A Brother's Journey by Richard Pelzer

Author:Richard Pelzer [Pelzer, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-13T05:36:22+00:00

CHRISTMAS

For me, as most of us, Christmas is a favorite time of year. With the smells and the sounds that fill the air, the holiday means more to me now than it ever did as a child. The magic that surrounds Santa Claus is very personal to me. It wasn’t always like that. By the time I was eleven, I knew that Mom was right, and that even Santa Claus agreed that I was a terrible little redheaded freckle-faced boy who deserved nothing. Mom had turned me into a subhuman being.

AT eleven, I found that the best way to judge the passage of time was by the season of the year. I knew that summer was here when Mom told me that my birthday would be another year of: “You’re getting nothing.”

I knew that winter had arrived when I noticed the early arrival of dusk and the cold that filled the streets at night as I walked around them aimlessly and alone. During these moments of privacy I found the best way to cope with being lost was to remember better times. Although they were few and far between, I still had a few special memories

hidden in the archives of my mind. I often think of Christmas now when I reflect.

I recall the one year when Santa must have made two trips for most of the boys in my house.

By now a corner of the basement had been used to build a small room for my older brothers. It took up less than a quarter of the basement. Although it was a hideaway for the older boys, I still felt there the eerie and dark fear that I’d grown to hate in the cellar. It made the walls of that cold chamber of horrors close in.

Each Christmas morning, once all the boys were awake— as if any boy really sleeps on Christmas Eve—my older brothers Ross and Scott would come up from their room and walk carefully into the room Keith and I shared.

Once Mom was awake, and the boys were filled with expectation, Mom would have us line up from youngest to oldest and walk down the long hall to the living room, where Santa had deposited all the presents. Since I was second to the youngest I got the best view in the line. I was taller than my younger brother, Keith, but tall enough to prevent Scott from seeing anything before I could. I never complained about the traditional Christmas-morning lineup.

Once I saw the full-sized pinball machine with the lights flashing and the sounds it made, I knew that Santa had been extra kind this year. I looked around intently for the red ribbon with gold letters that in years past spelled out each of our names attached to the largest gift in the room for each boy. The pinball machine had SCOTT in huge gold letters draped across the top. Carefully placed next to the

new Green Machine tricycle was the ribbon with KEITH draped from handle to handle.

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