The Best Hardcore Band in PA by Bill Elenbark

Author:Bill Elenbark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amphorae Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

“PRESENT PATROL coming through,” Donna announces, the packages spilling out of her arms.

I jump up from the couch to assist but my head shakes from the movement. Hangovers are a bitch, as far as I can tell. I never want to drink that much again.

“Merry Christmas, Donna,” Dad says, over to greet his sister with a hug. She sets down her purse on the dining room table, still dressed in her scrubs. “I can’t believe you had to work today.”

“I always have to work.”

She enters the kitchen and fills up a plate with meatballs and pasta salad that Dad prepared as part of our annual Christmas tradition—Angela, me, and him opening presents in the living room then watching Christmas movies all day. We started the tradition the year Mom died, because Dad hoped to get our minds off Mom dying, and it worked, as best as it could. We’re up to Christmas Vacation this afternoon, Clark Griswold trapped in the hole in the attic floor, lamenting his choices in life.

“Frozen?” Donna says as she takes a seat at the dining room table, plastic fork inserted into the center of her meatball.

“No, I woke up Christmas morning and made them fresh,” Dad says, several layers of sarcasm spilling from the sides of his mouth.

“Ass,” Donna says. He only talks that way with her, like he saves up any attempt at humor for his sister. Not us. “Where’s Angela?”

“On the phone with her boyfriend,” I say. “They’ve been separated for an entire day now so she’s been on the phone with him all morning.”

I’m pissed because she woke me up at the butt-crack of early to join Dad downstairs with the presents, despite my hangover. I took a long nap that did little to stem the pressure on my temples. Thank god Donna came.

“Good for her,” Donna says, mouth half-full with meatball. Dad’s “cooking” is fine but it doesn’t compare to the pernil or the rice or the sausages and peppers and cake—I think there was cake. After Courtney kissed me. “Is he visiting for the holidays?”

“They are supposed to be going to Philly for New Year’s,” Dad says, pulling out a seat at the table across from Donna.

“And you’re okay with that?”

Donna digs into the store-bought pasta salad. Mom would always make homemade meatballs that stewed on the stove all Christmas morning, filling the house with the unmistakable scent of garlic and onions and Italian seasonings, and by the time we got to dinner I’d devour several plates of pasta with oversized meatballs that were never frozen and perfectly sauced. Even Sharane’s mom’s cooking doesn’t compare.

“He’s supposed to stop here to pick her up so at least I can meet him.”

“Oh, that’s perfect,” Donna says. “I’ll come over and meet him too. My New Year’s plans right now are day shift at the hospital followed by a fresh box of wine. Unless this guy I met last week calls me back which I don’t even know if I want him to

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