Ba rba r a Ha m b y

Twelve Jesus Night-Lights

Ian is eight and he and I are ordering our Christmas presents out of a catalog that specializes in products like whoopee cushions, X-ray glasses, and plastic boutonnieres that squirt water, so he is scrutinizing every page, and like the well-meaning but ineffectual stepmother that I am, I say, What about the Groucho glasses? but he doesnt know who Groucho is, and even if he did, his friends wouldnt know, but theyll love the fake dog turds, so he orders three of them, a severed hand, itch powder, and six whoopee cushions, which in my limited role in the land of children I have given to delighted boys ages six to ten, like Erins son Jude who said he loved his so much he hugged it and made himself fart, and Ian is eyeing the plastic rats, which embody an evil so profound that I shiver as if Satan himself had appeared from the depths of the earth and skittered across the night street, and once again I curse my parents for instilling in me this implacable obsession with good and evil, but Ive ordered twelve Jesus night-lights for my apostate friends this Christmas, and since they dont come with light bulbs, Ive decided to buy red ones, which are easy to come by since tis the season, deck the halls, fa-la-la-la-la, and Ian asks about the dribble glass, which has tiny holes in a decorative border at the top, and I say, Why not? though years later when David and I are in London for the semester, Morris the biologist who rents our house calls in the middle of the night to complain about the glass, which Ian hid long ago among the regular glasses, and Morris says, I thought I was having a stroke,
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which when I tell Ian, he doesnt laugh because he is grown-up and serious now and not that eight-year-old boy who put the dribble glass with the others, and God knows its hard to keep that boy alive inside you, especially when you start counting misdemeanors committed against you not to mention the felonies, and by the time you realize how difficult it is to be a human being, emphasis on the word human, the people you blame are dead or are so old and broken-down theres no point in it, because theres something bigger going on, and yeah yeah yeah Im back to that old fight to the death between good and evil, and I remember Cathy telling me Tibetan Buddhists believe that things are a mess here on earth because the gods are involved in an even bigger Armageddon in heaven right now, so you can see how Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot were able to set up their camps and gulags and killing fields, but since I dont believe in the gods, I have to concentrate on my own little battlefield inside, so I pray to my Jesus night-light: O little plastic Lord of the crimson four-watt bulb, give me some X-ray glasses so I can see through the three-ply cashmere and Egyptian cotton shirts to the real person, not so much naked as covered with skin; O give me a Magic 8 Ball, so I might have some direction, even if its only Not now or Take a hike, because life will place real turds on the sidewalk as you stroll along looking up at the cloudless turquoise sky, and your shoes will smell even when you wash them off with the garden hose, because somewhere in this world men and women are having their hands severed for stealing a loaf of bread so their children wont starve, and rats are scurrying in sewers, so let me raise the dribble glass to my lips, drink deep, and count the overflow as a blessing, because more than anything I want to be in on the joke, even if the jokes on me.

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