The Season of Springer
The Dark Underpinnings of Family Dinners

When I read the simple word "family" as the guiding light of November's writing assignment, I became suddenly aware that the directions were anything but simple. I immediately started trying to think of heart-warming stories that would make the reader feel as if they were snuggled down in an old, patchwork quilt with a glass of eggnog. Perhaps an O'Henry-esque story that would take them on a journey with a surprise ending that would illuminate the true meaning of the holidays and the importance of family.
Sadly, however, the imagery that came instantaneously to mind were pictures of such dreadful dysfunction as to make the visions of Marquis de Sade seem quaint. My own memories of childhood were not perpetually wracked with holiday horrors as such. I grew up quite an upper middle class existence and always enjoyed the comfort of turkey at Thanksgiving and a well-trimmed tree during Christmas. My only perpetual fear was receiving some gift that was so awful that I would be unable to disguise my disappointment, thus hurting the gift giver's heart. I would agonize about this over a period of time before and, if I succumbed to my inability to act the part of receptive recipient, for years afterwards.
To this day, I feel absolutely horrible over a pair of ghastly red suede gym shoes my mother had purchased, quite apparently under the influence of psychotropic drugs or perhaps in the grips of demonic possession. I wasn't sure if she truly wanted me beaten senseless every day that I went to school with these absolutely unholy shoes strapped to my feet, so I hid them. She finally found them crammed into the small access to the tub's plumbing works. The pang's of guilt were just as fresh ten years after being blinded by the opening of this unnatural gift.
All these trivial traumas pale to sheer non-existence when viewed from the time I prematurely left home at seventeen to be with my girlfriend over a thousand miles away in South Dakota. The back-story of how that came about is a long, arduous tale and one that may possibly be told at a later time. Suffice to say that I did not possess nearly as much control over certain situations as my penis did, hence my girlfriend's untimely pregnancy and subsequent life altering trip to South Dakota, where the illegitimacy of the birth would not embarrass her parents.
My first Thanksgiving on my own in the wilds of Rapid City were spent in a seedy apartment with an alcoholic couple and their to spawns of Satan. To celebrate the holiday, I drew a large picture of Bill the Cat and Opus for the little monsters. I had hoped that some adult kindness may persuade them from their favorite pastime of beating the snot out of each other while their parents lay comatose on the plain, stained mattress on the floor. Their amusement lasted mere moments before they tore the pictures to shreds and commenced to chase each other with kitchen implements.
My Christmas fared no better. My daughter was born on December twenty-first (which was the happiest day of my life) and then I found out she had been placed for adoption the very next day (the saddest day of my life). I was stunned, angry, confused, hurt…the whole spectrum of emotions rushed through me in no particular order. I had just moved out of the alcoholic's apartment into my own across town, but my state of mind was such that I hadn't completed the moving process. On Christmas Eve Day, I went over and retrieved the rest of my belongings, which did not amount to much. There was a variety of mismatched cookware and cutlery as well as clothes, a crappy stereo and a small collection of albums. The female portion of the drunken duo was the only one home at the time and made pleasantries as I loaded my meager possessions into a friend's car. Approximately eight hours later, I was arrested for breaking and entering and spent Christmas day and the next day in jail.
Apparently, the male half of the drunken duo arrived home…drunk. He was incensed that I would have the gall to come under the cover of darkness and take my own property. His gray matter swam back and forth in his whiskey soaked cranium, trying to conjure up a method to get my stuff back to them, where it rightly belonged. Genius must have struck slowly and with a lot of clatter. After conferring with his other half, they concluded that if they called the police and said the stuff was stolen, the police would have to believe such upstanding citizens such as themselves and return the plundered possessions posthaste. Brilliance! It goes without saying that their story did not even make a modicum of sense and they had so many holes in their story that no one can believe that the cops actually gave it any credence, let alone actually arrest me for it. As a side note, I actually was convicted on the charges and spent a year on probation and had to pay a lawyer to get it expunged from my record…three times! The (hopefully) last time was twenty-six years after the incident.
Fast forward through the years to the time when I meant my significant other's mother for the first time. It was a few days before Christmas and Denise and I were at the apartment cooking dinner together. A call interrupted our Epicurean evening. Denise answered and all I could here was a woman's voice screaming obscenities, cutting off anything Denise was attempting to say. She hung up the phone and said that her mom and her live in boyfriend were in a huge fight. Her mom's house was about two blocks up from our apartment, so we walked over in the frigid air. The sounds on the ongoing bout reached us at about half a block away. When we reached the sidewalk in front of her mom's house, a cascade of glass that seemingly exploded out of the front window greeted us. This was followed quickly by a barrage of hastily wrapped presents that streamed at high velocity through the broken panes. A fully decorated Christmas tree logically followed and became wedged in the frame, plugging up the jagged, gaping maw.
The following years have not gotten any better and I have become convinced that Denise's family members draw numbers out of a hat to see which one is scheduled to ruin each holiday. Even with Denise, one is never really sure what word or phrase might be the magic muttering that causes her Bi-Polar Express to come careening off the tracks. Sometimes, I just sit at the table, surrounded by the turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and watch, as if from a comfortable theater seat, as the expletive laden cage matches take place. Sometimes, prior to a gathering, my boys and I set up a pool to try and guess which family member will be the first to surrender to a violent, mental meltdown.
As I reflect on the past debacles, I wonder if this is how it has always been, just under the surface. People seem to relish the movie made mayhem of holiday dysfunction which makes me believe that, while a majority of families don't throw themselves so eagerly into the abyss, most people feel that there is a electrical undercurrent of insanity held just at arm's length at most family gatherings. The funniest stories of reunions and dinners seem to swirl around the time went grandma went into a graphic dissertation on how grandpa likes to "mount her in the living room during football games" or when cousin Gary comes out of the closet during his turn at saying grace. Perhaps the landscape of television and the "tell all" nature of our media has made it acceptable for families to wallow in the densely populated waters of Lake Springer. Perhaps the Cleaver's of yesterday's standards are actually the circus freaks of today, with their "please pass the peas" poise and grace. Yet, I have to admit, it does send a slight chill down my spine that I may be right.