Swaddled

“A new CD on the Unicorn label shows singer/songwriter Carole Parker travelling into uncharted territory.  Miss Parker’s previous albums have won her cult status (especially among college students and young professionals) for their political and social acumen as well as their melodic grace.  Her new album, Blue Christmas, takes us into the world of the lonely, the bereft, even the suicidal, around the holiday season. 

  “Coal in My Stocking” turns an ordinary Christmas morning into an existential parable, as a pregnant welfare mother ponders her life and finds no presents anywhere. “Burnt Cookies” tells of a teenage boy finding his mother slumped over an empty bottle of vodka as Christmas cookies burn in the oven.

             “Help me, Santa!” is the heartrending refrain of a song that portrays a young woman about to overdose on sleeping pills as she drinks her Christmas eggnog.

 “Jingle, Jingle, I’m still Single,” is the closest thing to an upbeat number here.  Its calypso style refrain cleverly combines the melody of “Jingle Bells” with Bach’s D Minor Fugue for Organ.

 In “It’s Just Rain, Dears,” a mother with 3 young children whose husband has just walked out on her, looks sadly out at rain on Christmas Eve, while her children eagerly search the skies for signs of  Santa.

“Santa’s Little Helpers” is another drug-addiction song, sung as a vocal tribute to the late, great Billy Holiday, a singer whom Miss Parker credits as her inspiration for the album.

             The title song, “Blue Christmas,” is a plea for compassion for all those who suffer during the holidays.  As a children’s chorus joins Miss Parker’s voice, an uplifting melody brings this album to a close—almost—before a final dissonant chord reminds us once again of the helpless depression, trapped lives and self-destructive compulsions so eloquently expressed in the previous songs. 

            Miss Parker’s CD belongs in the collection of anyone who thinks that Christmas is more than just fun and games.”

                        --Edna Poultney in “Whole Earth News ,”
                           December 12, 2004

 

…

 

            The musical alarm clock began playing “Tiptoe through the Tulips” at 6 am--Carole Parker had a long day ahead of her.  Meditation, yoga, breakfast, a radio interview on WQBZ’s weekly program Healing Through Song, a massage, a tofu scramble and organic salad for lunch, a trip to her friend Marva’s house for a make-up and hair session, and then an hour of solitude before the concert began.   She’d put posters all over Berkeley and sent out e-mails to more than 200 people, so she hoped the Christmas Eve concert at St. Ursula’s would be well attended.

            Fifty-two people showed up.  It was more than she had for her concert of songs set to the poetry of Sylvia Plath, but less than hoped for. She didn’t know whether to feel good or bad.  Her high, pure soprano had served her well and she’d made fewer mistakes on the guitar.  She’d managed to get most of the crowd to raise their arms and sway in unison to the final number, and the applause at the end seemed heartfelt, if subdued. 

             Carole had little trouble reminding herself of all the frivolous aspects of Christmas she railed against—the silly shopping for useless toys, gadgets, expensive designer perfumes, the bouncy Santa songs that struck her as almost pagan, the parties, like the one at the law firm where she worked part-time as a paralegal, where everyone staggered home in a drunken stupor, slapping each other on the back and leaving wet, sloppy kisses on her cheeks.  Only Reesha Fielding from accounting had shown up at the concert tonight, Carole noticed, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed by the hand-painted invitations she had given to everyone in the office.

             As she made her way home, she picked up her pace and lifted her eyes to the stars. She thought of the evening as a success and strode purposefully through the streets lined with small wooden bungalows.  She was picturing the rice cakes and broccoli waiting for her at home when she realized that she had forgotten to leave her porch light on.  She started looking for her keys while still half a block away, taking advantage of the overhead street light, and was still pulling the strings of her bag closed when she reached her doorway and hit something unexpected with her left foot.  She heard a kitten cry out.

            She maneuvered around the dark obstacle, opened her front door and reached inside to turn on the porch light. A picnic basket, with a large arched handle, stood on the small wooden platform outside her front door.   It was filled with soft, white cloth; a piece of blue paper sat folded on top.  Carole picked up the paper and opened it.  ‘PLEASE’ was all it said, in simple block letters. 

            She pinched one of the peaks of fluffy white cloth with her thumb and forefinger and gently lifted it.    “ ..And they found a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger,” she thought and then wondered what exactly a manger was. She looked at the picnic basket, confused.  The image in front of her battled with the words in her mind. It took close to a minute for her to realize that she was looking at a real live baby. 

             She remembered the abortion she had had when she was 19 and wondered if this event was somehow connected.  At 46, Carole had left her fantasies of motherhood behind, but she felt a protective, perhaps maternal, instinct as she lifted up the basket by its handle and carried the baby into her home.

            The baby—a boy, she soon discovered—was perhaps a year old, although she couldn’t claim any expertise about babies.  He lay there with his eyes wide-open, staring at her in silence.  Suddenly his hands and legs began moving quickly, his fingers opening and closing into tiny fists.  Carole extended her index finger.  He grabbed it at once and yanked toward his open mouth.

            An already filled bottle, a 16-ounce can of formula, and several small glasses jars of strained asparagus and mixed fruits were tucked under the blankets, keeping him snuggly contained inside the basket.  A tiny plastic rattle with a blue satin ribbon was the only other item in the basket—no explanation, no name, no phone number.  It was an unusually warm night, so Carole thought it would be OK to feed the baby without heating up the bottle first. 

            She would have to call the police as soon as the baby had eaten, of course.  He drank greedily and Carole stared into his dark eyes.  Feeling weightless and a bit giddy, she sat down as a sensation of falling into a long narrow tunnel overcame her.   A wave of maternal feeling poured through her like warm honey and the tips of her breasts tingled slightly.

             “Rudolph!  That’s what I’ll call you.  Rudolph.  My little Christmas surprise!” she said aloud to the baby. Then she broke into that song, adding some variations to the words which she had forbidden herself to sing for years.

            “That cute little red-button nose of yours, that cute little button-red nose,” Carole sang, improvising more words and music as she went along.

  ‘The First Noel,’ ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,’ ‘Joy to the World,’ even ‘I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus,’ ‘Jingle Bell Rock,’ and “Little Drummer Boy” (the one she hated the most)— all came tumbling back into Carole’s mind as she bounced the baby on her knee and experienced a deep sense of well-being.

            Carole placed Rudolph into bed next to her and tucked the sheets in tightly on his side so that he wouldn’t fall out.  She put on the flannel nightdress her mother had given her two Christmases ago. She’d never worn it because of the large red poinsettia design of the fabric.  She spent most of the night with one arm circled around Rudolph’s tiny head, sleeping only briefly, humming one song after another.

            The next morning she called the grocery store and placed an order for delivery—more formula, baby food, and some bio-degradable diapers.  Maybe just one more night, she told herself. 

             She stopped going out of the house, stopped watching TV, and stopped answering the telephone as young Rudolph enveloped her days and nights with his baby love.

            A few weeks later Carole was startled by a loud rap at the door just as she was putting Rudolph to bed.

             “Officer O’Malley of the Berkeley police, Ma’am,” announced the tall, thin man in a blue uniform as he presented his badge. 

            Carol assured herself that he looked kind as a cold sweat erupted on her forehead.

            “We’re investigating a missing child report and…”

             Carole didn’t hear anything else he said as she dove deeper down that narrow tunnel she’d entered the night Rudolph appeared, hoping she might not be found.

 

            The judge was lenient.  With no previous record and with several friends appearing in court to vouch for her stalwart character and her good works at St. Ursula’s, Carol was able to get an 18-month sentence, with time off for good behavior.  She formed a successful women’s chorus in prison and was such a model inmate that she was released after serving less than 10 months, although she was required to meet with her parole office regularly for three years.  Carole Parker got right back to work, writing songs and making music. 

…

“A positive image of the U.S. penitentiary system has come from an unlikely source.  Singer/songwriter Carole Parker’s prison sentence has been widely documented in the news, but on her new album, Miss Parker documents her time spent in jail with a series of upbeat ballads, so engaging in their easy-to-follow melodies and straightforward lyrics that you almost wish she had remained in jail a bit longer and kept on writing.  Her latest CD, Striped Pajamas, is sung throughout with a stiff upper lip, a wry smile, and a clear, bright soprano voice.

            In “Bunk beds” an inmate sings of the hidden love she feels for her cellmate, who one night, finally climbs down from the upper bunk to join her in a duet (Miss Parker does her own voice-over, an octave lower.)

            “Volleyball-and-chain”  uses the rhythm of a bouncing ball and a group of women singing snippets from Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools’ to create an upbeat number about the small pleasure of recreation time, spiced with a self-condemning chorus of repentant inmates.

             “Candy, Girlfriend?” depicts Miss Parker’s struggle against offerings of drugs and sex by other inmates. Her resounding refrain of “Just Say No!” leaves no doubt that the singer/songwriter’s body is as pure as her lilting soprano.

            “Beans, again!?” is a humorous complaint about institutional food, accompanied by a chorus of women who create a lively madrigal by imitating the sounds of flatulence.

  “Lights out!” is the one slow piece on this CD, a reminiscence in the dark of the brief time she spent with her kidnapped boy, Rudolph, named after Santa’s lead reindeer. Miss Parker’s use of jingle bells played slowly and mournfully, creates a heartrending holiday background in this touching song.

            As part of Miss Parker’s parole, performances at penal institutions throughout the state of California are being presented.  Her next concert will be on Saturday, December 12 at the Central Salinas County Minimum Security Detention Center’s ‘John Steinbeck Auditorium.’

            After a study showed the effects of her music to be both calming and therapeutic, the California State Department of Corrections has distributed a policy document. The document requires that Parker’s CD be played during recreation time in prisons throughout the state, at least once a day.

             Striped Pajamas is a CD for anyone who has not yet experienced the bright side of incarceration.”    

--Hortense Ebendorff, ‘Inmate News’ in Federal Probation Monthly, October 15, 2006

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Born in New York City in 1950, Jim Johnston grew up in New Hampshire, and now lives in Mexico City. He studied architecture at the University of Virginia and graphic design at the School of Visual Arts .  He is a full-time artist, and author of Mexico City: an Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler.  This story is his first published work of fiction.  His website is www.jimjohnnstonart.com