The Poinsettia Incident
Mike was always at my house. I was always at his. Post-high school, pre-Sandy1, we spent inordinate amounts of time together. If we weren’t at our jobs earning gas, beer and record money, we were in Mike’s basement or mine, learning someone else’s songs (and eventually writing our own), or in his bedroom–or mine–listening to recently-purchased punk rock and heavy metal LPs and 45s. This being Long Island, we also spent untold hours driving around in Mike’s yellow 1972 Mercury Capri or my gold 1967 Mercury Cougar2. We’d make weekend trips to North Shore record stores specializing in imports from England, head to New Wave/Punk nights at Legz in Valley Stream Saturday nights or waste weeknights in a local “old man” bar3 playing shuffleboard bowling while downing cheap seven-ounce glasses of draft beer. Mike’s father was dead, mine had fucked off post-divorce to Westchester and both of our moms had jobs and boyfriends: there was no one around to tell us what to do. Usually.
Mike and I were in my tiny bedroom playing something on my turntable three weeks prior to Christmas when my mother issued a directive (there was no opting out, so “demand” is more apropos):
“Christopher?!”
She’d emphasize the last syllable–Chris-toe-FURRR!-and you’d hear her even over my cranked Lafayette4 stereo. I turned down the volume and yelled back “WHAT?!”
“Come here!”
“Goddamnit. Mike, I’ll be right back.”
“Sure, buddy boy. Sounds like you better hop to it.”
I went into the kitchen where my mother sat in her usual spot at the head of the kitchen table.
“Take this and go buy a Christmas tree. Nothing too tall! This should be enough.”
She fished a twenty and a ten out of her green leather zip-up wallet and turned back to her coffee and third Kool5 of the morning. I stuffed the bills in my pocket and called to Mike.
“Mike, you wanna go find a Christmas tree!”
“Sure.”
Mike and I were firmly in our “Army/Navy Surplus” mode, both in gray or blue or black Dickies™ work shirts over light gray or white waffle-knit thermals, with dark indigo Levis, cuffs turned up to show off most of the laces of our surplus black paratrooper boots. Black Navy watch caps on our heads paid homage either to our dads or, more likely, McMurphy in the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Mike had lost a hundred pounds since I met in him Junior High and was now tall and trim, with a crewcut and wide pork chop sideburns (he called them “sideboards”). I’d reached my full height of five foot eight and was routinely called “fatso” by my brothers.
“Let’s take my car. It’s bigger.”
I grabbed my keys and reversible bomber jacket (dark blue with “signal orange” lining); Mike put on his scarf and moth-eaten wool long-coat and we ventured out into the cold as an instrumental version of “Silver Bells” began wafting out of my mother’s living room stereo, set to an FM station somewhere in New Jersey.
“I think there’s a tree lot over by Wellwood.”
“Yeah, I know the one. You gonna tie the tree to the roof or what?”
“I hadn’t thought that far. I don’t know. Usually my mother or my brother Mario would get the tree. I suppose they have string there, right?”
“Yeah. I just got a tree for our house and they do everything.”
We took Montauk Highway east and found the tree lot on the north side of the road not far from the Lindenhurst movie theater. Ten minutes of wandering around the lot had us settling on a six-foot Noble fir. The tree lot attendant bound the tree up with twine and secured it to my roof. I paid him twenty two bucks, adding three dollars as a tip. Then Mike spied a row of potted poinsettias.
“You should get one for your mom. I got one for mine. She loves that fuckin’ thing.”
“Hey, how much are the poinsettias?”
“Five.”
I handed him my change, picked out the tallest poinsettia and put it on the back floor of my car. In ten minutes Mike and I were back at my house and hauling the tree inside. My mother was in her chair in the living room, reading Newsday6 and listening to yet more Christmas music. Once the tree was propped up in the corner where it’d eventually sit, I surveyed my mother.
“So, what do you think?”
My mother looked up from her newspaper as Mike copped a spot on our recently-reupholstered green/yellow velveteen sofa.
“How can I tell what it looks like, Christopher? You have to take the twine off. And where’s my change?”
“Wait a minute.”
I went back to my car for the poinsettia, rushing it back inside and proffering it to my mother.
“There isn’t any change. I bought you this.”
“WHAT IS THAT?!”
“It’s a… it’s a poinsettia.”
“I know what it is, Christopher! Why did you get it?”
Mike looked on, a smirk spreading across his face.
“I thought you might like it…”
“Did I tell you to buy anything else? I said get a tree. That’s IT. Who told you to buy a poinsettia?!”
“I… I…”
“Take it back and get me my change.”
“What? Really?”
“TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW!”
“Goddamnit. GODDAMNIT.”
I hadn’t taken off my bomber jacket and was out the door with the poinsettia before Mike could rise from the sofa and find his coat. I’d already started the car by the time he jumped in the passenger seat, laughing his ass off.
“‘What’s so fucking funny?”
Mike was holding his stomach, taking gulps of air and hooting.
“OH MY GOD! You try to do something NICE for your mother and she’s like (launching into a pitch-perfect impression) ‘TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK RIGHT FUCKIN’ NOW!’… oh, brother. A lovely little poinsettia.”
He dragged out the syllables so it came out POINT-SET-EEE-AHHH.
I was too embarrassed and chagrined to find it funny and not looking forward to explaining to the attendant why I wanted a refund. Mike laughed all the way back to the Christmas tree lot and sat in the car while I pleaded my case.
“Hey, I was just here and bought a tree and this flower and I need to return this.”
The attendant squinted at me.
“You want to return that? Why? You know, we don’t do returns.”
He pointed at a hand-written sign saying ALL SALES FINAL.
“Man, I didn’t see that when we were here. And I need to get that five dollars back.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I just work here. I don’t make the rules.”
“Motherfucker. Motherfucker!”
The poinsettia was hastily returned to the back floor of my car behind the drivers’ seat. I climbed in, still fuming. Mike started laughing again.
“What the fuck? He won’t give you your money back?!”
“No. You believe this shit?”
“Your mother is gonna LOSE HER MIND.”
“Tell me about it.”
“My mother loved her poinsettia.”
“That’s your mother. Mine… Jesus Christ.”
Mike composed himself and sat up straight. As I pulled out onto Montauk Highway he made me an offer.
“Listen. I’ll buy that one and give it to my mom. She wouldn’t mind two.”
“Really? Thanks.”
Mike got his wallet out and passed me a five. We were soon parked in front of my house. I left the car running while I ran inside and threw Mike’s five dollar bill on the table near my mother’s living room chair.
“Here!”
She looked up from her Newsday, startled.
I pulled a quick one eighty and was out the door before she could respond, stifling an urge to add “Shove it up your ass!” Mike grabbed the flower of contention and toted it to his Capri.
“Good luck putting up your Christmas tree, buddy. I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Mike took off for North Lindenhurst and I got in my car to figure out where I could go to escape my mother awhile, settling on Music Land to ogle guitars I couldn’t afford. Every December hence Mike would gleefully retell the “point-set-ee-ah” incident, culminating with his screeching Mom Tsakis impression:
“TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BACK AND GET ME MY CHANGE!”
I’d smile, cringing inside.
Not the Superstorm: Mike’s first serious girlfriend.
Later, a succession of Mopars, beginning with a 1971 Plymouth Satellite.
Long before it was hip, we preferred dive bars to any other kind.
A long-defunct electronics chain store, ala Radio Shack but nerdier.
My mother’s preferred brand of menthol cigarettes.
The Long Island newspaper. We subscribed.