You Better Watch

Storella by

Jerry Vilhotti

Twelve-year-old Johnny waited and wondered if the family would remember that Christmas Eve was the day of his birth. A late December morning he had come among them in an upside-down landing, out of the body of a thirty-nine year old mother who really didn't want another mouth to feed in the last years of the dying of hunger - The Great Depression.

Johnny would say nothing; concerned he would be taunted by his older brothers Leny One N and polio-legged Tom who told him he didn't have a for real birthday like other humans did. They resented Alice informing their father that day when four-year-old Johnny had discovered the father's eighty proof bottle of strega and had drank almost all of it telling him Johnny was acting strange and drowsy. The father carried Johnny like a lamb to the hospital where the good people fixed him all up and made him as good as new again - never asking if the father had any money.

Johnny's older sisters - Tina especially - and Alice always - bemoaned the fact that "The Little Savior's" birthday was always celebrated while theirs were virtually ignored.

After another hour of pretending nothing special was going to happen - the cake came out carried by the mother. The father lit the candles as all the grownups mumbled the birthday song half-heartily and if it weren't for the children and his parents singing the song, it would have died - killed amongst the flames of candles.

Johnny blew them out; pretending not to see the name "Joanne" on the surface of the cake.

When his brothers kept calling him Joannie, Alice explained she must have taken the wrong cake from the bakery. She repeated this mistake every year, but only the name changed.

The father suggested they play cards to make the time go by faster: "We'll play Seven and a Half!" He told everyone how the game had given birth to Blackjack and then asked Johnny his favorite: "Do you remember Black Jack, Johnny?" referring to the janitor of their old building in The Bronx on Arthur Avenue from whom he had bought two used tricycles, a dollar apiece, for Johnny. These little acts of their father's giving tormented his siblings much.

Johnny nodded. At first he had been afraid of the old stooped-shouldered Black man but after his father invited him to eat with them on one occasion, four-year-old Johnny realized he was just a human being like they.

All five of the grandchildren did nervous twitches of expectation. The youngest among them, Clarence, belonged to Alice and Gus while the other children belonged to Tina and stooped-shouldered Al.

Johnny had saved forty pennies. He gave eight-year-old Larry ten, his one year younger sister Clara another ten pennies and another ten to six-year-old Danny with his big sad eyes as if he were seeing the future orphanage Tina was going to place them into after throwing Al out for catching her cheating on him and they would be taken to the hut Johnny had tried to build for them to hide in just before they were to be taken away. And seeing the half-built structure with gaping wounds in it showing parts of the sky and vines still having a home there - they laughed nervously at Johnny's feeble attempt.

Johnny told them to bet only a penny on a card - no matter how good it was.
Tom wanted to throw the kids out of the game concerned they would cry after they lost their money. Leny reminded him that was exactly what he would do when he was their age; this made everyone laugh; even the littlest ones who laughed with the laughter.

"Deal! Deal!" Tina said. Money was more important to her than God.

After the father left, Tom, buying the deal from him first, continued raking in the pennies while winking at the children as Leny, excited over their concerned expressions, began to sing off key the threatening - "You Better Watch Out" song.
Tina reminded her kids that all their winnings belonged to her. Al meekly nodded and this made everyone laugh again.

The loud thumping sound coming from the cellar made the children's eyes widen.

"Is that Santa?" Al said winking at Gus.

The youngest began running in a frenzy - the louder the thumping of footsteps approached - and the "Ho! Ho! Ho!" coming from behind the cellar door didn't sound quite Corporate United States-like and when the door burst open a large man wearing a black overcoat, black galoshes with his head covered with a brown paper bag with the appropriate holes in somewhat the right places with a stuffed rag-sack over a shoulder - made the children run screaming to their mothers.

"It's only Grandpa bringing gifts from Santa!" Johnny said.

Only when the apparition took the bag off his head did the children laugh before going into a total disappointment of not seeing the real Macy's Santa.

They began a helter-skelter running that knocked over the Christmas tree onto the manger; shattering all the Holy Land pieces as if massacred by killers that were doing to them what had been done to their past peoples - while sounds of the father hitting himself in the head with both fists played in the background.

Almost sounding like Jingle Bells.