Free A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd

salami is as sweet as life itself.
    The first fireflies were beginning to flicker in the cotton-woods. Northern Indiana slowly was at long last emerging from the iron grip of the Midwestern Winter. A softness in the air; a quickening of the pulse. Expectations long lying dormant in the blackened rock ice of Winter sent out tentative tender green shoots and yawned toward the smoky sun. Somewhere off in the distance, ball met bat; robin called to robin, and a screen door slammed.
    In the living room my mother is talking to the aphids in her fern plant. She fought aphids all of her life. The water roared. I started on a second sandwich. And then:
    CAAA-RAASHH !
    “… oh!” A phony, stifled gasp in the living room.
    A split second of silence while the fuse sputtered and ignited, and it began.
    The Old Man
knew
. He had been fearing it since the very first day. The bathroom door slammed open. He rushed out, dripping, carrying a bar of Lifebuoy, eyes rolling wildly.
    “What broke!? What happened?! WHAT BROKE!!? ”
    “… the lamp.” A soft, phony voice, feigning heartbreak.
    For an instant the air vibrated with tension. A vast magnetic charge, a static blast of human electricity, made the air sing. My kid brother stopped in mid-whimper. I took the last bite, the last bite of salami, knowing that this would be my last happy bite of salami forever.
    The Old Man rushed through the dining room. He fell heavily over a footstool, sending a shower of spray and profanity toward the ceiling.
    “Where is it? WHERE IS IT!? ”
    There it was, the shattered kneecap under the coffee table, the cracked, well-turned ankle under the radio; the calf—that voluptuous poem of feminine pulchritude—split open like a rotten watermelon, its entrails of insulated wire hanging out limply over the rug. That lovely lingerie shade, stove in, had rolled under the library table.
    “Where’s my glue? My glue! OH, MY LAMP! ”
    My mother stood silently for a moment and then said:
    “I … don’t know what happened. I was just dusting and … ah.…”
    The Old Man leaped up from the floor, his towel gone, in stark nakedness. He bellowed:
    “ YOU ALWAYS WERE JEALOUS OF THAT LAMP !”
    “Jealous?
Of a plastic leg?”
    Her scorn ripped out like a hot knife slicing through soft oleomargarine. He faced her.
    “You were jealous ’cause I WON! ”
    “That’s ridiculous. Jealous! Jealous of what? That was the ugliest lamp I ever saw!”
    Now it was out, irretrievably. The Old Man turned and walked to the window. He looked out silently at the soft gathering gloom of Spring. Suddenly he turned and in a flat, iron voice:
    “Get the glue.”
    “We’re
out
of glue,” my mother said.
    My father always was a superb user of profanity, but now he came out with just one word, a real Father word, bitter and hard.
    “ DAMMIT!”
    Without another word he stalked into the bedroom; slammed the door, emerged wearing a sweatshirt, pants and shoes, and his straw hat, and out he went. The door of the Oldsmobile slammed shut out in the driveway.
    “K-runch. Crash!”—a tinkle of glass. He had broken the window of the one thing he loved, the car that every day he polished and honed. He slammed it in Reverse.
    RRRRAAAWWWWWRRRRR!
    We heard the fender drag along the side of the garage. He never paused.
    RRRRAAAWWWWWRRROOOOMMMM!
    And he’s gone. We are alone. Quietly my mother started picking up the pieces, something she did all her life. I am hiding under the porch swing. My kid brother is now down in the coal bin.
    It seemed seconds later:
    BBBRRRRRAAAAAWWWRRRRR … eeeeeeeeeh!
    Up the driveway he charged in a shower of cinders andburning rubber. You could always tell the mood of the Old Man by the way he came up that driveway. Tonight there was no question.
    A heavy thunder of feet roared up the back steps, the kitchen door slammed. He’s carrying three cans of glue. Iron glue. The kind that garage mechanics used for gaskets and for gluing back together exploded