Whoooooooooosht, a pause of 5 or 6 seconds, then whoooooooooosht, then the pause again, that was the pattern, over and over. It was a comforting sound, in a way. The sound was all around him and it was the only sound he heard. It seemed to be going on all the time, but he was only aware of it occasionally. Whatever it was, it was apparently supposed to be there and that was fine.
Whenever Denny heard the rhythmic whooshing sound, it was dark all around him and close, like standing in a full clothes closet when you're a kid. He didn't hear it outside, with his ears, it was more inside, but he couldn't say exactly where. Dennis liked it here, but he wasn't sure where here was.
Now it was getting farther away. This was good. There wasn't much up there in the dark for him. He'd liked it better down below where more things happened. Let's see what's on.
Ahhh! It's Christmas and he's sitting in the corner of the front room of his parents' old house. The place is full of people, family from all around the area. Soon they'll open presents, he loves presents, but right now they're waiting for Mom and his older sister, Dottie and some of his aunts to finish putting away the food and clean up the dinner dishes.
It's a dream, of course, because he's a kid, maybe 9, maybe 10. That's OK, it's great to see his family again, even like this. His folks are both alive and healthy. He looks at his father, cigarette in hand, smiling with those false teeth at his Uncle Les, who’s telling a car story. Dennis closes his eyes and smiles, he can do that now but back then, he only wanted to get to the presents.
Dennis could see the scene in the kitchen in his mind. Both his grandmothers are sitting at the kitchen table along with more aunts and cousin or two. Barely room to move. Eight chairs around the big table which is covered the good tablecloth, the one with the embroidery. There are placemats with ashtrays and small glasses of Mogen David wine in front of most of the women.
His mom, Eileen, is washing and then passing the dishes to Dottie to rinse, who passes them on to someone else to dry and stack. Others are wrapping leftovers in aluminum foil and Saran Wrap. It’s like a machine, no one asks where things go, no need, same place as always. People at the table continuously offering to help, and being told to sit, relax, act like company.
The kitchen is at least 20 degrees warmer than any other room in the house. He can't tell exactly what they're talking about but they're all speaking very loudly to make their voices heard above the din. He used to hate that about his family, now he saw it with only love and longing in his heart. How could he tell what was happening in the kitchen while sitting in the big living room? Because that's the way it always was, after dinner, when the family gathered.
In the front room and den, the men and boys sit and talk or look at magazines or newspapers. The conversations are separate and quieter, except for his father who always speaks as if addressing an auditorium. There are little kids, his cousins, nephews, and nieces, playing on the floor, running through the room and up and down the stairs. The room is filled with the smoke from cigarettes and pipes. The TV is on but no one is watching it.
He looks slowly around the room, everyone is so young, so happy, so alive. He struggles to keep from jumping from this scene to the ones where there's crying, and standing next to caskets looking down at bad representations of the people he'd loved so poorly. He'd much rather spend a few more moments here, now.
At the time, he’d been wrapped up in himself to accept and enjoy the happiness he'd had, always wanting to fast forward to something better. What did he think could have possibly been better?
It made him think, he should enjoy more about the life he had now. He tried to bring to mind, his life now, and found himself out of the Christmas scene and surfacing into the closet dark again and the distant whoooooooosht. What a shame, and then, what was a shame?
He was back floating in the comforting hum and rhythm of the sound. He liked it here. But what was it? He wanted to stay here but soon he began to descend, away from the hum and whooooooooosht. This was good.
It would be interesting to see what was on.
Oh, Christmas time! He loved Christmas. It was his favorite time of year and he was sitting in his folk's old front room. He loved the presents...
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