this building.”
Carl closed his eyes and groaned a few times. “My son is freezing to death in an
alley next door. I’m not interested in watching a bunch of fools celebrate Christmas,
Helena. I’m over it.”
Helena tilted her head and smiled. “This isn’t just any ordinary Christmas party,
Carl. Your son was on his way here to get something to eat before he went into the alley
to rest. Let’s go inside.” Then she smoothed down the front of her coat and stepped into
the massive room alone. Her stilettos clicked against the hard tiles.
Carl rolled his eyes and followed her. He knew he didn’t have a choice. He
crossed through wide double doors and looked back and forth. The room appeared to be a
large school gym set up with folding metal tables and chairs. The hardwood floors were
scuffed and scratched, with faded paint lines that had once defined a basketball court.
When he looked up, he saw old basketball hoops on both ends of the room. The nets were
torn and hanging halfway from the hoops. The ceiling was so high every sound rose and
echoed.
He gaped at the people sitting at the tables. He didn’t know anyone. They were all
different ages, sizes, and colors. No one appeared to have anything in common other than
the fact that they were all there at the same time. The table to his immediate left had a
man, a woman, and three small children at one end and a group of older men at the other. The children had dirty faces and they were laughing, poking each other in the chest. And
the table to his right had a group of teenage boys, an older man and woman, and three
middle-aged men with scruffy beards. Everyone in the room was eating food from
medium-sized white dinner plates. Some people raised their voices and shouted, others
murmured quietly, and a few just sat still and stared at their food without saying a word.
Then Carl heard a familiar voice shout, “Over here, this table still hasn’t been
served.” It was Able’s voice, shouting to someone on the other side of the room.
Carl turned fast. Able was carrying a large round platter, walking fast and
weaving in and out of other tables. Able moved toward Carl and pointed to another table
full of people who hadn’t been served their food yet. Carl turned and said to Helena,
“There’s my employee, Able Anderson.”
Then Carl noticed another familiar face. The woman who owed the tearoom
across the street from his antiques shop was carrying another large tray and she was
crossing toward where Able was standing. Carl didn’t know the woman well; he couldn’t
even recall her name. The first day she’d opened her shop she’d introduced herself to
Carl, but Carl had only nodded and turned his head to answer the phone. When he hung
up and saw she was still standing at his desk, he’d told her he didn’t have time to chitchat.
He’d never believed in getting too friendly with the other shop owners on the street. After
all, they were all in competition with each other. If someone was out shopping, they
could buy a bag of tea just as fast as an antique box.
A few months after the woman from the tearoom introduced herself to Carl, she
started a huge commotion over the fact that Carl had placed a real baby giraffe skin in the
front window of his shop. First, she tried talking to Carl in person and reasoning with him. She asked him to remove the skin from the window so everyone on the street didn’t have
to look at it. She said it made her sick to her stomach to think of anyone killing an
innocent baby giraffe for pleasure. It made her even sicker to think anyone would buy
such a vulgar item. Carl laughed in her face and told her to get the hell out of his shop.
Then she tried to make him remove the giraffe skin with a signed petition from all
the other shop owners on the street. Evidently, everyone in the neighborhood agreed with
her that Carl’s window display, with the large sign that read, “Baby Giraffe,” was
tasteless. But Carl called his lawyer and found out there was nothing she or anyone else
could do about his window display. Her bleeding-heart, save-the-animals petition meant
nothing. The baby giraffe had been killed more than a hundred years ago and it was an
authentic antique. So Carl crossed to her shop, knocked on her door, and told her that if
she didn’t like looking at dead baby giraffes she should just turn her head in the other
direction. Then he told her to go fuck herself and walked back to his own shop.
Now the tea woman rested the massive tray on top of a folding stand next to Able
and said, “I hope we don’t run out of turkey. I was just talking to the boss and he said if
we get any more people tonight, there won’t be enough to serve for dinner tomorrow.”
Her short blond hair was clumped together and sticking up in different sections. She was
wearing a white apron with grease stains and bright red sneakers.
Able frowned and reached for a dinner plate on his tray. “I hope that doesn’t
happen. I hate to see anyone go hungry on Christmas.” He moved fast. He set a plate of
turkey, mashed potatoes, and string beans in front of an older woman with crooked
fingers. There was no stuffing, no cranberry sauce, and no hot buttered roll. But the
portion he served was large. The older woman looked up, smiled, and thanked him twice. While Able was setting another plate in front of an older man, he turned to the
woman who owned the tearoom and said, “I didn’t think we’d be this crowded tonight. If
I’d been allowed to get here sooner, everyone would have been served a lot sooner. But
Mr. Smite wanted to keep the shop open as late as he could.” He reached for another
plate and said, “And we didn’t have one customer all day. It was a complete waste of
time.”
Carl clenched his fists and shook them. “How dare he speak about me this way?
I’ve been good to him. The man has no work ethic whatsoever. I should fire the lazy
bastard on the spot, right now. It wasn’t a complete waste of time. He finished the zebra
chair on time so I could have it in the front window on Christmas Day.”
Helena laughed in Carl’s face. “You can’t fire him now. He can’t even see you.”
Then she pointed to Able. He was serving dinners fast, moving his arms with such speed
he could hardly catch his breath. “Carl, if Able is a lazy bastard, you sure could have
fooled me. I’ve never seen a young man work so hard. He’s not even getting paid to work
here. It’s a homeless shelter.”
Carl folded his arms across his naked chest and said, “He has no right to talk
about me that way to another shop owner. It’s insubordinate and disloyal.”
The woman who owned the tearoom gave Able a look. “I guess Mr. Smite doesn’t
care much about Christmas. This morning I waved to him and he just kept on walking as
if I were invisible.”
Able served the last dinner plate on the tray and said, “Don’t take it personally,
seriously. Old Mr. Smite doesn’t care much for anything or anyone. It’s just how he is, I’m sorry to say. I tried to give him a small Christmas gift this afternoon, and he wouldn’t
even take it.”
The tea woman rolled her eyes. “I can’t imagine how awful it must be to be
him
.
This is Christmas. It’s the time to forgive and forget.”
Able ran his fingers through his hair. “Don’t get upset now,” he said. “But I
figured I’d better warn you about something. Mr. Smite put an antique chair covered in
zebra skin in the front window this afternoon. You’re not going to like it when you see
it.”
Carl folded his arms across his chest and smiled.
The tea woman stopped moving and stared at Able. “Not another one. I still get
sick to my stomach when I think about the baby giraffe skin. I can’t help wondering what
this man has against harmless animals.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not
going to think about Smite or his dead animals. I’m not going to let him ruin my
Christmas.”
Able shrugged his shoulders. “I warned him that he’d be upsetting the entire street
again, and he didn’t seem to care. You know, I think he wanted that chair in the window
for Christmas. I’ve never met anyone who hated Christmas so much.”
Carl raised his fist and shouted, “I
don’t
care. I have to make a living, and that
damn animal has been dead for years. If you don’t like looking at it, then you can turn
your backs.”
Helena tapped Carl’s arm and said, “Calm down, big boy. They can’t hear you.”
The tea shop woman frowned. “Well, I think Mr. Smite is nothing but a
despicable monster. The man is evil.” “I am not evil,” Carl shouted. “I’m just sensible, is all.”
Able smiled. “C’mon now, he’s not that bad. Mr. Smite has
some
good qualities.
And it is Christmas. I hate saying mean things about anyone on Christmas Eve. Let’s
make a Christmas toast to Mr. Smite and get back to work. I just saw a few more people
enter and they all look hungry.”
There were a few glasses of water on Able’s food tray. He lifted one glass and
handed it to the tea woman, and then he took another glass for himself. When he lifted his
glass and clicked it against hers, he smiled and said, “To Mr. Carl Smite: a very Merry
Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.”
The tea woman smiled and shouted, “To Mr. Smite! I feel better already.”
Carl watched them make the toast with wide eyes. He took a quick breath and
exhaled fast. He knew Helena was checking his expression. He didn’t want to say
anything aloud, but he couldn’t understand why they would actually toast him. Able,
especially, knew how much he hated anything to do with Christmas.
When they finished toasting Carl, Able said, “Let’s go back and check with the
boss. I want to know if we should start handing out smaller portions now.”
They lifted their trays and crossed toward the kitchen. Helena nodded to Carl, and
they followed Able and the tea woman to the back of the room. They walked into an
industrial-style kitchen, with stainless steel counters and a long gas cook top. Pots and
pans clamored, dishes clinked, and voices mumbled. One woman was preparing instant
mashed potatoes in a large stainless steel pot. Her head bounced up and down while she
stirred with a large wooden spoon. She whistled along with the Christmas music coming
through the speakers. They followed Able and his friend past other volunteers who were arranging food on clean plates. Arms and hands moved fast; everyone was smiling and
having fun. Carl lifted his eyebrows and stared back and forth. He never would have
imagined that Christmas Eve in a homeless shelter could make people smile so much.
Able and his friend crossed through the kitchen and into a small office. Carl and
Helena followed them. When Able knocked on the door frame, he asked, “How are we
doing, boss? Should we start serving smaller portions?”
There was a man with dark hair sitting at a gray metal desk. From the back, he
looked to be in his mid-thirties. The chair was one of those old-fashioned swivel chairs
on wheels, with a green vinyl seat and gray metal trim. His back was to Able and the
woman, and he was sifting through a stack of papers on a shelf behind the desk. He set
the papers down and arranged them into a neat pile. Then he pressed his palms on the
arms of the chair and slowly turned to face them.
When the man behind the desk lifted his head, Carl opened his eyes as wide as
they could go. He reached for the door frame with one hand and pressed the other to his
throat. He stared at the man behind the desk and said, “It can’t be. I must be seeing things.
Is this some kind of a cruel joke?”
The man behind the desk smiled and said, “We’re well stocked with side dishes,
but we’re running out of turkeys. It doesn’t look good, Able. I’ve been trying to figure
out how to get more for tomorrow. We have enough for tonight, but I don’t know what
tomorrow will bring. It’s a good thing we made extra for tonight. But I was hoping to
save the extra ones for tomorrow.” Able put his hands into his pockets and stared down at his shoes. “Can’t we call
some people for donations? We can’t let people go hungry on Christmas Day. They
depend on us, Mr. Briarwood.”
“Able called him Mr. Briarwood,” Carl said. He took a step forward. He glared at
Helena. I heard him say it with my own ears.” Then he stepped up next to the desk and
leaned forward. “Victor, is that really you?” He patted his chest. “It’s me, Carl.”
Helena smiled. “He can’t see you either, Carl.”
Carl ignored the ghost and smiled for the first time since he’d entered the
