshee wail capable of shattering wineglasses fifty feet away. Fortunately, we mostly drank straight from the bottle at that time, but it was a truly horrible sound nonetheless. (Years later, I realized that the plumbing was warning me to get out, run as far away from this place and this person as I could get. I paid it no heed.)
I stood, dumbfounded, twisting this knob, then that knob, wiggling the filter- nothing helped. I couldn't even get the water to stop.
So I did the manly thing:
I yelled, "Nancy! Help! I broke your sink and now it's attacking me!"

So Nancy ran in to save me.
"The trick" , she explained, "is to push it past the point that it screams".
She demonstrated by first turning the spigot full-on (the screaming stopped), then deftly cranking both knobs to 'off', which brought my watery disaster to an end.

'Push it past the point that it screams'?, I thought that could apply to a lot of things, especially when it involves Nancy. It would also make a great song lyric.

"Woman!", I bellowed, " bring me my guitar, post-haste! The Muse has brought me a gift and I must have my instrument now! Chop-chop!"

(Actually I said, " Honey, do you mind if I play your guitar in the basement after I finish the dishes?-I'll keep it quiet- do you have a pen and paper I can use?";but that sort of first-person milquetoast wimpiness is not fun to write about, even if it is true)

So I'm in her basement , trying to incorporate the line "push it past the point that it screams" into a heartfelt love song that I could present to Nancy on Christmas; which was only a few days away. I was using one of those cheap-ass acoustic guitars that comes in a K-Mart beginner's kit- the kind that cannot be properly tuned, ever. It didn't matter to me. It was the holiday season and I was in love with the most beautiful woman on the planet. She had these eyes...so deep I could swim in them forever and never come back- why would I want to? I saw so much in those eyes, so many things that I'd given up all hope of ever seeing...this was going to be the best Christmas ever- the first holiday I'd ever spent with a 'special someone' in my whole pathetic, loveless life.

"Holy Fucking Shit!" , screamed the most beautiful woman on the planet, "get your goddamn shirt and shoes on- my Dad's coming up the driveway!"

I wondered to myself what the big deal was- after all Nancy had been divorced for almost a year, right? It's perfectly decent for her to be seeing a new man, right? Right?

She ran downstairs, her lovely green eyes bulging almost comically. I would have laughed, but she was so obviously freaked it started to worry me.
"Listen", she began briefing me, " you and I went to Blankity-blank High School. Our homeroom teacher was Mrs. X. You are a friend of Joannie Z, and just dropped in to say hello, and now you are leaving to go see her. This is what you are going to tell my father."

Knock. Knock.

"Hi, Sweetie", said her dad, knocking snow off his boots, "I came by to help put up your lights since Darren is away."

Away? I thought his divorced ass was living on a sofa-bed in Daytona Beach. This was getting weird.

"Hi Daddy- do you remember Allan X? We had homeroom together back in '82 and he's trying to find Joannie Z. " Damn. She just used all my lines.

We shook hands.
His mouth said "hello."
His eyes said, "I know that you are fucking my daughter. She does this sort of thing all the time and I pretend I don't know it because it's easier that way."

Nancy's father had very sad eyes.

"Nice meeting you, sir", I said, "it was great seeing you again, Nancy", I added,making the lie even worse. She gave me one of those awkward arms-only hugs where the hugger makes certain that their body never touches the huggee. It's the sort of hug you'd give a leper, after which you'd be inclined to burn your clothing and bathe in Listerine.

When I got to my car, I noticed it had a light dusting of last night's snow on it. There were no tire tracks in the fresh powder. You didn't need to be Colombo to tell that my car had been there overnight.

Nancy called me at work the next day.

"I love you, but I can't see you anymore. Please don't call the house."

So I closed the door to my office and cried for awhile. Then I went home early and got drunk alone. I didn't know it at the time, but this was to become a personal holiday tradition.

Every Christmas , I think about Nancy, and the way she made me feel when we were together; thinking that finally I had found someone that made me happy, and ,most importantly, someone that I could make happy, just by being there. I think that's as close to love as I've ever been, and it turned out to be a lie.

Despite their wondrous beauty, it's not Nancy's eyes I see when I remember her.

I see her father and his sad, sad eyes.