Swindle
Squashed in his hand was a hollow chocolate Santa Claus. His fingers had melted through Saint Nick, sternum and spine pinched together, left leg missing at the knee. His broken edges were warped from body heat.
Gabriel was angry at what he’d found beneath the bright yellow foil. There was supposed to be a rabbit inside. There was a rabbit on the foil, so there ought to be a chocolate one inside the foil. Instead he’d found old Christmas chocolate. The delight of receiving such a handsome Easter gift was ruined. Mother rarely had the money to spend on gifts or candies. He knew that she, too, had been swindled; it was not her fault that all she could afford was cheap candy. He should not feel angry with her. Her work at the Ellis Seating and Textile factory drained her in ways that Gabriel did not understand but still noticed.
Sticking in the dead grass behind him were gobs of chocolate. Gabriel was marching because he did not know what to do with the feeling of disgust filling him from from his feet to the top of his throat. He felt like crying, but Mother would be upset with that reaction to a gift. Instead he marched across the crispy brown lawn to the street.
He had to decide what to do with the chocolate melted to his hand, but he could not make a decision. It seemed revolting, which contradicted his instincts; half of his rational mind demanded that he eat the chocolate. The chocolate, or someone selling chocolate, had deceived him — deceived him and his mother. The deceit was now glued to his hand. He dashed Santa Claus to the asphalt and considered the curled shard remaining in his palm. Gabriel ate the piece and could not remove any more of the chocolate by flicking his fingers, so he had to lick the offending hand clean. It was not sweet chocolate, nor bitter, but chalky and sticky. It made him want something to drink. He cleaned his hand mechanically with a hunched and angry look. If somebody walked by he would shout at them and kick the glob of chocolate, but the crabgrass neighbor houses were was silent.
Mother was in the kitchen when Gabriel came back inside. In the front room, on the table where he had left it was the tiny white basket lined with green tissue paper. Inside was the quarter that he’d found with the chocolate “rabbit.” The foil which he had rudely torn off had been neatly pressed flat beside the basket.
The rabbit’s ears were long and tall, but its nose eyes were wide apart, warped like a Mercator projection map. It no longer looked carefree, as it had when it was wrapped around the chocolate Santa. Now it looked oddly pitiful. Care had been taken to remove any creases from the foil and the torn parts had been pressed together. Mother had very nicely flattened it for him and he’d gone and smashed the chocolate in his hand and thrown it in the street. He’d hardly tasted the parts he’d eaten.
Gabriel drifted to the kitchen and clutched the door frame with his clean hand — the other, slimy with chocolate and spittle, he held out of sight. Mother’s back was turned. She was washing things in the sink which knocked and clinked quietly in the water. The guilt that he felt looking at her made him want to pin the foil rabbit to the wall by his bed. He wanted her to believe that he cherished the gift. But he hadn’t.
Gabriel went back to the basket and thrust the quarter into his pocket. The foil he balled up in his hand, and then he took out the tissue paper and crushed the two together. He took the ball of foil and paper in his hand to the bedroom. He lay down on his bed, which was smaller than Mother’s large white and ornate bed. The painting hanging above her bed was crooked and yellowed from cigarettes from long ago. It was a picture of a storm with a boat rolling in dark ocean water. The wire supporting the frame had frayed and its silver hairs stuck out.
Lying on his stomach, Gabriel reached over the edge of the bed and pressed the ball flat against the floor. He rolled it back and forth, giving it square sides and then flattening them again. He knew Mother would be upset when she saw the chocolate in the street. She would get very angry with him even though he would not smash up the chocolate if he could do it over again. But things would be nice for a while before Mother discovered the chocolate at the curb. She would eventually come and check on him, so he waited on the bed, crushing the foil and paper ball on the floor back and forth, watching the dark ocean in the frame as it carried the boat back and forth, back and forth.
