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OAKLAND, CA, USA - Looking back, it has been my lot, my inclination, you might say, to have written more holiday articles at this Web magazine than anyone else. That's not only because I've been here longer than most but also because I live close to a lot of members of my family -- other than the Louisiana branch -- than most of the other writers. So I guess it's only fitting that I do the first article of this Christmas season here at the World's Magazine.
You can find a lot of my past holiday articles on this list:
As I sat down to write this article, my wife Tanya was sitting down to watch "A Clay Aiken Christmas." Tanya can't get enough of her Yolanda Adams, who is a guest on the show. So it was my cue to retreat to the guest room, where my computer is right now. As good a time as any to write about this season, with the holiday songs wafting in from the living room and the Allegra and K-Mart commercials providing the punctuation marks.
- Turkey Day in Cali, November, 2000
- Chittlin's and Possum Gravy November, 2000
The Season of Family November, 2001- Christmas with the Old Man December, 2003
Talked to the Editor on the phone last night because I was concerned after reading his last "Glass House." I didn't particularly like the tone. (I can't tell if it is worse when he gives us chapter and verse of what is going on or when he clams up.) As I expected, he was in no way in no kind of Christmas mood. Rent ain't paid, making Fourth World money on his job, more hinky stuff from the roomie and getting back into his "resignation" frame of mind. Talking about when the "last" issue of the magazine comes out and stuff like I don't even like hearing. What G21 Christmas? was his frame of mind.
I took his being down in stride, I know that Christmas is his least favorite time o f year. I can certainly understand why.
So with the caroling going on in the background, I thought I'd try writing him a different kind of Christmas story, from the perspective of another brother with less on his plate.
Yeah, PubMan, I can understand your concern(s). It will probably be pretty hard to try to put this World's Magazine out next year from the stately environs of that cardboard box down under the freeway underpass that looks like your next potential "home." But it ain't like you haven't faced the prospect of the street before. I guess never at Christmas time; that's certainly a first. But I know you've had some pretty rough Christmases.
I wouldn't wish the family you got dealt on my worst enemy but forget about all that for a moment, because there is always, always hope. You need to believe that, Blood.
Let me tell you a story.
You remember a few years back I wrote you that profile of another Old School brother like yourself, "Cool Papa," we called him, who lived near my place out in East Oakland? Well, Cool Papa, didn't have a lot going for him, as you probably gathered. No living family, as far as I could figure out, and was little more than a ghetto sage to most of us who would take the time to talk to him, buy him a beer from time to time. I'd have to say the man didn't have any real friends. None of us was the kind of folks, I regret to say now, who would invite him over for a meal or slip him a fiver now and again to make sure he got by. Like most folks, we was so wrapped up in our own lives or petty politics on the job or some situation at home, that it just didn't seem to dawn on us that we were not only watching this old man die before our very eyes, we were -- in our own oblivious ways -- contributing to his demise. Venial sins have a way to evolving up into mortal sins by omitting to remember we are all God's children.
That's easy enough to do, life being what it is and we being who we are.
Well this particular Christmas -- last Christmas as a matter of fact -- it turns out my co-worker, Jimmy Lee, was out driving around looking to get a deal on a tree. Jimmy Lee is a well-known cheapskate, the man knows how to pinch a penny until it hollers for blessed mercy, and so he waits until Christmas Eve every year to go looking for his tree. He waits late. That way, he says, by the time his kids finish decorating the tree they are all pooped out and ready to sleep until a little later on Christmas morning instead of rousting him and the missus hungover out of bed to open the presents.
Also, according to Jimmy Lee's logic, if you wait until a bit later at night, say about eight o'clock or so, the tree salesfolks are desperate. They know ain't many more trees gonnah move and they are ready to get home to their own families. You can talk them down to next to nothing, Jimmy Lee says. He claims he even got a couple free trees in years past using this strategy of his.
"What kindah fool gonnah pay good money," he says, "for some damned tree you gottah put out on the curb a week later anyways?"
It was while going between tree places that Jimmy Lee runs up on Cool Papa standin' on the overpass of the freeway. (Yeah, you figured it right, PubMan. I ain't gottah tell ya'. It was the "George Bailey" scenario a lot of people, especially lonely old folks, go through around Christmas time)
Now Jimmy Lee ain't no angel lookin' for his wings but he ain't totally a heartless individual, either. He's just cheap. So, of course, he pulls over and asks Cool Papa what he's doin' on that overpass in the middle of the damned night?
The old man was abashed, as you might figure. He fumbled for something reasonable to say, Jimmy Lee told us at work.
Finally, he sputters out: "Nothing, boy. Just lookin'." He put on a kind of grumpy, get-lost-and-mind-your-own-business kind of delivery.
"Get in the car," Jimmy Lee tells him.
"What the hell for?" Cool Papa shoots back.
"I need some help," Jimmy Lee says. "I gottah lug a damned tree back to my crib and I ain't got nobody to help me carry it."
Cool Papa turned around from the overpass railing then, still givin' Jimmy Lee a mean look like he was ready and able to kick his ass -- which that scrawny old man certainly wasn't, as anybody can tell. Jimmy Lee is big as a house. "What makes you think I wannah help you?" Cool Papa says.
"There's some scratch in it for ya'," Jimmy Lee says. "I ain't askin' for charity."
Cool Papa thought about it for a moment and then walks around to the passenger side and gets in the car.
Jimmy Lee is big and cheap and raw but he ain't no dummy, neither. He never mentioned anything about how weird it was for that old man to be up on that overpass on Christmas Eve night. Fact was, he didn't talk to the old man much at all, other than telling him the location of the next tree selling place and how he hoped to get a deal on the tree. They basically just road to the place in silence.
They got there and picked out a tree for Jimmy Lee's family, tied it down in the trunk of his car and took it to his place. They lugged it inside and set it up for the kids to start decorating.
"Have some egg nog with me," Jimmy told Cool Papa, "then I'ma give you yo' money, okay? Me and Lula always drinks us some egg nog while we supervisin' the work. It's good stuff."
"Okay," the old man said.
Well, Jimmy Lee figured the old man looked pretty tired and strung out already. It wouldn't take much to knock him on his ass but he added even more brandy to that egg nog of his to make sure of his plan.
While they was drinking that egg nog and munchin' on Christmas cookies and fudge, they supervised the kids hanging their ornaments and popcorn strings and the like on the new Christmas tree. It was warm and toasty and noisy in the house, what with the kids running around stringing lights and askin' questions and having little spats about where to place a blue or red tree ornament and some sappy Christmas music playin' in the background from one of them cable TV music stations.
Cool Papa kindah melted into the cushions of the comfortable chair they put him in and seemed to like that egg nog just fine. After a while he let down his hard man guard and started advising the kids on the "right" way to go about decorating the tree, how they used to do it Back in the Day and talking to Jimmy and Lula about everything and nothing as either one crossed his mind.
But, like anybody faced with a bunch of people doing what people do for a family holiday like Christmas when they ain't got a damned thing in the world to celebrate about, Cool Papa remembered how much his own life sucked after a while and started getting fidgetty. He didn't belong in that house with that family and he didn't need to be reminded of that for too long. When Jimmy got up to get more egg nog he followed him back to the kitchen.
"Lemme have my money," he said. "I gottah be gettin' on."
"How 'bout another egg nog for the road?" Jimmy coaxed the old man, wondering whether it would work or if the heavy dosages would kick in with just a little nudge.
"Naw," Cool Papa groused. "I gots to get goin'. I'm in a hurry."
Well, Jimmy figured the old man was hurrying away to nothin' except a meeting with his misery. So he took the glass egg nog cup from their set they used every year, and managed never to have one broken yet, from the old man's hand. Then he cold-cocked him.
You see, my bro' Jimmy Lee is not big on subtlety, he ain't the most well-spoken or persuasive guy around and he's not a master of complex thought. From his point of view, the situation was simple. He wasn't about to let the old man go out from his house on Christmas and die or something. He just wasn't. The comfy chair and the eats and booze had not done the job he had thought they might and solved the problem for him, so he just took matters into his own hands. The thought of Cool Papa lying down under a bridge somewheres half-drunk and maybe dying of hypothermia or maybe finishing what he was about to start on that overpass was unacceptable.
Jimmy Lee's plan was to have the old man stay at his place for Christmas and even be around for dinner. So he knocked his ass out.
Then he put him on his sofa. The kids asked what had happened to Cool Papa and Jimmy Lee told them the old man couldn't hold his liquor for shit anymore so they might as well be quiet and let him sleep it off. Lula gave Jimmy that look and he gave her back a look that said they could talk about it after the kids was in bed. He settled back on the couch beside his wife and drank his egg nog.
Jimmy Lee wouldn't have explained at all about what happened if it wasn't for the fact that one of the other longshoreman at the port brought up seein' Cool Papa at Jimmy's place on Christmas day and how the old man's jaw was swollen.
So he tells us the story, much as I've presented it here -- without my editorial comments as to his motivations, of course -- to explain what Cool Papa was doin' at his house.
"Don't go thinkin' it was about me gettin' soft or nothin'!" Jimmy Lee insisted at the end of his recounting. "I don't even like the old bastard! He thinks he knows about everything just 'cause he's old. Which he don't. If he knew so much, I'dah been eatin' his damn ham and turkey 'steadah him eatin' mine. It wouldah been his damned egg nog, too!"
Me and the fellahs, we just laughed.
It was clear to us that Jimmy had done the Christian thing by cold-cockin' Cool Papa that Christmas. He was gonnah give the old man at least one more day of livin' and company whether Cool Papa wanted it or not. Jimmy Lee just did it in the only way he knew how.
He never talked to the old man during the meal about anything much from what I could tell. And after the visitors had left and they had cleared away the dishes and such, he walked Cool Papa outside and gave him twenty bucks.
Cool Papa took the money and folded it and put it in his pocket. Then he stared up at big Jimmy Lee without sayin' a word. He stared at him for about a minute, it seemed like to Jimmy Lee. Then Cool Papa took his cap out of his back pocket and put it on his head. He shook his head once, rubbed his swollen jar and went walkin' off down the sidewalk.
After hearing this story, I called around to some folks I know works in Social Services. I knew for a fact that Cool Papa would never talk to anybody like that himself 'cause he don't trust nobody. I talked to this one woman I know I went to high school with about places for old folks where they didn't have to live but could just drop by and maybe have someone who cared when they didn't show up. Turns out there's a place like that here in town, which surprised me. It wasn't affiliated with no church or anything, so they wouldn't be too pushy for the proud old man. She said she'd see about hooking them up with him and she was as good as her word.
From what I hear, Cool Papa will be having Christmas dinner with a bunch of other folks from Back in the Day like himself this year. The way these folks roped him into it was making him one of the cooks. He claims he used to be a cook in the Navy at one time. He's still around and still ornery. That's important.
Sometimes, all that really matters, I started thinking after hearing Jimmy's story, is that folks are still around. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do.
Peace Out.
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