Xmas

Joey Salin was never home on Christmas eve. That's just the way it was, that's the way it had been for the thirteen years of their marriage. Katlin didn't ask about where he had been anymore, it was just part of the seasonal ritual. Joey was a good father and husband, and she and the children used the time to put the finishing touches on the tree. On this night though, Joey was not a good husband or father. In fact, he was no father or husband at all, he was 22 years old again, and he was cold and wet and miserable and, he was oblivious to all these things.

At the Myron Theater on 12th St., the lights in the lobby were on but the marquee was blank and the doors were closed. Lynett bent low over an unmarked cardboard box, opening it slowly, carefully, like a treasured Christmas ornament. The silent theater smelled of popcorn and stale milkduds and old musty seats, just as it had when Lynett had come here for the first time with her dad when she was three years old. Just as it had when she had worked the concession counter when she was thirteen. Now he was gone and it was all hers, musty seats, leaky roof and all. She picked up her box and backed out of the door to the old aluminum stepladder she had set up in front of the marquee. Snow started to fall, big wet flakes. It would be a white Christmas.

Joey had driven for hours, his back ached and he had a tired feeling that hung on him like a heavy suit of armor, his protection from the world around him, the bustle of the crowds. He pulled his hat low over his eyes so he could avoid the eyes of people he met in the street. "Never a parking space downtown" he complained to himself. The stores were all open till midnight tonight, part of the effort to revive the downtown area.

As Joey turned the corner onto 12th St., he stopped and brushed the snow from a bus stop bench and lowered himself slowly onto the old wet boards. Sixteen years ago tonight he had sat on that same bench and waited for a bus, a bus that would take him away from a dead little town in the middle of nowhere that he had hated since he could remember. The world held promise then, he would leave and find his place in it.

A block and a half away, a small figure moved up and down on a ladder, placing letters on a theater marquee. Though Joey could not see who was on that ladder, he did not need to see, nor did he need to look when the light came on behind the letters she had placed there, though look he did, as he had every Christmas eve for fifteen years. He sat and stared at it as the crowds cleared, and then rose slowly and turned for home. His armor was still heavy but now no protection from the cold, he was left naked in the icy wind. The snow turned to rain. The automatic timer on the marquee lights snapped off. The words, barely visible now, held the same message they had for fifteen Christmas eves. JOEY I LOVE YOU IT'S CHRISTMAS PLEASE COME HOME

The rain came harder. Lynett put on her coat and turned off the lights.

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