Everyday is Christmas

“Whooo hooo!” Mark Malarky exclaims, the six vodka tonics in his system making his feet lighter than air.

The well-dressed bank loan officer nearly stumbles into a petite, bundled up woman staffing a Salvation Army red kettle.

She rings her bell loudly next to his ear.

“Must you do that?”

“Just making sure you’re awake, buddy. You almost crashed into my kettle.”

“Heaven forbid I knock over your pot,” Mark slurs. “Now, if you had some stew in there, or some clam chowder…”

“It’d be a waste on you, buddy. You’d just puke it back up. You’ve had too much Christmas spirit, or should I say spirits.”

Mark belches. “Watch yourself, elf, or I’ll have you put on the naughty list.”

Although her features are covered by a large tartan scarf, Mark can see the volunteer’s light grey eyes crinkle. “And Merry Christmas to you too, buddy.”

Mark bows. “And to you too, sir.”

“Miss.”

“My mistake. It’s hard to tell when you have a voice like Harvey Fierstein, and you’re dressed like Nanook of the North.”

“I’m sure the tons of liquor you’ve had is keeping you from feeling anything, but it’s cold out here, buddy. How about making my time worthwhile?”

Mark hiccups. “Are you soliciting me?”

The volunteers’ eyes widen. “Not for what you have in mind. How about a donation? You look like you can afford it.”

” I was raised well and taught the value of a dollar by loving parents.”

“So was I, until I wasn’t. Think of it as helping good people who’ve hit hard times. Do you come to this bar to feel superior to everyone else?”

“Nope. I come to watch the sideshow called life. And it just so happens I can walk home from here.”

“Wouldn’t count on it tonight.”

Mark hiccups. Reaching into his caramel-colored overcoat, Mark drops something into the kettle.

The volunteer inspects the object.

“Hey, that’s a chocolate candy.”

“That’s right. Everyday is Christmas. And it’s not just any candy,” Mark says, staggering away. “It’s a chocolate kiss!”

“Well thanks, buddy. You know what you can kiss.”

Cornelius O’Leary, owner of the Shamrock Diner, grunts as he passes the Salvation Army volunteer, rubbing his runny nose. Entering the County Clare Pub, he signals owner Moira McCarthy for his usual glass of Guinness, plopping down wearily on a stool. Shifting his weight, Cornelius thinks to himself that he has to lose at least forty pounds off his 270-pound 6’ 3” inch frame.

Scanning the room, he spots Jimmy Ahn sitting at the end of the bar, drinking a bottle of Sapporo beer.

Cornelius moves to the stool next to Jimmy.

“Not tonight, Corny. It was a very hard day,” Jimmy says.

“You think you’ve cornered the market on misery, Ahn? I’m still tryin’ to make up for the customers you’ve pilfered from me.”

Jimmy takes a long sip off his beer. “It’s not like I kidnapped your customers. They have free will.”

“To eat at a high-quality restaurant that serves burgers, steak, and chicken or to eat cheap Ramen noodles.”

“You’re running a diner, Corny, not Sardi’s,” Jimmy snaps back.

“And you’re servin’ Chinese takeout garbage. I notice there’s a few less ducks at the park. You servin’ them as the special?”

“Oh, yeah? You’re the only Irishman I know who can’t cook corn beef and cabbage. It tastes like a salt lick.”

Cornelius grumbles, quaffing half his Guinness. “This used to be a nice neighborhood until you opened that takeout trash palace of yours…”

Jimmy puts his hand up as if to say, “Stop!”

“You’re blaming the increase in homeless people in the neighborhood on me?”

“If the egg foo shoe fits…”

“That’s better than your last argument,” Jimmy replies. “Seriously. My family didn’t start World War Two.”

“You attacked Pearl Harbor!”

Jimmy sighs deeply. “For the last time, you bonehead blarney stone, I’m Chinese, not Japanese. I was born in Fresno.”

“Under a forged birth certificate, no doubt,” Cornelius replies. “How’d you end up in Brattleboro, Massachusetts?”

Jimmy finishes his beer, his slight frame shifting uneasily on his stool. “My wife needed a specialist. The best one in the country was here.”

“What did she have?”

“Brain cancer. She died a week after we opened the restaurant.”

Cornelius clears his throat. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Guess you got a right to be high strung.”

“You’re what’s making me high strung, Corny.”

“With your misses gone, why didn’t you go back home?”

“Just like that? I didn’t inherit my place like you. Do you know the cost of undoing a coast-to-coast move? We’d already spent four months with our noses to the grindstone, trying to make our business work. Besides, my daughter is in college here…”

“Learnin’ the business?”

“Studying to be a surgeon, And my boy’s at M.I.T.”

Cornelius bristles. “I bet you been dyin’ to throw that in my face. I couldn’t go to college. I barely made it out of high school…”

“I never would have guessed that.”

“You know why there ain’t no Asian comedians, Ahn? ‘Cause you ain’t funny.”

“Neither is bigotry and ignorance, O’Leary.”

“I ain’t no bigot.”

“Is that why you pulled down the American flag I had flying outside the store?” Jimmy asks.

“My family’s been in this country for four generations, when all we heard was ‘No Irish need apply.’”

“Mine built the railroads and cleaned clothes,” Jimmy responds. “You know, if you feel you’re being persecuted you can always go back to Ireland.”

“Now who’s bein’ a bigot? I’ve been in this neighborhood for twenty years. And when I hang up my apron, my boy’s gonna take over.”

“The same boy I saw driving the Verizon truck?”

“Just a temporary job and mind your own business.”

Jimmy rises from his stool. “Unlike some people I have to get up early. I have a successful business to run.”

“Oh yeah? I’m gonna see that you’re run out of that business,” Cornelius shouts.

He realizes everyone in the bar is looking at him but continues to yell.

“That’s right, Ahn, you’re finished! Even if I have to burn you out!”

Terrence “Truck” Tannenbaum pulls his black Harley-Davidson bike in front of the bar. The husky, long-haired biker adjusts his leather jacket, pulling the collar up around his neck.

Joly “Jeep” Jensen confronts him as he steps onto the sidewalk.

“You again,” Truck gripes.

Jeep’s eyes bulge under his sunglasses. “This is a quiet neighborhood.”

“Not with you yapping at the top of your lungs.”

Jeep pokes Truck in the chest as he vents. “I didn’t serve two tours in Syria so you could joyride through town and molest women.”

“Stop poking me with that finger or the whole hand is coming back to you as a stub. Take your meds, soldier.”

“Your kind is what’s wrong with America,” Jeep says.

“My kind? You’re the one who’s proud of stabbing babies and torturing women.”

“Anything for the red, white and blue,” Jeep counters. “But you wouldn’t understand that.”

Truck pushes Jeep aside.

“Well, you’re right about that.”

Approaching the Salvation Army volunteer, Truck halts. Her eyes pop with fear as she looks up the 6’ 4” grizzly bear of a man.

Reaching in the pocket of his jeans, Truck drops a twenty-dollar bill in the kettle.

Moira McCarthy looks up from the bar. The red-haired beauty gives Mark a curious look. “What are you doin’ sneakin’ in through the back like James Bond?”

Mark looks around the bar. “I just wanted to avoid that Salvation Army woman.”

“Does she make you nervous? Maybe you feel a little guilty?”

“Yeah, I’m drinking my money away instead of donating it to help the poor.”

“Just kiddin’ you, Mark. I’ll ask her to move as soon as I get rid of the guy’s routing through my trash. I tell you; this season is worse than any other, even when the economy tanked in the nineties.”

“Yes, those were hard times.”

“My Dad was still runnin’ the place then.”

“Ah, yes. The legendary Owen ‘The Pope’ McCarthy. People around here speak about your dad like he was some sort of saint.”

“He was,” Moira replies. “Everybody says he was the nicest man they ever knew. He passed in 1993. Bam. A heart attack. My mother said he was still smiling when she found him in the back room. He was boxing up stuff for Toys for Tots. He ran tabs longer than your arm. He practically gave booze away on Ladies’ Night. He donated to the school, sponsored little league and football teams, and served on the church council.”

“You could do those things,” Mark notes.

“Nah. I can barely keep this place in the black. Besides, it’s different now. I don’t know these people. Most of ‘em don’t even speak English. What about you? Far as I can see, you’re not chained here.”

“I don’t really belong anywhere,” Mark replies. “You know what I hate about the holidays, Moira? Family. Because I don’t have any family left.”

“Didn’t you say you had a sister?”

“Yeah. Ruth. I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years. She left home when I was fifteen. She was seventeen when she got pregnant. Her boyfriend took off the night she told him. My folks wanted her to put the kid up for adoption. She refused, and when they pressed her on it, she left with the kid. I tried tracking her down a few years ago…Nothing…”

Moira mixes a vodka tonic, placing it in front of Mark. “Then you didn’t try hard enough.”

The jukebox changes records, pumping out Shiloh Ellison’s “Everyday is Christmas.”

“I love this song,” Moira says, turning it up. “This guy had it all. A hit album, girls, cars, mansions, and pouf, he just disappeared. I heard he walked out in the middle of a concert.”

“Maybe he wasn’t happy,” Mark offers.

“I don’t understand musicians. They moan about bein’ poor. Then they hit it big and either O.D., drink themselves to death or disappear.”

“Money can’t buy you happiness, Moira.”

“Yeah, but it can buy you a real good time.”

Cornelius stares out of the window of his restaurant at the sandwich board in front of Jimmy’s Flower Dragon Restaurant.

“He’s offering half price two-for-one specials!” Cornelius shouts.

A passing waiter shrugs.

“You don’t get it!” Cornelius complains. “He’s tryin’ to run me out!”

Rushing outside, he charges across the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a car.

Picking up the sandwich board, Cornelius holds it over his head.

Jimmy yanks open the door. “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna snap this sign in half. Then you’ll have your two for one!”

A man with a thick mustache and a plume of dark hair appears by Cornelius’ side. Cornelius glances at the broad-shouldered man, who smiles placidly at him.

“And what do you want?”

“Maybe you should put the sign down,” the man says, his voice peaceful and hypnotic. “You break that sign and who knows? Maybe this fellow pops you one and the two of you start brawling in the street. Now how would that look? And what are you gonna tell the police?”

Cornelius steams, lowering the sign. “This guy’s wreckin’ my business.”

“How do you figure?” the man asks. “Jimmy serves Chinese food. Your menu is completely different. You two aren’t in competition with each other. You complement each other.”

Cornelius throws the sign aside. “And just who are you, mack?”

“Yeah, how can you even claim to know what we’re fighting about?” Jimmy asks.

The man flashes a friendly smile. “How about that, you’re both attacking me. See? You’re already working together.”

Truck’s bike sputters to a halt in front of the bar. Wearing camouflaged pants, his hat perched cockeyed on his head and his sunglasses askew, Jeep leaves a small group of veterans, storming toward Truck’s bike.

“This is it! You get that overbearing smoke belching beast out of this neighborhood!”

Rising off his bike, Truck turns his back on Jeep.

“Leave me alone, and don’t judge me. I’m just goin’ for some takeout.”

Hyperventilating, Jeep watches Truck cross the street.

“…Just going for takeout…” Jeep mutters. His back stiffens as he is struck with a revelation. “…Takeout…In the army, that was code for a drug pick up. I bet he’s going in there to sell drugs!”

Jeep scampers across the street, pulling out the army issue .45 he’d started carrying around since Truck had first shown up in the neighborhood.

The customer at the counter, a broad-shouldered man with wavy black hair, smiles neighborly when he sees the gun.

Jimmy puts his hands up. “I…I don’t have much money… Everybody uses cards these days…”

“SHUT UP!”

Jeep scowls at Truck, who reluctantly raises his hands. “You’ve gone complete nutbag.”

“Have I? I broke your code, you biker scum.”

“Code? What code?”

“Takeout. Which one of you is he selling his drugs to?”

Jimmy shakes his head.

“There’s no drugs,” the man at the counter says.

Jeep points his gun at him. “Must be you.”

“No, Jeep. Truck isn’t a drug dealer. In fact, you two may have more in common than you think.”

“Ha! That useless greaser? He’s a taker, probably never done an honest day’s work in his life. I served my country!”

“…So did I…” Truck says quietly.

“What?”

“Show him, Truck,” the man at the counter says.

Truck slowly lowers his arms. Carefully taking off his leather jacket, he drops it on the floor. Unbuttoning his work shirt, he rolls up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of an eagle. Above the eagle are the words “E Pluribus Unum”. It’s the words below the eagle that freeze Jeep and make him lower his gun.

“….U.S. Army…,” Jeep mutters. “You’re a vet?”

“I fought at the Battle of Khasham,” Truck says.

The door opens. Cornelius’ hand shakes as he points an ancient revolver at Jeep, who is too stunned to react.

“It’s okay, Corny,” Jimmy says.” I didn’t know you cared.”

“Hey, if somebody is gonna blow you away, it’s gonna be me.”

Truck guides Jeep past Cornelius. “Let’s go have a drink. I’ve never been able to talk about the war. Maybe I can talk to you about it.”

Watching the two men cross the street, Cornelius asks, “What the heck was that? Is he off his meds?”

“Must be. Thank goodness for this man. He got Truck and Jeep to talk to each other.”

Cornelius looks around the empty restaurant. “What man?”

Mark pauses in front of the Salvation Army volunteer. “Your relentless, my dear. What is this, three nights in a row?”

“I figure you owe me big, buddy.”

“You fail to understand that a bad attitude equals no cash,” Mark replies. “And I’m not your buddy. My sister called me that just to annoy me.”

“Maybe I should ask her for a donation.”

A broad-shouldered man with jet-black hair approaches them. Reaching for his wallet, he gives the volunteer two twenties.

“Hey, you’re making me look bad,” Mark protests.

“Buddy, that’s impossible. Thank you, sir.”

His broad grin makes the two of them smile.

Turning to the volunteer he says, “You should come inside, get the chill of your bones.”

“Yeah, I’ll buy you a drink,” Mark says. “Think of it as my donation.”

Moira places two vodka tonics on the bar. Mark watches with interest as the woman unwarps the scarf covering her features.

“Ah, the invisible woman, revealed at last.”

The woman appears to be in her forties with short auburn hair and pudgy cheeks.

“Jeez, you guys have the same shade of hair color, and the same chipmunk cheeks,” Moira observes.

“You try turning into a popsicle every night and see how you look,” the woman says.

“Same smart mouth. I’d say you two oughtta get along great.”

“Everyday is Christmas” begins playing on the jukebox.

I haven’t heard this one in years,” the woman says.

She looks at Mark, who has his head buried in his hands.

“What’s the matter, not a Shilo Ellison fan?”

“No, not really.”

“It’s funny, my brother used to say that phrase a lot when he was a kid.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah, He always wanted to be a singer.”

“Where is he now?” Mark asks.

“Sitting next to me.”

“You knew it was me?”

“That first night when you were trashed. You said, ‘Everyday is Christmas.’"

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Mark says, watching Cornelius, Jimmy, Truck, and Jeep serve a group of homeless people.

“Yeah, they’re all getting together to help someone besides themselves,” Moira replies. “Next year we’re going to sponsor a Christmas breakfast and dinner at the shelter.”

Ruth taps her brother on the shoulder.

Turning, Mark reaches for his wallet, handing his sister a hundred-dollar bill.

“For the kettle,” he says, “Merry Christmas.”

A young man hands Mark an acoustic guitar.

“Mark, this is my son, Alto.”

“Are you gonna sing for us, Uncle Mark?”

“Yeah, how about “Everyday is Christmas’?” Moira asks. “Someday I’ll be able to say Shilo Ellison started his comeback in my bar.”

Mark laughs, catching a glimpse of a photo mounted above the bar.

“When did you put that up?”

“Just today,” Moira replies. “You like it?”

Mark and Ruth gaze at the photo of a smiling, broad-shouldered man with a mustache.

“Who is that?”

“My father, Owen ‘The Pope’ McCarthy.”