CHARACTERS:

JAKE: Seventeen year old boy wearing an old jacket and messy hair.

SETTING:

A drab, messy living room with Christmas decorations strewn around. JAKE is standing next to a fallen over coffee table and a green couch.

TIME:

The present.

JAKE: We all saw it coming. Tina an’ mom were at the end of their ropes by the time December rolled around. The rush of the holiday spirit and “family togetherness” – pop just couldn’t handle it. I’ll tell ya though, he sure did hang on longer than I expected. It was sad really, the way it went down. I’m still not sure mom will get over it.

(beat)

Let me set the scene for ya, yeah? Two days before Christmas Eve, little Tina’s sitting on the floor playing with a rag doll. Mom’s tryin’ to salvage what’s left of the broken ornaments on the half dead tree – all those damn ornaments. Decorations. Never understood the shit. Stupid baubles that lose their color, creepy elves—

(quickly stops once he realizes he’s off topic)

Right, Officer. Ya wanna know what happens. Well in walks pop, scruffy face and red cheeks – looked like Santa helped himself to too much eggnog, if ya know what I mean. He nearly steps on Tina, tramples her doll, an’ grabs mom by the waist an’ mutters something in her ear. But now Tina’s upset ‘cause her doll is missing an arm an’ mom dropped another ornament as pop’s crawling all over her –

(beat)

I really am surprised it took so long, but, I guess we thought his liver would conk out a long time ago. I took pity on the man –

(begins to speak in a rushed manner)

And then mom’s mumbling about the broken glass on the ground an’ Tina’s coming over to me with her doll in two pieces, asking to fix it, and pop’s just laughing. He’s laughing as he plucks a bauble off the tree, chuckles as he crunches it in his hand, and snorts as he slaps mom across the face with a palm full of broken glass.

(suddenly stops and takes a breath)

It was expected, ya know. Even Tina saw it coming. As soon as mom crumpled she took her torn doll and ran out of the room. She was used to this shit. I was used to this shit.

(takes a mock fighting stance and lowers his voice)

“C’mon bud, I know y’can take m’re hits than that. Ya ma sure can.”

(runs his hand through his hair)

So mom was bleedin’. An’ he was acting smug, setting his sights on me, muttering shit I don’t care to remember. So, I walked right on over. Picked up a fat, glass Santa from the table an’ bashed him over the head with it. I pitied the man, and we all needed a few hours of quiet. But mom was crying, she was frantic, wouldn’t let me clean the blood off her face. Tina was hiding in some closet. I don’t know why they were so upset. We all knew it was coming.

(red and blue lights reflect in the living room)