I opened an umbrella.
As the roofers scrambled to put a makeshift tarp over the giant, gaping hole, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of there. I knew where I had to go.
Christmas was totally pimped out at Shenanigans that night as I walked into the club in my big coat, hat and snow boots. Some guy in a red mesh shirt and a Santa cap tried to grind up against me as I pushed my way thru a crowd dancing to a song about somebody’s mom cooking chicken and collard greens for Christmas dinner. I reached the garland-wrapped staircase and began to climb the stairs. There she was behind the bar. She was wrapped in more garland than the staircase and had about five pounds of mistletoe braided into her hair.
“Dorrie! Why did I have this fucking feeling you were going to show up?” Dr. Prince said as she poured a line of martinis.
“They wouldn’t take my insurance,”
She sighed. A pretty big sigh.
“Here,” she said as she pulled a drink up from under the bar and shoved it towards me. “Drink this. It’s a mistake.”
“A mistake,” I got nervous. “What it is?”
“It’s a rum and coke! That’s what’s in the glass, Dorrie. A rum and coke.”
This was as close to medication as she’d prescribed. So I took a sip.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Dorrie, you can’t be following me here every time you have a problem.”
“I’m sorry! Please don’t be mad at me. Everybody’s mad at me. But I’m not a bad person. I’m just not successful.”
“Meera, I’m not mad at you. But you’re fucking frustrating sometimes.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But my whole world just collapsed. And my ceiling. Everything. It’s all over. I’m getting kicked out of my apartment. My best friend hates me. And Nate hates me. He’s going to lose his job and it’s all my fault. And I’m going to be homeless and I lost my job last week and I told that elf kid that he was gay and now he hates me, too. I’m just a horrible person and I’m stuck here for Christmas because my family thinks I’m a screw-up and I’m so tired of this Christmas shit. It’s been going on for two months. When will it be over? I just want it to be over.”
“Okay, relax. Take a deep breath,” she said as she adjusted her garland over her cleavage. “First of all, you’ve only got two more days of Christmas. Second, you can’t blame all of this stuff on the Christmas Season.”
“Oh, stop defending it. It stinks. You know, not everyone has family who lives nearby. And not everyone has a loved one to kiss under the mistletoe. Or children to watch opening their gifts on Christmas morning. Or a bunch of friends to go caroling with. And everywhere I go, for the past two months, all I hear is Christmas music and it’s this constant reminder that if I’m not busy roasting chestnuts or sleigh riding then I’m a shitty, terrible person. And I don’t have time! There’s no time! I wouldn’t mind going sleigh riding, but where do you even find a sleigh? I don’t know. Does that make me a shitty person? I have to work and I have laundry to do and a litter box to clean and everything around me keeps poking me in the head and telling me that I have to do all this stuff and I have to be happy about it and have a fucking Merry Christmas. There’s nothing to be happy or merry about in my life right now. What is there that’s good in my life?”
“Well,” she said with a snicker, “you’ve got your health.”
Suddenly I laughed, too. I don’t know why. But it seemed like a small bit of relief.
“Look,” she tried to explain, “the holidays aren’t about doing all that stuff. I’ve never been sleigh riding in my life---does that keep me from enjoying Christmas? No. And yeah, I know it’s tough being single with no family around. It’s lonely. It makes you reevaluate your life. And that’s what you’ve been doing the past few weeks. That’s good. And okay, you lost your job. But you hated that job. And yeah, you might lose the apartment---but you’ve been hiding in that broken-down shithole for almost a year. Maybe this all happened for a reason. And maybe, unconsciously, you wanted it to happen.”
“I wanted everyone to hate me?”
“No. But I think you wanted to tell them the truth. Therapy is all about moving forward, Dorrie. And you haven’t been able to move forward because of all this baggage you’ve been living with. So---now you’re hands are free. You can do whatever you want.”
“Only I don’t have a job or any money. Where am I going to go?”
“Look on the bright side---no one starts eviction proceedings during the holidays,” she smiled as she jumped off her barstool and made sure her short skirt was hiked up to the proper level.
“Look---I may have given you a wrong impression,” she said as she went back behind the bar. “I haven’t always loved Christmas. When I was a kid, my parents couldn’t afford presents. I was one of those kids that got the donated toys for underprivileged kids. You think I ever got what I wanted? I was lucky to get a doll that wasn’t white. Had so many white babies I looked like an illegal nanny. When I was twelve my dad was shot in a bodega on Christmas Eve. Went out to buy some fucking oranges to put in our stockings. Got killed by some crackhead over fifty bucks in a cash register and a forty of malt liquor. That was a shitty Christmas.”
“I’m
