Christmas 1971: A Certain Kind of Light
By: Bill Macconnel
Tags: Short Story, Words, Fiction, Poetry, Nature

“Christ is paradoxical, and life will always remain ambiguous as long as there is life.” — his grandfather said unexpectedly, pausing the pace of their traditional and always silent walk to the ice skating pond to a full stop. The holiday family chaos slowly drifting away— both looking up at the sky, which had just turned tornado green and blue and gray. He was catching snow flakes on his tongue, and taking in air from the artic blast deeply, his nose hairs tickling as they froze. If it was harvest season, and with a menacing green sky, everyone would now be packed tightly in the root cellar. But they moved forward, with recently fallen tree branches turned into walking sticks, continuing to the frozen pond behind the grain silo… but it was clear things were different.

His Grandfather was also carrying a pair of skates he had never seen before; worn black leather, ancient, and showing through each sideways crack at the toe, white tanned skin of some animal. Faded white laces, tied in bulging knots at the different stops between every eyelet on the zig-zag route to the top of his ankles. The series of tight knots, keeping them a functional and utter mystery to him. As if he was too cheap to replace them; he was not, the very opposite, a recklessly giving man his entire life. He had never seen anything like the blades of the skates, startlingly long, twice the length of the ones he typically wore. Longer than 12", quickly, he thought. The edges, shinier than the newish ones he used last Christmas. The mysterious and apparently treasured skates added a feeling of tattered grace and uncertainty to the late afternoon.

The second thing, against the snow, with the setting sun, as his Grandfather, sitting on one of the two frozen in place vertical logs, tightening the laces on the skates that baffled. Next to him, he sat, remembering when his legs dangled as his Grandfather pulled on his skates, helping with the entire process. Now, skates on, laces tightened, quickly and efficiently. He sat quietly and stared at his Grandfather as he struggles with his. He noticed and couldn’t believe, or didn’t want to consider earlier in the visit. In contrast to the winter-specific sky, with entirely white snow framing the portrait. His Grandfather’s face was ashen grey with an oily waxy yellow sheen.

It initially frightened, which quickly lifted, giving way to his heart exploding like a Milk Pod. Shooting out in different directions of the universe, like reverse snowflakes, gracefully lifting and gone forever. The finality that lightly touched him in the house, now covering the entire farm, Job completed, collecting itself, shooting upwards, worlds beyond the Midwest, to the late afternoon dark blue and green sky.

His Grandfather stood up from the log bench, lifted one skate, then another over the snowbank and onto the ice. He remained on the bench watching with no intention of joining. Focused intently as his Grandfather pushed off with unexpected strength, then quickly stopping, bending over to brush the snow off his skates. He took off again, in an elegant form he had never observed. His Grandfather leaned forward, arms folde d behind his back, the blades of his skates making a V shape. An explosive start, gaining momentum at a never observed speed, with arms now in front and synchronized with the same movement as the long blades, still pointing outwards in different directions, surprisingly, with the long back of the edges never touching, as they jointly crossed repeatedly. Suddenly, slowing down then stopping, well before the end of the pond. With a look of euphoric trance, as if, at last, seeing and feeling the covalent bonding of every molecule that helped create the beauty that lasted a lifetime. Knowing energy would soon be reversed in his orbit. S taring, unblinking, hypnotized by the rocks, “and the tough trees crammed in their stone fractures” outlining much of the frozen pond “The starting point of the human and the end.” A face now betraying the look of death, though gracefully accepting, apparent as he watched from the frozen in place log. Witnessing what he had never expected from his Grandfather, a still and wordless doxology stripped of his chronic rigidity and cynism, showing a sincere belief and praise, in something. For his Grandfather, the entirety of Ontological thought was neatly summarized.

Now taking in the cold air profoundly and every surrounding view, knowing what he would become and why, everything he had always felt, but could never express; “Yit’barakh v’yish’tabach v’yit’pa’ar v’yit’romam v’yit’nasei.” A bit too early and tweaked for the sanctification revealed on a skating pond, they seemed to recite together and alone in complete silence; in praise of rocks.

Like the old skates that brought his Grandfather to a profound reverence. Glorious memories continued to flood into his darkened stale room; Lucy, walking towards him, dressed in a green vintage 1930’s silk Georgette dress, her crooked sly smile that enthralls. An exclamation mark tonight, casting a soft light on everything. Effortless beauty and intellect, always in the periphery, in her mind, a freight train straight at you for all others. Unlike the elbow to elbow crowd, seeking points of difference and superiority, all was buried deeply within her, and rarely on display, but fully aware of her power. Earlier and fully acknowledging this, Lucy becomes resolute in not using them and not going. As always, resolved with logic, and her crazy ass robotic, Turkish with a hint of helium voice, which quickly sealed the grand bargain…

Into the either we drifted “Asla bir başka partiye katılmayacağız ve bir daha asla konuşulmayacak. Bu aptalca insan eğlencesi araştırıyor mu?” he paused, laughed loudly and quickly replied, “that is of the heavens, even more, sing-songy than Hungarian. Well played, MC Thunder Bitch. And that’s a compliment of the exact linguistic order.” He took a deep breath and answered in his most robotic voice to her stated side of the grand bargain;

“Yes. Agreed. It does. COMpute. You. Who possesses the. mAD skills. OF a. Smooth talking. Turkish overnight. DJ.” Glad I made myself clear, she spits out through tears of laughter. Just one of those in-between moments that seem so much more, most remembers similar with greater joy and recollection than life’s specific and not well thought out list of grand and easily fractured events. The in-between: pure, joyous, and unbreakable into pain and regret.

The week of the holiday party, and not entertaining any thought of seamstress craft, Lucy had taken a black Magic Marker, twisting her left foot sideways, and with Epipen urgency jabbing it high on her upper thigh; pushing deep, and spinning a dot. She then sat up straight and got to work. The evening gown became a dress, a concise dress she would only wear once. If vintage clothing sellers and collectors were aware of the uniquely altered original 1930’s silk Georgette dress, a concentrated stream of tears from Santee Alley to 7th Avenue, with Burwick Street, responding, “that was a cunty move.” They would never grasp the elegant outlier dress, with a noticeable black stain on the left hem. And the wonderfully reckless seamstress with a black dot still on her inner thigh. Hand in hand, they disappeared into a night that smelled of intoxication, and, just a bit, like Magic Marker.

It used to be perplexing how time moved slowly in childhood and into mid-twenties and sped up when reaching adulthood. In part, “our brain encodes new experiences, but not familiar ones, into memory, and our retrospective judgment of time is based on how many new memories we create over a given period.” Those many ethereal and painful memories created from youth flow easily, bumping into each other: women, the circus, drugs, parenting wrongs, sex, love, victory, breakups, now painless. Slowly walking down 5th avenue, often sideways in the crowd, brushing up against someone, smelling the same perfume, and the same aproaching winter storm…