compartment, and off they went, rosy-cheeked and Santa Claus-smiling. It was “Oh this” and “Ah that” and “Let’s smash these crackers into a thousand crumbs and throw them in the air by the fistful.”
I sat in the car with the door open, my feet outside. I smoked a cigarette while the sparrows came and landed in the snow like rain.
Eddie was out there too. I watched them all laughing, dumping tons of food on the poor birds’ heads, imagining that each crumb represented the equivalent of a large steak and french fries, and it occurred to me that you could probably kill them like that: force-feeding them fifteen or twenty main dishes in a row, things they’d never ordered.
“Merry Christmas, fellas!” Eddie yelled. “Come and get it, boys!”
One bird showed up after the others. I saw him come from the end of the sky, then change course suddenly, his two legs sticking forward. He set himself down away from the others, apparently uninterested in what his friends were up to. He looked away while the steaks tumbled onto his back. I thought it must be the village idiot-he needed a few extra minutes to get what was happening.
He started coming toward me-taking little hops, his feet together. He stopped ten inches from my shoes. We looked at each other for a few seconds.
“Right,” I said. “Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look.”
I had the feeling that something was going on between the bird and me. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I asked the others to throw me a cracker, caught it on the fly. It seemed to be less cold out than before. Life is full of small nothings that warm your heart. You can’t ask for the moon. I crushed the cracker with my fingers and leaned forward. The bird foraged under his wings, like somebody who has lost his wallet. I started dropping the crumbs under his nose, smiling in advance. I knew I was working a miracle-making a small mountain of food appear at his very feet. He looked at me and cocked his head.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not dreaming.”
I don’t know what the little jerk was thinking of-here was this freight car full of merchandise in front of him and he seemed not to even see it. I could hardly believe my eyes, couldn’t get over it. I wondered if there was something wrong with the crackers. How could you possibly not notice that sunlit hill of goodies glowing like a gold-leafed temple, unless you were doing it on purpose. Still, he looked away, ignoring what I’d done, and hopped away to a place where there was nobody around and not a bite to eat. He looked like a penguin walking straight for a precipice.
I got out of the car. I swallowed a cracker and went after him, pacing him as he went. I got snow in my shoes. When he stopped I stopped, and when he flew away there was nothing left to do but go back to the car with the weight of a few snowflakes- disguised as the world-on my shoulders. Yes, I had eaten the cracker myself, and it was good. It would have been better with a little cherry jam on it, but who’s counting…
Then we went home. I shoved my feet under the radiator while Eddie got out the champagne and the girls took the cellophane off the scallops.
“Can I do anything to help?” I asked.
No, I couldn’t do anything-nothing special left to do. I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible, closed my eyes, and grabbed my drink. Had some asshole come along and whispered in my ear that we only die but once, the ear he would have fallen on would have been deaf.
We ate a little while later. It must have been somewhere around ten o’clock. I hadn’t eaten a thing since the night before. Still, I wasn’t hungry. I turned my attention to the champagne instead. I needed a kick. I never let my glass leave my hand. In the end I was rewarded for my tenacity. I felt myself float gently off my chair-banking right, then gliding into the middle of the general merriment, overtaking several laughs along the way.
“How come you’re not eating?” Eddie asked. “You sick?”
“No, I’m saving myself for the yule log.”
Eddie had a napkin tied around his neck and was squinting with satisfaction. I liked him. Human beings like that don’t grow on trees-when you find them it’s like a little miracle. I decided to light up a cigar. Everyone was sitting there with a smile and a cigar. You have to light them at just the right moment. When you know how to go about it, life can disappear into a cloud of blue smoke. I rocked back and forth in my chair with the lightness of someone who lacks for nothing, and knows the sound of a good cigar being rolled next to his ear. The daylight was weak, but I hung tough. My neck was a little stiff was all, but it was no big deal. I said, Now nobody move, stay right where you are, because I am now going to bring us the yule log and I don’t want anybody getting in my way. There are some things a man has to do alone.
So I got up, went to the fridge, and was just about to get the log out when the telephone rang. Eddie went to answer it. There were little elves stuck in the frosting, and a Christmas tree-they formed a little troop, the one in front holding a saw in his hand, with the rest close behind, advancing on the poor little tree, cute enough to eat, with the obvious intention of fixing its wagon. Very big deal. I wondered if the guy who had hatched it went out and cut himself a tree every morning with a handsaw like that, and if so, why not with a bread knife? I offed the little buggers with a flick of the finger-the last one screaming in horror as he fell into the void, as if I’d pulled his arm off. The screaming hurt my ears.
I looked up and saw Eddie wavering by the telephone, his mouth wide open and his face ravaged. Lisa moved back from the table, knocking over her glass. I don’t know why, but the first thing I thought of was that he’d just been bitten in the leg by a rattlesnake. The receiver was hanging strangely by its cord. The image went through my mind like a hedge-hopping fighter plane that buzzes you, flips you like a pancake till you fall out of your hammock. All this lasted a fraction of a second. Eddie ran his hand through his hair with a dazed look.
“My God, you guys…” he moaned. “My God in Heaven…”
Lisa got up with a bolt, but something nailed her to the floor.
“Eddie, what is it?” she said. “Eddie!”
I saw he was going to collapse, his hair all disheveled. He gave us a pathetic look.
“It can’t be true,” he mumbled. “My mom… my dear… It hurts… How could you do this to me…?”
He tore the napkin from his neck and wrung it in his hands. Something welled up in his chest like a geyser. We waited. He shook his head back and forth, his mouth twisted.
“I’M NOT FOOLING, SHE’S DEAD!!!” he screamed.
On the sidewalk somebody went by with a transistor radio playing a commercial for a laundry detergent that makes everyday chores a breeze. When it was quiet again we ran over to Eddie, grabbing him and sitting him down; his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore. Fatigue, alcohol, and a mother who has just died on Christmas night-it was all well beyond the maximum weight for excess baggage.
He was looking straight ahead, his hands folded on the table. No one knew what to say. We stared at each other, wondering what to do next. Lisa kissed him on the forehead and licked away the beginning of a tear.
Betty and I being there, shifting our weight from one foot to the other without saying a word, didn’t help matters much. I couldn’t just slap him on the shoulder-Be okay, old pal-I never had that sort of ease. Death has always left me speechless. I was going to give Betty the sign that we should leave them alone together, but just then Eddie stood up abruptly, his two fists pushing on the table and his head down.
“I got to go down there,” he said. “The funeral’s tomorrow. I got to go…”
“Of course you do,” said Lisa. “But first you better get some rest. You can’t go down there like this.”
You only had to look at him to know he wouldn’t make it a hundred yards. Lisa was right. Before anything else he needed a few hours of sleep. We all did, in fact-anybody’s mother could understand that. But he was on a roll.
“I’m going to change. I got just enough time to change clothes…”
He was going off the deep end; at that point peeling a banana would have been too strenuous for him. I tried to get him back on course.
“Listen, Eddie. Be reasonable. Lie down for a few hours, then I’ll call a taxi. You’ll see, it’ll be better that way.”
He gave me a look, then started unbuttoning his shirt awkwardly.
“I don’t need a fucking taxi…”
“Really? You going on foot? I don’t know, how far is it?”
“If I leave now I think I can be there before nightfall,” he said.
This time it was me who collapsed into a chair. I pinched the bridge of my nose, then grabbed him by the arm.
