Stephen Metcalfe

The Annual Christmas Post

When Wayne McKee walks into his kitchen, he is suddenly and obliquely aware of how cold and grey and unkempt the room is. Is it possible that it’s changed in the three minutes it took him to get to and from the back door of the house? As if seeing it for the first time, Wayne notices the stained gas stove, the oven door slightly open. He sees the unwashed pans and dishes in the sink and the half full coffee pot on the counter. He sees the ceiling light that no longer works, sees the small table with its dowdy tablecloth, the single, tiny red candle sitting in the middle of it. The paper calendar pinned to the wall by the cupboard shows a photograph of a pine tree and reads September ’57. My god, a full three months ago. Why hasn’t he taken it down? Or changed it? Wayne’s clothes seem unexpectedly foreign to him as well now, the stained bathrobe, the flannel pajamas, and the house slippers. It’s one thing to be getting on in years but it’s another thing to be half dressed and disheveled throughout an entire day. The neatly dressed black man behind Wayne wears a neat shirt and button-down sweater beneath his too thin overcoat. His slacks are creased, and his shoes look as if they’ve been shined on occasion Wayne suddenly feels angry. He never should have answered the soft knock on the back door but it’s too late to do anything about it now.
“Well, sit down if you have to.”
“Thank you, I can stand, sir.”
“Suit yourself then. I don’t care. I will.” Wayne moves to the table and sits. What to say now. He has no idea. “Don’t think I do this on a regular basis.”
“I do appreciate it.”
“Well, don’t, I’d do it for anybody.” There, done. Only the black man is quietly staring at him as if waiting for him to say something else. All right.
“Dammit all, you’re gonna be in my house and I offer you a chair to sit in, you sit.”
The black man hesitates, then carefully pulls the second chair back from the table, and quietly sits. The wind is gusting outside in the evening dark, the snow banging off the kitchen windows. Wayne has no idea what the temperature is outside, he just knows it’s cold. Cold here in the kitchen as well. “What are you doing out in weather like this anyway? Colored boy like you, you oughta be frozen half to death.”
The black man again stares at him, saying nothing.
“Well? That was a question.”
“No, sir, that was an insult.”
It was, wasn’t it. Wayne wasn’t thinking. Still. “You don’t like it, there’s the door.”
The black man rises from the table. “Thank you for your hospitality, sir.” Turning, he starts out.
“Now, hold on, hold on.” The black man stops and looks back. “I’m not gonna have you turned into an ice cycle on my conscience. Tell you what. I’ll do my best not to call you a colored boy and if I do, you won’t take it personal.”
The black man stares at Wayne for another moment and then quietly comes back to the table. Taking off his overcoat, he sits again. Is it relief Wayne feels? No, it can’t be.
“And listen, you don’t call me, sir. My name’s Wayne McKee. I don’t need to know who you are.” Or does he. Perhaps he does. No, of course, he doesn’t. “Get up,” says Wayne, abruptly rising to his feet. “I said, get up. Switch. This chair’s closer to the stove, it’s warmer.”
“No need, sir.”
“I told you, this is my house. I say there’s a need, there’s a need.”
The black man hesitates, then rises and they both move carefully past around the table. The black man quietly nods. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Told you, I’d do the same for anybody.”
They sit again. The black man glances at the open oven door. It’s off, not emanating any heat at all. There was no need to switch. Wayne winces inside. What now.
“Well, talk. You gonna sit here, you might as well say something cause I’m not gonna.”
“I’m going home,” says the black man.
“What?” Wayne feels as if he no longer speaks English.
“You ask me why I was out in the storm. I’m on my way home. For Christmas.” The man glances at the small red candle on the table. As if it means something.
“Hmph.” Wayne grunts in reply. “Where’s home?”
“Newark.”
“New Jersey? That’s eighty-some miles from here.” Here being Bridgeport, Connecticut. Not paradise but certainly better than New Jersey. “What, you figured on walking the whole way?
“Till the snow picked up, I’d hoped to hitch some rides.”
“Hmph.” Wayne grunts again. “Didn’t have much luck, did ya.”
“I did. All the way from Boston. Nice couple. They dropped me off a couple of blocks from here. Then it began to snow.”
Wayne scowls, considering this. “White?”
“Snow is white, yes, sir.”
“No. This couple picked you up. They dropped you off round this neighborhood. Were they white?”
“Yes, they were white.”
“Hah. Wouldn’t catch me doin’ that, takin’ my life in my hands.”
The black man stares a moment. Angry, amused? Wayne can’t tell. “You are one mean-ass, bitter, old cracker, ain’t you.”
Wayne stares back, liking the response, annoyed that he does. “You want coffee?”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s made. Just gotta heat it.”
The black man’s expression doesn’t change. “Some coffee would be just fine.”
Wayne rises, grabs the pot off the counter and moves to the stove. The front, right burner thankfully still works. None of the others do unless lit with a match. The blue flame flickers under the metal coffee pot. “Got family?” What a question to ask, where’s this coming from?
“Yes, I do.”
“Wife?”
“I don’t think she’s tired of me yet.”
It’s a good answer but Wayne grunts in reply. “Hmph. Any kids?
“A boy, three girls.”
“You got all these children, what’re you doin’ in Boston?”
“Lookin’ for a job.”
“Hmph. No jobs for — ” Wayne catches himself. “No jobs in Newark?”
“Not the kind of jobs I’m lookin’ for.”
“And what is the right kind of job for a smarty-pants like you?”
The black man seems to straighten slightly in his chair. “I’m a chef.”
“You mean, a cook?”
“No. A chef.”
Wayne shrugs. “Same thing.”
“No, it’s not.”
Is Wayne being contradicted? It feels that way. “What’s the difference?”
“Training. When I joined the army, they put me into culinary, sent to Europe. When I got out I stayed there, worked in kitchens in France, England and Holland. I learned things.”
My god. The army. Europe. What else has this man done that Wayne hasn’t done? “Learned what things?”
“That the difference between a cook and a chef is in the kind of food you make, for one.”
Wayne glares. “What do you make?”
The black man smiles slightly. “For Christmas tomorrow, I’ll be making shrimp Etouffee, a roasted acorn squash salad, cranberry relish. Plus Gratin Dauphinoise and Cochin de Lait.”
These last words have some kind of foreign accent to them. Wayne’s never heard them before, and he scowls. “What that?”
“It’s Cajun style roast pig.”
“Pig, huh. You got something against turkey for Christmas?”
“Not a thing. I do it with oyster cornbread stuffing.”
Wayne suddenly feels hungry thinking about it. Oyster stuffing. His wife Jenny used to… Wayne stops himself. “What about dessert?”
“Chocolate éclairs are my specialty. Plus pecan apple pie.”
Apple pie. When’s the last time Wayne had — he catches himself again. “Yeah, well, I’m not one for fancy food.”
“You would be if I cooked it, Mr. McKee.”
The coffee is bubbling in the pot. Wayne can hear it. “Coffee’s hot. I don’t got milk.” He turns off the stove. He reaches into the cupboard for two mugs. He pours and brings the mugs to the table. He puts down the mugs and sits. He sips. He watches as the black man does the same. There are grounds in the coffee. Will the man notice? Of course he will. He’s a chef. What was Wayne thinking.
“What is it you do, Mr. McKee?”
Should he answer? Why not. “Conductor. Metro North Railroad, forty years. Retired in fifty-seven. Mandatory.”
“You got family?”
The question takes Wayne by surprise. “Course I got family. What do you think I am?”
“Wife?” Wayne doesn’t speak for a moment. What to say about Jenny. The truth? Why not. “Dead.”
The black man nods as if he already knew this. “Children?”
Again, why not the truth. “I got a daughter. She’s got her own life. Not here.”
“You have any friends?”
The truth? No, not this time. “You are one nosey son of a bee.”
“That may be, but I got a wife, children and friends and I got a warm, happy place to go for Christmas.”
Wayne feels the anger building. Or is it envy. “But you’re not there, are you?”
“Just a matter of time. They’ll be waitin’ for me.”
Wayne slaps his mug down onto the table. “I think you should go back out in that blizzard and leave me alone.”
The black man doesn’t so much as move. “You want to come with me?”
Huh? Again, Wayne doesn’t feel as if they’re speaking English. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“You want to come with me, Mr. McKee? To Newark? A man shouldn’t be alone, no food or company at Christmas time.”
A name. What’s this man’s name? “Me in a room with a bunch of little Picaninnies? You got your nerve.”
“Mr. McKee, I guess you never got nothing but sticks and rocks in your shoes for Christmas.”
“You don’t like it, you can leave.” The black man just stares. My god, Wayne sees it. The man feels sorry for him. “Leave!”
Wayne watches as the black man slowly rises, puts on his coat, and turns for the door. He speaks before he can stop himself. “No. Don’t go.” Wayne stares down at the tabletop. There’s no way he can make eye contact, not now, not with a stranger, not with… with anybody. “I’ve been sitting here all day long. Hardly able to move. Wondering. What did I do wrong. What happened, why is it like this? I can’t seem to figure it out.”
“Mr. McKee?”
Wayne looks up. The look on the black man’s face is kind. Kinder than Wayne has any right to expect.
“Can I tell you a story?”
“Right now, you can tell me anything you want.”
“Once upon a time there was a lonely, old man. Christmas came this one year and he had no Christmas tree, no presents, no people. He just sat around in an old bathrobe being unhappy with the world.”
As Wayne watches, the black man starts to move around the kitchen as if searching for something. What can he possibly be looking for? The man’s voice pulls Wayne back.
“This old man? His wife was gone. He had a daughter he could call but he didn’t want to because she hadn’t called him. He had a Christmas candle on his table, one somebody had bought a long time ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to light it.”
No, Wayne couldn’t. The little red candle. He’d found it in a drawer. He couldn’t put up a wreath or tinsel either, couldn’t buy and decorate a tree. It’s as if he’s forgotten how.
“Well, that Christmas Eve day it began to snow early. Snow so heavy, it was like a weight. That old man was sittin’ in the kitchen, when he heard a knock on the back door. When he opened it there was this black man standing there, cold, not dressed for the storm. He asked if he could come in, get warm. The old man didn’t like black folk, but he said yes. He tried to pretend it was a bother, but truth is, if someone hadn’t shown up at his back door, he just might’a been getting ready to stick his head in an unlit gas oven.”
Was it that obvious, thinks Wayne? Yes, it must have been.
“He had no idea that Zwarte Piet, Black Peter, Saint Nicholas’s right-hand man back in Holland, is out and about on Christmas Eve, searching for somebody needs a friend. Also had no idea that the only way you get a visit from Black Pete is by inviting him in. And then when he tries to leave, you gotta ask him to stay. You gotta offer him some hospitality. Like a cup of bad, bad coffee.” The black man has found what he was looking for. A small, worn book of matches. They were sitting off to the side of the stove. He turns back to the table. “Now I’m no Black Peter, Mr. McKee, and we both know you are not that stubborn, unhappy old man, but I do know that inviting somebody in, is one way of getting a Christmas candle lit.”
With that, the black man lights a match, bends, and applies the flame to the wick of the small, red candle. It seems to hesitate a moment, then takes a breath and bursts into flame. The smell of pine and citrus fills the small room. Wayne shivers.
“I got a car.”
“What’s that?”
“The garage outside. I got a car. I could drive you. Down to Newark.”
“In this weather?”
“It’s got snow tires, it’ll make it.”
The black man regards Wayne a moment. “Only if you stay and have Christmas dinner with us.”
“You mean it?”
“With them Pickaninnies.”
Wayne gives a quick, hard nod. Yes. Yes to this unexpected gift. “My name’s Wayne, sir. What’s yours?
“My name’s Horace, sir. Horace Gleason.” The black man holds out his hand and reaching across the table, Wayne clasps it. Can it be voices he suddenly hears? Yes, outside the snow has stopped and somewhere close people are singing.
The swallow feels heavy in Wayne’s throat. He’ll call his daughter, Julie, in the morning. Yes, he’ll call, just to say he loves her.
“Merry Christmas, Horace. I’ll change my clothes and go get the car keys.”
The candle on the table flickers softly as Wayne rises from the table and moves from the room.
*
This is based on a one act play of the same name, a play I’ve posted in the past. I wanted to see what it’d be like as fiction. Thoughts welcome. And please feel free to share. Happy Holidays!