The Watch

 I was never in love with xmas. I refuse to spell it religiously, and I refuse to capitalize it.

I grew up in the 80s, where we watched holiday movies on televisions that had static from bad reception, often in black and white, and rarely on a screen bigger than a college dorm room microwave. The stories they told, though… The love, the warmth... Well, inside anyway, it was always snowing in these movies, as if xmas only happened in the northern third of the united states (another set of words I reuse to capitalize). 

In a home filled with the Spanish language, often yelled; fights between four brothers; a constantly berating grandmother; a taciturn, frighteningly quiet father, and a mother that, when she had had it with you would kick you out of the house to “play outside” in the warm, SoCal sun in mid December, I saw nothing that reflected my existence in the least.

But I was fascinated.

Oh there was always some kind of conflict. But it was so cute compared to what I vaguely remember.

My xmases, like much of my youth is clouded in a fog of dimness. A light here and there, but mostly the darkness I feel in that moment before I turn on the lights. 

It’s familiar, I know what is there. Mostly.

But then, there’s another vague familiarity in the darkness. One I don’t want to see. A darkness I have become familiar, indeed comforted, by. A darkness my mind has done me the favor of shrouding from me.

I see a few xmases, with little of the joy I saw on our thirteen inch Zenith black and white hand me down television. Some with modest gifts for the boys (my brothers and I), one or two for the adults that worked so hard to get us what we so hoped to get. I see one where my parents somehow managed to get us a Nintendo, the holy fucking grail of 80s kids’ gifts. Oh sure, it was about a year after its launch, but we got it. My parents bought it twice, actually. The first time, my older brother Ernie was walking it to the car with it and was beaten up for it. A rather nefarious type my brother was, and perhaps in retrospect, I may think he might’ve sold it himself to someone in the parking lot. But I do remember his beaten up face as well. So I will not malign his memory. 

He and I had a complex and harsh relationship. 

A lot of darkness.

A few lights.

The aquamarine glow of a digital watch. That’s the light that shines through the dim. That’s the light that shines the brightest in my darkened memories.

It was likely my twelfth xmas. If so, it would have been 1984. And all I wanted was a cool electronic digital watch.

Most kids strive to be older than they are. 

Some so they can go out late at night. Some to be able to date. Some to be able to wear make up. Some to drink. Some for independence.

I just didn’t want to be a kid. I don’t think I liked childhood very much. It was, frankly, too hard. Having to be cool, and yet, try not to look like you’re trying to be cool. Making friends. Being betrayed by the pettiness and cursory nature of childhood friendships. The danger of perhaps getting into fights or beaten up.

As an adult, pushing fifty now, with no actual friendships, and the threat of beat downs waning every day, I think I am finally who that twelve year old under the tree in 1984, on xmas eve wanted to be.

The lights on the tree. Flickering. Green. Blue. Red. Purple. One section on, the other off, one section on, the other off. The room glowed a pinkish outlined blue. Always blinking.

Beneath it, a young man, hating childhood, lays. It’s late at night, after midnight, so officially xmas. Mom let him open the present she got him, but only after midnight, she said, still a stickler for tradition. She had already gone to bed, tired from a grueling week of cleaning the houses of families that lived the holiday joy of the people in that grainy black and white box. 

This living room is where he sleeps in their much too small for seven people, two bedroom apartment. 

Tonight, he didn’t mind. The lights welcomed him, warmed him. Made him feel less alone in that crowded house.

The box was small, but he was pretty sure what was in it. Quietly, he unwraps it, trying hard not to wake anyone else up. This is his time, and he selfishly wants to keep it that way.

A black box, probably. It didn’t last long enough to be studied. He wanted what was in the box, beneath the wrappings, beneath the box. Under the quietly creaking top of the jewelry box, there it was. And it was on! It was already working! Anxiously, he takes it out of its tiny prison. What once belonged to Casio, now belonged to him. A little pamphlet containing instructions underneath. Time to study.

You can set the date? And the dates will change everyday? How do you do that?

It’s difficult to read and see the black numbers and symbols on the small greenish-grey face of the liquid crystal display. What even is that, he thinks to himself? It sounds so futuristic. How can a crystal be liquid?

A faint beep emanates from the watch as he presses the buttons on the outside on the watch body. Wow. What a beautiful sound. He holds it to hi ear, just to hear it loudly, more clearly.

It also has a stopwatch! He can time himself as makes laps around the neighborhood on his K Mart bicycle! He was always curious how fast he could go…

There is a light?! For when you have to tell what time it is in the darkness? Which button is it?

Oh my…

It’s beautiful… 

A beautiful aquamarine glow. It seemed to brighten up the entire room, his entire world. 

His eyes widen and reflect the light. He holds back a joyous laugh with a mouth, agape.

I can see the image begin to fade back into the familiar dimness. I see him... Me... The best digital watch my mother could afford, an inch from face, lighting it up in a futuristic aquamarine. The ambience of the pinkish outlined blue light of the room.

It all grows dim again.

But I can still hear the beeps.

And I can still see the light.