“Yeah,” she smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It’s always been a tough time for me. But I try to think of it as a celebration of his life. He was a great guy. Fucking loved Christmas. So I try to take that love he had, and spread it around. It’s my way of keeping him with me.”
“That’s really beautiful,” I started to cry with a mixture of sad and happy tears. “I guess that’s why I’m here right now. Because you gave a bit of that to me. I really have been trying, you know.”
“I know,” she laughed. “Here’s my cell number,” she wrote down on a bar napkin. “Give me a call in a few days. After Christmas. We’ll talk. No co-pay. Just two girls. Okay?”
“Are you sure that’s appropriate?”
“Dorrie---who else is going to listen to you whine?”
“No one,” I said as I hung my head down in my rum and coke.
“Look, the whole world is going to stop for the next two days. So I want you to stop, too. Stop beating yourself up and relax. You’re a dreamer. That’s a good thing. Some kids want a bicycle, or a video game or just a Latina doll. You wanted a horse. You dream big, Dorrie. That’s pretty special. You need to stop thinking of it as a bad thing. Stop fighting your dreams. You wouldn’t have them if you didn’t really believe they could come true. Let me show you something,” she said as she opened the locket around her neck.
Inside, was a photo of her proud papa dressed up as Santa with a young Dr. Prince on his lap.
“That’s my father,” she smiled. “We didn’t do the whole Santa thing in my family. We always knew that Santa was Daddy. He was a pretty good Santa, too. And even though he’s gone now, I will never stop believing in him.”
“Wow,” was all I could say. “Why didn’t you tell me this our first session?”
“What? You think I’m gonna pour out my guts to a stranger? What do I look like? Poetry Night?”
18
Christmas has a way of sneaking up on you. One day it’s seven weeks away, and then suddenly, it’s Christmas Eve.
I never even managed a single Christmas card.
While talking to Dr. Prince (and the prescription rum and coke) certainly helped, I realized I needed to take back the reins of my life if I was ever going to get that mythical horse.
I needed to get out of the tarp-covered house to take a walk and think things out. There had to be a happy ending for me somewhere. As I walked past all the shops and their holiday displays, I knew I needed to bring some of that holiday cheer into my life. So when I turned the corner and saw a small parking lot selling off the last of the season’s Christmas trees, I knew what I had to do.
Today was probably the last day for these poor little guys to find a home. Charlie Brown Christmas music played over the speakers, adding to the poignancy of what would be these trees’ Last Christmas Ever. Happily, there were a few other last-minute shoppers browsing the few remaining selections. All the trees looked pretty sturdy and happy and wagging their tails. But they say you don’t pick a tree, the tree picks you.
As I walked down the thinning aisle of pine, I waited for one of the remaining trees to magically pop out and select me as the person who would take them home, give them water, and decorate them in silver and gold. But my eye kept wandering off to the side. To a pile of cast-off branches and too-short-for-sale pine roping that had been stacked up along the wire fence. I could feel my eyes getting moist as I walked over to get a closer look.
Oh. There was a poor tree in there. The most pathetic Christmas tree ever. It wasn’t even for sale. Poor little mangled tree. It tried so hard to grow strong and tall. And it looked like it was ready, so it got chopped down and shipped to Manhattan. It was supposed to make good and become a Christmas tree. But somehow it had failed. No one wanted it. A homeless, broken tree in heap of trash.
The one thing that Christmas trees all over the world wanted to be would never come true for this little guy.
“See anything you like?” a man wearing an ear-flap hat and work gloves asked.
“How much for that tree over there?”
“This one?” he said as he held up a proud and sturdy pine.
“No,” I pointed to the fence. “That one over there.”
“Those are just some old branches, lady.”
“No. There’s a tree in there.”
He walked over and inspected the pile of the dead. “You mean this old piece of…” he said as he held up the scraggly-looking tree.
“Please,” I stopped him. “Don’t talk about the tree in front of the tree. It’s just…I know I sound a little crazy, but I have this thing about Christmas trees. They might have feelings. We don’t know,” I said, as if the world were of wonders and new discoveries. “So how much is he?”
“Well…you can just take it, if you really want it,” he backed off a bit.
“Oh thank you,” I said as I dug my tree out of the rubbish. “Merry Christmas!” I made sure to add.
I didn’t worry that my little guy would leave a trail of pine needles all the way up the stairs leading right to my apartment door. Any private detective could see that. I may lose everything, but I was going to have Christmas tree, damnit.
I pulled out a box
