Deck the halls

Henry sat on a stool at the kitchen bar, munching on his stale waffle. Glenda had a habit of bringing home California rolls from Sushi and Kenyan for herself, and whatever leftovers from Casa D' Waffle she could muster for Henry, which, 90% of the time, was waffles. On a good day, he'd get hash-browns, but he was rarely lucky enough to get bacon or sausage. As he smeared his waffle into what little syrup he had left on his plate, the doorbell to the apartment rang.

Henry groaned. The only time anyone ever came to the apartment was when the landlord collected rent, and Henry did not want to deal with that. Regardless, he knew that if he didn't answer, whomever it was would probably continue knocking. Henry had the TV's volume up so loud that it was obvious someone was home.

Henry opened the door to find a group of kids, some his age, most younger, dressed in tattered clothing. Each carried a mini paint bucket, but only a few coins lay in each bucket.

"Merry Christmas!" They cried. "We're from the local orphanage, and we're collecting money to buy Christmas decorations for the orphanage! We'll also take Christmas decorations, if you have some"

He, of course, had neither money nor decorations to give. But he felt awfully bad for the children – growing up with a wealthy father, Henry's Christmases were always magical, and he received everything on his wish-lists.  He knew it was his job to do something. In a town as poor as this one, Henry doubted the children were ever successful in their fundraising. "Uh, can you guys come back to our hall in like 30 minutes. I really do wanna give, but I just don't have anything on me right now."

"Sure thing," said the oldest of the kids – a blonde girl, probably 17 or so. She looked angry, but not angry at the situation – just angry at the world. Well I'd be pissed, too, if I were 17 and had to live in an orphanage, thought Henry.

As the kids walked away, Henry hurriedly shut the apartment door and pulled out his dinky Nokia cell-phone. He used to have an iPhone, but he had to sell it, along with everything else. He opened his contact list, only to see one number – Glenda's. When he gave up his iPhone, he gave away all his friends, as well. With a phone that couldn't text, having friends' phone numbers was useless.

Henry called Glenda, and it rung 5 or 6 times before going to her voicemail. This is Glenda, give me a your name and num- Henry hung up before listening to the entire message and hit redial. And then called again, and again, 4 times before giving up.

Meanwhile, Glenda stood on a ladder resting against the front of Casa D' Waffle. Strands of garland hung around her neck, and cable wraps were shoved into her pockets. She had spent the past 10 minutes struggling to make the wreath hang just right on the "D" in the Casa D' Waffle's sign.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Glenda's cell-phone vibrated in her back pocket. "Ugh. I am NOT going to answer that right now," she said.

The phone continued buzzing. After missing four or so calls, Glenda decided someone must really be wanting to talk to her. She looped the wreath on her arm, and held it in place on her shoulder with her chin. She braced one hand on the roof, and reached her other hand into her back pocket to retrieve the phone.

Before even answering the phone, Glenda was tumbling to the ground, wreath, garland, ladder, and phone all falling with her.

"Help..." she groaned once she had landed. Her hands were bleeding from trying to brace her landing, and her wrists were turning red. Luckily for Glenda, one of that day's customers, Rosa Lee, worked at the Good Samaritan Health clinic, and was eating lunch at Casa D' Waffle right then. She ran out of the front door of the restaurant, and helped Glenda to her feet.

"How are you feeling? What hurts? Did you hit your head?" asked Rosa Lee.

"I- I- I'm fine," stammered Glenda. "But my wrists are throbbing, and I ruined my decorations," she said, as she motioned to the bent wreath that lie on the ground. Rosa Lee examined her wrist.

"Well, I don't think it's broken, but you should probably get it braced up. I would suggest you go to the clinic tomorrow, today's too busy – we're still dealing with the Swine Flu paranoia from last week."

"Alright," sighed Glenda. Have a hurt wrist would certainly cripple her from waitressing. "Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

Glenda headed home, taking the leftover garland and broken wreath with her. As she exited the elevator of her apartment floor, a group of children approached her.

"M'am," said one of the kids. "May we please have those decorations. We're from the orphan-" Without evening allowing her to finish her sentence, Glenda handed the girl the wreath. "Oh, absolutely. Anytime. Stop by here if you ever need anything. I can even get y'all some free food from the Casa D' Waffle." With that, Glenda continued on down the hall to her apartment. As she walked away, she glanced at the group of kids again. One girl, the oldest of the bunch, stood out to Glenda. Why do I feel like I know her? asked Glenda. Then it hit her. The hair, the eyes, the mouth, even the way she stood reminded Glenda of herself. And that, she thought, would be my daughter. Shit.

Dirt

Glenda quickly wiped down the last table at Casa D' Waffle, flinging crumbs onto the booth seats and the floor, rather than into her hands. As soon as she finished with the tables, she would be dismissed from her shift, the awful all-day shift that she had to serve once a week. Glenda had been on her feet since 5 am, and now, at 9 pm, she was ready to be home. On top of that, she was ready to kill Henry. All day long, her customers had talked about the fire at Forever 21 and the mysterious stolen left shoes. Maybe she was just imagining things, but Henry's sneaky behavior lately made Glenda want to point right at him and call guilty.

"I'm outta here," Glenda cried to Shaniqua, as she removed her apron, threw her hair net away, and signed out of her shift.

20 minutes later, when Glenda approached her apartment, she could hear the television on, some sport's announcer's voice blasting. Oh, thought Glenda. The nerve of Henry... 


"Hey Henry, will you please turn off the television, we need to talk," said Glenda once she entered the apartment. No response – Henry continued to stare at the television.

"HENRY!" screamed Glenda.  "TURN. OFF. THE. TV." Henry glanced at her, scoffed, and slowly picked up the remote. His fingers hovered over the power button, but at the last second, he clicked mute.

"What's up," he said.

Glenda placed her purse (not her Louis Vuitton) on the kitchen counter. Though she hadn't had the nerve to sell her Louis yet, she didn't dare take it to Casa D' Waffle with her – the thought of getting grease stains on it made her shudder. She then walked to the television and turned it off, then dragged a stool across from Henry and sat down.

"Look, Henry. I know you and I have never had to deal with the whole discipline thing, but I know what you did," she said.

His eyes widened. "I-I didn't do it all by myself!" he stammered. "And, it's not like anyone got hurt..."

He's weaker than I thought, Glenda thought to herself. "Okay, but how do you explain something like that?" asked Glenda.

"Well, me and the boys had been talking to their old teacher – that young guy that everyone liked that recently got fired, Mr. Shaffer. He was telling us how much he hates his new job at the theater. So, we decided, we'd burn down the place. But none of us had done arson before, so we needed something to warm up with. We all hated Forever 21, because the girls at school that wear those clothes are all teases..."

"Oh, great logic, makes so much sense," said Glenda.

"Exactly! And the shoes ... well, we thought the rubber would burn well, and we thought it would be funny to make the whole town smell like burnt rubber n' shit ..."

"First off, language! Secondly, okay ...  how do I go about handling this ..." muttered Glenda to herself. "And this is why I gave away my first child to that damn orphanage ..."

"What was that?" asked Henry.

"Oh, uh, nothing," stammered Glenda.

"Uh, uh, tell me about this child of yours."

Shit, thought Glenda. She clenched her eyes tightly together, then sighed heavily. "Well, it was a long time ago, I had a baby, and I gave it away to the orphanage down the street," she said. "But you aren't going to tell anyone about that, because I have blackmail against you now. You keep your mouth shut, and I'll keep mine shut ... Under one condition. You really wanna help out that teacher of yours, you better occupy your time better. I hear the theater is beginning production of a new play, and you're going to be a part of it. Now, you may think you've got dirt on me now, but the worst that could happen to me is that I get a weird reputation. You, you could go to jail ... Now, no more discussion. I expect you to go to auditions – they start tomorrow."

Henry stared at Glenda, his jaw hanging wide open. "Bitch," he muttered under his breath.

"I heard that," said Glenda, as she marched down the hallway to her bedroom.