Life sometimes imitates itself into a parody. Early xmas eve I was trying to change the bulb on my headlight. The sun was shining bright. I accidentally left the lights on in the process. Had to take a taxi to work later xmas eve because the battery died. My son and I got a ride back home from his friend. She was raised by her wonderful grandparents (which makes me sad that my son's visa-less grandparents live in a Mexican pueblo 1000 miles away). Both her biological parents have nearly always lived on the street when not in jail) in and around Oakland. Every once in a while she runs into them accidentally, or, even rarer, gets a phone call from them. The topic is always centered around the need to borrow money from her. She's only 19.
The conversation she, my son and I had was hilarious and the car rocked with laughter. It was full I what I would call authentic good cheer at xmas time. That, in fact, is just what she is most known for; generating an almost merry xmas good cheer year-round (well, that and also adopting any stray-four legged animal that crosses her path). It is infectious. I joined in on the banter a bit, but mostly I just listened to the riff back and forth of Spangbonics (their current term for the Spanglish and Ebonics inter-weave). They were discussing why she had voted me the coolest person at work. My son obviously disagreed vehemently with that vote, but could hardly articulate his well-founded position because of laughing too much.
Then this xmas morning, my ex-wife's husband helped me jump start my car. That also made me smile quite a bit. After that I drove on Bay Area freeways for over an hour to charge up the battery. My son and I both had to go to work xmas night & I didn't want to take a chance on another episode of dead-battery whack-a-mole. I passed along some affluent areas on the road to Walnut Creek where the xmas decorations, Santa sleighs, and reindeers on the lawns were visible even from the freeway. i know those areas. They're predominantly white and wealthy to a fault.
Getting back to my own neighborhood where Richmond and San Pablo intermarry, I pulled into the AM-PM. I left the keys in the ignition and the engine idling (risky on several levels, but necessary) as I went inside for a second. Seven folks standing in line. I was in the back of that line still filled with xmas cheer. By the time I got to the front of the line I had gone through "A Christmas Carol" in reverse.
Everyone else was buying lottery tickets on xmas. And they were all pissed as hell about it. Hearing how two of the customers treated the Pakistani man under the sports-team emblazoned beanie he uncomfortably wore depressed me completely. "Mother-**cker, I told you I wanted two of the... tickets and one of the....tickets." The mood and reality behind those words was infectious. My mind quickly flashed back to last night when a customer in a suit came into work after closing and rudely harangued us for closing early on xmas eve. So, suddenly in the AM-PM I was so embarassed at the thought of xmas that I felt it would be humiliating and hypocritical to wish the poor beleagured cashier a merry xmas.
I could not say to him, "Merry Xmas." I just couldn't say it. Every fiber in my body screamed at me as if to say, don't piss on the man when he's already lying in a pool of trickle-down urine.
Where I live the economy isn't good. The mood isn't good overall in public. Hope isn't good when buying lottery tickets seems the only way to financial success.
Still feeling guilty, a smile crosses my lips as I see my car is still there. I get in and drive home a few blocks away. My son is in his room doing God-knows-what on the computer. He's laughing. Life is still good. For me.
Sure, my son and I have to work on xmas day in a little bit. We'd really rather not, but we count ourselves as lucky that we can. In any case, we'll have fun doing it because that's how we are. We have friends that have the same attitude. We are damn lucky that way. Around here, in terms of luck, we're the cream of the crop.
We can still enjoy xmas, even if in our own irreligious and oddly mixed multicultural way.
Too many of my neighbors are not so lucky. Some were born into un-luck at birth. Some may've made themselves unlucky, but mostly they inherited it as part and parcel of racism, economic displacement, and vicious governmental/private sector policies designed to make them unlucky.
I've written too much. It is almost time to go out and see if the car will start. I think it will. I'm lucky that way. I was born into that kind of luck.
I almost forgot one detail. Coming home from the AM-PM, I almost hit two running men in bright blue shorts close to the curb. They were laughing so hard they almost fell over each other as they ran chasing a soccer ball. There was a van neaby with open doors, and they must've been on the same team and on their way to or from a soccer game. The Black guy seemed to be 8' tall and the Hispanic guy seemed 4' tall in comparision. I couldn't hear what they were shouting (or in what dialect), but it doesn't matter. It was full of infectious xmas cheer. It made half my soul laugh as well.