The Great Santini Part 33

"That huge one over there is mine," Matt said. "It's the biggest present under the tree."

"I know what it is," Mary Anne said.

"What is it, Mary Anne? Tell me what it is. I'm too excited to wait," Matt said.

"It's a chemistry set," Mary Anne said.

"Why'd you tell me that," Matt half-screamed. "Now it won't be a surprise. What a crummy thing to do."

"If you don't want to know, don't ask," Mary Anne said.

"I can't wait till you see what I gave you, Matt," Karen said.

Then Mary Anne spoke, "You know what I love about Christmas? Really love? I hear people talking all the time about the spirit of giving. How it feels better to give than to receive. I don't believe that at all. I've a.n.a.lyzed myself very carefully and I've come to the conclusion that I love the spirit of getting. I'd much rather get things than give things. I hate to give things. I hate to spend money on someone else when I could be spending it on myself. I hate to see other people ripping open presents that are not for me. Being truly honest, I wish every present under that tree were marked, 'To Mary Anne, with love.' Christmas is a time for getting things. I like things. All kinds of things. Nice things. Heavy things. Fragile things. Some people like to collect stamps, coins, or antiques. Me? I just like to collect things. I like having things very much. More than I could ever explain. I heard ol' Sister Loretta saying after catechism cla.s.s that she's afraid that Christ is being taken out of Christmas. That makes me happy. I'd like to see the Christ removed altogether. Then I could get more things."

"That's the most selfish thing I've ever heard," Matt said.

"Oh it is, Matt-midget?" Mary Anne hissed. "Well why don't we just go through every present under the tree with your name on it and give it to someone else. Then you'll be giving and we all know that's the true spirit of Christmas. Anybody that says they enjoy giving more than getting is a tacky hypocrite."

"You're a big a.s.shole sometimes, Mary Anne."

"Little brother is learning how to cuss," Mary Anne said.

"All right, let's cut the c.r.a.p," Ben said with an inconsequential wave of the hand. "It's getting time to wake up Mom and Dad."

"Let's do it now," Karen squealed.

"I demand an apology," Mary Anne said.

"For what?" Ben asked.

"For Matt-creep calling me a big a.s.shole," she said, folding her arms like a Buddha and setting her jaw.

"Apologize, Matt," Ben said. "Tell her she's not a big a.s.shole. Tell her she's a little a.s.shole."

"Very funny," Mary Anne said, "but I demand an apology."

"Sweet Jesus, Mary Anne. As much as you tease Matt and make his life miserable, it's stupid to expect him to apologize to you."

"Yeah, especially because you're such a big a.s.shole," Matt said.

"I'm very sensitive. My feelings get hurt very easily. So you can tell the Lilliputian that I am not going to move until he apologizes."

"What's a Lilliputian, Ben?" Matt asked.

"It's a real cool guy, Matt. Why don't you just tell her you're sorry, Matt. Or she'll mope around for days."

"I'm sorry," Matt said without vigor.

"Your apology is certainly not accepted, creep. But it will do for now."

"I had my fingers crossed anyway," Matt retorted.

Then Mary Anne rose and ran for the stairs. "Last one up to Mom's room is part colored," she yelled.

From that moment on, they adhered to the unwritten law of Christmas past. Now, they moved in ritual.

They ran up the stairs, their bare feet drumming against the wood, their laughter announcing their arrival at their parents' door. Entering the room like resistance fighters, they vaulted the bed, pulled covers and blankets from their parents' dreaming bodies. Colonel Meecham cursed. Karen tugged at her father's arms, while Ben tried to pull his legs off the bed. Catching Ben off guard, Bull kicked him into the open closet where his uniforms hung. Matt leaped on his father's chest trying to drag him off the bed by attacking Bull close to the center. It only took a moment for Matt to fly off the bed onto the floor. Lillian had already gotten up and was putting on her robe and house shoes in preparation for the impending predawn ritual at the tree.

All four children concentrated their energies on their father. They came at him from every angle, wrestling for control of an arm or a leg, trying to get him to the floor. Each year they had to fight him to the floor before they would even consider going downstairs. Ben finally got on Bull's back at the same moment Mary Anne locked onto a piece of his ear. Mary Anne twisted the ear, Ben pushed off from the headboard, Karen grunted at the legs, and Matt had his head under his father's b.u.t.tocks shouting "Simba Barracuda." Slowly, and very heavily, Colonel Meecham fell to the bedroom floor, one limb at a time.

"Who dares attack the Great Santini?" he roared from the floor.

"The children of Santini," Mary Anne yelled.

"What do the children of Santini wish?"

"They wish to open their presents, O Great Santini," Karen said.

"Then I must ask a question," Colonel Meecham said, growing serious for a moment, then exploding with an exultant cry, "Who's the greatest of them all?"

"The Great Santini!" his children yelled in unison.

"Who is the king of them all?"

"The Great Santini!"

"Who is lord of all he sees?"

"The Great Santini!"

"Who is the greatest fighter pilot that ever lived?"

"The Great Santini!"

"Who sees all, hears all, and knows all?"

"The Great Santini!"

"Then Santini commands his children to a.s.semble by the tree," Colonel Meecham said with a flourish. "The Santini will dress, go to the tree, and give out presents at approximately 0535 hours. But Santini must have a cup of coffee before he begins."

At the bottom of the stairs, Lillian bestowed a long holiday kiss on each one of her children and wished them a Merry Christmas. Mary Anne rushed into the kitchen and poured two cups of hot coffee from a pot she had brewed three hours before. Matthew plunged into the middle of the pile around the tree and threw presents over himself until he almost disappeared from view.

"No, Matt," Lillian said. "Wait until your father hands you a present."

"I just want to feel 'em on top of me," Matt said from under the pile.

"Hurry up, Daddy," Karen pleaded from the bottom of the stairs.

"No one rushes Santini," a voice answered.

Finally, Colonel Meecham began his descent, every step a deliberate one, tortoise-slow, designed to augment the impatience of his giddily avaricious offspring. He was dressed in his fatigues which were cleaned and pressed. His bra.s.s glittered when it caught the reflection of the Christmas lights. He was wearing his flight jacket and his inspection shoes.

Mary Anne brought him his cup of coffee as he eased into his chair near the tree. Lillian was already drinking hers. Bull thanked his daughter with an exaggerated southern accent, then took a sip of coffee.

"Too hot," he said sadly. "I'll have to wait until it cools."

"We ain't playin' the three bears, Popsy," Mary Anne said.

Matthew ran to his father's side and began blowing into the cup. "I'll cool it off, Dad." He blew wildly and coffee spilled out of the cup.

"Get outta here, jocko," Colonel Meecham ordered. "Nature will cool it off in her own good time. Ya got it? With your snotty germs, you could be givin' me a cancer or somethin'. Do you read me loud and clear, mister?"

"Yes, sir."

For a good thirty seconds, Colonel Meecham sat reflecting in his chair staring at his steaming coffee with an ineffable sadness. Finally, he took a cautious sip. He smacked his lips together, shook his head in serene affirmation, purred, and took another sip. His children applauded. He sipped his coffee as delicately as a debutante, as slowly as an octogenarian. He savored it, moaned his approval of it, praised it with clucking poultry sounds, and cries of delight. "I have drunk coffee all over the world, in two wars, before and after battles, on liberty in exotic ports and I do have to declare that this here is the finest cup of coffee I have ever put to my lips. I'd rather drink a good cup of coffee than bomb Moscow."

"I gotta open me a present," Matt blurted out.

"Not until your father hands it to you," Mrs. Meecham said.

"I'll start soon, Matt," his father yawned, relis.h.i.+ng the drama, "right after I get me another cup of coffee."

"Boo!" his children yelled. "Boo, Santini!"

But Mary Anne grabbed his cup and sprinted for the kitchen at full speed. She returned in less than half a minute; Colonel Meecham tasted the coffee, then shook his head mournfully. "It's just too hot," he said.

Without hesitation, Mary Anne dropped an ice cube into his coffee. The other children applauded her foresight.

The second slowest cup of coffee ever consumed by man was finally empty as every eye in the Meecham living room remained fastened on the figure of Colonel Meecham. At last he set his cup down with a final, definitive click against the saucer. He picked a present at random from under the tree. He pretended to have difficulty reading the name. He squinted dramatically. He asked for a magnifying gla.s.s. Then he said, "To Karen, from Santa Claus."

His wife, sitting now under the tree, said, "I hope ya'll aren't disappointed. It's going to be a lean Christmas."

It had begun. The giving of gifts hand-delivered by Bull Meecham to his family on his finest day. In the year of our lord 1962. In the reign of Santini.

Chapter 25.

The day after Christmas Sammy Wertzberger picked Ben up in the early evening and sped quickly out of Ravenel toward the Charleston highway. Sammy was wearing a new Gant s.h.i.+rt, an alligator belt, Weejuns, a London Fog raincoat, cuffless pants, and Gold Cup socks. He had applied an overdose of English Leather and Ben rolled down the window to cut the power of the scent. Ben had never seen Sammy dress with such an obeisance to the totems of fas.h.i.+on.

"O.K., what's the big surprise Christmas present?" Ben asked when they had broken out of Ravenel County and in a hauntingly crepuscular light were shooting across a causeway where the locks and sluices of an old rice plantation were still visible.

"I don't want to tell you just yet, son. Oh, what the h.e.l.l!" Sammy said. "For my Christmas present to you, I'm going to let you play with my p.e.c.k.e.r anytime you want to from now until graduation."

"Thanks, Sammy. Can I start right now?"

"Naw, I don't want to take it out in the car. Some pa.s.sing motorist might call the highway department and claim he saw two men wrestling an anaconda."

"Where are we going?"

"Hold your thanks until I finish talking. I, Sammy Wertzberger, have set us up with a date in Charleston with two good-looking college girls."

"College girls!" Ben said breathlessly.

"That's right, son. G.o.ddam, one hundred percent, second semester freshman, college girls."

"Do you know them?"

"Naw. That's a long confusing story. My mother knows this woman in Charleston she roomed with at Winthrop who knows a lady who has a daughter who brought a friend home for Christmas vacation. They haven't been out on a date once since they've been in Charleston. That's where superstuds Sammy Wertzberger and Ben Meecham come into the picture."

"I've never dated a college girl before," Ben said.

"h.e.l.l, you've never even dated high school girls. But we don't have to let 'em know that. I figure tonight we act sophisticated. Real men of the world. You can't act like high school Harry and score big with college girls."

"I guess you're kind of an expert in the field, huh, Sammy?" Ben grinned.

"Laugh now, son. But after you've buried your head in the huge bosoms of your date tonight and she's begging for more, you just remember that it was suave Sammy that put you in the driver's seat."

"What are the girls' names?"

"My date's name is Alicia West. Your date's name is Becky Bonham. Now remember, Ben, these are college girls, son. College girls. Now I shouldn't have to tell you that college girls are not like high school girls. These are grown women. They've been around. They have incredible s.e.xual appet.i.tes just like you and me. And I mean huge appet.i.tes for the performance of the evil deed. You know what I mean."

"That's what I've heard about college girls," Ben said. "No preliminaries. They just like to get down to business fast. I've heard they actually get insulted if you don't try to make the big move on them."

"Well, some of them are pretty shy, Ben. Just like any other kind of woman. They need a firm, experienced masculine hand to guide them," Sammy said. "Others are just frigid and a man simply has to take the bull by the horns and almost be rough. That's why I developed my own personal technique. It's called the Bohemian Mountain Approach."

"What's that?"

"Well, I don't like to give away trade secrets but since you're my best friend I'll let you in on it. It can start off this way. Now this is just hypothetical, you realize."

"Of course," Ben answered.

"You treat the girl very kindly and softly during the whole drive-in movie. You're very considerate of her needs. You light her cigarettes, buy her c.o.ke and popcorn, and talk about how beautiful she looks in the moonlight. Very suave, very cool. Then, when you've lulled her into a false sense of security, and just when she trusts you and knows you respect her for what she really is and that you're not just dating her for her body, you point to a scene on the movie screen and when she looks up, the very moment she looks up, you ram your hand up her dress and stick your index finger up her t.w.a.t."

"That's very suave, very cool," Ben said, watching the moon light up the black waters of the Edisto River as they traveled toward Charleston going seventy-five. "By the way, Sammy," he said turning to his friend, "that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of."

"It's not ridiculous. It's the Bohemian Mountain Approach. Girls can't resist it."

"Have you done that, Sammy? Honestly. Have you ever done that in your life?" Ben asked.

"No."