I

“See you at three.”

Brenda kissed him repeatedly on the side of his face, then banged down the stairs. Thomas lolling in bed listened to her moving about the kitchen, getting ready to head out on her animal care chores – on Christmas morning, for Christ’s sake! But then, that was why they were here, in a country estate in Gladwynne rather than either of their tiny apartments in Ardmore. The Llewellyn family was gone to London for the holiday, and Brenda was their dog’s nanny. Now she was preparing to make the rounds to her other customers. In the early afternoon, she would visit her family. Then back to pick up Thomas and take him to his family.

When the back door slammed, Thomas rolled over and saw the bottle of wine he had just given her on the floor next to his bag. She had meant to take it to her folks’. Thomas leapt to his feet, grabbed the bottle and clattered down the stairs yelling for her to wait. He ran to the back door, with Gus, the Llewellyn’s Great Dane, striding behind him. He squeezed through the door and shut it quickly to keep Gus in – then heard the car door slam and looked up to see her Datsun speeding down the drive.

“Brenda!”

A pause at the street and she was gone. Thomas turned and grasped the door handle. It was locked. He could hear Gus panting inside. He looked down at himself. Sweat pants, no shirt, no socks, no shoes.

Without much conviction, he made a circuit of the house. There were many doors; none were open. Gus followed him, barking happily at Thomas’s transition from marginal interloper to bona fide intruder. Thomas looked for keys under plants and mats, and tried a few windows (Gus smearing the panes with saliva) before deciding that he wasn’t sure he wanted to get back in at all.

And he was cold. Typical Philly Christmas, about 40 degrees. Thank God no snow. Three o’clock? Seven hours. Jesus Christ.

Thomas took shelter in the garden shed, where he rummaged about and found a horse blanket. Wrapping himself in this coarse dirty malodorous shawl, he sat on a stack of fertilizer bags. He considered breaking a window. But the Llewellyn’s – and Brenda – would not appreciate that, and it would put him face to muzzle with Gus. He could wait in the shed for seven hours; with the blanket, he wouldn’t freeze.

The nearest pay phone had to be miles away, and he was not certain where. In his bare feet and lack of clothes it would be a difficult journey.

He stepped out of the shed and surveyed the property in all directions. Down across a hollow and up a hill he saw a large farmhouse; he could clearly see a car parked near the front of it.

He looked back at the shed and then to the distant farmhouse again. Fuck it, he thought. I ain’t sitting out here all Christmas morning.

II

Two birds nested cozily in an overgrown privet hedge. The hedge shook, the birds fluttered and fled. Our man, his face red and raw, was caught in the middle of the hedge, blanket pulled off . . . the hedge strangled by climbing ivy, wrapped around its branches, tangled in its roots. Tramping down the vines, he tripped and crashed into an unruly holly bush, nearly impaling himself on a stunted shrub root.

Fallen like a horse that has failed a steeplechase jump, he looked up. The sky was white, the sun just clearing the trees in the east. The wine bottle lay in the dirt unbroken; why the hell was he carrying it? His feet were freezing, bleeding from the branches and stones he had stepped on.

His mind drifted. Did he get the right present for his family’s pollyanna? It was a high-pitched affair, the humanist side of the family pushing the dollar amount down, the mercenary side pushing it up . . . complaints about shopping, what can we get the kids, gift certificates for video stores . . . last night his mother pressuring them to church, a stiff service, beaming well-scrubbed faces . . . peppered among the privileged select, the truly evangelical looking to pull you in . . . the children two and two in their robes, innocent faces clean . . . clerics in their special roles . . .hymns ascending in the vault of the stone church . . . Thomas shifting in his pew, out of place.

He got to his feet and stashed the wine bottle at the base of a shrub. Bad enough being half dressed, don’t want them to think I’m a wino. He walked a path trampled across the field to the rail and post fence bordering the neighbor’s property. He climbed awkwardly, bare feet slipping on the smooth logs. As he jumped down, his feet bumped against something metal: a scythe laid against the fence post, at the termination of another path whacked clean to the farmhouse. Inspection revealed no new blood on his feet. He could see lights inside the house, movements past an upstairs window.

Preparing his story, he slouched across the matted grass to the semi-circular crushed stone driveway in front of the house. As he hesitated on the verge of the driveway, a car pulled up. A well-dressed woman carrying a plate of cookies, wrapped and ribboned, hopped out. She did not seem to see him. He followed her to the front door, hanging ten feet back.

The door opened. A wizened crone stood immobile looking past the woman directly at him . . . still as a statue, as if she had been there for a long time. Her head moved forward a few inches and she squinted. Then she was over the threshold, ignoring the cookie woman, pulling him inside urgently.

“Carlina?”

The cookie woman queried.

The old woman stationed him next to a coat rack, hard fingers gripping his arm. She pointed a finger at his chest, a stickpin holding him in place. With a relieved look she went out the door. Thomas could hear her short answers to the neighbor, then she was back.

“This is crazy but I’m staying at the Llewellyn’s, they’re in London, and Brenda, my girlfriend, went out in her car, and I went to catch her before she drove off, and I locked myself out.”

Carlina’s fingers pinched his arm through the blanket. She made no answer, looking at him, mouth half-open.

“Could I use your phone? I can get someone to meet me back at the Llewellyn’s – it will only take a minute.”

She stepped back and looked across the foyer. The ceiling was fifteen feet high; a staircase rose from a carved cherrywood newel post up to a landing, then disappeared in a turn to the second floor. There were quiet movements from upstairs, then steps approaching, slippered feet, a girl bouncing down the steps. She hit the floor and ran up to the woman.

“Gran Carlina, Merry Christmas!”

Hugging Carlina, she looked over her shoulder and saw Thomas, an embarrassed smile on his face.

“Who’s this!”

Carlina’s face lit up, her mouth widened . . . a smile?

“He’s a dark man missy!”

Thomas started in again.

“I just need to use the phone, I’m locked out . . . “

He was cut off by more, louder clattering down the stairs, two young boys this time.

“Christmas, Gran, it’s Christmas!”

They hit the floor flying from the third step, crashed into Carlina with a hug, and then off through the wide archway leading to the living room – a great room, the scale of the house now dawning on Thomas. The room spread out for yards and yards, bereft of furniture except for high-backed wooden chairs lining the walls, dozens, it seemed . . . garlands decking the walls, window swags trimmed with evergreen boughs, a huge tree in the middle, covered with berries and balls . . . and reflected in a rectangle of marble flooring along the front wall, orange flames from a blazing fire. He could see stockings hung from a large stone mantle. The girl ripped away from Carlina and followed the boys.

“Come on Gran.”

Thomas looked around the room, but did not see a phone. The old woman seemed oblivious to his problem.

“If I could just use the phone, I could get going, it’s just . . .”

Carlina pulled him into the great room. She dragged a hard chair over to the mantle and pushed him down into it, fixing him with the same pointing finger. She left the room.

The two boys were jumping up and down in front of the fireplace, pointing at their stockings.

“Can we get them, Missy, can we get them?”

“Wait for Mom and Dad, Kevin, you know that!”

The boys bounced up and down, spinning in front of the hearth. When they turned in his direction, they shouted.

“Who’s that man! Who is he, Missy!”

Missy pulled another chair up and sat across from Thomas. She looked at him, a direct stare. Putting her hands behind her head, she rocked the chair onto its back legs and yawned, her breasts poking at the soft fabric of her nightgown.

“Gran says he’s a dark man.”

Kevin screwed his face up.

“What?”

Missy slapped her hands on her knees.

“Kevin, go see where Mom and Dad are.”

Thomas stood up. It could be worse. He moved closer to the fire; the warm marble felt good on his feet. Popping out of the top of the boys’ stockings were wooden puppets, jointed and painted. Pinned to the top of another stocking was a sheaf of grain, bundled and frayed, a knot tied in the top – an uncouth featureless image of a girl, clad in a paper dress, decked with ribbons. He turned and bumped into Missy, standing next to him.

She pointed at his muddy blood-streaked feet.

“You are dark, aren’t you?”

“A bit dirty anyway.”

He touched the straw doll.

“Is this yours?”

A loud voice from the hall

“Good morning!”

Standing there what must be Mom and Dad. Dad strode over to him, a smile and hand extended.

“A guest on Christmas morning!”

The boys came bounding into the room.

“Can we dad, can we?”

“Alright go ahead – Gran?”

Carlina appeared from behind the father.

“Get some clothes from my closet. This man must be freezing.”

III

In the guest room, Carlina had left him a polo shirt, flannel shirt, socks, old sneakers. Green hightop chucks, well worn, who would have thought. A simple cot-type bed in the corner, mirror over the small dresser with old racing decals. Window looking out back of the house, fields disappearing into forest, nothing beyond but trees.

Looking for a bathroom down the hall he tried a door, knocked first, good luck on the first try. He washed up, what the hell, used the heavy razor, stopped short of using the toothbrush, rinsed some toothpaste through his mouth.

He came down the stairs into the great room. Missy pressed a mug of hot coffee into his hands. No phone in this room either. The family gathered around the piano, father playing, all singing:

And the first tree That’s in the green wood It was the holly

Thomas moved near the group, looking for an opening to ask for the phone. Missy tiptoed, reaching up to his head.

“What’s this?”

Picks something from the hair on the back of his head, holds it up.

“Here’s the holly!”

Carlina sitting in her chair looked up black eyes fixed on the man.

Missy pressed the leaf against her lips and bit it softly, pearl-like teeth.

Thomas looked at her.

“Careful, don’t prick your lip!”

The old man up from the piano, joking.

“Kick not against the pricks girl.”

Slapping Thomas’s shoulder.

Missy, eyes still on him, hooked the leaf stem through the buttonhole of his shirt pocket. A sensation welled up from his groin through his chest to his blushing face, the flood of a Christmas hardon. He looked around the room, seeing evergreen branches but no holly.

“You’re singing about the holly, but you’ve got none in here . . . “

The mother looked up.

“Missy, there’s plenty out back, take the scissors and cut some.”

Missy took his hand and led him through the kitchen, pantry and mudroom. They walked past the barn and along a dirt road next to an enclosure holding half a dozen cows and down toward the corn fields. A hundred yards down, they walked off the road and followed a path into a copse of trees, holly mixed with forsythia and other leafless growth. Thomas could see they had come around the other way to the route he had taken coming in.

Missy began snipping branches with the scissors, Thomas breaking a few ineffectually then just collecting them from Missy, holding them gingerly in his hands, avoiding the barbed edges.

“Pretty crazy, huh?”

She worked quickly, flipping sprigs toward him. He shifted to catch them, clutching the growing bunch clumsily against his chest.

“So, are you in school – home for the holidays . . ?”

She kept clipping, reaching deeper into the bush. Tiny birds swarmed over the adjacent field, forming letters in a blurry sequence. Thomas watched them, entranced, until they settled on the ground. His mouth opened.

“Fair Missy, desire to speak with me! Not painless, your lack of reply; not easy, to talk with a mute.”

She pulled an apron from her sweatshirt pocket and handed it to him, motioning for him to use it to carry the holly. He complied.

“Girl who puts my thoughts in fetters, speak a word for my sake.”

She handed the scissors to him, pointing up at the high branches, replete with red clusters of ripe-red berries. He held set the apron on the ground and stood on tiptoe. As he snipped she spoke.

“Your fine talk is sweet, but your heart is hidden deep within. Woe to any girl that lets you have your way!”

“Happy is the blind man, who sees nothing of women! Would I had been blind before I saw your snowy body – now my life is distressful to me.”

She sat down on a rock and leaned back, her beauty increasing by the second.

“It is not me alone you would deceive. Many a one has been tricked before by your inconstant love. Men without shoes and shirts – are they to be trusted?”

“A plague on you and all the girls of Gladwynne! What fright is this, what mischief, what failure, that you’ll have none of me? What harm could it be for a fine-browed maiden to meet me in this thick dark wood?”

Missy had the apron now. She spread her arms to accept his clippings. Handing her a bunch, Thomas bent down and kissed her. She looked up at him.

“And if I give myself up to you in this thicket, would you abandon me to woo another?”

“Let me swear an oath on a bell without a clapper, I would not.”

“But if you do and I complain to my family, then what compensation would you make?”

“I would pay you dearly with a penny as broad as your behind.”

She walked back to the path, Thomas following her. Looking to his side, he saw the spot where he had crashed through the bushes, and still standing upright the bottle of wine. He grabbed it, tucking it under his arm, and trotted up beside Missy. He handed her the bottle. She accepted it, and they walked back to the house.

IV

Missy left him in a dark library, where he called his brother Robert from a heavy rotary phone. Christmas music, children yelling in the background.

“You’re where? Jesus Christ! Off Graves Lane? Anne is gonna love this – you’ll have to cool your heels for a while.”

He came back to the great room, which was now empty. He wandered through the dining room, found his way to the kitchen. Missy was there, dressed for church, stirring a pot on the stove. The opened wine bottle was on the counter.

“Could you get that ladle?”

Missy pointing to a rack on the wall. Thomas brought the ladle over and she filled two cups with the hot wine. She stood very close to him. She handed him a cup, then reached up and dropped a holly leaf in it. They raised the cups and drank, tasting the astringent flavor of the leaf.

“It won’t hurt you.”

Thomas took a long draught and set his cup on the counter. He kissed her again, his hand on the small of her back holding her to him. His heart was thudding heavily. He pulled back and looked at her. Her father’s voice was moving toward them.

“Can we get you to the meeting this morning, Gran?”

The two of them walked out to the front hall. Gran Carlina sat in a chair in the corner of the hall, holding Missy’s crude doll in her lap, shaking her head. Missy touched her arm, looking at Thomas.

“You stay here with our dark man until his ride comes.”

Father, mother and the boys were out the door; Missy waved and followed them. Thomas stood on the front porch and watched them walking toward the barn and then the wagon pulling out, Missy sitting in the back, dealing with the boys.

He came back in the house. Carlina was no longer in the chair. He went through to the kitchen and stood looking out the window over the sink. He ladled himself another mug of wine and walked out back.

Standing outside the mudroom, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He felt drugged, yet alert. He opened his eyes and looked out over the frosty yellow grass, trees branching leafless against a milky sky. Down the dirt road he could see Carlina, walking in a measured cadence toward the fence, where the cows were grazing. She knelt to the ground, pulled a knife from her pocket and from her apron the doll maiden. She cut it quickly into quarters and flipped it over the fence toward the cows who moved in, nuzzling the pieces and chewing at them.

She turned and her eyes fixed on Thomas. His hair stood on end at the black eyes and wide grin, the face that knew he was there. She walked toward the porch, up the path, the same path Missy had walked with him . . . their images converging in his mind . . . a hard humor in her eyes, a satisfaction not seen earlier.

A car horn honked. Thomas ran back through the house and out the front door, where his brother was pulling up in his Saturn. He waved and started down, then stopped.

“Just a minute.”

He went through into the kitchen. Carlina was moving slowly around the mudroom, hanging up her coat.

“Carlina, thank you and tell . . .”

She turned, seeming to rotate as if on a turntable, and pressed a small bunch of twigs into his hand . . . forsythia shoots twisted into a stick figure, holly leaves looped around it . . . a crude effigy of a man. Carlina walked with him to the car. She stood next to the Saturn, staring at it, almost visibly vibrating, as they drove off.

“Man. That’s some old witch.”

Thomas looked out the window, at her standing stock still in the driveway.

“You have no idea.”

V

Retrieved to his family now late morning at his mother’s house, with a brother out back tossing a new basketball around. He had left Brenda a note at the Llewellyn’s . . . can’t wait to hear her reaction.

But his thoughts now were not of Brenda. Thinking back to the kiss in the kitchen, a chill rash of goose bumps shot up the side of his body from his legs through his trunk and arms, a rush of blood pumped through to his hair’s roots. His eyes looked through fence gaps and house windows all around, the veil pulled back, portals into other domains. The bang of the basketball, the back door opening, his sisters calling him in for the Christmas exchange. The blood ran from his head as he walked toward the house, displaced and in transit, the myriad fictions of consumption breaking his vision and returning him to the trance of modernity.

First published in New Millennium Writings, No. 12