Chicago. [Part III] --- A Christmas Story

The movie had gone to static, and Johanna was gone. Our cups, half-filled with our fifth round of chocolate muck, still lay upon the coffee table, staining the wood with rings, our fumbling hands having been all but cautious in the presence of one another. Perhaps she knew me- in some form or another. Perhaps she remembered my hands, my jaw line, or the way I crouched.

Perhaps she knew me.

Only the memory of her remained, and the old Johannas of five and ten years before were hazy, distant images that sat precariously upon the edge of forgetting. My eyes followed the soft stream of the faucet, and there, I attempted to recollect her (her clay handprint) and all of her shady spaces- her tears, her greatest fear, her small fingers- smaller than mine. I could only see her here, the blue light shining off the edges of her tender edges.



Two weeks passed. Each Monday and Thursday I stood at the lecture hall doorway, awaiting the trotting of footsteps, anticipating her beckoning me by the florescent lights of the hallway, and each Monday and Thursday I was waiting until I could wait no longer.


December had been swift, having had its way with the land and us and Johanna. Even in that last day, that night on the couch with our mugs in hand, her skin aglow with that light in her bones, I had felt the cold seep through the cracks in my windows, and it had wiggled its gentle way through our skin and into our chests, where my Johannas are kept.

Even the trees had forgetten her, Johanna flowing like sap from where the bark of the trees grew pale, and the snow that masked their branches could not mask their shaking. The grass grew yellow with the assistance of autumn, and at night I would lay awake, eyes closed and breathing lightly, and I would dream that the past was not lost to me.



I saw the flashing lights after the first Thursday of those two weeks, above the nativity display in the local department store. Those neon letters hummed, distracting and filling me, as though they had a life of their own. I could feel the snow falling softly upon my nose and ears, and even as I noticed and turned to continue home, their image remained in my mind.

At home, a box of my old hobby supplies remained unpacked in my closet, and that night I opened it and took out two cans of red spray paint. By 1 am the town had already darkened, and

I watched the stars and the moon glow like that light behind her skin as I walked quickly down the main roads.

I wrote it on the road, where concrete and metal met and the bridge began, and when I was finished, I was pleased to find that even in the structured lamplight, I could see the message perfectly. I read it over to myself, rubbing the joints of my paint-flecked hands with a softly consuming acceptance, listening to the trees howl out in the soft breeze. Soon, the spring would come, and their snow-covered branches would recollect their warm tones. Their leaves would grow fresh and green, and the grass would be heavy, and they will know Johanna again, and this time, she is not inside of their hollows.

She is inside of their skin.

“We will be reborn.”




The next Monday, when I found the box on my desk, I did not open it until I got back to my apartment. The package was neatly wrapped in what was once a Trader Joe’s bag, and the tag on the bow read simply: “To: Allen, From: Johanna.”

I worked slowly so as not to damage the box when unwrapping, and upon opening I stared into a pool of foam. Wading through, my hand felt paper, and I pulled it out- a single sliver of unevenly chopped cardstock that read: “For One Free Cup- to be redeemed only on Christmas Eve.”

I was expecting her when she arrived. For two hours that black thing in my stomach writhed and screamed in my anticipation, and when the knock came upon the door, I was surprised to find that it had dropped into my knees.
Standing, I pressed my head against the door and waited for some time. It was only when the knock came again that my shaking hands found the knob, and when the door was opened, the cold rushed in.

The thing fell into my feet, and I stared into the eyes of Johanna, the five years ago Johanna, pleading and red with nothing to say. Even underneath the shelter of her hood, I could see the place I would have liked to kiss, that place just above her ears where the length of her hair was now missing. Her skin was red, hot with chill and with the moon in her stomach.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, but attempted. She said it with a carelessness that prompted no response, and when she pushed passed me into the living room, I watched her take off her coat, but did not argue.



“They pulled the plug a week ago. My mom- she thought it was best.”

“From the way you talked about him, I thought he was already dead.”

“I think… he was, in a way.”

A soft noise of discontent. I saw only the top of her lowered head, revealed by the streetlamps outside of my window, the rest of her hidden beneath the folds of darkness. The cup of hot chocolate still warmed my hands, though in the last hour that we had sat in silence, the rim had not touched my lips. I had listened to her soft breathing, the ones she hoped I couldn’t hear.

“My mom burned all the pictures… she- she threw it away. Now all I have are the things in my head. I keep seeing him, lying on a hospital bed. I don’t want to remember him that way. I want him to stay with me.”

She lifted the mug to her lips, and when she lifted her head, the light glistened against her eyes.

“He’s dead, Johanna.”

She stopped, the rim to her lips, and the light in her cheeks faded.

The next to register was the crashing, the great sound that came when she slammed the mug down onto the wood of my coffee table. She stood, fist trembling.

“Don’t you think that it hurts enough when I tell myself? I can’t eat. I can’t sleep-”

“But he is dead.”

“Stop saying that!”


I was already standing.

She was taking a step backward and I reached for her, grabbing her arm, pulling her into me and our collision filled us with sound and purpose and it initiated us. Her wet cheeks fell upon my arm, and there she struggled, pushed with her fists balled and her muscles rigid, and then stopped, giving way to our silent catastrophe. All was quiet, the December air stealth fully crawling up into our cavities, and there, the black thing was writhing at the cracks in my chest. Against Johanna, it wriggled out from between our chests and fell beneath the carpet, through the concrete- somewhere into the dark void called forgetting.

She sobbed, and every tear that touched my arm began a symphony. Every soft cry of agony was a flower that blossomed, wildly growing leaves and stems, it’s roots digging further into the earth where they were united and intertwined like lovers.


In the Spring, the December wind would leave as quickly and quietly as it came, leaving the trees with a renewed sense of glory and truth. They would grow new leaves, the names carved around the knothole still there, though fading, their roots growing ever deeper, and they would remember Johanna just as I remember Johanna. She still finds me in my fingers, in my hands and in my mouth- she finds me at the river, when I see her in my reflection, as she still crawls so deeply, so fondly, within my skin.


Johanna left early the next morning- to go back to her mother’s, she said. I’m not sure if I believed her or not… of course, as I have mentioned before, I am never quite certain about anything anymore. To this day, we write letters and we speak often, though she’s still never certain if those scars beside her knothole will disappear.

I unpacked the rest of my dishes, my clothes, my hobby supplies, and I went shopping for Christmas dinner. It was when I went to wash my hands that I noticed the slip of paper sitting on the sill above my sink, pressed damply against my wet window. I reached forward, peeling the edges off until I managed to get it off without ripping it. In slightly running letters, in Johanna’s bold handwriting, the top of the slip read,

“Father’s Secret Recipe:

Allen: What good is a secret without the excitement of sharing them? Think of me.”

The ingredients and proportions were there at my fingertips, all laid out in neat hand-writing and topped with a smiley face at the corner. I breathed, the place where my cracks had once been surprisingly whole, surprisingly warm, and I made myself two cups that night. After calling my parents and my friends, I sat down and watched A.M.C’s Christmas special, basking in the light of the television, and I fell asleep, nestled into the dark cushions, barely listening.


“Bread... that this house may never know hunger.

“Salt... that life may always have flavor.”

“And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.”

Chicago. [Part II] --- A Christmas Story

In my dream, she watched me through a pane of window glass, her warm breath distorting the image of her face, shaping her into no more than a foggy outline. Outside, the snow fell down upon my shoulders but I was not cold, and I watched her smile for a long time. When, at last, she began to cry, I could no longer see her tears, and I watched that too.


I awoke, my mouth dry and my covers turned upward, and I ran two miles. The acute sensation of the wind on my face struck me and woke me, and when my legs would burn, the cold air would brush against them. I ran until I tasted blood and shook with sweat, and after I got breakfast, I ran right home again.

The remembrance of this morning still thrills me, the racing of the blood through my head and my legs and the smell of snow and ice still a potent memory. The taste of copper, egg and sausage still haunts me like a friendly spirit, and this morning passed me by without so much as a puzzling thought. For one morning, I was free of all of my wayward images of home and lost love.



"My father’s recipe.”

And we were here again, the door to the lecture hall. She smiled at me from beneath a head of white hair, dyed with flakes of soft, melting snow, cheeks red with what might have been the light and what might have the cold. “You’re looking better.”

“Yeah.” Quiet. “See, I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep. Insomnia.”

“Uh-uh.”

“First time being so far away from home.”

“Yeah.” Silences. The black thing wiggled. “What happened?”

It stopped. I watched her. She gazed through me, eyes bright and knowing.
Often times, we find our words wasted on trifles- shouts of indignation, exchanges on the weather or politics, soft murmurs pressed into the sheets, never to be heard or understood. I have quite often made a habit of wasting my words. When I used to say that the sky was blue, or that the coffee was hot, I would mean it with the truest sincerity. I no longer state the obvious, because I find that despite my dearest efforts, I cannot know anything with the same truth as I did my next words. I am no longer certain of anything.

“It was something amazing.”

She looked down at her feet, her smile widening.

“I can make it for you again.”

A chill ran up the edges of my spine and into my shoulders, my quivering, to her, a response, and in a way it was. Such energy. Such power. Such sensitivity. I ached for the sweetness of knowing and being known. I hungered. “How about tomorrow?” She asked. “I’ll come over and we’ll… I don’t know. We’ll watch TV or something, huh? After all,” – and here she chuckled, that thing squirming uncomfortably below my belly. She knew. - “You’re never sure when that next bout of insomnia will start, am I right?”


The back of her head was my cradle. I rested, nestled into her scalp, wrapped in those cool strands of black river, and there I found my roots. She sat three seats down, and I admired her eyes unwavering from the front of the classroom, as mine wavered far too often. My mind gave way to the weight of her, and each moment was a struggle to both remain in her presence and keep my pen moving. In that moment I knew Johanna- the scholar, the deep thinker, the philosopher. I knew her because I wanted to know her, and her mystery unraveled me.

So, there it was. There was the Johanna who walked along her sidewalk curb, whose ears and neck were cold at the places I would have liked to kiss. There was the Johanna who pleaded with her eyes, the five-years-ago Johanna, who looked up from her bangs and into the dark space between us, and now Johanna was a Johanna with something to hide. Her quiet exterior both eluded and distracted me, but inside of her cheeks and her hands, inside of her softer spaces, she spoke so loudly, and it reddened her skin. This was the newest Johanna, still containing those places I would have liked to kiss, but she had shed her innocent skin.

I was no longer listening, my head down, lying within the tangles of her hair, the warmth of her light consuming me, and there I slept until I was awoken by the sound of shuffling feet.



The hot chocolate steamed from the “Over the Hill” coffee mug that my mother had slipped into my moving boxes, by accident (of course), and the newest Johanna sat at my side and watched the television with eager eyes.


“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.”


The blue television light shone brightly off the edges of her tender edges, the new places I wanted to kiss- her lips and that place beside her earlobe.


“I'll take it. Then what?”


I caught the corner of her eye and her gaze shifted. She looked down, the blush barely visible, and she smiled one great, honest smile.


“Well, then you can swallow it, and it'll all dissolve, see... and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair...”


And…


Her mouth moved.


“am I talking too much?”



“What?” I asked.

“You look like you want to say something.”

“What would I have to say?”

“How about… that you like it.”

“You know I like it.”

“My dad would have liked to hear it. I know that I can’t tell him that you said it, but… sometimes, I like to think that he can still hear when people give him a compliment.”

I paused, watching George Bailey, and then looked up.


“It’s good- really good.”


“You know-“ She stopped.

“What?”

She pointed a finger. “Don’t laugh.”

I raised my hands in surrender, and she lowered her head, the television light filling her eyes like a flood. “Sometimes, I like to pretend that it’s magic… He used to tell me that his recipe could heal. I’ve kept it a secret for so long that I’ve started to think it’s real, you know?”

My silence made her shift.

“Well, and who’s to say it isn’t though, right? It sure made you feel better, didn’t it?” She shook her head quietly and, with our bodies both aglow, we watched the TV for a while longer. “You tired yet?” She asked finally.

I laughed a little. “Not yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to remedy that, now won’t we?”

She stood and stepped toward the kitchen, her figure fading into the darkness where my eyes struggled to adjust. Her footsteps stopped, her body turned, and with surprise, I realized that she was staring at me. “I think… I think that we all need something good to believe in. So-“


“So, don’t think less of me.”

Chicago. [Part I] --- A Christmas Story.

In my mind, she still walked along that thinning street corner, arms extended outward and her black hair falling just above her ears, the place where I would have liked to smell. My fifteen year-old stomach had trembled and turned, forcing up nervous smiles that grew far too wide, and the earth would grow beneath her feet as she turned, and she would laugh.

Would it be too bold to say that she had been mine, with her spare time spent with me and only with me, with all of her creations (her clay hand print) lining the bottoms of my desk drawers? Would it be too bold to say that we had loved, for a time, unconditionally, as we were too far within the bliss that was the collective entity of “us” to understand such a concept as “condition”? We were simply we, and we were no more, and we were no less, our hands intertwined into such a tangle that it took us nine years to understand that we were, in fact, two completely separate bodies.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, and she watched me with a veiled expression. My eyes fell weakly to her hands, holding her school books in one arm, the place where the tips of her hair brushed thinly, and something in my stomach dropped. Her eyes did not cease their scrutiny, peering out from beneath the line of hair at her brow. A man passed us through the doorway, and only then did she release me, gaze falling downward, where her lips trembled. Shoulders falling, eyes closing- my legs felt like ghost limbs beneath me, and she turned, passing me, her mouth having never released a sound.


My last memory… Junior high had pulled us from one another like ill-behaved children on an elementary school playground- such injustice was the breaking of friendships, even as subtly, even as quietly. My greatest fear had always been the loss of her voice, and decidedly the worst and most unjust punishment of all had been that the world had made- forced me to forget until the match had been lit. That bridge had burned five years previous, leaving only traces of its former self to be scattered, white ash floating at the surface of my mind’s eye. As all memories do, she broke down, and she was forgotten.

And then, again- her hair, so firm and so soft, only five years later appeared to lack its former luster, and her eyes, wide and tender, now watched the world with a cautiousness- an untrusting gaze that pushed itself through the cracks in me and made a nest. It grew, that black thing that was the tainted remembrance of her smile, and ever so often, when I would open my top drawer and catch a glimpse of her (that clay hand print), it would writhe.



Leaves grew and then leaves fell. Snow came… snow melted. The warmth would come and then the warmth would leave like a dying wind, but when that warmth would come again I would smell the dirt at the air, catch the smell of heat in my nostrils and I would forget Johanna. An adventurer, my mother would say, like my father, and when I came home with my hands flecked with spray paint and my eyes bruised, she pretended not to notice. I wish she had.


Hello- a word that failed to fill the void between us, and now we both had changed. Her hair was still long, but her eyes contained a light that shone, revealing me, and all of my purposefully darkened places. My eyes were red, my brown hair a disheveled mess of bed-head and grease, and my chest heaved. Johanna gazed up at me, her emotions indecipherable, and we watched one another for a long time.

“Hello,” I responded, out of breath. My legs wobbled and I leaned against the wall for support. She smiled a little and laughed. The black thing wriggled uncomfortably.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine- long run from the apartments.”

“Yeah. I lived there my first year. It’s a real pain, right?”

“Yeah.”

The silence came again, reminding me that the dark place between us still remained. I wondered how her life was going. What kind of friends did she have? How was her father? I opened my mouth.

“So, what’s your name, Stranger?”

Sinking. My mouth opened.

“You sure you’re okay?” She waved her hand in front of my face. “You look sick.”

“Allen.”

“What?”

“My name is Allen.”

“Well, Allen, I think that you,” –she turned me, taking my shoulders and forcing me to face back toward the hallway- “should visit the nurse’s station. You look flushed. Want me to walk you?”

I shook my head slowly- no arguments. “I’ll be fine.” I didn’t move until she had gone into the lecture hall, and the click of the door’s lock was a sound that was roughly final- the end of something too sweet to consume. Watching my shoes, my feet carried me passed the nurse’s station, passed the front doors, the creature within me tumbling.


Occasionally, I have learned- things surprise you. Things don’t have to jump out, or be particularly scary or moving- they just have to be, as simple as it seems to say, unexpected.

Johanna surprised me, her hands full of bags and her hair covered in snow, her smile so wide. She looked at me from underneath her bangs, not noticing the black thing in me that screamed (how could she?). “I know that you didn’t expect me to show up like this. I didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t exactly call you or anything.” She shifted the bags at her chest, her breath forming moist clouds in the air that brushed me. I flinched, standing in the doorway with my hands at my sides like some rigormortis-stricken corpse. “I thought I’d stop by and see if you were okay. You weren’t at the nurse’s station when I came back- said they hadn’t seen you.”
I looked down at her shoes. She followed suit, and for a moment we both understood my inner-workings, my cogs and my mechanisms. We understood me, so delightfully.

“Well, other than your over-abundance of pride, is there anything else that I should know about you, Allen?”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

The words were spiteful, and I regretted them. In my mind, I saw her red eyes, peering out from beneath those bangs, as though it had (and perhaps it had) been I who had sown her mouth shut, had forced her words back into her throat, so that at my greeting all those years ago, she could not reply.

She did not stop smiling- her eyes still lowered onto the floor, and she shook her head. “I have something for you,” she said, a hint of indifference in her tone. “This wasn’t calculated, you know- not really. I was at the store and I thought of you.” A wind blew, and she shivered, and I gave in.

I let her in and shut the door. When I turned around, she was already taking off her coat.

“I make a wicked hot chocolate,” she said.

“I’m not a fan.”

She turned her head to me, one damp strand of hair stuck to the place on her neck that I would have liked to smell, and she rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m making you some.”

Again, I couldn’t argue.


I pretended to watch TV while she made herself acquainted with the household appliances, the ones I never used and the one’s she scolded me for leaving dusty. At every spoon scraping, at every sound of a pot or a cabinet shutting, my body would, without my consent, perk attentively. For a while, at least a few moments, I forgot about life, about love, and savored the sweetness of her presence, the light that had been absent that day five years previous.

The dark brown liquid she sat down onto my coffee table did not look like hot chocolate. It was thick, steaming, and in the second that I was about to judge what my first taste would feel like, I smelled it. Melting. It is the only word I can find to date that could describe my stiff shoulders, my joints, my riled mind- all melted simultaneously, the itching and scratching of the beast at my stomach now somewhere far, away.

“It’s my elixir. I think it’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

She laughed and she shook her head. “You don’t let on easy, do you, Allen?”

To this, my silence was as good a reply as any, and I took the mug carefully in my hands, taking a long, slow drink. It fell onto my tongue like mud, heavy and rich, but went down softly, caressing my pipes like warm fingers.

Warmth.

Her arms wrapped around me, the touch of her chest at my back like a wavering memory, her hair at the edge of my eyes as a constant tickle. I did not look up from the mug, accepting her with as much grace as possible, and closed my weary eyes. “See? You’re better already. I guarantee you- you finish that, take a warm shower and go to sleep early, and you won’t even need a pick-me-up tomorrow.”

She pulled back, putting back on her coat and grabbing her bags. I turned to watch her back, the slow movement of her muscles as she receded.

“How do you know?”

She turned again with her eyes alight. There was a fire beneath her skin, her cheeks glowing hot. “I don’t know, Allen- intuition.”

Johanna closed the door behind her, disappearing into the wind and white, and after watching the mug for a long time I finished off my hot chocolate.