The helping hands of Christmas

THIS £S the second instalment of the Helping Hands of Christmas, a
festive tale spun by North Vancouver writer David Jenneson, presented

in six parts by the North Shore News.

CTUALLY, THE hand looked to be in pretty

rough shape.

It had that chapped, reddened
look of a hand that has fallen on
hard times, one that has perhaps
been brushing back the snow from
garbage can lids to seek the warm
amphora of their insides.

I felt pretty good now. It oc-
curred to me that I could help this
hand.

1 went into the can (described
by a friend as the loneliest spot on
earth) with the fag on my lip and
put some Dial on the sink. Fiiled
it with water and tested it.

“Hey hand,’ I said, ‘‘c’mon in
and clean up.”’

No answer.

Maybe it was deaf?

So I stuck my head around the
comer to give it a hand signal —

There was no hand.

No hand, hey, what hand?
What's all this talk of hands?
Who saw a hand? Who? Not me.

1 hurriedly. began washing my
own as if that’s what I’d intended
to do all along. I can really whis-

‘tle loud when I want to, and I
. know quite a few tunes. Wasn’t it

nice that it was Caristmas?
_ I knew that if 1 looked in the
mirror the top of my head would
vome spinning off and a bunch of
people I didn’t even know would
come clambering out and havea
party or something.

I usually go. in for those long,

By David Jenneson
Contributing Writer

pregnant pauses before the mirror,
the old who-am-l-and-where-
is-my-woman-tonight? routine,
but not now boy, { had to keep
moving.

When my hands were nice and
clean, and J mean really clean, I
washed my face too, to get all
that gum out of it.

It crossed my mind to brush my
teeth but I crossed it right back
out again, as it would’ve involved
too much eye contact.

Now I was in trouble. What the
hell was I going to do for the rest
of my life. I'd finished tte paper,
I'd finished the sinoke, should I
tie my shoe? Sleep? No, I wanted
as few people involved in this as
possible.

Somehow [ made it back to the
chair. Glanced cautiously at the
smokes. Still there, same place.

I lit another one and thought
about how people would always
associate me and Christmas, for
all the Christmases now headed
our way, as the time me and men-
tal health had decided to take our
separate paths.

And over the beers recount the
last time, ages now, they’d been

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out to the brain ranch to see me
but I hadn't talked much, and it
was too bad but it just didn’t
seem to do any good going out
there.

I looked at the kitchen table,
my only witness, it looked like a
life raft about to embark on a

long journey through sea and.

time, or I was, or something. I
didn’t know. ,

I whistled a little more but it
didn’t come off too weil. It made
me think of wind and telephone
wires.

There was a knock on the front

door. My face went red-amber-
green red-amber-green and | got
up to answer it. I was sure that if
it were one of my infrequent
visitors I'd open the door, greet
them and ail the furniture would
go running out past me.

never really expected six
hands.

Hands. Six hands. Six hands
who made it away and got out of
the bag and are now free as spar-
rows, fleeing through the air like
white-fingered bats, palms down,
thumbs out, searching for a place
to light.

Six hands, having been severed
from no wrist of crime or sacrifice
and leaving behind them no
bloodied stump, but smooth and
rounded at the heels like the taps
of valentines.

Hands, quick, intelligent and
swift as arrows, free as birds and
searching for a place of warmth
and delight.

They hung there in the
December air on the uncomfort-
able edge of convention. Slightly
ill-at-ease I suppose, worried at
the imposition.

1 scrutinized them, trying to
figure out which was the one who
had brought the pack of buddies,
but it was impossible. Hanging
there, they looked like Houdini
times three. :

With hands, you never know

‘happy hands

what to do first, as we are not
raised to know them. But you
always reach the point where it
hits you, hal, they’re hands, and
should be treated as such. So J
stepped aside and let them in.

They floated politely past me
and I closed the door. Now the
original came forth and neatly, as
only a hand can do, introduced
the rest. ] shook hands with them ~
all, three right, three left; they
were still pretty cold from beiny,
outside so long.

As they presented themselves I
began to see that the hands were
not identical, and could probably,
if they had wished, have arranged
themselves in an order such that
the hand on the far right was the
more masculine, and the hand on
the far left more of a lady, than
all the others in between. :

The hands didn’t look the way
hands like to look, they all had
dirty fingernails and one had a
scraped knuckle. I felt better,
though. At least things tied
together.

Come to think of it, I felt a lot
better.

I ied them back to the can and
this time ran the tub, and ‘in no
time at all heard the sound of
laughing and
splashing and skipping through

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