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Order this writing in the collection book Bending the Curve available for only 1495 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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Xmas Spirit
Pat Dixon
At 10:30 Christmas morning, I’m speeding east on 66, almost to Miramichi. Carl, our dispatcher, radios me to drive all the way back to Tweed-New Haven to pick up the same old guy I’d dropped off at Alpha Airline’s shuttle just four hours earlier. Well, I think, his daughter’ll sure be glad to see him again, whatever the reason.
Twenty-five minutes later, just when I see him, the fare sees me and waves. I stash his three bags in my trunk while he climbs into the back seat again. We’re heading northwest on Forbes over the Quinnipiac before he says his first word to me.
“They cancelled my 8:30 morning flight before I turned in my bags. I finally got sheduled for another, almost the same time tomorrow—with a different airline. Best they could do, they said. Tried to get something later today. Nothing was going out of any of Alpha’s terminals to Pittsburgh before 9:30 tonight, they said, and I took it—but then at a quarter past ten they cancelled that, too—along with all their other flights everywhere else today.”
“Bummer,” I say. “Maybe I’ll be your driver again tomorrow. We’ll give it another shot with better luck maybe.”
He doesn’t answer me. As I get on I-91 to head north, he volunteers some more news.
“At first they were telling us half their morning and afternoon flights were cancelled by a storm, an ‘Act of God,’ which meant they wouldn’t have to refund us our money fully, but one of the ticket agents let it slip that it was just their computers were frozen up somehow and couldn’t ‘talk’ to each other. Word of this spread through our terminal like—like—”
“Wildfire?” I suggest.
“Like nitrous oxide—Happiness Gas—Laughing Gas,” he says. “No one was really ‘happy’ about the situation, but at least we weren’t going to be getting ripped off as far as our money was concerned. We’d at least break even.”
I didn’t mention that today’s cab fares down and back were costing him forty-five bucks each way—plus the tips.
I radio Carl and confirm I have the fare and am on my way up the interstate. Five miles farther, the old guy offers me some more news.
“They say misery loves company, even though it sounds like a cruel way for people to think. I’ve always tried to be different, and right now I’m a bit sorry for the thousands of other Christmas travellers that got screwed like me—and all the relatives, like mine, who won’t be seeing us today—and the pilots and their crews, who will probably be screwed out of holiday pay by the company hotshots—and even the ticket clerks, who are getting a lot of crap from people for stuff that isn’t their faults—but—there’s one thing about this situation that does make me feel a little better—or at least makes my nasty side feel better.”
He pauses, whether for effect or to try to find the right words—or because he’s having a seizure of some sort—who can say? On the trip down, he was a bit of a motor-mouth, the way some fares are just before they’re going on a holiday plane flight. He was telling me about how he’s an engineering professor at Witherspoon Military Academy and has a 92-year-old father in a rest home he was going to stop off and see near Pittsburgh—and then he was going to drive a rental car about fifty miles south and stay till New Year’s with his son’s family. Had two suitcases full of stuff for his grandkids, plus some little somethings for his son and daughter-in-law.
I drive a mile in silence and then say, “Like what?”
“Huh?” he says. “Oh—like—like poetic justice—almost. The line up to the counter was creeping along, snaking back and forth around those rope-off things. About half of us were in line for the flights that weren’t cancelled yet, and the rest wanted to find out what we could do about our cancelled flights, and we all were being pretty patient and orderly and good humored, all things considered, and finally I was third in line—behind a couple of women—one white and one black. We’d begun talking, the three of us, about seventy feet back, making little light jokes and telling each other about our big plans that were now partly crushed, but not being really sad about it. Gallows humor, I guess you could call it. You know?”
“Sure,” I say. “We did that in the Navy—an’ we do it—with my other job now.”
“Right. We used to do it back when I was in the MPs—oh—forty—forty-two years ago. Same thing. Anyway, the three of us are now at the front of the line, and there are three or four ticket agents working at the counter, dealing with the customers that were ahead of us—when a young guy—oh—about half my age—suddenly appears beside us, sliding four huge suitcases. I look him over and point him out to the two gals I’ve been talking with. He’s a fat guy with horn-rim glasses, and he has a skinny black-haired wife behind him, carrying a kid that looks to be—oh—maybe three or four years old. I’ve got a suddenly prickly feeling, so to speak. He looks like some kind of obese weasel to me.”
I smile at the thought of an obese weasel but say nothing. I weigh about two-sixty-five myself, but then I’m a pretty large guy—six foot five an’ a half. Much of it’s muscle.
“To head off a difference of opinion, so to speak,” he says, “I say in a loud voice, ‘Just for the record, young man, you know you are behind those of us who’ve been standing here in line?’ And he nods and smiles and says, ‘Of course. I’m just putting these bags up close so I don’t have to carry them while we’re in line, and they’ll be here when it’s our turn.’ After over sixty years of meeting weasels, though, I’ve still got a funny feeling about this guy. Turns out my instincts were right. That was just his first story.”
He pauses while an ambulance passes us, doing—oh—maybe eighty-five, I’d estimate.
“I used to pull MP duty on Christmas most of the time,” he says. “I’d hate the fights and the domestic disturbances that night, but mostly I’d hate the traffic accidents. Just seemed worse, somehow, when it was Christmas.”
“Yeah, it does,” I say, fully in agreement.
“Anyway,” he says, “the guy and his wife don’t go back under the rope and get in line. I ask him about it, and he gives a totally new story: ‘My wife was already at the front of the line, and I’m just joining her here.’ I’m in the process of calling him a liar when the next agent is free at the counter, and this fat punk hops ahead of us and hands his ticket folders to her.
“‘Hey!’ says I. ‘Don’t be taking him! He’s cutting the line!’ But the ticket agent is looking nervous and just takes the tickets from him. So I say to the two women in front of me, using a pretty loud voice on purpose, ‘I don’t want him cutting ahead of me, but if you two ladies are happy with him cutting ahead of you, I suppose it’s all right!’
“They both just looked away, not wanting to get involved. I was speaking loud enough to be heard, say, fifty feet away, and was trying to get some other folks to join in with me, but nobody did. I’d seen it work twice for a friend of mine, including when a big jock cut the line to register for classes back at the University of Oklahoma, where my friend and I went to grad school. Nobody wanted to join me, and this fat turd just smirked at me and grabbed one of his bags and gave it to the ticket clerk.
“I told him he was teaching his little daughter to be a pushy line cutter, and he smirked and said, ‘I’m not cutting the line—I’m just aggressive. It’s a survival skill.’ So I directed my next remark to his wife and said, ‘Ma’am, you’re letting this fat heap of infamy corrupt your little daughter. Is this how you want her to act when she is with other people? Is this the sort of person you want her to become?’ But she just looked down and away—though I think I might have planted a seed in her mind—but maybe not. He’s a real peach of a guy. I’m wondering if he’ll brag about his ‘victory’ to his family or his in-laws. I suspect he’s a wife beater, by the way. Saw a lot of them when I was in the MPs forty years ago—at least half of them were officers, too.”
The old guy clears his throat and is quiet for half a minute. I think this is the end of his big adventure, but then he continues:
“When the fat punk has put the fourth big suitcase up for the clerk, he folds his arms and smirks at me again, holding out a hand to beckon his wife to bring the kid over and follow him to a security gate. I open my mouth again and say right to him, loudly of course, ‘So much for the spirit of Christmas! You know what I think you are? Do you know? You’ve got all the morals of a—a—”
“The guy seems to brighten up, thinking probably I’m going to use some words not fit for mixed company. ‘Go on—say it!’ he says, leering at me. ‘Say it! Say it! Say it!’
“‘You’ve got the morals of—an Enron executive,’ I say, ‘—or—a—a Halliburton executive!’
“And while I’m calling him names, I’m feeling they’re really lame, and he seems pretty disappointed, too—so off he goes with his wife and kid. By then, it’s my turn, and I’m put on that evening flight that’s cancelled later. And I go through security and start looking for a place to eat—and a few minutes later I see all of Alpha’s morning flights are cancelled, which means the fat toad and his wife and kid are grounded, too—and will now just push their way through another line of folks. So at least I’m feeling a little better about poetic justice—but really not all that much. I just wish I’d thought to say that someday his daughter would grow up and be disgusted with him—that the slimy stuff he’s doing will definitely alienate her from him.”
I think I hear him sighing back there, but I’m not sure.
Two miles later, he says, “I’m going to write a letter to the Hartford Courant about this character and his Christmas spirit. I’m pretty good with words. Maybe, if it’s printed, his neighbors will recognize him—or his coworkers. Maybe his wife will have some second thoughts about what bad citizenship he’s teaching their kid by his bad example.”
“I wouldn’t do that sort of thing,” I say. “For one thing, they won’t print it. For another, if they did, and if he saw it, he’d be proud that he’s got under your skin that bad. You’d just make him happy as a pig in the proverbial you-know-what.”
We drive past a wrecked car with a pair of troopers standing beside it. I slow down a tiny bit for a mile or so.
“What would you ‘a’ done, then?” he asks me.
“In this case—nothing. In my own experience, I seldom have such problems, but when there’s nothing I can do, I just let it go. I’m basically a big mild-mannered fellow. I don’t know if you noticed just how big I am.”
He says he didn’t, so I tell him. Then I add, “But sometimes stuff like this does happen, and sometimes there’s something I can do about it.”
I think for another good mile or so before giving him an example. I figure that if he was an MP the way he says, then there’s not much chance he’ll try to misuse what I might tell him. In any case, I can always just smile and deny the whole thing—and so will everyone else. Besides, I’m smart enough to change the names of all the towns involved.
“This isn’t my main job,” I tell him. “I’m a fulltime cop, working in—uh—Westfield, and one of my days off I’m in line at the post office picking up a package I need to sign for—and this little joker cuts in front of me just as I’m starting to go up to the next clerk.
“‘That wasn’t very nice,’ I say to him in a calm voice. And he looks up at me the way some little bullies do that are trying to bait big guys when it’s physically safe to do so an’ says, ‘So—Tiny—what are you goin’ t’ do about it, hunh?’
“‘It depends on if I see you outside or not,’ I tell him, again keeping my voice calm and matter-of-fact as I go up to the next free clerk. He laughs and says, ‘There’s a traffic cop on the corner right outside here. Are you goin’ t’ punch me out in front of him?’
“When I get outside, he’s sitting in a red convertable with the top down, right near the P.O. entrance, waving at me with his engine running. I calmly walk past him and look at the back of his car, and he turns and gives me the finger—three or four times.”
“Sounds like a relative of the fat punk I had to deal with,” says my fare. “Sounds a bit like a jerk I work with at Witherspoon, too—in the Engineering Department. Drives a little red convertable and is obnoxious as hell.”
“Long story short,” say I, not liking this news, “I got his home address from his plates and found out he lives in—oh—North Cromwell. I’ve got buddies on almost all the forces for a thirty-mile radius, and the local cops—and those where he works—gave his car and driving habits a bit of extra scrutiny for me. If he was parked on the wrong side of a street or had a meter expire, he found a ticket under his wiper. If he eased through a stop sign without a full stop, he got a moving violation. All in all, in the next five weeks, he ended up with about $4,000 in fines, plus a huge unhealthy case of paranoia and probably half a dozen stress-related ailments.”
I glance in my rearview and see the fare is smiling.
“I never saw the guy again or wanted to,” I say truthfully, “but I got regular reports from cops in five nearby towns—all of ‘em having a ball with him. Finally, just yesterday, filled with warm Christmas spirit, I tell them it’s time to lighten up on the jerk . Starting today, I say, whatever tickets he gets are not going to be connected to his misbehavior in the post office. As my Christmas present to him, I’m leashing my hounds back up. But that’s just me.”
We drive in silence for half a mile, then he says, “That’s pretty dang neat. I still wish, though, I could somehow fix that fat bastard who cut my line.”
“Well,” say I, “it’s not a perfect world. Look on the bright side. You won’t be spending Christmas with your son and his family—but you will be spending it after all with your daughter. I’ll bet she’ll be pleased, anyhow.”
“I—I don’t have—a daughter,” he says. Then after a longish pause he adds, “You’re probably thinking of the lady that said goodbye to me early this morning. That’s my wife—my second wife. We couldn’t board our dogs this year, so she’s staying home with them. She’s—well—twenty-two years younger than I am.”
“Been there, done that,” say I, remembering the alimony I’m still paying and the bills my younger daughter at UConn is running up for me. And I start hoping his second tip today will be as generous as his first one was.
Immediately the words That was no daughter—that was my wife pop into my head, and I almost laugh aloud. Instead, I quickly purse my lips and add, “God bless us, every one.”
