6: Christmas

Ira Glass

From the WBEZ Chicago, it's Your Radio Playhouse.

Ira Glass

Your Radio Playhouse. Well, it's a special treat tonight to bring you music, over the course of the hour, from the Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church down at 82nd and Stony on Chicago's South Side. Our thinking was that by this point in the Christmas season, people are pretty much tired of the regular Christmas records. So we thought that we would bring different music.

I'm Ira Glass. Also this evening, we have amazing new stories by Reginald Gibbons, and Beau O'Reilly, and others. We have the debut of a new radio theater company. How often do you really get to say those words in 1990? A new radio theater company created by writer David Sedaris, his sister Amy, a bunch of other people. They call themselves the Pine Tree Gang.

You know, the thing about Christmas is, that a Christmas, people are like themselves but more so. You know the saying that you can tell a lot about a person in a crisis? You can tell a lot about a person at Christmas also. That is not because Christmas is a crisis. As one of the producers on this program, Nancy Updike, has suggested this week, it's because Christmas is the one day in the American year when, more than any other, we are, all of us, handed exactly the same stage props with which to manufacture a day. The same expectations, the same presents, the same tree, the same idea of the meal, all that is handed to all of us. And everybody is trying to fashion a day out of exactly the same materials. And when people do that, you could see exactly who chooses, what they choose, and why. At Christmas, the kind hearted have an event on which they can exercise their kind heartedness. The impatient have more reason to be impatient. The manipulative and controlling have a set of meals and gifts with which to manipulate others. Everybody is themselves but more so.

Which brings us to our radio play. Writer David Sedaris had an odd experience in his life. Namely, one of the first, big, public things that he did in his life is, he went on to National Public Radio and told the story of how he had worked as an elf at Santa Land at Macy's Department Store for two Christmases.

And pretty much for the course of the two years which followed, every Christmas he would get lots of calls from magazines, and newspapers, and TV, and radio. People who wanted to hear yet another Christmas story, wanted him to unfold another Christmas story, bring one out. Here's the Christmas guy. You know, here's the Christmas guy. And these requests, they inundated him and confounded him. No one wants to be considered, for the rest of their life, as an elf. And so I think that was part of the inspiration for his radio play this evening. A premier radio play of our new radio group here at Your Radio Playhouse. The Pinetree Gang.

Ira Glass

Little music from the Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church from Chicago's South Side. We'll be hearing music from them throughout the hour, and we're going to have a visit with them at the end of the hour. Our play by David Sedaris and the Pine Tree Gang, exclusively here on Your Radio Playhouse radio program.

Coming up next, in our little cavalcade of Christmas stories, is a story from Beau O'Riley. Beau's a local playwright and musician, longtime member of the band Maestro Subgum and the Whole. And Christmas brings up such different feelings and memories for each person. His story is a story from his childhood living outside Chicago.

Beau O'reilly

I lost my entire thumbnail closing a classroom window.

Ira Glass

I'm just going to start that again. We're having a cuing problem here. You can see that we are spooked by the Ghost of Christmas Present here in this program so far. It's been such a nerve wracking thing getting the program on the air, with everybody going away for the holidays, and us wanting to make the show extra special with all sorts of extra special new pieces. So we're just going to move back. You see, we're just going to have Ghost of Christmas Past here. We just going to move back into past about a minute ago and try that again.

Beau O'reilly

Two weeks before Christmas in 1966, I lost my entire thumbnail closing a classroom window as part of the Sister Edwardine seventh graders helped the school close their windows program. I'd been assigned to close them all up every day. And they were huge, swinging, picture-window type windows that demanded a seventh graders brooding aggressiveness to shut them firmly.

It was warm that day, unseasonable, and all the windows were wide open. And the other boy just let fly, really slamming it. I was dreaming out the window when the metal rim of it caught the top of my thumbnail, and the whole nail just sprang off. There was blood and nerve endings skit-scatting out of my thumb, hot pain.

A week later, I was back on the playground, my thumb bound in a plastic splint. Wrapped in so much gauze that it, the thumb, looked like an upside down bowling pin. I was five nine and a half in 1966 and built like a garden hose that had been used so many times that it has lost all sense of its rubbery toughness, its definition, and hangs like a limp spiral. My body was like that, pale skin wrapped around awkward bones.

And that body had reached its full man-height at the end of the six grade. It would never grow another inch. This growth spurt had prompted a new attention on the playground. Suddenly, I might be of some use. Basketball was no joke on the playgrounds of my midwestern-boy-1966-hood. Basketball was the most excellent, athletically rational of games and, suddenly, I was eligible because of a quirk of genetics but still eligible.

Previously, my childhood had laid itself out as one continuous torture chamber of belly clenching, flush producing fear, when it came to anything like running, jumping, or slamming. And now here I was, under the basket, pounding my dribble with my left hand, the bowling pin thumb riding the ball, a stiff little Napoleon rolling into battle.

John Crescent was six two. He was almost fifteen, old for our class, and the shadow of blue whiskers edged his face. He was on the other team. And I had never noticed him before, except once, when dreaming out of Sister Edwardine's classroom window. John Crescent leaving school early for some reason, stopping at the edge of the parking lot to light a cigarette while still on school property. It was a bold enough move that I noted him and noted it.

And white trash is what I noted. Where I got that phrase, I don't know. My parents, in 1966, were careful Kennedy liberals. And white trash was way too denigrating a phrase for me to have heard at home. But the phrase hung way back in my cultural awareness, shadows of trailer parks, and country music, and Brylcreem, and Twinkies three meals a day. John Crescent had all this about him. He spoke with a heavy, Tennessee, sweet-slur to his vowels. His teeth were dark and mossy. And right now, he was coming straight at me under the basket, his eyes wide after the basketball that I was pounding.

I was an odd boy back then. And the meaner kids all called me odd-head. And, I think, in that moment, I was thinking about white trash culture. My odd head cocked at an angle as I considered all of white trash culture. Its angles. Did white trash families spend their Sundays like professional wrestlers, tearing up the living room? Did they chew tobacco before they reached puberty? I was thinking these thoughts and not at all protecting the basketball when John Crescent hit me with his whole body and the ball spurted away. And I hit the pavement.

Now, I have a tendency to go all odd-headed and get day-dreamy in the midst of violence. And this dreamy quality has gotten me through more than my share of playground fights. I float back up once I get knocked down. And I floated back up this time, in time to take a return pass and to have John Crescent slam me with this whole body a second time. But this time I didn't fall. I floated to a new spot on the court, and I held onto the ball.

And John Crescent, just caught in surprise, and shoved me halfway across the lot. But when I rose up, still dreaming, and fired a shot over John Crescent's head, making the basket, he stopped. And then John Crescent grabbed my thumb. He grabbed it hard. It still waved like an imp with a baton above my hand. And John Crescent grabbed that nailless thumb, and he squeezed it too. And the pain went up my spine, and I popped my eyes open. John Crescent cawed, and he squeezed again. And now, I didn't know John Crescent before this. I had never had a conversation with him. And here he was squeezing my poor nerve-exposed thumb, like it was the trigger and I was the gun.

I hit him with my right hand. A clumsy punch that missed his chin and glanced his Adam's apple. John Crescent gulped and he stepped back. And I hit him again, this time, somewhere near the chest, with my left hand. The little Napoleon digit crying out with more pain that made my spine jump for revenge. I don't know how long I kept hitting him. Long enough for all the other playground boys to surround the two of us, to comment on my lack of boxing skills.

And even as I was hitting John Crescent, my odd-head cocked back for a better view of the scene. I was watching the other boys watching me. I'd grown up with most of them. I'd been beaten up by most of them. I'd been mocked and teased without remorse by most of them. They weren't my friends. I happened to have a growth spurt in time for basketball season. They didn't care about me. And yet their faces all hoped and wanted, needed me, to beat on John Crescent, white trash John Crescent, who was more of an outsider than odd-headed me.

I hit him again anyway. And Jon Crescent was reluctant to hit me back. He kept pushing me away with this long basketball arms and not throwing any punches of his own. We were interrupted, finally, by Sister Edwardine. Her sharp caws of Stop it, stop it now!" broke the boys apart. I turned my head, so as to see her coming. She was short, full beaked in the nose, and bird-like. And I pictured her cawing above our heads, in my own odd head.

And then John Crescent, who'd avoided hitting me back as long as everyone was watching, hit me as hard as he could. And I took the punch full in the face. It landed solidly on my left cheekbone. And I saw the Aurora Borealis, my head ringing like a fire drill. And as I landed on the pavement, I thought in my odd-headed way, of all the primitive, prehistoric men who went gaga in wonder at the first sight of the Northern Lights in a full sky. And then I hit the pavement, and I passed out.

The weather finally went hard cold the night before Christmas Eve. The lake froze solid. And I woke up to the early quiet, intending to go out and pick up the family Christmas tree. Our family having long ago figured out that a Christmas tree bought on the last day meant a substantial savings. Why I went alone that year, I don't remember. Usually, I would have gone with my multitude of brothers and sisters. But I did go alone, crossing the frozen lake. It was very cold. The wind like a wraith sucked all the heat from my body, before I reached the lot where the almost perfect seven-foot, short-needled pine trees still could be found.

It was early still. And I had to knock and wake the trailer on the lot in order to buy the tree. The Christmas tree man may have been 40, but he looked 60, with three weeks of blue-black whiskers and a morning can of Budweiser. His eyes never looked at me as we negotiated the cost of the tree. But once we agreed, he yelled harshly to his still sleeping son to come out and trim the base of the tree to my specifications.

I was odd-heading and daydreaming about the amount of perfection in a seven-foot, short-needled pine tree, when the son came out, flinching as he walked past the Christmas tree guy. My thumb jumped and ached. He was John Crescent. And John Crescent was the son of the Christmas tree guy. My tree of choice was frozen to the ground. For a couple of minutes, the two of us had to struggle to work it free. And once we had, we stood for a moment in the morning cold.

And I looked at John Crescent, full in the face. His left eye was swollen shut. His lip puffy and still traced with blood. And I had never hit him in the face. He had successfully kept me at a distance. And then I saw him in my own odd head. John Crescent, the Christmas tree guy's son, having to tell the Christmas tree guy about Sister Edwardine throwing him out of school after he'd knocked me out on the playground. And the Christmas tree guy, full of Budweiser, knocking John Crescent around some.

If John Crescent knew who I was, he had given no sign, staring out of his one good eye like I was a car wreck and him the insurance adjuster. But as my head filled with pity for him and remorse over our recent playground battle, he reached out forcefully and grabbed my still-bandaged thumb in his fist. Merry Christmas, he cawed, and he squeezed it. Merry Christmas. I shivered all the way home.

Ira Glass

Music from Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side, 82nd and Cornell. It's Your Radio Playhouse. I'm Ira Glass here in WBEZ. More of this very music as our program continues. And a visit to the church, and what they're celebrating this Christmas, later in our show.

Just a couple weeks ago, one of the producers, Delores Wilber, and I went down to the Daniel J. Nellum Youth Services Incorporated. It's a place where teenage boys stay, mostly wards of the state, in fact, entirely wards of the state. And these are kids who can't be placed anywhere else, having trouble getting placed. They all live there. And there are writing classes there. And various arts classes.

The writing classes, right now, are led by a local poet named Quraysh Ali. And Delores Wilber and I went to see what the boys' writing was like, maybe have some of them read on the show. And, in future weeks, we hope to have some of them read on the show.

And one of these we were thinking about when we went down there is maybe they could write about Christmas. Maybe they'd have some experience to write about Christmas. And so when we were there and talking to them and seeing the writing, at one point we did a little writing exercise. And asked, in this writing exercise, for each of the boys to write something about Christmas. And this turned out to be a dreadful mistake. Because most of them had nothing pleasant to say about Christmas.

We went through the usual things that one might ask, just to give people ideas for what you're going to write about, presents you'd gotten, things you'd want to give to somebody else, people you'd want to give something to, things you wanted to tell someone. And had them either write it as a little story or a letter to someone. This on was typical. I'm just going to read this very short essay. This person's said.

The thing I most wanted for Christmas was nothing, because I have nothing. That's why I'm here. The person I like to give something to is no one. I've always wanted to tell you that. I didn't want nothing. And that's OK.

Well Reginald Gibbons is writing about a lot of things right now. But one of them, at least, concerns boys in pretty bad situations. He's the author of Sweetbitter, his most recent novel and other works of poetry. He's the editor of Triquarterly Magazine. And for his most recent book, he is doing some research. He is hanging around a lot at the Juvenile Court Building here in Chicago. And so when we asked him if he wanted to write about Christmas, he decided to set his story there.

Reginald Gibbons

A typical hearing or trial is like a brief, highly organized dance. The public defenders work from a table to one side of the small courtroom, the state's attorneys from another at the other side. The clerk calls the next case. Someone steps out of the closed doors to the waiting area and calls out the name of the minor respondent. The child is brought in. A long moment later, someone's approaching, judge, says an attorney, to placate the impatient man behind the bench. In come three women.

The judge says, his mother here? Yes, judge, the public defender says, indicating one of the women. And who is with mother, the judge asks. Grandmother and aunt, says the attorney. The judge says, aunt, please sit at the back of the courtroom. And the woman goes there without saying a word. The other two wait, also silent.

Like the women who are here to stand with him, the child is black this time. Everyone else in this courtroom is white. Handcuffs have been removed from his wrists at the side door to the courtroom. And, as instructed by the uniformed officer who accompanies him, he stands at the center of the bench before the judge, his hands clasped behind his back and holding, in this case, a jacket, a tube of toothpaste, and a toothbrush.

This legal episode takes only three minutes. The state's attorney speaks. The judge speaks. The public defender speaks. The person of whom they are speaking is not asked to speak and does not speak. Although they have had time in their service to learn somewhat the language that he speaks, they do not speak a language that's intelligible to him.

The public defender meets his client in a small, bare, interview room. The client is 14 years old, and has been held for two weeks, so far, on a very serious charge of violent crime. His hearing, which will take place in two more weeks, will determine whether he will be tried as a juvenile, in this building, and have some chance to straighten out and go free again eventually, or whether he'll be sent to the court at 26th street, to be tried as an adult.

The boy is short, thin, he does not look directly at the public defender, his attorney, who is explaining to him what happened in the courtroom in those three minutes of the judge's time. It was decided that something will be decided. But this explanation too, is in the language of the courts. It does not make sense to the child.

So in response to the explanation, which is that he is going to be given psychological tests, and he needs to be completely honest with the doctor, and then there will be another session before the judge to determine where he will be tried, he says, how long am I going to be in here?

For his crime, if he is convicted as an adult, he will probably remain in prison for the rest of his life. His attorney says, that depends, but it's going to be a while. We have to convince the judge not to send you to 26th street, right? Right. You know how we do that? Oh, man. You know how we do that? You have to do two things. You have to not get written up for anything while you're here. And you have to do well in school upstairs. Are you doing well in school here?

The child is not doing well. And he has already been written up once. People get in his face, he says. He says, he has a temper. All he really wants to know is how long will he be in here.

It could be a long time, his attorney says. How long? Am I going to get out for Christmas? No. No? He doesn't believe this man is an attorney. He says, he wants a good lawyer. He wants to pay $500 and have a good lawyer.

His sleeves are too long. His pants are too big. He shifts in his chair again and again. The small, windowless, brick walled room doesn't fit him either. Is it more important to you, the attorney says, to react when someone is on you, so they know you won't tolerate that, or to not spend the rest of your life in jail? If the judge hears you've got written up, he's going to think that you're not taking this seriously. And if that's what he thinks, then he'll decide you need to go to 26th street, right?

The child looks at every corner of the room and not at his attorney. He fidgets violently in his chair and flings his arms to one side, then the other. His attorney says, someone gets in your face, you have to walk away from it, right? And in school, you need A's and B's, OK? So we can ask one of the teachers to come down to the courtroom and tell the judge that you shouldn't be tried at 26th street as an adult, right?

The child is taken back into the part of the building that is behind locks. After he is gone, his attorney says of him, he isn't going to make it. What he has to do is more than any adult could be reasonably expected to be able to do. And he's only 14.

The day proceeds, more trials, more hearings, the courthouse empties. The worlds, here and everywhere around here, go dark early at this time of year. After rush hour, whether at the known street corners where traffic goes steadily by slowly, or at the quiet corners, where nothing should be happening, the snow falling since late afternoon makes everything quiet. And the street is bright in that strange, nighttime, snow lit way, from the light of a few street lamps, home lights, headlights reflected up off the soft whiteness.

But inside the juvenile detention center, it's still noisy. People are getting in other people's faces, taunting the weak, threatening, messing with their heads. Outside the dirty unbreakable windows, the snow is falling in the night, falling freely, softly, steadily, slowly.

Ira Glass

So we wanted a Christmas story for this week that really was more religiously based. And we wanted some Christmas music. And to get both, we decided to visit a church that had something very specific to celebrate this year, and a great choir with which to celebrate it. One of our production staff, Peter Clowney, went to Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church.

Peter Clowney

The church meets in a smallish building on South Cornell, near 82nd and Stony Brook. It's in a middle class neighborhood, but there's some tougher areas nearby. By about 11 o'clock on Sunday morning maybe 50 people are occupying the warm second-floor sanctuary.

They sit in groups, talking about their lives with Christ this week, about other things. And some people are praying. By 11:30, about 100 people are gathered this way. And when the praise and worship starts, music dissolves these little groups into one congregation.

Peter Clowney

Reverend Donald Sharp begins the service at noon. He tells people to greet each other in the pews, to meet their neighbors.

Peter Clowney

I'm struck by how people greet each other here. My father was a minister in Georgia. Our church was half black and half white, but we were all Presbyterian. And, in service, when we greeted each other, we use to do it nervously. We'd brush fingertips and mumble at each other. A lot of us avoided eye contact. Here at Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church, people clasp each other's hands. They look straight in each other's eyes. They say, neighbor. This is a church where no one sits alone.

Calvin Bridges is the choir director. He is an athletic looking man in his mid-30s. He's got this sculpted beard. On Wednesdays, at choir rehearsal, he is all motion. He runs from organ over to the choir. He sings parts for them. He's sweating in this orange t-shirt. But during Sunday service, in his grey suit, he stands behind the organ and directs the choir from there, with his singing and by punching up the beat on the organ.

Peter Clowney

And the choir this morning is about 20 people, maybe five teenage boys who don't seem to be into it, a few young women who are, a couple men over 30. but mostly it's women in their 30s and 40s. They seem really to get along. The closest I saw them come to disagreeing was after rehearsal Wednesday night. Traci Kiraten, one of choir members, told the group about the dance school that she's starting with her mom and sister. They're going to be teaching tap and jazz, maybe some aerobics, and there is also going to be martial arts. Choir director Bridges is an ordained minister, he's a very devout man. He puller her aside and told her, martial arts could be an instrument of Satan. They came to an understanding.

Peter Clowney

At this church they don't make a big deal out of Christmas. There are no real decorations around. Maybe two Christmas songs in their entire morning service. And when I asked people about it, they told me, they celebrate Christ year round. So why should Christmas be any different.

Peter Clowney

That's Angela Cook, a member of the choir for 25 years. She's one of the soloists.

Peter Clowney

4:30, we're back at the church for the mortgage burn. First, everyone takes battery powered candles and marches around the building.

Peter Clowney

Reverend Sharp founded this church 31 years ago, with 12 people. Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church now has 500 members, too many for this building. And last year, Reverend Sharp made a decision. He told his congregation, look, we're going to pay $90,000 left on our mortgage. Not by the year 2004, like we're supposed to, but now. Because once we've done that, we can start building. We can build a place that can hold all of us.

A year later, even Reverend Sharp is surprised that they did it.

Peter Clowney

As of last Sunday, Faith Tabernacle has raised $101,000. That's an incredible amount given how many people they are, and what people there make. It comes out to about $2,000 per person, on top of tithing, on top of the mission funds that they give.

Peter Clowney

Anyone who's been part of a church, knows that no big moment in a church's life is going to pass without dozens of people speaking, and without a service that goes on perhaps a bit too long. By about 7:30 people are fidgeting. Teenagers in the back slump in the pews. But then, finally, the moment arrives. 20 or so leaders of the church gather at the pulpit, their backs to the congregation. They lay the mortgage in an alter that appears to be covered with tinfoil. It burns surprisingly quickly with a tiny wisp of smoke, while some people sing, burn, out loud.

Christmas, in a certain sense, is about tomorrow. It's about hope. The child was is just born in the darkness of winter. He is bringing light with him. It's the perfect moment for a group of people who've stood with each other for 30 years to look to the future, to begin to build.

Ira Glass

Well, thank you this evening.

[FUNDING CREDITS]

Today's show was produced by Nancy Updike and myself, with Alix Spiegel, Peter Clowney, and Delores Wilber. Contributing editors Jack Hitt, Margie Rochlin and Paul Tough. We broadcast from WBEZ Chicago.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

The choir director, Calvin Bridges does have a record coming out, a CD, of the Chicago Praise Ensemble, some people from the church and some other people, from their recent tours in Paris and Scandinavia. Look for that.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CONT.] I'm Ira Glass. See you next week.