Shelter from the Wind

A few days before Christmas, on a cold, grey and very windy day.  As I reached my building, I realized someone was standing in the vestibule.  I came in out of the wind, to see an elderly white-haired and white-bearded man wearing a long dark coat, and holding a clear plastic bag from the fruit-and-vegetable store.  He looked very cold and very pale.  I said “come into the lobby and get warm!  Would you like a cup of coffee?”

He politely declined, and said he was just taking shelter from the wind for a moment.  I tried again to get him to go into the lobby, which would be warmer, thinking maybe I should get him up to my apartment and warmed off, and make sure he was healthy and had a home to go to.  Maybe I could drive him somewhere. But again he politely declined to come in.

I ran up the stairs, which was faster than taking the elevator. Instant hot chocolate was faster than coffee or tea, so I put water on to boil and grabbed the quickest thing I could find that might give him some energy, which was a plate of cookies.  

It could only have taken a few minutes, but when I got back downstairs, there was no sign of him.  But I felt as if I had been tested and had, at least once, done the right thing.

I had a very good Christmas that year.

Now, I remember from a book a had as a child, that sometimes when he has to go about town without being recognized, Santa Claus wears a long dark coat to cover his red one.   

But why, I’ll always wonder, did he have a bag of tomatoes?

The Fool's Errand; or, the Sentimental Journey

"It was the third Friday in December.  Christmas was coming.  Winter was coming sooner.  Snow was coming sooner still.  And soonest of all, Vivian was coming.  I could see her red hair and green scarf blowing in the wind as she came down the block, as the first light flakes began to fall.

"It was the Friday before Christmas, and good things were coming my way."

That’s how my short story (or novel, or voice-over narration for my movie) was going to begin. Maybe it will anyway, at least as a short story.  I don’t have a middle or an end for it; and if I ever do, they won’t be what I had hoped when I first wrote those words.

It was the third Friday in December, and good things were coming my way.  We were meeting at a coffee shop, near where she was apartment-sitting and dog-sitting for a friend.  She was cold, and coughing, but happy.  I was cold, and grateful for the good fortune of knowing her.   Coffee for me, tea with honey for her in the hope of easing the cough.

The snow was heavier when we headed to her friend’s apartment.  In the lobby she wanted me to swear that I wasn’t smuggling snowballs in.  I affected innocence.  She asked if she was going to have to search me.  I said "no snowballs while you have that cough" which was good enough to get me in; it wasn’t till later that she found the circle of paper on which I had written "snowball".

I asked if she were going to bake an apple pie for Christmas -- she loved baking pies.  I saw the same look in her green eyes as when she suspected snowballs. "Don’t you know anything  about pie etiquette?  Apple pies are for October, pumpkin pies are for November.  And for December?"  I said I didn’t know.  She said there was no hope for me.

Silliness (but not snowballs) and seriousness and friendship and affection, while the day darkened and the snow got heavier still. I gave her her Christmas present, some European glass ornaments.  She gave me mine, cookies she had baked for me,  and a Christmas stollen from the holiday market at Union Square.  And a present that I still treasure, more stories of her childhood in Europe, of St. Nicholas Day and Christmas.  I told her stories of Christmas trees being brought in out of the cold, with their scent, and snow in their branches, and the sense of the dark mystery of the woods.

And we talked and talked, and sat quietly, and talked more.

Then a hug and a kiss, and I was off into the wind and snow to Grand Central, catching my train with 30 seconds to spare.  I rode home, thinking of her, and St. Nicholas Day, and pie etiquette, and of good things to come.

But we were not to celebrate Christmas again.

Probably again this December I will go on what I think of as the fool’s errand, or the sentimental journey.  I’ll slip the last, undelivered present I ever bought for her in my pocket, and go for coffee in the same coffee shop.

I won’t be stalking her; she’s long since gone from there.  I don’t really know what I’ll be doing, except remembering that third Friday in December, when Christmas and winter and snow, and Vivian with her green scarf, were coming my way.

Bringing in the Tree

I smelled the scent of evergreen the other day; and as it so often does, it reminded me of Christmas trees, and especially the scent as the tree first came into the house out of the cold outdoors.

Every year, some time after Thanksgiving, my father would get out the Christmas lights and test them.  They were the old sets of eight bulbs in series, so that if one burned out the whole string went dark.  If one of the sets didn’t light, he would patiently screw a spare bulb in one socket after another till he found the bad bulb; and at the end he had all the strings lit, and a few bad bulbs.  I would carefully note what was needed to replace them – two red, one green, one white – for when we next went to Woolworth or Kress.

The lights would then be put away for a few weeks.  But it had been a sign: Christmas was coming.

Then, a few days before Christmas, the tree would be bought.  We’d set out, my parents, my two older brothers, and me, to find the perfect tree.  And, at least in memory, we always did.  Sometimes we went around the corner to the fruit and vegetable store, “FRUITS – AL MILANO – VEGETABLES”.  Mr. Milano would have some trees leaning up against the front of the store.  Other years we went blocks and blocks away, to Webster Avenue, where there would be a truck full of trees parked at the curb, with more trees lined up against the wall of a brick warehouse.  Wooden posts held the “Xmas Trees” sign.

At either place, some of the trees would be tied up with twine; others untied.  My parents would look at the untied ones first.  Too short, too thin, too irregular; very rarely, too tall or too wide.  Then the man, who always seemed to be wearing a red-and-black checkered coat and knit hat, would take his knife and start cutting the twine on the trees that were still tied up.  Too thin, too short … and then, the perfect tree.  My mother would ask if it were too tall.  My father would say he didn’t think so.  My brothers and I would all say it wasn’t too tall, could we get that one?  A last slow examination, turning it slowly to make sure there were no bare or irregular patches, and my parents would be satisfied.

The tree would be bought, tied up again, and my father and brothers would take turns carrying it home.  Sometimes I was allowed to “help carry it”, holding it near the top, and no doubt making things harder for whomever was doing the real carrying.

We lived on the ground floor of a three family house. The tree would stay out in the cold, by the back door, until Christmas Eve.  Meanwhile, indoors, the tree stand, the boxes of ornaments, the lights, the nativity set and all the other decorations came out of the closet.  The annual decision was made: should the tree go in the bay window, or in the corner of the living room?

Finally, in the evening, the tree would be brought in. At least once it had snow in its branches –  at least once, though in my memory it always had snow.  And in with it would come that scent, and a sense of the dark mystery of the forest.

Sometimes the tree would in fact be too tall, and the decision would have to be made to cut at the bottom, possibly losing some of the wide lower branches, perfect for hanging some of the old, heavy glass ornaments; or to trim the crown, which was one of the selling points for its regularity.  Once, before I can remember, my brothers tell me that our father patiently cut the tree in the middle and spliced it, to preserve the perfect top and bottom.

My mother and brothers and I would put the ornaments and tinsel on; but first, my father would put the lights on, working with infinite patience to distribute them evenly.  To this day, when I put lights on my tree, I always feel that I am doing a complex and difficult job as best I can.

At last, the room lights would be put out, and the tree lit, and it was Christmas.

I smelled the scent of evergreen the other day, and as it so often does, it reminded me of Christmas trees, and especially the scent as the tree first came into the house out of the cold outdoors, bringing snow and the dark mystery of the forest.

I smelled it when I was putting an evergreen covering on my father’s grave.  I took as much care as I could to place it exactly right, remembering his infinite patience with things that gave us pleasure.

For which I never thanked him.