Vigilantes of Love (19 page)

He was already pulling his sketchpad from the closet and searching for his pencils before he decided upon the subject of this sketch. He peeked out into the hallway, making sure everyone had gone to bed. The house was still, dark. He tiptoed down the stairs and worked in the living room for over an hour, lit only by the multicolored glow of the Christmas tree lights. Then he went back upstairs, passed his room and slid softly across the floor of the back bedroom.

He found the barf-cute clown lamp on the dresser and flicked it on, tilting the shade to minimize its brightness. Then he climbed up on the wooden changing table, took a long look at his drooling, rosy-cheeked baby brother and began to draw, pencils shading black and grey in the quiet, dim light of Christmas morning.

Will was bleary-eyed as the family gathered around the tree in the morning.

But he was smiling. Sometime during the night his frustration and ennui over the holiday had lifted.

“Who’s going first?” Dad asked as he sank into the couch.

“I will,” Janice called and crawled under the bottom boughs of the tree, catching her candycane nightgown in the branches to expose her flowered underwear. “Ahhh!” she cried and backed out, shaking the tree and knocking off an ornament in her hurry.

“Here, Will.” She handed him a small box and pulled her nightgown back down around her legs. He yanked at a loose edge and tore the paper from the box. It said Carson Pirie Scott, but he knew it couldn’t be something from the mall. Anyway, it was too heavy for clothes. Will slid a fingernail across the edge of the lid to slit the tape, and flipped off the cover. The scent of fresh cut wood rose immediately from the open box, and he pulled out a smooth deep-grained wooden frame.

“Dad helped me make it,” Janice smiled at his own grin. “Remember when we were at the store yesterday? We stopped at Mr. Isner’s and used his special saw to make the edges. But I found the wood from a dead tree in the forest. I cut it and stripped off the bark and everything.”

“Thanks, Janice,” Will said, his chest warming suddenly. “I think I have just the thing to put in it.”

He reached behind the tree and pulled out another box. “Mom, Dad, this is for everyone. I had other presents under here for you guys, but it was just store stuff. I made this for the family last night.”

Mom and Dad looked at him quizzically a moment, and then pulled the paper off together, with Janice huddled up against their legs by the couch to see. Dad pulled the lid from the box and they all stared inside.

“Oh, Will,” Mom said, lifting the picture out. “It’s wonderful!”

“This is the best thing you’ve drawn,” dad declared.

“Why are my eyes closed?” Janice asked, unimpressed.

“Because you were sleeping at four o’clock this morning,” he answered.

“Look, Ertie,” Mom said, holding the picture for the matriarchal ghost. Ertie stared at the picture a moment and grinned.

“You figured if you put an old bag at the top she wouldn’t turn you into a tree come tomorrow, eh, boy?”

Will laughed and handed over his new frame. “Put it in here. I think it will fit.”

Janice helped, and in a minute, held up the result for all to admire. The family Christmas tree filled the majority of the frame, but beneath its branches lay baby Chris, wrapped in a blanket, hands clenched in tiny fists. Scattered throughout the tree were four ornaments, but they weren’t just globes. Etched upon their round surfaces were the tranquil, sleeping faces of Mom, Dad, Janice and Will. The angel atop the tree’s crown bore an unmistakable resemblance to a certain hazy aunt.

“Understand now?” Ertie asked quietly, so only he could hear.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Janice pulled down an old picture from the living room wall to hang the new one. Will stifled a yawn with his fist, and stared at the tree. A rainbow of colors glittered softly against the blue-green boughs, while snow flew past the window outside.

After some consideration, Will decided the Christmas tree lights were bright enough after all.

It’s a shame it had to be this way,” Barbara said, slipping a thin sliver of white meat from the platter to her mouth. Al was a sucker for stuffing, but she had to admit, she loved the meat.

“It’s dry and tasteless without gravy,” he often complained, which she once took as a slur on her competence as head cook of the Ardmore household. Later she’d realize it was an avoidance based on more than tastebuds. At heart, Al was really a tunnel-visioned moralist.

“But what were we to do?” she continued, setting the last dish for Christmas dinner on the table. “This is the best meat we can afford.”

Mrs. Holzman from next door had joined them, now that her Fred was six months under-the-sod and her kids emigrated to Quebec. They didn’t enforce the one-child procreation laws there. Typical of the egocentric French. To hell with the rest of the world, we want to breed. Barbara’s own daughter, Amy, was still at Gibson Virtual Tech, but that would be remedied in a moment.

The long, loaded platter fit perfectly on the table next to the ornate blue china gravy bowl. She was most proud of her setting this evening. The tablecloth was a finely woven pattern of silver threaded ivy. The china plates had waves of blue-stalked wheat on their edges. And the silverware gleamed invitingly, thanks to the warm yellow glow of the candelabra. They didn’t make utensils like that anymore; delicate filigrees of blooming flowers exploded up the shafts of each piece.

It was all hand-me-down treasures from Grandma. Barbara’s four siblings had gotten the house and cars and insurance money, but she was happy to keep her grandma’s kitchen things. They reminded her of the crowded family feasts when her parents were alive. They made dinner an extra sensual experience and Barbara saved them for special.

“Have you called Amy, yet?” Al asked, already pulling the heaping mountains of mashed potatoes towards him. The man couldn’t wait when food was at issue.

She shook her head and walked over to the stairs, punched the well-fingered white button there. “Dinner,” she called.

“Mom,” whined a disembodied shrill voice from the tiny speaker. “Why must you always bother me like this! I’m at college!” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “and I’m with
Doug
.”

“Amy, it’s Christmas. You have no classes today. Quit fooling around and come to dinner!”

“But mom…”

“No buts! This is a family day. Now let’s go. I want your feet. The real ones, not the virtuals. Under the table. Now.”

She punched the button a second time, breaking the connection, and returned to the table. She stood there a moment, taking it all in. Wondering what she might have missed. With Mrs. Holzman there, she wanted this Christmas dinner to be extra special. A feast of celebration to take the old woman’s mind off her missing kids and husband.

A whoosh of air from behind her, a blur of purple lips and plastic yellow headgear and Amy plopped into the seat across from her father. “Merry Christmas everyone,” she chirped, cocking her head up to smirk at her mother. “Did I miss the presents? I feel like I’ve been away at college for
sooo
long.”

“Spare the sarcasm, Amy,” Al growled. “You know a virtual diploma is just as good as one from an ivy-grower. Those places are too crowded and we can’t afford to send you away. You haven’t exactly slaved away to pay for it yourself. Now lose the connection.”

Frowning, Amy flipped up the lenses and pulled off the headpiece to reveal a crop of flouncing black hair and soft brown eyes. It wasn’t
exactly
how she portrayed herself in virt to Doug at Gibson, but she’d probably never meet him fleshwise, anyway. Hell, his piercing baby blues and shock blond hair probably had the help of some virt touchup of his own, she was sure.

“You know, I
could
get a job as a netbabe and make lots of money for real college,” she threatened.

Al’s baldspot colored at the thought of his daughter offering virtsex to strangers because he couldn’t afford to send her to an ivy-grower college. “No daughter of mine…”

Barbara broke in and shooshed them both. “Enough you two. It’s Christmas and time to give thanks for all we do have. Now join hands and let’s say grace. Al?”

He picked up her lead and began, his heavy voice weighting each word with import. That was one of the reasons Barbara had first dated him – when he spoke, well, it could just give you chills. How could kids today duplicate that on headgear? When anyone could be, well,
anyone
?

Al took Barbara’s hand on his left and Mrs. Holzman’s on his right. Amy slapped Mrs. Holzman five before clasping her thin, well-veined claws. The old woman couldn’t help but grin.

“Father, thank you today for this feast in your memory,” Al’s basso-rich voice began. “May we treasure each bite as if it were manna from your heaven. May we always be blessed as we are today with a warm hearth, a healthy body and our family all around us. May the love we seek be true and our ends ease our spirits gently back to you. And thank you Lord, in your wisdom, for sparing us our children.”

Barbara gave him a look sharper than the carving knife she held to divvy up the roast. Al had already filled his plate with potatoes, stuffing and beans.

“How is school going, dear?” asked Mrs. Holzman, ladeling milky brown gravy over her potatoes. Barbara cooked them with the skins on, letting them swim and soften in butter and chives before mashing them. Amy loved them that way. So much so that the current dollop of potatoes threatened to eclipse the rest of her plate.

“Save room for the rest of your dinner,” her mom laughed, and answered the older woman herself. “We’re so proud of her! Amy got a 3.6 average last semester. She aced Virtual Morality and even got an A in her Offline Sociology class.”

Mrs. Holzman nodded encouragingly.

Al muttered, “What do you expect when she was raised with a computer in the crib?”

“Dad still thinks that people should actually be in the same room with each other to have a conversation,” Amy laughed. “Can you imagine?”

“Well, that is the way things used to be,” the older woman sighed. She absently pushed the heavy plastic glasses up her nose and then dropped her gaze to the tablecloth, instantly undoing the adjustment. “There’s something to be said for real human contact. Can’t make babies without it.”

“Well, isn’t that
exactly
the problem?” Amy countered, warming to the discourse. “I mean, if your generation hadn’t
made
so many babies, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.”

Barbara pursed her lips and passed the platter to Al.

“That was only part of the problem, honey,” Barbara said. “Remember the rampant salmonella outbreaks of the teens. And then the double helix livestock virus after that. It’s not so much that there were too many of us, it’s more that the viruses got smarter and our food supply started drying up. Dying down, really.”

“We could’ve just become vegetarians,” Al grunted, passing the plate to Mrs. Holzman.

Barbara laughed derisively and reached out to pat her husband’s ample middle.

“Yeah, I can see you giving up meat for good.”

Mrs. Holzman cleared her throat faintly as she picked a thin bit of white meat and passed the platter on to Amy. The wrinkled jowls under her chin wobbled as she spoke. “If the laws had been the same when I was younger, I wouldn’t have been allowed to keep my Jenny. Not that it matters now. She and Rog won’t ever come back to this country. They’ve each gone and had three kids.”

Her pale blue eyes fogged up and she avoided the stare of her hostess. “The one-child laws didn’t keep me from having my kids then, but they’ve sure taken ’em both away now.”

Barbara dropped her silverware to the plate with a clink that made everyone at the table look up. That was the last straw. She had gone down to the supermarket, picked out a good plump 10 pounder (a pinch on the thigh and she knew this one would be tender) and slaved all day in the kitchen to make this a special dinner. She would not have her family pull the gloom down over their heads and spoil the meal.

She stood up, put a hand on her hip and raised a stern finger at all of them. “Now look. We can’t live on potatoes, rice and beans all our lives, and people are threatening to outnumber the ants on this earth. The one-child laws are fair and necessary.”

“And dreamed up by some freak in a computer somewhere,” Al mumbled. “Nobody could have come up with it if they’d been in the same room eye-to-eye with a mother.”

Barbara ignored him and turned her attention to the older woman, who sunk deeper into her chair. “I’m sorry Mrs. Holzman, but nobody needs more than one child and it’s a shame Jenny and Rog can’t see that. It’s dangerous for all of us on this earth, whether they live here – or in Quebec – to have more than one child. We have to cut our population and conserve our resources or we will all starve. This is the best way. It’s the most
humane
.”

Mrs. Holzman looked chastised. Al stared down at the half-cut strips of meat on his plate. Amy rolled her eyes.

“Now we are blessed today, on Christmas, with this bountiful feast. I’ll remind you that Mary only had one child. The least we can do is enjoy this dinner in her honor. Somebody put in nine months to bring it to us. We will
not
let it go to waste.”