West Side Yuletide

A True Christmas Story

The city was crumbling.

The industry that had spawned the city was showing chasms in its American steel.

The little boy was only vaguely aware of a light malaise but acutely aware that his was the only house on the block that did not have a Christmas tree.

His mother, single and working, at a time when that was an anomaly and not the norm, arrived home to his tears.

Saving every drop of gas she could, she grabbed his little red wagon and his mittened hand, and they walked down a dark and deserted Forrer Avenue to the Christmas tree lot on Fenkell. 

It was a vacant lot most of the time, and now, on Christmas Eve, in a Catholic neighborhood, it was nearly back to vacant once more.

The small trailer was almost dark, save for the glow of a transistor radio.

The mother knocked on the door. 

The time it took to answer suggested a slumbering occupant.

The mother slunk back as the door to the trailer cracked open.

The man’s head shook. The little boy took it as a no and began, once more, to cry.

The man stepped from the trailer, hunter orange coat half-on over a tank top, and tied one of the three remaining trees to the little wagon not made for trees.

The mother pulled crumpled bills from a tattered purse and the man shook his head once more.

“Looks like you need it more than me, lady. Merry Christmas, kid.”

———

Merry Christmas, Everybody.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash