Elizabeth Hand by Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol

Author:Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol [Carol, Chip Crockett's Christmas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BROADCAST HISTORY

PHOTOGRAPHS

ARTICLES & OBITUARIES (NEW)

THEME SONG

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1966

CHIP CROCKETT’S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

Without thinking, he reached over and took the mouse from Tony’s grasp. “Oops—sorry—but you, would you mind if I—”

Tony smiled. “Go for it.”

Brendan clicked on THEME SONG. The screen shifted, blue sky fading to a grainy black-and-white backdrop, much enlarged, showing a cheap soundstage. Long white drapes covered the back wall.

There was a painted plywood table, and strewn on top of it were a number of puppets. By today’s standards, they were slightly intimidating, more crackbrained Punch and Judy than benign Muppet. One looked like a pirate, with a patch on his eye and a gold hoop earring and a cigarette; another was a little guy with white fuzzy hair and a scholar’s mortar. There were more—a spaceman, a beatnik, a dog—but the only puppet that was upright was a figure with small beady eyes and an enormous nose, his mouth cracked in a huge, slightly demonic grin, his tiny cloth hands clapped together as though he were about to witness—or perform—something wonderful.

“Ooga Booga,” whispered Brendan. “Holy cow. I totally forgot what he looked like — I’d even forgotten his name, till you showed me that obituary.”

He drew a long breath and leaned forward, clicked on an icon. A moment when all was still. Then the song began: a jouncy chorus of horns and strings, those unshakably chipper background voices you heard on records in the early ‘60s. Elevator music, but this was an elevator that only went up.

“Bum bum bum bum,” sang Tony happily. “Bum bum bum bum!”

Brendan started to cry. Knowing it was stupid, knowing it was the sort of thing you did on a jag, when you’d lost it completely, when you were so far gone you’d sit around all day long surfing the Net for the names of girls you’d had a crush on in the second grade, or listening to Muzak and commercial jingles.

Didn’t matter, didn’t matter, didn’t matter. He squeezed his eyes shut, eyelids burning as he willed himself to stop: another Irish Catholic trick that Teri hated. Back when they’d first started trying to understand what was wrong with Peter, back when they barely even knew there was something wrong—back then, it was one of the first things Teri had accused him of—

“This fucking Irish Catholic thing, you guys can never cry, you can never show anything, any emotion at all—and now, now—look at him—”

Pointing at the silent toddler crawling across the floor, but crawling in that awful horror-show way he had, dragging himself on his elbows and knees, head canted sideways so he could stare at the ceiling but not at what was in front of him; and never, ever, at his parents.

“—look at him, look at him—”

Her voice rising to a shriek, her fists pounding against her thighs as she stood there screaming. And Peter never looked, never even noticed at all, and Brendan—

Brendan walked away. Only into the next room, saying nothing, feeling rage and grief and sorrow swelling in his head until he thought blood would seep from his eyes; blood, maybe, but never tears.

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