Merry F-ing Christmas

As the mystery woman in lace disappeared, Jack lay back in his sleeping bag. Suddenly, he felt more alone than he had before. He had not cried when Heather left him. In some ways, he had at times felt more alone when they were married than when she left. But now, for reasons he couldn't put into words, it all came down on him. The seeming loneliness of the woman in lace hit him – eating alone, dancing alone, sitting alone in the moonlight, walking down the dark deserted street alone.

His own loneliness hadn't hit him that hard before, but now he visualized his heart as if it were walking alone down a dark street. Not a soul knew where he was, not even himself. There was no one to miss him; no one to wonder; no one to care. Getting laid off hurt, but what hurt worse was that there was no one to tell; no one who knew; no one who cared. The tears began to run down from the corners of his eyes. Quiet sobs shook him. That old Beatles song, Eleanor Rigby, came to his mind:

All the lonely people,

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people

Where do they all belong?

Jack lay there letting the tears flow, soaking into the sleeping bag behind his head. He cried until the comfort of sleep finally took him, leaving the loneliness to his troubled dreams.

The winter sun woke Jack in the morning with frost in the stubble on his face. That wasn't the only thing on his body that was hard and stiff - another disadvantage to sleeping alone. He dug his sweats out of his suitcase and pulled them on, climbed out of the truck, and went to use the restroom in the park.

Then he went for a run, across the creek, into the woods, out the other side on a path past a corn field and a little pond, and down a road with bare trees arching over it. Running helped soothe his emotions. His feet pounded the anger, the hurt, the loneliness, the disillusionment, the hopelessness into the hard cold ground. He looped around and back to the park, where he cooled off on the steps of the band stand, watching the sun get a little higher. He got a change of clothes out of his truck and washed and changed in the park restroom again.

Jack saw that the bakery was already open, the smell of baking bread wafting his way. He bought a french pastry, then sat in the park to eat it. The morning sun was shining and he watched the street slowly waking up. The shop keepers were cranking out their awnings, sweeping their sidewalks, re-arranging their window displays, putting up Christmas decorations.

Jack wandered across the street to the toy store. It was still early, but the OPEN sign was on the door, so he decided to go in to look around. A bell tinkled over the door as he opened it. It wasn't a big place, but it was stuffed with toys on shelves that went high up the walls, model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, an electric train on a track that went all around the room on a shelf above the doorways, stuffed animals, magic tricks, snow globes, wooden toys, a rocking horse, balls, puzzles, games, a Jack-in-the-box. There didn't seem to be two of anything exactly alike.

Jack didn't see a shop keeper in the store, so he browsed around, looking at all the old toys, wondering again how such a place could stay in business.

After a few minutes, an old man hobbled on a cane out through a curtain from the back room. He had a white beard and was chewing on the stem of an unlit pipe. He sat down on a stool behind an antique cash register. For a few minutes he didn't say anything to Jack.

(At this point, dear reader, let me hasten to reassure you that this is not one of those stories with a crazy old man who thinks he's Santa Claus, nor do elves make the toys at night. If you've read this far, please trust me to tell the story and stick to the facts.)

Finally, the old man said to Jack: "May I help you, young man?"

"I don't think so. I'm just looking around."

"Just looking around, eh?" the old man said with a smile. "Not too many people drive out here the night before and sleep in their cars just to be the first customer into my shop in the morning so they can 'look around.' I don't usually have a waiting line at my door, or a big morning rush of customers. But that's fine, I don't mind. Here, let me show you a few things I think you might like."

He hobbled out from behind the counter and went over to the display window. He picked up a little windup toy. It was a metal cowboy sitting astride a metal car. He wound it up, then set it on the counter. The car started going back and forth and doing wheelies – bucking the cowboy around. The cowboy had floppy neck, arms and legs and flapped around like a Raggedy Ann doll as the car whirred and buzzed, bucked and bounced. Jack couldn't help smiling, watching it.

The old man pulled out a box from a low shelf. It was an Erector Set with the steel pieces, the machine screws, the gears and pulleys. It even had the plug-in electric motor to make things run. Jack remembered playing with one of those sets for hours at his grandparent's house. He thought that was what got him interested in engineering.

"So," the old man said, "would you like a cup of coffee, while you 'just look'?" Jack hesitated, embarrassed to be taking up the man's time and attention when he had no intention of buying anything.

The man said, "Oh, I won't try to sell you anything. I could use some company if you aren't real busy. 'Sides you could probably stand a little warming up after a cold night in that truck." There was a coffee pot behind the counter. He poured two mugs and handed one to Jack. Jack sipped it. Hot, black and strong. There was a stool in front of the counter, so Jack sat down to drink his coffee.

"How long have you been in business here?" Jack asked. "This whole street looks a hundred years old."

The old man laughed: "Well not so long as all that, but a long time. Yep, there aren't too many places like this left nowadays. Sad to see this sort of place disappearing, but that's progress I guess. What about you? How long you been living out of your truck?"

Jack winced. "Only since yesterday, when I got laid off. Not sure what to do next. No place to go, so I'm in no hurry to get there. This isn't the best time of year to be looking for work. People aren't usually hiring just before the holidays."

The old man didn't say anything at first, just sipped his coffee. Then after a few minutes he said: "Say, young man, as long as you aren't going anywhere, would you mind giving me a hand with the Christmas lights? I can't get up on the ladder myself these days. Doesn't seem right not to have them up."

Jack was glad to have something to do, so he said sure. The old man waved him into the back room. It was a well equipped workshop. He showed Jack the box labeled "Christmas Lights." up on a high shelf. Jack got it down and carried it out the front door. The old man brought out a short ladder. There were permanent hooks above the windows for the light strings. Jack put them up, and the old man plugged them in. They weren't those modern little mini-lights, but big 110 volt bulbs, wired in parallel, not the series wired strings that keep going out every time a bulb loses contact. Probably not too energy efficient, but they sure worked, and a store needs bright lights anyway.

When they were finished, they cleaned up and carried the box and ladder back inside. They both sat back down on their stools to finish their coffee. A few customers started coming in. Jack sat and sipped his coffee and watched. An elderly man brought in a shoe box with some broken windup toys he wanted repaired. Before the grandchildren came over, he said. Some mothers came in with young children. A few kids rode up on their bicycles and came in on their own, a few sticky dollars stuffed in their jeans pockets, or without money, just to watch the train or look at the toys.

The old man seemed to have a talent for finding just the right toy for each child, and every one of them left excited about their toy. He also seemed to be able to find something that was right for what each customer could afford. A well dressed lady bought an expensive train set for her son. A rather poorly dressed young woman bought a tinker toy set that brightened the faces of her two young children. He showed some kids how to work a simple wooden yo-yo, and they left happily engaged in practicing tricks. Even the ones who came without money got a gumdrop or a candy cane.

After a while, when the store was empty, the old man said to Jack, "Say, my eyes aren't what they used to be, and my hands are getting a little shaky. Think you could help me out a bit in the workshop?"

Jack shrugged. "Sure, why not." The man carried the shoe box with the windup toys to be fixed into the shop in the back room. Jack followed. The old man set the box down on the workbench. With amazement, Jack saw the old calendar that was posted over the workbench: That familiar European street scene and those words: "In the elder days of art, builders wrought with greatest care, each minute and unseen part." Jack could hardly believe his eyes.

Jack looked around the workshop. It was very well equipped, with tools of every description, and cabinets and drawers filled with parts of every imaginable kind. Jack wasn't sure whether the toy store he liked best was the one out in front or the work shop in back. Tools – the toys for grown up boys, as if boys ever grew up.

Taking one of the windup cars out of the shoe box, the old man showed Jack where the tiny screws were that held it together. "Mind the spring now when you get the bottom off, so you don't end up with parts flung all over the shop."

The spring was broken. The shop had a spring winder and rolls of assorted coil spring stock. Jack wound a new spring for the car, carefully put it in place, and put the car back together. The old man had gone out front to help another customer, so Jack looked at the next little windup car. The corners of the square shaft for the winding key were rounded off. Jack found some square steel stock the right size, cut it to length, flattened the end with a hammer, ground it on the bench grinder to fit, drilled and tapped a small hole for the attaching screw, and reassembled the car.

The third car was missing a wheel. Looking around, Jack found a little cabinet with little drawers full of various small metal wheels. He sorted through until he found one about the same as the other three wheels. He mounted it to the axle, and found a retaining washer in another little cabinet. He found some paint in various colors and, with a tiny brush painted the new wheel to match the other three. By the time he finished that the morning was almost gone.

The old man came back and looked at what Jack had accomplished. He patted Jack on the shoulder. He said: "Young man, I think you have a talent for this. I can't pay much but if you want a job here for a while I can offer you a room to stay in upstairs. I used to live up there, but I can't get up and down the stairs so easy now so I've moved to a room at the back on the first floor. The upstairs room is yours if you want it and all the coffee and peanut butter sandwiches you can eat."

As a career move, this didn't seem to Jack like a step up the corporate ladder, but until the holidays were over, it would be at least warmer than the back of his truck, and the morning had flown by working on the toys, so Jack agreed. The man said: "I'm Michael. What's your name?"

"Jack."

"Jack, hmm, and a pretty frosty Jack you were this morning. Well, why don't you take a break and put your things upstairs, and I'll fix us some lunch. You can pull your truck around the back off the alley if you'd like. There's room at my loading dock to park it."

Jack drove his truck around behind the shop and backed into a little loading dock area. From the loading dock, there was an outside metal stairway that went upstairs. Jack toted his two suitcases up the stairs. Inside there was a corridor. At the back of the building was what looked like a storage room. At the front was a small room with a made-up brass bed, an armoire, a night stand, and a roll top desk, with a small bathroom at the end. The windows at the front looked out on the park across the street where a few well-bundled up children were playing under their mothers' watchful eyes.

There was an old AM radio, and a ticking pendulum clock, but no TV, no telephone, no Internet. Apparently, the only phone was the antique wall phone behind the counter at the cash register in the store below. Jack unpacked his suitcases into the armoire. He set his laptop computer on the roll-top desk, thinking it looked totally out of place.

Jack went back downstairs to the workshop. There was a brown paper lunch bag on the workbench with a note: "Jack, I'm taking a little nap. The park is lovely this time of day if you want to eat out. (signed) Michael"

Jack, noticed that the sign on the door had been changed to "Closed for Lunch" with clock hands that said it would open again at 1:00 o'clock. He took his lunch and a mug of coffee across the street to the park, found an empty bench and sat down to eat. Sure enough, in the bag there was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, (jelly oozing out generously) and an apple, with an oatmeal cookie for dessert.

Looking around, he realized the Lady in Lace was sitting on one of the nearby benches eating her apple and reading a book. She didn't seem to notice him. He studied her. She was slim but, as best he could tell given her long Victorian dress, shapely. Her face was attractive but not movie-star beautiful. Her clothing was elegant. She could have looked a bit overdressed for a park bench but the dress had a charm to it that made it fit perfectly. He imagined her again dancing in the moonlight, humming the waltz, moving ever so gracefully.

She finished her apple and closed her book. She broke the apple core into several pieces. A pigeon landed on the arm of the bench and took a piece from her hand. She tossed another piece toward a chattering squirrel a few feet away that was sitting up on its hind legs and begging. Finally, she noticed Jack. Again, she had caught him staring at her. She didn't seem to mind. She looked back at him appraisingly, meeting his gaze again. Then she gracefully arose and walked off across the park to the children's play equipment. She sat down on the merry-go-round and began pushing it slowly around with her foot. Jack got up and walked over to the merry-go-round.

"Would you like a push?" he asked her. She smiled and nodded. He began pushing it round, making it go faster, then a bit faster. She tucked her feet up and held onto the bars, watching the world whirling around. She smiled and Jack's heart lurched. He pushed the merry-go-round faster and faster, watching her to see if it was too fast. She laid her head back, closed her eyes, and lost herself in the whirling dizziness. She seemed to like it going faster so he kept flipping the bars faster and faster. She giggled. Jack kept flipping the passing bars to keep whirling her round and round.

She rotated around and hung her head out toward the outside. Her long hair streamed out, caught by the wind and swept to the side. The skirt of her dress rode up her thighs, proving to Jack that she did indeed have shapely legs. She didn't seem to mind, even when she looked at him and saw where he was looking. He felt like a bit of a pervert when he saw that when she was on the opposite side, feet toward him, he could see her lace panties under the billowing skirt. Actually, he felt more like he was back in grammar school trying to look up the girls' dresses on the monkey bars. Finally, he stopped pushing and let the merry-go-round coast slowly down.

She lay there for a long moment, apparently letting the dizziness pass as she coasted to a stop. Then she looked at him, gave him a soft smile and a wink, smoothed down her skirt, and said: "Thank you for the ride."

She walked off across the park to the sidewalk and down the street toward her shop. Jack followed her with his eyes, watching the graceful and sexy sway of her slender butt all the way down the street, finding himself lusting for her and aroused, wishing he could unlace that dress and touch her skin.

"Pervert," he thought to himself. "Ogling women in the park." He took his lunch bag and coffee mug and went back to the workshop.

Jack spent the rest of the day helping out in the workshop of the toy store. When he wasn't busy he sat on one of the stools out in the store and talked to Michael, who told him about the business and showed him how to operate the cash register. The store got many kinds of customers, Michael explained. There were well-off yuppie parents who drove a long way to get there because they wanted expensive antique toys. There were financially struggling parents from the rough neighborhood around the nearby industrial area who bought simple, inexpensive toys. There were hobbyists who were always looking for something unique or unusual.

There were many older customers, like the grandfather who came in earlier with the windup toys, who brought things for repair. For them, the cost of the repair wasn't important – it was the emotional attachment they had to the toys they had loved as children and wanted to pass on to their grandchildren. Sometimes, they could buy a similar new one made of plastic in China at Wal-mart for less than the cost of the repair but they said it wouldn't be the same.

He usually managed to fix whatever they brought. If the toys were newer and had electronics in them, he sometimes sent them down to the radio and TV shop or to the computer shop. Dolls, he sent to the doll hospital a few doors down. Parts were difficult to get, so he often had to hand-make replacement parts, but the older toys were usually pretty simple. He often saved parts from toys that were damaged beyond repair. Some extremely precise and tiny mechanisms got sent down to the clock repair shop. The business was never going to make him rich but he got by well enough. The most important thing was he had fun bringing the joys of toys to many people.

They kept the shop open 'til 8:00 that evening. Customers came and went, usually no more than one or two at a time. When they closed up shop, Michael sent Jack down to the bakery for a loaf of freshly baked bread. When Jack got back, Michael had a pot of soup on the table in the workshop and a brick of sharp cheddar cheese. Over supper, Michael told stories of some of the strangest toys that had been brought to him for repair.

After dinner Jack went up to his room. He opened up his laptop computer. He thought about working on his résumé but lacked the enthusiasm for it. Instead he started typing his thoughts, his feelings, his hurts, his imaginings about where his life might go, thinking with his fingers about what to do with his life. Around eleven he gave up writing and went to bed. He was thinking about the Lady in Lace. He was visualizing her bare thighs on the merry-go-round. He lay there picturing her smiling at him, winking at him. He pictured her butt swaying sensually as she walked away.

He was hard as a rock. He stroked himself. He hadn't had sex with a woman in over a year. His hand was his only lover. It wasn't that bad a lover all in all and far more faithful than some but lacking a certain feminine touch that he craved. He felt his erection, touching the underside at that sensitive point at the groove in the ridge. He was throbbing. It didn't take much, and he was bucking and squirting, the hot cum surging out into his hand. He got up and used the bathroom again and washed up.

As he was walking back to bed, he looked across the street at the park. There she was again, dancing on the bandstand to her own quiet music, her lacey gown billowing, her imaginary partner leading her on a slow waltz. He sat in the desk chair and watched. He had no sense of time, just following her dancing, until finally, it seemed as if her band had stopped playing. She curtseyed to her imaginary partner and slowly walked away out of Jack's sight. He saw a shadow on the blinds of the room above the gown shop and then her light clicked off. Jack got back in bed. His erection had returned. Thinking of her again, imagining her taking off that gown and getting into bed, he bunched the bed clothes into a bundle, imagined them as her, wondering if she was doing something similar in her bed down the street, and humped the sheets until he finally got to sleep.