The Christmas Fairy - 1. Story

The Christmas Fairy

by

Carl Holiday

When I was growing up, Christmas was not sleigh bells, snow gently falling through the pines, or children sledding down a hill. More than likely it rained on Christmas, but that was okay because I was with Mom, Dad, and Dad’s brother Uncle Ray. We opened our presents in the morning before breakfast, a meal which I think Mom preferred cooking because it involved two of her favorite food groups, fat and sugar. Christmas breakfasts were long drawn out affairs that often lasted well past noon.

Then I’d go over to my best friend Tommy’s house and look at all the neat stuff he got for Christmas. Tommy’s parents were a lot better off than we were and, even though he had two older brothers and a younger sister, Tommy always seemed to get something I’d never see in this lifetime, whether it was the English racer (bicycle) he got in ’62 or the go-kart he got in ’63. I mean he got the usual stuff like sweaters, socks, pajamas, too, but it was the big thing he got that kept me going over there.

What I liked most about Tommy was he didn’t push his wealth on me. We just hung out a lot, usually over at my house because his mother couldn’t cook worth shit. They practically lived out of tin cans and other packaged foods. A big meal for them might be franks and beans with macaroni and cheese, and maybe a slice of white bread to sop up the bean juice. I don’t know why, but they never seemed to have hot dog buns.

When I was fourteen and in my last year at Immaculate Conception, my Grampa, mother’s father, let out a little secret at Thanksgiving. They always came over to our house we were on our usual walk around the neighborhood and he was asking a lot of questions about school, girls, and just stuff in general. I guess he was trying to be conversational, which he hardly ever was because usually he told the greatest stories that went on for hours, sometimes days. The funny thing about Grampa’s stories was when he stopped, like say at night when we all went to bed, the story started up at the same point the following morning at breakfast. It was like he was reading you a book of his life, which was quite interesting since he’d grown up on the western prairies of Kansas and Oklahoma when horses were the usual means of transportation.

Anyway, we were walking down toward where they were building the new freeway that was going to solve all the major traffic jams in the city, when Grampa said, “I bet you’re looking forward to coming over to our place for Christmas this year.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, not believing what I just heard. Well, sure, Uncle Ray had died earlier in the summer, but I thought Mom, Dad, and I would just continue on with our traditional Christmas. I didn’t think we’d go over the mountains to stay with Grampa and Gramma, which also meant being with my cousins, all girls, Becky, a year older than me; Jen, two years older; Deb, three years older; Winnie, four years older; Sue, five years older; and, finally, the mother of the bunch, Bethany, six year older. They belonged to my mother’s two brothers, Uncles Bret and Brand, and their wives, Suzette and Marge, respectively.

Needless to say, being the only boy, being raised Roman Catholic (Dad’s religion), being from the big city over on the coast (we were actually a hundred miles from the coast, but everyone in the family assumed once you got over the mountains, there’d be a lot of water), and being a sissy put me in hot water with the girls. They teased me about everything, especially being a sissy. I was scared of heights, couldn’t climb trees; bugs that crawled; bugs that flew; bugs that swam; the dark; and girls. Plus, I didn’t play any sports, Mom wouldn’t allow it and, well, Dad seemed rather ambivalent about the matter; he’d been sick a lot lately.

I wanted to protest and tried to talk mother out of going over there, but she said in a quiet voice, “Ronnie, you know your father isn’t feeling well and I want you to get to know my side of the family.”

The code words didn’t go over my head, I knew what she was saying and didn’t want to hear that kind of talk. I was really upset when Uncle Ray died because I couldn’t understand how a healthy, okay overweight, man could be alive one day and dead the next. I didn’t know about his bad heart.

We usually drove over the mountains to the valley where Grampa and his two sons grew pears, cherries, and a few varieties of apples, mostly the kind that was dried. That year we took the train because, as I was to learn later, Dad’s heart might not be able to handle the stress of driving that far. It didn’t matter to me, though, because I didn’t want to be going anyway. I wanted to get up Christmas morning, open our presents, have lots of fat and sugar, and go over to Tommy’s to see what special thing he got. I didn’t want to do something new and I didn’t want to see my cousins.

I thought the train was going to be fun when I got to sit next to this guy who was in the college a couple blocks from our house. He was a freshman and was going home for the Christmas holidays. It turned out he graduated from the same high school and in the same class as Winnie. It was a small school, only twenty-three graduating seniors, so he knew her pretty well. He seemed to know a lot about my cousins and their parents, but I suppose he would, considering how few people lived in the valley. He said his father was the manager at the Safeway in town. I told him we often shopped there, to which he said, “I suppose you would, since it’s about fifty miles to Wenatchee.”

“Yeah, I guess there aren’t any other choices,” I said. He was kind of nice, but way out of my league. He was in college and I wasn’t even in high school yet.

“So, you’re going over this year,” he said. He kind of turned toward me in his seat.

“Yeah,” I said as I turned to look out the window at the brush along the tracks. Those on the other side were able to look out over Puget Sound. I felt his hand on my arm. It felt real hot in a weird sort of way.

“I remember your cousin Deb saying you weren’t into girls,” he whispered in my ear. “How ’bout we go forward to share a rest room?”

“What? No way!” I exclaimed. I may not have been into girls, but I wasn’t into boys either. I don’t know what he had in mind, but getting into a small compartment with him was the last thing on my mind. Luckily, I saw the conductor coming up the aisle and I stood up and stepped out in front of him. “Sir? Is there another seat I can use?”

“Is this young man bothering you son?” The conductor asked. Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to say anything to get him in trouble.

“He keeps bugging me and I’d like to sleep,” I said. My parents were zonked out, so they weren’t going to interrupt this little ruse. “I don’t want to be a bother if there aren’t any seats.”

“Come with me, there’s an empty one up front,” he said. It was beside an old lady who kept snorting back the snot in her nose and clicking her dentures, but it was better than some weirdo who wanted to do something I couldn’t imagine doing.

I sat there looking out at the changing scenery as a dark winter afternoon quickly turned into a dark winter night. A couple of hours into the trip we were high enough in the mountains for snow to be on the ground, but this time there was a snow storm. I could just see the flakes flitting by the window, but not much else.

I wasn’t thinking about snow, though. I was thinking about what that guy, I never got his name, wanted to do with me. Okay, admission time here, I might have been fourteen and had heard a lot of innuendoes from Tommy and his brothers, but basically my sexual experience was the occasional unexpected wet dream. I wasn’t even jerking off! I simply didn’t know that was possible and, well, touching oneself was a sin, after all. Not only was I a sissy, but I was a good little sissy. I’m sure our priest was bored out of his mind every time I started in on my litany of little sins.

The only thing I could figure out was he wanted me to engage in some kind of sexual intercourse with him. The way my logic was working at that time, I guess he assumed since I wasn’t into girls I would be into boys and he wanted me to fuck him, which totally grossed me out. There was no way I was going to stick my penis in his hole no matter how much he thought I was into guys, which I wasn’t because I didn’t know what being into guys meant.

Maybe he just wanted to kiss, but since I hadn’t even kissed a girl other than Mom, Gramma, my aunts, and all those cousins, and those were always chaste kisses on cheek, I wasn’t too certain what kissing actually involved. Of course, I’d seen all the movies with all the kissing, but it seemed to go over my head. Kissing is what men and women did before there was a baby. My Mom and Dad certainly never kissed, though Uncle Ray did kiss me once on the lips when I was twelve. Actually, it might have been a French kiss, come to think of it. I think I told him not to do that again because it was icky and I would tell Dad if he tried it.

Whatever the boy wanted from me wasn’t enough to keep me awake because soon I was nodding off and then it was time to wake up.

We had to get off the train in Wenatchee and catch a local on the branch line that ran up the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers to British Columbia. Normally, we would’ve had to wait until the next morning, but there were enough people going upriver for Christmas for them to run a special. The railroad even brought in a steam locomotive for the run. You couldn’t see anything, but it was exciting knowing there was a big engine up front just like in the old days. I didn’t see where that other boy sat and I really didn’t care. I stayed close to my parents.

Christmas was three days off when we arrived and there was lots of snow everywhere. It looked absolutely pathetic to me and I looked forward to a quiet week doing a lot of reading. Grampa had every National Geographic back to 1925 and I had only managed to read up to 1938 in the few visits we’d made in the past. Only, the adults had other ideas about what I should be doing.

It was decided I was going to spend all of my time with Uncle Brand and Aunt Marge because they had a guest room with an adjoining three-quarter bath. I was not thrilled because of all the teasers—Jen was the worst, Deb was second, and Sue was damned near impossible—lived there, too. I was soon to find out they got it all from their father who asked me something the next morning as I followed him out to the barn to watch him milk their cow. He’d come in real early and practically pulled me out of bed saying I had to do the milking. Not looking for a swat on the butt, he’d done that before, I put my clothes on and off we went.

“Have you figured out if you’re a fairy yet?” he asked as he opened the door and waited for me to slog through the snow. “Or, are you just going to be a sissy like your Uncle Ray and hope you find a woman who’ll accept doing it with a fruit.”

“I’m not a fairy,” I whispered as I stepped past him. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his arms as he grabbed me and threw me down onto a pile of straw.

“Speak up, faggot, or the world won’t hear you and think you’re a fairy,” he said as he walked toward me. He pulled me up by my collar, but I wasn’t going to cry. I wanted to very much, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

We stared at each other, face-to-face, before he threw me away from him, but this time I didn’t fall down.

“I’m not a fairy!” I exclaimed. “I don’t do it with guys. Hell, I don’t even do it with girls. I can’t play sports because Mom is afraid I’ll get hurt. Did one of you guys give her the idea that boys get hurt playing sports?”

He turned to me and gave me the strangest look. Then he just walked over to the stall where they kept the cow. I followed him, but when the cow gave me the eye, I stopped short.

“Come on, she won’t hurt you,” he said. He put one of the pails he’d been carrying down on the floor and took the stool off its hanger on the wall. “Put your hands in your pants pockets to warm them.”

“You’re serious about me milking her, aren’t you?” I asked. He looked at me with a smile. “Okay, I won’t be a sissy about this and at least try.”

“Good,” he said.

I sat down on the stool and shoved my head into her flank as I’d seen him do many times. She snorted and looked around at me. He went up front and calmed her.

“Take the rag in the warm water and wash her teats,” he said.

I followed his instructions and soon I was ready to get the milk out of the bag and into the pail.

“How do these things work?” I asked.

“At the top of the teat squeeze with thumb and forefinger then squeeze with each finger creating a stream, yeah, just like that,” he said. “See, wasn’t as hard as you thought. Now, try it two handed. Go on, I’ll make a farmer out of you yet.

“It was our youngest brother, Willy, who died. He’s a year older than your mother and he was her favorite. It was homecoming and we were ahead of Manson thirteen to six at the start of the fourth quarter. It was just a freak accident. There was a fumble and Willy and another guy, I can’t remember his name, went for it. It was a direct hit with their helmets, but Willy got the worst of it. The other guy got a sore neck. Willy’s neck was fractured in three places. He died on the field. The new stadium is named for him.”

The cow wasn’t giving any more milk and I was weeping. It sounded logical to me why I wasn’t allowed to play sports; kids died and Mom didn’t want to go through that again.

“Uh, I think she’s stopped,” I said as I brushed the tears away with my forearm.

“Let me see,” he said. I stood up and saw he’d been weeping, too. “I want you to milk her every morning you’re here, including Christmas. She’s not a Christian so she won’t be celebrating. We’ll get you an alarm clock so you can get up early enough. Okay?”

“Sure, I’ll do it,” I said, proud that I’d actually done something useful. I kind of felt sorry for Mom, losing a brother like that and then getting a son who might want to go out for sports. Well, I did. I practically got down on my knees begging to play any kind of youth sports, but she was adamant.

That night was my undoing, though. Everything I didn’t know about where my future lay suddenly came out and landed squarely in my lap. Becky, Jen, and Deb were upstairs with their boyfriends playing games and I was downstairs watching television with Uncle Brand, Aunt Marge, and Sue.

“Ronnie, dear, why don’t you go upstairs and see what the kids are doing,” Aunt Marge said. I assumed they were making out, whatever that meant. I’d heard that when boys and girls got together away from their parents they made out, but no one ever told me exactly what that involved.

“Okay,” I said. I knew they didn’t want me up there, but Aunt Marge thought I’d be happier being with kids who disliked me.

I wasn’t too certain which bedroom they were in until I heard the laughing. I knocked on the door.

“Yes? Who is it?” A voice asked; it might have been Jen.

“It’s Ronnie, can I come in?”

“No, go away,” the voice said and there was more laughing.

“Well, Aunt Marge said I should come up and see what you guys are doing, but I guess I can tell her I’m not welcome up here,” I said. I didn’t move as I fully expected the door to open, which it did. Jen gave me the evil eye.

“Okay get in here, but keep quiet,” she said.

I don’t know what I expected, but they were sitting on the floor in a circle and there was a soda bottle in the middle; next to it there was a stack of folded pieces of paper.

“What’re you playing?” I asked.

“Spin the bottle,” Becky said, “and before you even ask, no, you can’t play; you’d make it come out wrong.”

“Well, then why should I be up here if I can’t play, I’m going back downstairs,” I said.

“Wait, Ronnie. Why don’t we put him between David and me,” Deb said. “You don’t mind, do you David.”

“No, I guess it’ll be okay,” he said. “It’s just a game, right?”

Everyone moved a little to make room for me and I sat cross-legged between Deb and David, who was Becky’s boyfriend and was only a year older than me. He smiled at me, but he looked nervous. I suppose I’d be nervous too if I had to sit next to a sissy.

“Whose turn is it to spin?” Deb asked.

“Mine,” Jen said as she leaned forward and spun the bottle. It stopped with the cap pointing directly at me.

“How’d you do that?” Becky asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to let him see how the game works?”

“You’re just being a wimp,” Jen said. “Ronnie, take a paper from the top of the stack and read it out loud to everyone.”

I did as she told me, but I looked at it first. I didn’t want to read it much less do what it said.

“Come on, Ronnie, you gotta read the paper,” Jen said.

“Read the paper Ronnie,” Becky said.

“French kiss the person on your right,” I whispered.

The guffaw was horrible, too horrible to bear. I got up and ran to the bathroom and shut the door. I sat on the toilet cover and tried to come to my senses. A few moments later there was a knock at the door.

“Go away,” I said.

The door opened and David came in and sat on the bathtub opposite me. He took my hand and held it for what purpose I wasn’t certain.

“I think you should come back,” David said. “I don’t mind if you kiss me. It’s just a game.”

“They all think I’m a fairy,” I said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have people think you’re a homo?”

“I tell you what, why don’t we practice a little,” he said. “Then when we go back, it won’t be so bad. Come on, stand up and I’ll do all the work.”

This wasn’t at all like what Uncle Ray tried to do to me. This was gentle, succulent, warm, sensuous, and downright erotic, even though I didn’t know what that meant. What I did know was that it was making me hard. I felt David’s hand down there.

“Uh, uh, no boners or they’ll never stop laughing,” he said. “Come on, think of something disgusting, like your mother pissing in your mouth.”

Well, I went back in and we did the kiss to which everyone laughed. I spun the bottle and it ended up pointing to David, but he had to kiss Becky. The turns went round and round, but they never seemed to come back to me. Toward the end, though, David ended up having to kiss me and that seemed to equal things out.

The next morning David showed up after breakfast asking if I wanted to hang out with him. I asked Uncle Brand and he said he thought it was a good idea. Jen, Deb, and Sue looked relieved they weren’t going to have to entertain me. It turned out David’s parents had the next orchard over so it was less than a mile through the snow.

The house wasn’t as big as my uncle’s and aunt’s, but it was warm and toasty inside. There didn’t seem to be anyone else at home.

“Mom and Dad are at work, so we’ve got all day to be by ourselves,” David said in a strange voice that made me feel uncomfortable. We took off our boots and coats and I followed him up to his bedroom. There were other rooms up there, but his seemed to be the only one occupied. He must have seen my questioning look.

“I’m the baby of the family,” he said. “My oldest brother is thirty-three and has two kids. There’s another brother and two sisters between him and me and I’m the only one still at home.”

“I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” I said for no reason other than to maybe elicit some degree of sympathy. I kind of wished I hadn’t said anything.

“You have a best friend, I bet,” he said. “My best friend’s name is Mike and I’m practically over at his house more than here at home.”

“My friend is Tommy and he comes to my house because his mother is a horrible cook,” I said. “He likes my mom’s chocolate chip cookies.”

“So, uh, do you guys mess around?” David asked. “You know like last night when we were in the bathroom kissing and you got a boner. Have you, like, ever kissed Tommy?”

“No! I told you I wasn’t a fairy,” I said not knowing why we were suddenly talking about kissing.

“Would you, you know, like to try some more of that?” he asked. “I kind of liked it myself. Mike and I mess around sometimes, but we’ve never kissed.”

“What do you mean, mess around?” I asked; my naivety showing.

“You know, mess around, you know,” he said. He was looking at me and trying to smile.

“No, I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know. How does one know?

“Haven’t you ever messed around with yourself?” he asked with a frown.

Oh, that sinful thing we weren’t supposed to do. My parents certainly drummed it into my head that I was not to touch myself down there because it was some great sin to waste the seed God had given to make babies. My mind couldn’t get around the concept of seed inside me somehow.

Tommy and his brothers talked about jerking off, but I was too embarrassed to ask what they meant. How does a kid ask? “Hey, can you show me how to jerk off?” I’d end up being the laughingstock at school.

“You know, we could, you know, try some of that kissing,” he said, putting his hand on my thigh. “Then when you’re ready we could maybe take off our clothes and mess around a little.”

Then it hit me. It was like someone had thrown a big rock through the window and it hit me square in the back of the head. I looked at David and didn’t like what I saw.

“No! You’re just trying to get me to do something so my cousins will laugh at me,” I said, getting to my feet. “You’re trying to make me to do something like a homo. Well, I’m not going to do that, no way.”

I practically ran down the stairs, hurriedly put on my boots and coat, and ran out the door. I ran all the way back to my uncle’s and aunt’s, but went into the barn and sat with the cow for awhile. I didn’t want them thinking something had happened which caused me to come back sooner than expected.

The only problem I had was I had wanted to stay. I had wanted to find out what messing around meant, but I was positive it was all a set up to get me to act like a fairy so everyone, including Uncle Brand and probably my parents, too, would know the truth about me.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I climbed the ladder to the hayloft and had a really good cry in the straw. Afterward, as I began to feel better, I unzipped my pants and took out the thing that David wanted me to touch. Up until that moment in my life, I had never thought of it as anything other than a means of releasing pee. I actually had no idea that it had another purpose.

I thought of David and began to lightly squeeze it, which caused it to stiffen and feel strangely good, but I was too scared to go further. I stared at it and then put it back where it belonged. I wasn’t a fairy and touching that thing would only make me one.

Dad died the day before Groundhog Day. He was at work at the time, but there was nothing that could be done for him by the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital. For all of her knowledge of that eventuality, Mom was inconsolable and eventually had to be hospitalized in a mental institution where she eventually died. Much to the chagrin of Jen, Deb, and Sue, Uncle Brand and Aunt Marge took me in and they, too, wouldn’t let me play sports, but Uncle Brand made me try out for track as a sprinter. At least it made me look less like a fairy when I was able to wear a letterman’s jacket.

David, though, wasn’t forgotten. Although he played the big three sports and was the superlative jock at school, we eventually became very good friends and when his best friend figured out messing around was equivalent to being a homo, David came looking for someone who might think otherwise. It took awhile for me to trust him, but eventually we were messing around quite a bit.

Uncle Brand and Aunt Marge are in their late eighties, now, but still welcome David and I home for Christmas. Their daughters seldom stop by because they have their own grandchildren and new family traditions. We all get up and I help Aunt Marge prepare a light breakfast while Uncle Brand and David talk sports. Later, after the dishes have been put in the dishwasher, we gather around the tree and open our presents.

It doesn’t seem to snow as much as it used to, a passenger train no longer runs up from Wenatchee, and Uncle Brand’s cow is long gone to wherever cows go, but it still feels like Christmas when we drive up the valley and turn into the drive leading up to the old house. I suppose what makes it very special is that I still get a lot of joy out of messing around with David.