The Christmas season in Westlake Village is composed of equal parts of avarice and benevolence, acrimony, and good will. Many of us are happy to be here for the holidays but then, there are those who wish they were somewhere else.
From December first onwards, it is possible to hear six Handel "Messiahs" sung by Methodists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, all starring housewife soloists with high hair, bowstring necks, and popping eyes. Not to be outdone, Our Lady of Perpetual Hope is doing "L'Enfance du Christ" by Hector Berlioz in costume, or so says the calendar on the back of the pew. Creches spring up like weeds on the lawns of Christian, Jew, and Muslim, and the red robust face of jolly St. Nicholas burns like Big Brother in every window. Stores along Westwood Avenue are ablaze with blinking lights, cotton snow, and windows sprayed with plastic frost.
Advertising reaches a climax at the Westlake Village Guardian. We switch from biweekly to weekly during the month of December, and the paper grows in bulk as the magic day approaches. It can no longer be stuffed in your mailbox or wedged between the knob and the jamb of your door but must be flung from a speeding van, like a sack of potatoes, onto your front lawn. The Volunteer Fire Department sells Christmas trees for the benefit of the Fireman's Fund, the Ladies Rosary Society sells poinsettia plants from door to door for the poor, and the Town Supervisor raffles off a color television set and ten turkeys, presumably for his own benefit.
Lucas Crosby and I are busy day and night with copy. The printer sends a man over with his clip art collection to work with us. It is so easy these days. So easy in fact that blunders are unavoidable, and a smiling Santa may well find himself embedded in the chimney in the greeting from O'Dell's Funeral Parlor.
We mustn't forget it is Hanukkah as well, but Lucas will have none of that. He is up to his ears in Christmas. "Let them get a holiday of their own," he says to me, unaware that the Festival of Lights is far older than Christianity.
"Whadd'ya mean Festival of Lights is Jewish?! Just take a look around Westlake Village! Take a look at the Espositos' place...Holy Three on the lawn, moose up on the roof, and blinkin' lights in every window." I wonder how he has survived 64 years - he has crawled into a cocoon of his own making and refuses to emerge.
The Guardian must abandon its day to day coverage of school news, the "High on the Hog" dining column, and the "Golden Page" for senior citizens. Our doors are closed to news of any kind. We are riding the crest of the Christmas wave, and it seems to me that Christian and Jew alike will be sick of the hoopla before December is closed out.
I am assigned the problem ads. Lucas, as well as being short-handed, is short-tempered, and when confronted with the unconventional, he can be strangely Scrooge-like. So when the Sum Lum Duck Vietnamese Cuisine and Takeout called for a half page, he signaled me from across the room.
"Here, you take it. It's them Chinks from up the street."
"Hello," I answered, "how may I help you?" I hoped both he and Stacey, his secretary, were listening. I've been trying to teach them to say that instead of the gruff, "Watch'ya want?" and the even gruffer, "Yeah?"
"We like to ad in your Goddyon, an ad for your holiday at Christmas."
I knew this would be difficult over the phone, so I told Brian Ho, the manager, that I'd be right over.
Sum Lum Duck wanted to offer a cut-rate American Christmas dinner..."for all-American family in honor of the passing of your Savior." I could only imagine how Lucas would have reacted. We discussed the fine shade of difference between the birth and death of Christ and traditional menus for Christmas and Easter. Turkey with one and lamb with the other. Sum Lum Duck was flexible. It would be a special all-American dinner in either case. They wanted to include a picture of the front of the restaurant with the chef standing between the two brothers, Brian and Don Ho.
Christmas at this particular cycle of my life is less a time of wonder than it is a time of loss. My children are gone and now delight in children of their own. My wife is gone, unalterably gone, and I am left with antiquated neighbors and friends who grow fewer every year. We have loss in common, but most of us have retained a sense of humor and the hope that there is something left to life worth living, and our candle may yet be rekindled.
I returned to find Lucas standing on his rickety swivel chair, tacking a sprig of mistletoe in the ceiling over his head.
"I suppose when you're the least likely to be kissed you'll go to extremes, Lucas - first you've got to take that cigar out of your mouth."
Stacey said, "I hope he falls off that chair and breaks his neck."
He came back to earth with a grunt. "What did the Chinks want?"
"They want to participate in the Christmas season. Half-page ad for a Christmas dinner, and they're Vietnamese, not Chinks."
"Jesus, who'd wanna eat there?"
I don't know how many years it's been, five or six at most, I guess. Lucas was 64; I was 80. We were both old enough to know better, but I was suddenly fed up with his gung-ho, horse-blinder Americana. Rickety as I am, I walked over to his desk and climbed up on his old swivel chair. Stacey let out a shriek!
"Get offa there, Mr. Buschman -- you'll kill yerself."
Nevertheless, I managed to stand upright and pull the mistletoe down. I suddenly realized I was in a very precarious position for a man my age, and I got down as gently as I could. Why had I done that? I stood there with the mistletoe in my hand - Lucas's mistletoe. For some reason I dropped it on the floor and stomped on it - again and again, then, feeling as awkward and stupid as I've ever felt before, I flung my muffler around my neck and headed for the door.
Lucas looked at Stacey as I opened the door and said, "Boy, somebody's got a hair across their ass today."
Not being able to think of a suitable retort, particularly one in Stacey's presence, I stalked out. Now what? I thought. Here it is one o'clock in the afternoon and you're in such a huff you can't go back to the paper. How old will you have to get before you learn to control your temper?
I had two choices: lunch at MacDougals across the street or a few beers over at the Hollow Leg Saloon. I knew what would happen at the Hollow Leg - probably get my Irish up, come back and punch Lucas in the mouth. Bad percentages. Suppose he hits me back? Spend Christmas in the hospital - that's what.
I love the smell of MacDougals in the winter. The fatty beef and the fatty fries, the scent of sweet onions and the bracing aroma of catsup fill the air. It's a peculiarly American smell, quite unlike the fragrance of an Italian, Chinese, or Greek restaurant. It's a scent that gets into your clothes and on your fingers and in your hair. You go to sleep with it and wake up with it in the morning. It returns to full power when you burp, and the burning of the burp is made more endurable.
Ardsley was sitting alone at a table. We shook hands like brothers, a white fist in a black fist. The black fist wearing a ring on every finger but the thumb.
"How'ya doin' Ardsley?"
"Cool Mr. B; whyn'tcha getcha mess and come sit'cha down?" I'd like to talk street with Ardsley, but I'm not good at it, and he isn't much better. He'll just sit there, shake his head, and tell me to talk like a white man.
I got a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato, fries, and a coffee, then went back to sit with Ardsley. He was wearing a sprig of mistletoe in the buttonhole of his old army field jacket.
"Merry Christmas, Ardsley."
"Bound to be, bound to be. We ain't had snow yet. For me, leastways, that's what can ruin Christmas. I hate snow."
"You from the south, Ardsley?"
"Yeah, came up from Tennessee with my little lady right after Korea."
"I didn't know you were married."
"Oh, I ain't. Not now anyways. Wife died in," he paused and counted laboriously, "1974, Have mercy, Lord."
"I lost my wife in '87."
We sat there, two old widowers, world's apart in what the world calls culture but sharing the common loss of something that had been dear to each of us. He watched me as I squirted my cheeseburger liberally with catsup and generously salted my fries.
"You gotta good appetite for an old man, y'know?"
"I always eat when I'm mad, Ardsley."
"S'no way to be, man. It's near Christmas. You gotta learn to loosen up - y'oughta come over to my church some Sunday."
"The new one over in Castle Gardens?"
"Yeah, The Road to Glory Evangelical. Reverend Gabriel will blow you away. Full Gospel preacher just like we used to have back home. That man'll lay it to ya -- I swear when you come back out into the sun y'feel like a white man. I don't mean like a white-skinned man, I mean y'feel clean and white all over. Like whatever y'had when you went in there's been washed and scrubbed away."
"I go to Our Lady."
Ardsley grinned, "I know, with that skinny-assed Father Stan ... y'said you wuz mad, what'cha mad at?"
"Lucas Crosby."
"What about?"
"He's a bigot - a redneck, you know?"
"Ah, Lucas ain't so bad."
"Oh, ain't he now. You oughta know. Bet you wouldn't go over there and ask him for a favor, would you?"
"I wouldn't ask you for a favor, Mr. B. But lemme' tell ya, when I had my bypass, Lucas done me a favor I'll never forget."
"Gee, Ardsley, I didn't know you had a bypass."
"Lucas did. Him and me was in Korea. Buddies never forget. Don't matter much if they ain't the same color -- they hang on the same tree. Know what I mean?"
"I was in WW 2, Ardsley."
"I know you wuz. You told me. That wuz different. That wuz a world war...y'had guys in the Pacific, guys in the Atlantic, guys in Africa, Italy, Alaska. You wuzn't a family. You gonna finish them fries?"
He slid my container of fries over to his side of the table and reached for the catsup bottle. The he wiped his eyes with his dirty napkin.
"We wuz all together in one place, like a family. Din't matter shit what ya color wuz. Even the Gooks...if they fought with us, they wuz family. So when y'say Lucas is what'cha call bigoted, remember he didn't forget ol' Ardsley."
"What did he do, Ardsley?"
"Got me outta the Vet hospital - it's away out in Port Jervis, y'know. Got me into Saint Mary's. Real nice there...nuns lookin' after ya. Could'na paid for that myself on Medicaid. Hospital told me Lucas picked up the bill."
"Merry Christmas, Ardsley."
"You too, Mr. B. Say hello to ya kids."
I left him there finishing my fries. I swung my muffler around my neck and pushed my way out the door. What was I going to do, tell Lucas I was sorry? The hell with that! I walked over to Georgia's Greenery and got him a fresh sprig of mistletoe.
(Copyright 1998 by Harry Buschman - No reproduction without express permission from the author)