A CHRISTMAS STORY

(Doc wanders onstage, glances briefly at the audience, walks over to the stool and table. Sits on the stool, takes the pitcher of water and pours himself a glass, and takes a sip, smiles, nods, and addresses the audience.) Ah'moan tell the Christmas story, now. Those of you who've heard it, you are excused; feel free to hit the restroom or the refreshment stand, or step outside for a smoke. We begin by saying that my old man... was the cheapest guy on the planet.

He's retired now, and while he insists he is as poor as a church mouse, I'm sure he has a few yachts stashed away in the garage, a few pounds of gold bullion buried in the begonias, perhaps an offshore bank account or three, because my old man was the cheapest guy on the planet.

At Target? He bought Archer Farms. At Costco? He'd buy Kirkland. At the grocery? Store brand all the way. I learned early that if I wanted Santa to bring me a thing, I'd better pick a thing that didn't have cheap knockoffs of it that were "just as good."

This was the guy who started turning off the water heater, because he could lower the gas bill by eight bucks a month if we didn't leave the pilot light on, which meant that someone who wasn't him had to get up in the morning and light the pilot light every weekday so everyone could shower before we all went to school and work.

AND THEN HE'D get up, yawn, stretch, and go take a shower. Because there was plenty of hot water THEN.

It was the only time I have ever witnessed a family mutiny. Mom led it, but overruled me when I wanted to string him up by the yardarm. But that's another story. The only thing you really need to know is that my old man hated to part with money. He was the cheapest guy on the planet. Still remember him trying to argue over the phone with the lady at the electric company, but I digress.

Anyway, there is a tradition in deep south Texas, and that is tamales. White folks talk about turkey and ham, but the Mexicans will tell you where it is at, and that is tamales. Christmas tradition. You got to have the tamales.

I grew up eating tamales at Christmas. And that's okay. Tamales are awesome. I always thought so. I like tamales just fine, and I like to have tamales at Christmas. And this brings us to the Tamale Lady. There was this little old lady, the abuelita (grandmother) who lived down the street. Every December, about a week into the month, she would go out and buy the masa and el puerco and whatever else, and she would drag several tons of it into the kitchen and make about twelve thousand tamales, each wrapped in its own individual corn shuck.

To this day, fortysomeodd years later, those tamales remain the best tamales I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a tamale or three in my time.

I know this, because Abuelita would sell the tamales to buy Christmas presents for her grandbabies. She'd drag out this ancient Radio Flyer little red wagon, and she would construct a charcoal stove in it, out of bricks, see? And she would wrap up those tamales in foil, a dozen to a pack, and she would cuddle them all up in the brick oven in that little red wagon, and she would throw on a serape and a head wrap and she would tramp all over the neighborhood, pulling that little red wagon, selling the tamales door to door.

I first saw the Tamale Abuelita when I was, I think, twelve, perhaps thirteen. There was a knock on the door, and I answered, and there was this little, bent over gramma lady, all of perhaps four feet tall, smiling at me with, I think, perhaps five teeth, asking, “Buenos dias, senor, por favor, compras me tamales?”

Now, I knew this would not end well. My old man (did I mention he was the cheapest guy on the planet?) did not OBJECT to door to door sales people, but he did not BUY from them. He’d sit there and lecture them on their approach, their product, their deportment, their pitch, and then shake their hand and leave them standing on the porch.

But I didn’t want to be the one to tell this sweet little old lady to take a hike, so I said, “Un momento, por favor,” and went and got Dad, so HE could be the one to give her a ten minute lecture and then not buy her tamales. Plus, his Spanish was better than mine.

So he went to get the door, and I returned to whatever teenage pursuits I was doing elsewhere in the house.

Next thing I know, Dad’s at my bedroom door. “I’m gonna buy her tamales. You have any cash?”

Now, I don’t know which bumfuzzled me worse: the idea that he was going to buy something from someone at the front door, or the idea that he wanted my money. I had learned the hard way that you did not give my father money. He might pay you back later. He might pay you back MUCH later. Or he might simply invoke the fact that he had raised you from a sprog and baby food ain’t free, and consider it a partial repayment of the expense of your upbringing; it really depended on his mood and how close to the end of the month it was.

I was so surprised, I gave him a fiver. He grinned, and thanked me, and then went to go hit up Mom, because he wanted to buy every tamale the woman HAD, several dozen of the things.

I don’t remember how much they cost. I do remember they were very reasonably priced, even for the late seventies. I DO remember they were considerably more than a quarter for three dozen, though, because that’s the only price that would have much moved my father to buy her entire stock. Or so I thought. But he scrounged up enough cash to buy her entire stock, and we ate tamales for a couple of days. Hey, no complaints; he even gave me my fiver back a day later.

So, the following year, it did not surprise me much that the little abuelita came back, and asked if we would like to buy any tamales. My old man had cash on him, and bought her out again. And this time, I saw her dimple and thank him profusely, and amble off with her little red wagon, trailing smoke from the charcoal oven made of bricks.

The third year, she hit our house FIRST. My old man, true to form, bought her out. By then, I had a car, and I spotted her later in the day, trailing smoke from her little red wagon. She’d gone home and loaded up more tamales. I like to think those grandbabies were getting the GOOD stuff by then.

She continued to show up, usually the second weekend in December, and I saw her even after I left home; I’d come home from college, and she’d turn up and smile at me, and I’d go fetch my old man, and then swear up and down I didn’t have a cent on me, and he’d go hit up Mom, who’d give me a dirty looke because she knew damn good and well I had cash, but she also understood why I didn’t necessarily want Dad to know that.

So we always had tamales around Christmas. I can still get them, living in Colorado, but it takes a bit more planning. I miss the Tamale Abuelita; I expect she’s long gone, being as she appeared to be about a thousand years old back in 1980, but she lives still in my heart and my memory… not only as a maker of some really fine fresh tamales… but as one of the few things, even in the Christmas season, that could get my old man to part with a sawbuck…