Our First Love (13 page)

“To just look.” He squinted his eyes to feign sleepiness.

“Why?”

“No reason why,” Nigel responded. “Just to have something to do.”

“What time was this?”

“What time did the car break down or what time did we…?”

I cut him off. “Did the car break down?”

Nigel's calmness and bad acting faltered.

“Around four,” he answered. “Give or take a half hour.”

“Well, we left here at one. Where did we go?”

“We stopped by the office to check on some things.” Nigel turned and looked at the clock and tried to act surprised. “Damn! I didn't know it was this late.”

“I guess we got the car fixed since you drove it home.”

“There's this garage not far from the flea market. One of the mechanics drove out and towed the car in. Then he patched the radiator as best as he could. Well, good enough to drive it home. They ordered a new radiator. It should be in tomorrow.”

I nodded slightly.

“We'll talk in the morning.” Nigel walked into his bedroom and closed the door.

Nigel didn't leave the house at all during the next few days. He sat around staring into space. I guess he forgot about the car and the new radiator that was supposedly ordered. I wasn't sure why, but something kept nagging me. Whatever Nigel did took nearly twelve hours. He'd rarely been away from home that long. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do a little digging. Nigel didn't like carrying a lot of cash, so the first thing I did was check Nigel's credit card purchases. We shared joint accounts so I had easy access to the information. I couldn't believe what I found out. Nigel was near Orlando the day he claimed the car broke down. He used his Visa card to purchase gas at a Turnpike travel station. Like a cockatrice, I turned and glanced at Nigel. He must have felt my virulent stare because his face hardened and his strangulating guilt nearly
choked him to death. I steered clear of Nigel since then, and I didn't speak unless I was spoken to.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

We needed life preservers to keep our heads above the asphyxiating waves of reticence coursing through this house. Silence swelled around us; deafening silence. We anticipated each other's every move to keep our paths from crossing. That way we didn't have to say “excuse me” or “I'm sorry” if we mistakenly bumped into each other. We used labored smiles and meager nods to say whatever needed to be said. A cursory lukewarm smile substituted for “good morning” and “good night.” And a slight nod said “Thank you” or “Yes, I agree.” From Nigel's constrained hush, he deduced that I was on to him. If he didn't feel guilty about what he's hiding, he would have found a way to end this strife between us.

Nigel received a letter in the mail today from a political writer for a national magazine, and he tossed the unopened envelope in the trash. Every now and then he got requests for interviews, but he still wasn't ready to talk about Barney Aman or explain why we weren't wearing Anderson Cooper's shoes.

Only God knows where Nigel had been. He rushed out of the house right before noon without saying where he was going. Actually, I didn't mind him leaving because it was the first time he'd left the house in days. Still, I was not looking forward to hearing Nigel's stitched-together fable about our day that I'd be part of to pacify him. That bothered the hell out of me. Nigel still expected
me to believe him, despite the fact that he'd been lying the entire time. It's almost like he was telling me that my life outside this house was whatever he made it; that our story wasn't co-authored. However, since Nigel was out driving the Lumina, which supposedly needed a new radiator, I did have time to buy his Christmas present. I decided on a new car, a white Lexus Coupe. I was having it delivered to the house Christmas morning.

In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have, but after I'd purchased the car for Nigel, I decided to resolve something that had been pestering me for almost two months. I tried to disregard Nigel's version of our homecoming day, but I couldn't forget the absence of the facial paralysis that signaled he was lying. He talked about navy blue, red, and white floats and bison mascots that were not in the parade I saw on television. He wasn't lying though; at least not in his mind. If he had been, I would have seen the tension on his face.

Nigel never told me, but I was aware that he had gone to college before we started at Richmond. We had a junior class schedule our first semester there. After spending twenty minutes searching several Internet databases, I found out that Nigel was a student at Howard University during our former lives and he'd pledged the Chi Alpha fraternity. Hence, it explained his knowing the Chi Alpha step dance. And Howard's mascot was the bison and its colors are navy blue, red, and white. I was relieved. For a little while, I thought my brother was losing it.

I clicked on the exit button, but the monitor flickered and jumped back to the Google search page. That's when I did what I shouldn't have. I typed in:
Richmond Times Virginia newspaper.
Forty-five
seconds later, the cursor was in the archives search box of the
Richmond Times
. I counted back fourteen years; Nigel and Uncle Walter told me I was in a coma for two years and that was twelve years ago. Each keystroke felt like scaling a mountain with my fingertips…each stroke a painful step toward the peak. O - b - i - t - u - a - r - i-e-s; D - e - c - e - m - b - e - r -2-0-0-; G - r - e - e -n----. I couldn't go on. I pressed the power switch and the screen went black.

I'd never been that close to knowing what dreadful event changed our lives forever. Until now, I never wanted to know what happened to Mom and Dad. To me.

I was somebody else before that December night.

Whenever I started feeling sorry for myself, I tried to think of profound and searching words that, when strung together in the right manner, defined life's purpose. Not only my life; life in general. Sometimes, months passed without an insightful thought. And sometimes, out of nowhere, and mostly during an indifferent moment, I found reasons in the simplest of things. Seeing the color purple. The sound of music. Jazz. My brother. However, there were times when life's meaning unraveled in the sooty shadows of restless nights, when the fear of a future without me was my irascible bedfellow.

Even though I didn't feel like it, I had to write a blog. I wanted to write something about my failed search for information about that December evening nearly fourteen years ago, but I couldn't. Nigel read the blog, and I didn't want to bring up any bad memories for him. Since it was the Christmas season, I decided to write about a Christmas memory that we may have lived.

The (not so true) Way I Remember It – by Caleb Greene

Too Old For Santa?

The worst Christmas presents I ever received were the first ones I bought for myself.

I wanted to be like the other neighborhood kids my age who, because of our age, were no longer on Santa's delivery list. Even though I was twelve, I had not gone through this rite of passage and was the only person my age still waiting and wondering if Santa would bring them the perfect gift. The other kids knew what they were getting for Christmas because their parents gave them money to do their own Christmas shopping.

All my friends had been deleted from Santa's list the previous year, so I spent the entire month of December tagging along as they searched for the perfect Christmas gifts at Burdines, the Fair Store, Vera's, and Crossroads. The Calvin Klein and Cross Color jeans, the matching sweaters, and the Converse tennis shoes were all perfect fits because my friends were able to try them on before they bought them. They loved the Timex watches they got for Christmas because they'd spent several hours deciding which one they liked best. They even had the presents gift-wrapped in the paper of their choice.

I was filled with envy. Perhaps, envy is what kept me from wondering why they were at my house Christmas morning waiting for me to unwrap the Christmas gifts Santa had brought me. Or, why they kept asking if I needed help opening my gifts.

I spent an entire year anxiously waiting for the chance to do my own Christmas shopping which my mother and father opposed. However, by the time December rolled around again, I had managed to convince them I was now thirteen and too old to still be on Santa's list. They reluctantly agreed. Two and a half weeks before Christmas, a private conference was called between the three of us. During this meeting, they asked me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to be removed from Santa's list and I assured
them I was. After our verbal agreement, they handed me a few crisp bills and said, “Merry Christmas.”

Over the next few weeks, I wandered through nearly every store in town looking for the perfect gifts to give myself. I already knew how difficult it was shopping for someone else, but I soon learned that was a cakewalk compared to shopping for myself. For some strange reason, all the things I wanted for Christmas when my mom, dad, and Santa were doing the gift giving seemed far less appealing when I was the one handing over the cash.

I was too old for toys, but a recordable cassette player wasn't a toy, so I bought one from Wal-Mart. I purchased a pair of brown corduroy pants and a pair of jeans I wanted from Burdines. The two turtleneck shirts I bought from Crossroads matched the corduroys and jeans perfectly. And, I bought a pair of Air Nikes I'd been dying to have. After I was done with my shopping, I wrapped each one of my gifts to myself and placed them under the Christmas tree.

Bright and early Christmas morning, while my brother, Nigel, a senior in high school, was enjoying the presents Santa had brought him, I lay in bed sulking. When my mother and father asked me what was wrong, I told them I didn't know.

I guess they knew what I didn't.

The presents I bought and gave myself may have been
the worst Christmas gifts I ever received, but the gold bracelet, necklace, and sweaters Santa brought me even though I was too old to be on his list turned out to be the best.

As soon as I posted the Christmas blog, the comments started. One reader asked, “Did you apologize to Santa?” Another wrote, “I became too old for Santa's list when I turned twelve. And, it was the worst Christmas I ever had.” And then came the one that touched me the most. “Thanks for sharing your memories. It sounds like you had the best parents in the world,” the anonymous writer wrote. I wished the memories really were mine.

On the nights leading up to Christmas Eve, we turned off the exterior and interior lights before we went to bed. On Christmas Eve, we let them burn all night. I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up with the Christmas lights, hoping to see Santa deliver Nigel's gift. His sleigh, a red and black flat-bed tow truck, stopped in front of the house at 6:30 and two of the jolly old elves' helpers backed Nigel's present into the driveway. Around 8:00, I was sitting by the window drinking a cup of hot chocolate, when Nigel walked in the living room and gestured toward the front door. He wanted to get the newspaper.

“Merry Christmas,” I said and walked out of the living room.

My congenial greeting surprised him. “What did you…?” he started to ask before my courteous greeting registered. “Merry Christmas,” he replied with a crooked smile.

I went in my bedroom and closed the door. I stood with my ear pressed to the door and waited to hear the front door close. When I heard the door close, I flung my bedroom door open and ran into the living room. I needed to see Nigel's reaction when he saw the white Lexus adorned with a big white bow.

His foot stopped in mid-air as he stepped down to the second step. He turned and looked for me in the window.

I pointed at the Lexus and yelled as loud as I could, “Merry Christmas!”

Nigel's feet didn't touch the ground until he was standing next to the Lexus.

“Is this really mine?”

“Yes!” I yelled. “Get in and let me see how you'll look driving it.”

Nigel opened the door. The key was on the seat. He held the key up so I could see it before he sat down in the driver's seat. The Lexus fit him like a tailored glove. He loved it. But as I watched Nigel, I couldn't forget something he'd said the night before. He called me Lil' Daddy. The name Lil' Daddy felt familiar. I wasn't sure who called me Lil' Daddy, but someone did. And not any old someone. People I knew. People who knew me. They called me Lil' Daddy.

Lil' Daddy.

Lil' Daddy.

Lil' Daddy.

I was Lil' Daddy.

I started reclaiming our house the first day of the New Year. Nigel salvaged the yard. I evicted the Christmas tree this morning and Nigel dragged it outside. He said he was going to have it picked up for recycling. I packed the inside lights and decorations, then stacked the boxes in the closets. The Christmas cards from Uncle Walter and Aunt Girlie, Lillian, Professor Childers, the Hendersons, the Alexanders, and Richard Aman have been interred in the folder we kept for holiday memorabilia, and the folder was back in the file cabinet in the den. I installed the journalism department's cable box on the television. I pushed Dad's recliner back by the front window before I dusted the blades of the ceiling fan.

Lil' Daddy.

Lil' Daddy.

Lil' Daddy.

CHAPTER 14