Liberian Literary Magazine
situation. It is Christmas morning and we have no stove. It means no cornbread and gravy; no swallowing; no NOTHING!“ Daddy!!!!” Butter screams. We turn in time to see her rushing to the tree.“ Mommy, Santa brought my Baby Alive!”“ Hell no,” I muttered.“ He ain’ t done fussah * baby.” Her mom gives me the‘ kill stare’. Yes Butter, he brought your presents.”
She goes for the biggest box.“ No, no, not until we do the Christmas tradition Butter. Remember what I told you?” She says.
“ Big feecee *.” Still referring to the Northpoler. This is my way of internalizing. I go straightly into Liberian English- some deep colloqua or my grannies Settlement impression. Over the years, hanging with her in-laws and in the expat Liberian communities wherever we go, my wife has come to pick up the meanings of most of what I am saying. So mixing it up is my last resort.
She breaks my thought when she says,“ We have to record your Christmas messages for your grandmas, aunty S, her favorite aunt and all the other things I told you about.”
Butter looks up, excitement all in her eyes and suddenly realizes something. She comes rushing into the kitchen. We are both slow to catch her but we follow. That girl should be an Olympic runner. She’ s won awards two years in a row running for her class. She rushes for everything. She stops and looks around. She seems puzzled.
We are standing there, not sure what all this is about so we wait.
She says,“ Daddy-Mommy,” her way of getting both our attention.“ Santa passed through the stove?”
“ There, I knew it!” I shout in my mind.“ She had to know about this.” I thought further. Her mom, puzzled, asks,“ Why do you say that?” She looks around some more and takes a step back. I see her expression, I know what it means. It is one of accomplishment; something I bet I do when I do manage to fix an unbroken piece or a broken one for that matter. I push my luck,“ Butter, why did you break the stove?”
“ I broke the stove because …” she stutters, inhales and says,“ Daddy I broke the stove because …”
I love it when she does that-takes her time to repeat the question before answering it. Now, however, there wasn’ t much to love about anything. She turns to her mum and says,“ I have no idea.”
For some reason, within the last week, she has taken I have no idea to be her way out of just about everything. I was not having any of that.
Promoting Liberian literature, Arts and Culture
“ What!” I jump in.“ How can you have no idea? You spent time taking things apart. You were thinking every step of the way. You have more than ideas.” Her mum chimes in,“ Let her talk. Why?” We wait, me anxiously. I know this bugger, she is a natcho after all. Rarely does she act without reason.
She places her finger in her mouth, bites on her nails and says,“ Mommy-Daddy, no chimney. I wanted Santa to bring 100 presents for me.” There it goes, her favorite number and preposition- for. She has this thing with prepositions. She often uses it wrongly. She has figured out that‘ for’ is ownership and will use it anytime she can. This time, however, she uses it correctly. Normally, I’ d be hugging and kissing her excitedly when she uses it correctly. This is a way of getting her note it and remember. She loves it when we act like that so we use it to validate things we approve. But that was not happening here.
I turn to the mother and say,“ Well, we will have a new tradition this year. Your daughter has managed on her second Christmas that she can understand things to break the flow and add a new thing.” I am a typical Liberian. When the child does a thing well, she is‘ my child’,‘ my boy, or my baby girl’. If it is not so admirable, it becomes the mother’ s child-hence my‘ your daughter. Yet a huge part of me could not help but to admire the way she figured out how to take that stove apart. Of course I could not say that now, not unless I wanted the mum to crucify the two of us. I secretly noted to reward the girl for it.
The mom looks at me and says,“ Fix this mess you and your child have created.” She then walks out.
We stand there for a brief moment and then she remembers her presents and dashes out,“ Mommeee! Where is my Baby Alive Santa brought?”
“ There they go again- Santa I swear, if I hear that name once more, I will go mad. My body is aching like crazy, every bone in me is sore. God, tell these people to not call that man’ s name again.” I think to myself.
We do the whole tradition thing which by the way is a mix of two different cultures and families. We have found a nice way to make one out of the two. The women are all smiles. The woman seems to have succeeded in hiding my present nicely away from me. I searched this house for few nights looking but to no avail. She also refused to let me know what I inside. Oh that is another thing about me. I love to know. I am all for surprises and all, but I like to be told-dude, this is
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