Untitled Christmas Story
Gabriel Duncan

Mom, are we going to have presents this year?

Mom was biting her lip.   I could see she was feeling the pressure.   Living in a shack out on the reservation left her with little opportunities for work or assistance.   She fought again with her boyfriend last night.   My two brothers are moving on.   Charles and Ronald, eleven and nine.   They don't believe in Santa Clause anymore.

We know Santa's not real.   That's what they told Mom.   You're Mrs. Clause and daddy's Mr. Clause.   Their daddy, her boyfriend to me, ran off after their last fight.   Mom spent two nights in the County jail.   Her boyfriend said she tried to shoot him; and run him over.   Anyway, they didn't press charges on her.

So we stood in the kitchen, the Christmas Tree that I helped steal from a local grocery store was leaning against a wall.   It was the last to come out of the back of my truck.   Heavy, motherfucker, too, took me a few minutes to bring it up to the front door.   Three other households have a brand new Christmas Tree.   My Aunt decided to give hers to the tribe.   She told me the Chairman's wife was ecstatic when she dropped it off.

Christmas on the rez is a very bitter-sweet thing.   With no presents, barely any wood, food, no money for the phone or electricity . . . Bitter-sweet is the only thing you can call it.   Mom filled out a form to get presents, and she's hoping that the presents come soon.   Part of me wonders if they'll appear on Christmas Day, like a miracle.   Mom says last year, all they got was a t-shirt, and it didn't fit any of the kids.

A storm is coming, we can feel it.   Last night, it was negative ten degrees.   Thankfully, out in the desert, the cold is dry.   But the kids are still getting colds, and I'm coming down with a cough.   Mom's getting old, and her body is creaking and aching.   I finally talked her into getting some needles and insulin.   She's doing better now.

My grandmother's still cranky.   My older sister is living with her now.   And her two kids, Samantha and Eric.   We all watch as Christmas approaches.   The Friday before Christmas, the Tribe has a Christmas dinner.   Our chairman is a Mormon and everyone else is a Christian.   I wonder if their genocidal God can hear it when they pray for food and presents every night as they go to sleep.

Meanwhile, my brothers are stealing from my Aunt's kids.   And my Uncle's kids are stealing from my brother's.   The Sheriff comes to the rez everyday to discuss someone's kids.   My mom is sleeping all day and I'm tired of trying to straighten my brother's out.   They won't listen to anyone, so they start getting into my shit, too.   We grow leaner because my car went out and no one else is willing to drive us to get commodities.   All around us are broken promises and broken cars and broken windows and fighting dogs.

Ronald and Charles are making lists of things we could never afford to have.   Like a CD, a jacket, new clothes.   This happens every year.   There's no hope here.   Only living, life going.   My mom prays for mammon or a job from Mammoth.   We just keep sliding down.   She asks our Chairman for help, but there's nothing he can do.   He's too involved with the day-to-day operations of The Corporation to write a grant or even call a friend.

At school, they give out bags of toys and candy.   Charles and Ronald had a cough that kept them from going to school.   So codeine keeps us warm as we burn the last bit of our mahogany.   As Christmas looms, we grow leery.   The tree is up, and we were able to find about five bulbs and a foot of tinsel garland.   My brothers have noticed that we have no new boxes, or any sign of presents.   I know I'll like my present.   Charles tells us, whatever it is.   The form-presents that Mom signed up for never arrived.   We hunker down on Christmas Eve and try to sleep.

That night, I dream of a place where we don't have to cut down wood in the snow to keep warm.   Where the refrigerator works and is always full.   I dream of everything I've ever wanted, a computer, more friends, a Christmas Tree that's a hundred feet tall.   And, underneath, I dream of all of the presents my brothers have wished for.   I dream of medicine and food.   Most of all, I dream of having a father who stays.

Then I woke up.   I could hear the sound of hail hitting the roof, like a drum on a roll, waiting for the trick, the dive, the miracle.   Outside it looks black.   In her room, across the house, I can hear my mom crying.   Somewhere in the driveway, I hear a car's wheels spinning as someone leaves.   I'm scared to ask her what's wrong.   But I feel the same way, too, when I look at our sorry Christmas Tree.

Mom is on the bed, face in a pillow.   I don't know what I'm going to do!   She cried to me.   We don't have any presents!   What are we going to do?   We don't have any money!   We have no wood, no food, no car!   Our chairman told her to get a job yesterday, when she asked for help, money, presents, hand-me-downs, something, ANYTHING!

We sat in her bedroom, together, just staring at the walls, at the ceiling, at the house, at our lives.   This day wasn't just Christmas.   It was a glimpse into the rest of our lives.   When the boys woke up, the terrible, crushing sorrow we had shared with each other came back fresh and new, disappointed that there weren't any presents under the tree.