I address a Santa Elf, the first in line, and hand these people over. Who knows where they will wind up? The children are antsy, excited — they want to see Santa. The children are sweet. The parents are manipulative and should be directed toward the A&S Plaza, two blocks away. A&S has only two Santas working at the same time — a white Santa and a black Santa, and it’s very clear-cut: whites in one line and blacks in another.
I’ve had requests from both sides. White Santa, black Santa, a Pointer Elf is instructed to shrug his shoulders and feign ignorance, saying, “There’s only one Santa.”
Today I experienced my cash register nightmare. The actual financial transactions weren’t so bad — I’ve gotten the hang of that. The trouble are the voids. A customer will offer to pay in cash and then, after I have arranged it, they examine their wallets and say, “You know what, I think I’ll put that on my card instead.”
This involves voids and signatures from the management.
I take care of the paperwork, accept their photo form, and staple it to the receipt. Then it is my job to say, “The pictures taken today will be mailed January twelfth.”
The best part of the job is watching their faces fall. These pictures are sent to a lab to be processed; it takes time, all these pictures so late in the season. If they wanted their pictures to arrive before Christmas, they should have come during the first week we were open. Lots of people want their money back after learning the pictures will arrive after Christmas, in January, when Christmas is forgotten. Void.
We were very crowded today and I got a kick out of completing the transaction, handing the customer a receipt, and saying, “Your photos will be mailed on August tenth.”
August is much funnier than January. I just love to see that look on someone’s face, the mouth a perfect O.
This was my last day of work. We had been told that Christmas Eve is a slow day, but this was the day a week of training was meant to prepare us for. It was a day of nonstop action, a day when the managers spent a great deal of time with their walkie-talkies.
I witnessed a fistfight between two mothers and watched while a woman experienced a severe, crowd-related anxiety attack: falling to the floor and groping for breath, her arms moving as though she were fighting off bats. A Long Island father called Santa a faggot because he couldn’t take the time to recite “The Night Before Christmas” to his child. Parents in long lines left disposable diapers at the door to Santa’s house. It was the rowdiest crowd I have ever seen, and we were short on elves, many of whom simply did not show up or called in sick. As a result we had our lunch hours cut in half and had to go without our afternoon breaks. Many elves complained bitterly, but the rest of us found ourselves in the moment we had all been waiting for. It was us against them. It was time to be a trouper, and I surrendered completely. My Santa and I had them on the lap, off the lap in forty-five seconds flat. We were an efficient machine surrounded by chaos. Quitting time came and went for the both of us and we paid it no mind. My plane was due to leave at eight o’clock, and I stayed until the last moment, figuring the time it would take to get to the airport. It was with reservation that I reported to the manager, telling her I had to leave. She was at a cash register, screaming at a customer. She was, in fact, calling this customer a bitch. I touched her arm and said, “I have to go now.” She laid her hand on my shoulder, squeezed it gently, and continued her conversation, saying, “Don’t tell the store president I called you a bitch. Tell him I called you a fucking bitch, because that’s exactly what you are. Now get out of my sight before I do something we both regret.”
Season’s Greetings to
Our Friends and Family!!!
Many of you, our friends and family, are probably taken aback by this, our annual holiday newsletter. You’ve read of our recent tragedy in the newspapers and were no doubt thinking that, what with all of their sudden legal woes and “hassles,” the Dunbar clan might just stick their heads in the sand and avoid this upcoming holiday season altogether!!
You’re saying, “There’s no way the Dunbar family can grieve their terrible loss and carry on the traditions of the season. No family is that strong,” you’re thinking to yourselves.
Well, think again!!!!!!!!!!!!
While this past year has certainly dealt our family a heavy hand of sorrow and tribulation, we have (so far!) weathered the storm and shall continue to do so! Our tree is standing tall in the living room, the stockings are hung, and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a certain portly gentleman who goes by the name “Saint Nick”!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our trusty PC printed out our wish lists weeks ago and now we’re cranking it up again to wish you and yours The Merriest of Christmas Seasons from the entire Dunbar family: Clifford, Jocelyn, Kevin, Jacki, Kyle, and Khe Sahn!!!!!
Some of you are probably reading this and scratching your heads over the name “Khe Sahn.” “That certainly doesn’t fit with the rest of the family names,” you’re saying to yourself. “What, did those crazy Dunbars get themselves a Siamese cat?”
You’re close.
To those of you who live in a cave and haven’t heard the news, allow us to introduce Khe Sahn Dunbar who, at the age of twenty-two, happens to be the newest member of our family.
Surprised?
JOIN THE CLUB!!!!!!!
It appears that Clifford, husband of yours truly and father to our three natural children, accidentally planted the seeds for Khe Sahn twenty-two years ago during his stint in… where else?
VIETNAM!!!!
This was, of course, years before Clifford and I were married. At the time of his enlistment we were pre-engaged and the long period of separation took its toll on both of us. I corresponded regularly. (I wrote him every single day, even when I couldn’t think of anything interesting. His letters were much less frequent but I saved all four of them!)
While I had both the time and inclination to put my feelings into envelopes, Clifford, along with thousands of other American soldiers, had no such luxury. While the rest of us were watching the evening news in our safe and comfortable homes, he was making the evening news, standing waist high in a stagnant foxhole. The hazards and the torments of war are something that, luckily, most of us cannot begin to imagine and, for that, we should all count our blessings.
Clifford Dunbar, twenty-two years ago, a young man in a war-torn country, made a mistake. A terrible, heinous mistake. A stupid, thoughtless, permanent mistake with dreadful, haunting consequences.
But who are you, who are any of us, to judge him for it? Especially now, with Christmas at our heels. Who are we to judge?
When his tour of duty ended Clifford returned home, where, after making the second biggest mistake of his life (I am referring to his brief eight-month “marriage” to Doll Babcock), he and I were reunited. We lived, you might remember, in that tiny apartment over on Halsey Street. Clifford had just begun his satisfying career at Sampson Interlock and I was working part-time, accounting for Hershel Beck when… along came the children!!!!!! We struggled and saved and eventually (finally!!) bought our house on Tiffany Circle, number 714, where the Dunbar clan remains nested to this very day!!!!
It was here, 714 Tiffany Circle, where I first encountered Khe Sahn, who arrived at our door on (as fate would have it) Halloween!!!
I recall mistaking her for a Trick-or-Treater! She wore, I remember, a skirt the size of a beer cozy, a short, furry jacket, and, on her face, enough rouge, eye shadow, and lipstick to paint our entire house, inside and out. She’s a very small person and I mistook her for a child. A child masquerading as a prostitute. I handed her a fistful of chocolate nougats, hoping that, like the other children, she would quickly move on to the next house.
But Khe Sahn was no Trick-or-Treater.
I started to close the door but was interrupted by her interpreter, a very feminine-looking man carrying an attaché case. He introduced himself in English and then turned to Khe Sahn, speaking a language I have sadly come to recognize as Vietnamese. Wh
ile our language flows from our mouths, the Vietnamese language sounds as though it is being forced from the speaker by a series of heavy and merciless blows to the stomach. The words themselves are the sounds of pain. Khe Sahn responded to the interpreter, her voice as high-pitched and relentless as a car alarm. The two of them stood on my doorstep, screeching away in Vietnamese while I stood by, frightened and confused.
I am still, to this day, frightened and confused. Very much so. It is frightening that, after all this time, a full-grown bastard (I use that word technically) can cross the seas and make herself comfortable in my home, all with the blessing of our government. Twenty-two years ago Uncle Sam couldn’t stand the Vietnamese. Now he’s dressing them like prostitutes and moving them into our houses!!!! Out of nowhere this young woman has entered our lives with the force and mystery of the Swine Flu and there appears to be nothing we can do about it. Out of nowhere this land mine knocks upon our door and we are expected to recognize her as our child!!!!????????
Clifford likes to say that the Dunbar children inherited their mother’s looks and their father’s brains. It’s true: Kevin, Jackelyn, and Kyle are all just as good-looking as they can possibly be! And smart? Well, they’re smart enough, smart like their father, with the exception of our oldest son, Kevin. After graduating Moody High with honors, Kevin is currently enrolled in his third year at Feeny State, majoring in chemical engineering. He’s made the honor roll every semester and there seems to be no stopping him!!! A year and a half left to go and already the job offers are pouring in!
We love you, Kevin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We sometimes like to joke that when God handed out brains to the Dunbar kids He saw Kevin standing first in line and awarded him the whole sack!!! What the other children lack in brains they seem to make up for in one way or another. They have qualities and personalities and make observations, unlike Khe Sahn, who seems to believe she can coast through life on her looks alone!! She hasn’t got the ambition God gave a sparrow! She arrived in this house six weeks ago speaking only the words “Daddy,” “Shiny,” and “Five dollar now.”
Quite a vocabulary!!!!!!!!!!
While an industrious person might buckle down and seriously study the language of her newly adopted country, Khe Sahn appeared to be in no hurry whatsoever. When asked a simple question such as, “Why don’t you go back where you came from?” she would touch my hand and launch into a spasm of Vietnamese drivel — as if I were the outsider, expected to learn her language! We were visited several times by Lonnie Tipit, that “interpreter,” that “man” who accompanied Khe Sahn on her first visit. Mr. Tipit seemed to feel that the Dunbar door was open for him anytime, day or night. He’d drop by (most often during the supper hours) and, between helpings of my home-cooked meals (thank you very much), “touch base” with his “friend,” Khe Sahn. “I don’t think she’s getting enough exposure to the community,” he would say. “Why don’t you start taking her around town, to church get- togethers and local events?” Well, that was easy for him to say! I told him, I said, “You try taking a girl in a halter top to a confirmation class. You take her to the Autumn Craft Caravan and watch her snatch every shiny object that catches her eye. I’ve learned my lesson already.” Then he and Khe Sahn would confer in Vietnamese and he would listen, his eyes fixed upon me as if I were a witch he had once read about in books but did not recognize without a smoldering kettle and a broom. Oh, I knew that look!
Lonnie Tipit went so far as to suggest that we hire him as Khe Sahn’s English tutor at, get this, seventeen dollars an hour!!!!!!!!!! Seventeen dollars an hour so she can learn to lisp and twitter and flutter her hands like two small birds? NO, THANK YOU!!!!!!! Oh, I saw right through Lonnie Tipit. While he pretended to care for Khe Sahn I understood that his true interest was in my son Kyle. “How’s the schoolwork coming, Kyle? Working hard or hardly working?” and “Say, Kyle, what do you think about this new sister of yours? Is she the greatest or what?”
It wasn’t difficult to see through Lonnie Tipit. He wanted one thing and one thing only. “If not me, then I can suggest another tutor,” he said. Someone like who? Someone like him? Regardless of who the English teacher was, I am not in the habit of throwing my money away. And that, my friends, is what it would have amounted to. Why not hire an expensive private tutor to teach the squirrels to speak in French! It would be no more ridiculous than teaching Khe Sahn English. A person has to want to learn. I know that. Apparently, back in Ho Chi Minh City, Her Majesty was treated like a queen and sees no reason to change her ways!!!! Her Highness rises at around noon, wolfs down a fish or two (all she eats is fish and chicken breasts), and settles herself before the makeup mirror, waiting for her father to return home from work. At the sound of his car in the driveway she perks up and races to the door like a spaniel, panting and wagging her tail to beat the band! Suddenly she is eager to please and attempt conversation!! Well, I don’t know how they behave in Vietnam, but in the United States it is not customary for a half-dressed daughter to offer her father a five-dollar massage!!! After having spent an exhausting day attempting to communicate a list of simple chores, I would stand in amazement at Khe Sahn’s sudden grasp of English when faced with my husband.
“Daddy happy five dollar shiny now, OK?”
“You big feet friendly with ABC Khe Sahn. You Big Bird Daddy Grover.”
Apparently she had picked up a few words while watching “Sesame Street.”
“Daddy special special funky fresh jam party commercial free jam.”
She began listening to the radio.
Khe Sahn treats our youngest son, Kyle, with complete indifference, which is probably a blessing in disguise. This entire episode has been very difficult for Kyle, who, at age fifteen, tends to be the artistic loner of the family. He keeps to himself, spending many hours in his bedroom, where he burns incense, listens to music, and carves gnomes out of soap. Kyle is very good-looking and talented and we are looking forward to the day when he sets aside his jackknife and bar of Irish Spring and begins “carving out” a future rather than a shriveled troll! He is at that very difficult age but we pray he will grow out of it and follow his brother’s footsteps to success before it is too late. Hopefully, the disasters of his sister, Jackelyn, will open his eyes to the hazards of drugs, the calamity of a thoughtless, premature marriage, and the heartaches of parenthood!
We had, of course, warned our daughter against marrying Timothy Speaks. We warned, threatened, cautioned, advised, what have you — but it did no good as a young girl, with all the evidence before her, sees only what she wants to see. The marriage was bad enough but the news of her pregnancy struck her father and me with the force of a hurricane.
Timothy Speaks, the father of our grandchild? How could it be????
Timothy Speaks, who had so many pierced holes in his ears you could have torn the lobe right off, effortlessly ripped it loose the same way you might separate a stamp from a sheet.
Timothy Speaks, who had his back and neck tattooed with brilliant flames. His neck!!!
We told Jacki, “One of these days he’s going to have to grow up and find a job, and when he does, those employers are going to wonder why he’s wearing a turtleneck under his business suit. People with tattooed necks do not, as a rule, hold down high-paying jobs,” we said.
She ran back to Timothy repeating our warning.… Lo and behold, two days later, she showed up with a tattooed neck as well!!!!! They even made plans to have their baby tattooed!!!! A tattoo, on an infant!!!!!!!!!!!
Timothy Speaks held our daughter in a web of madness that threatened to ensnare the entire Dunbar family. It was as if he held her under a perverse spell, convincing her, little by little, to destroy the lives of those around her.
The Jackelyn Dunbar-Speaks who lived with Timothy in that squalid “space” on West Vericose Avenue bore no resemblance to the beautiful girl pictured in our photo albums. The sensitive and considerate daughter we once knew became, under his fierce coaching, a mean-spirite
d, unreliable, and pregnant ghost who eventually gave birth to a ticking time bomb!!!!!
We, of course, saw it coming. The child, born September tenth under the influence of drugs, spent the first two months of his life in the critical care unit of St. Joe’s Hospital. (At a whopping cost and guess who paid the bill for that one?) Faced with the concrete responsibility of fatherhood, Timothy Speaks abandoned his sick wife and child. Suddenly. Gone. Poof!
Surprised?
We saw it coming and are happy to report that, as of this writing, we have no idea where he is or what he is up to. (We could guess, but why bother?)
We have all read the studies and understand that a drug- addicted baby faces a difficult, uphill battle in terms of living a normal life. This child, having been given the legal name “Satan Speaks” would, we felt, have a harder time than most. We were lucky enough to get Jacki into a fine treatment center on the condition that the child remain here with us until which time (if ever) she is able to assume responsibility for him. The child arrived at our home on November tenth and shortly thereafter, following her initial withdrawal, Jacki granted us permission to address it as “Don.” Don, a nice, simple name.
The name change enabled us to look upon the baby without having to consider the terrible specter of his father, Timothy Speaks. It made a difference, believe me.
While I could not describe him as being a “normal” baby, taking care of young Don gave me a great deal of pleasure. Terribly insistent, prone to hideous rashes, a twenty-four hour round-the-clock screamer, he was our grandchild and we loved him. Knowing that he would physically grow to adulthood while maintaining the attention span of a common housefly did not, in the least bit, diminish our feelings for him.
Clifford would sometimes joke that Don was a “Crack Baby” because he woke us at the crack of dawn!
I would then take the opportunity to mention that Khe Sahn was something of a “Crack Baby” herself, wandering around our house all hours of the day and night wearing nothing but a pair of hot pants and a glorified sports bra. Most nights, the dinnertime napkin in her lap provided more coverage than she was accustomed to!!! Clifford suggested that I buy her a few decent dresses and a couple pairs of jeans and I tried, oh, how I tried! I sat with her, leafing through catalogs, and watched as she pawed the expensive designer outfits. I walked with her through Cut Throat’s and Discount Plus and watched as she turned up her nose at their sensibly priced clothing. I don’t know about you, but in this family the children are rewarded for hard work. Call me old-fashioned but if you want a fifty-dollar sweater you have to prove that you deserve it! If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: “A family is not a charitable organization.” Khe Sahn wanted something for nothing and I buttoned my purse and said the most difficult word a parent can say, “No!” I made her several outfits, sewed them with my own hands, two floor-length dresses, beautiful burlap dresses, but did she wear them? Of course not!!!