No presents, please

Charolette Conklin 

    I don’t like gifts. Why bother? Not getting them would save me the trouble of feigning gratitude for some dumbshit doodad that causes me to wonder where the hell would I put it and how long would I be obliged to keep it? And reciprocation! Give me a break. Let me give you an example. This gal—a great friend of mine—was  delighted with the super salad spinner she laid on me; now she’ll expect me to find the perfect thing for her birthday—because we know each other so well. 
    Yeah, we’ve had lots of dinners together and she’s never noticed I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy? That I always order soup and never salad? That I’ve never once mentioned cooking at home? Good for her, she figured out I don’t have this super duper lettuce dryer, but never wondered for one damn second why? Even if I did do meals at home, and again I don’t, but say I did: almost anything you might get a hankering for is already made. When I do hit Safeway for supper stuff, I ignore those baggies of green stuff and head straight for the deli. If I ever get salad with my chicken strips it’s always made of macaroni. The only green in it is the pickles.

    I remember getting fun stuff at Christmas when I was little. In fourth grade, I was this little dweeb unable to catch his father’s attention let alone a fastball. I was a dork. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I had this idea I’d get the mitt I wanted for Christmas, but if Dad and I both had mitts, we could start playing catch. I saved my allowance for months so I could buy my father the best mitt in the store.
    Dad watched the Mariners on TV. He said maybe we’d go to a game sometime. I had this fantasy that we’d go with my friend Mike and his pop—maybe go on a Bobblehead day. Hell, maybe I’d even catch a foul ball or have my glove signed.
    Yeah. Well. Turns out that by the time the Mariners started playing that spring, Dad was gone. When I came home from school and my mom told me, I didn’t believe her. I ran through all the downstairs rooms. Stupid, huh? Even on a normal day, he wouldn’t have been home from work yet. But, besides all his shit being gone, I noticed Mom had scrubbed down everything. Like she wanted to get rid of any trace of him—even the lingering scent of sweat or Old Spice. I ran upstairs. Everything smelled like Pine Sol there, too. I went to their bedroom. None of his stuff was on the dresser. I opened his side of the closet. Bunch of empty wire hangers. Nothing there except for one shoe box shoved way back in the corner. I pulled it out. With my back against their bed, I sat on the floor with that box in my lap. I ran my hand over the top and said out loud, “Shoes. It’s only shoes.” But inside, I hoped it was something he’d left for me to find. Maybe a letter. Even a note telling me when he’d see me. When we’d go see the Mariners. I ran my fingers around the edges, down the corners and back up. I lifted the box. Shook it a little. It had some weight to it and something shifted. I wanted to rip it
open to see what Dad left me. But I was scared. What if it was just shoes?

    The sun shined through the window. There were these little specks…dust motes?…in the sunlight. My throat hurt. My eyes burned. Hell, I didn’t want to cry. I was eleven by then. I finally lifted the lid. Nestled in the tissue paper that once separated two shoes was the baseball mitt I’d given Dad for Christmas. Alongside that was a tin of leather conditioner. I pried the two sides apart. Never been used.  
    Why did Dad take everything he owned except this? Didn’t want it? Meant nothing to him?
    I slipped one hand into the glove. Kneaded the leather with my other fingers. I sat there for a long time cranking up a scenario where Dad intended for me to take care of this prized possession. To believe in him. He’d come back; explain everything.
    But Dad didn’t come back. 
    He didn’t call. 
    By the time the Mariners played their third home game, I knew for certain Dad didn’t just leave my mom. He’d left me, too.