Free Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay

lamp up somewhere else, if you want.”
    Balloons fill the TV screen; the crowd cheers. It is time for thehalftime show. Amy and Herbert race back up from the basement, and Ellen hears the sound of metal being dragged across concrete, then the thump -rest- thump -rest as James jerks the tree up the stairs.
    â€œ Got -dammit!”
    â€œHow’s it look?” she asks the kids.
    Herbert says, “Big.”
    Amy says, “Green.”
    â€œWhere the hell am I going to set my paper?” Fritz says, just as James and the tree burst out of the stairwell in an explosion of painted bark and plastic needles. The tree is a vivid, neon green, strangled in wide ropes of gold and silver tinsel. Red glass balls glisten like wounds. The angel at the top is missing a wing, and one of her eyes is askew.
    â€œIt’s already decorated,” Ellen says.
    â€œLess work this way,” James pants. “You just bring it up, no hassles.”
    â€œOh,” she says, and he jams it between Fritz and Mary-Margaret’s chairs, in the space where the end table used to be. It is so tall that the angel is pushed flat against the ceiling. The smell of the basement fills the room: moist concrete, mildew.
    â€œSome of the ornaments are broken,” Amy says.
    â€œLook, there’s a spider,” Herbert says. “Yuk.”
    â€œThere’s another one,” Amy says.
    â€œNo problem,” James says. “We’ll just pick off the broken ornaments, and as for the spiders…”
    He disappears into the bathroom and comes back with the Lysol. PINE SCENTED , it says in bold letters across the side. “That’s expensive,” Mary-Margaret says, but James opens fire on the tree. Spiders drop from the branches and scuttle across the moss-colored carpet. Amy and Herbert stomp most of them.
    â€œThere,” James says. His eyes water through the Lysol, and the angel’s skewed eye seems to be watering, too.
    â€œI don’t like this Christmas tree,” Herbert says.
    â€œCome on, now,” James says, sounding playful, but showing too many teeth. “Isn’t this the best Christmas tree we’ve ever had?”
    It is the ugliest Christmas tree Ellen has ever seen. The tree forms a perfect triangle, and the metal trunk is painted a smooth, artificial brown, the color of tree trunks in children’s books. Real trees are lopsided, too fat in the middle, skinny on top. Real trees have bald spots, ragged trunks, rough edges.
    â€œHow am I going to read my goddamn paper without the lamp, that’s what I want to know,” Fritz says.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, I’ll set up your lamp on the other side,” Ellen says.
    â€œYou forgot the cotton,” Mary-Margaret says.
    â€œThe mice got into it,” James says. “Pa, I’ll set some traps down there if you want.”
    â€œThere’s no mice in that basement,” Fritz says. “There’s no goddamn mice any place in this house.”
    â€œWhat’s the cotton for?” Ellen asks.
    James gives her a funny look. “Snow,” he says. “You know, you put the cotton under the tree so it looks like snow, and then you set the presents on it. Pa, it’s crawling with mice down there. Why don’t you let me set some traps?”
    Fritz stands up, hoists his pants; James’s face goes gray.
    â€œC’mon, Pa,” James says softly. “I don’t mean nothing by it.”
    â€œWe don’t need to have snow,” Ellen says, trying to smooth things over.
    But Fritz is suddenly angry. “What,” he says, and he snaps off the TV, “it ain’t good enough for you, Jimmy? It ain’t good enough for you here?”
    â€œPa, I didn’t mean that.”
    â€œYou think you can do better you are welcome to leave right now and take the rest of ’em with you and all their goddamn commotion. Bringing up this nonsense,” he says, and