[Written for a
Christmas Eve service in the late 1980s, this story drew on the endless TV
airing of Frank Capra’s movie It’s a
Wonderful Life, then believed to be in
public domain. I set the tale in a
Cicero, Illinois diner by the el tracks at the intersection of Cicero and
Cermak Avenues. An actual diner, Johnnys
Grill on that site, inspired my tale, as did the trucking line with a camel
logo and vulgar slogan "humpin' to please."]
Say
that I didn’t want to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the umpteenth time on
TV: No Christmas Eve guardian angel for me.
No Jimmy Stewart-common-man-redeemed-by-his-own-goodness for me. No
Frank Capra-photographed-through-gauze-sentiment for me. Not the way I felt. Say that it was that false movie that drove me
out into the real world.
Say
that I was driving, slowly and without destination, past closed stores and
homes glowing with lights, trying to blot out the ache of Christmas Eve spent
alone and only feeling lonelier for the driving, and was ready to turn around
and head back to my place, when I say the sign for Johnny’s Grill blinking on and off; and I laughed because
the GR from Grill was burned out
so it read Johnny’s ill like an omen, because my name’s
John.
I
peered through the car’s rain-streaked window and through the rain-streaked
window of the diner decorated with strings of oversized lights. I couldn’t see much of the inside of the diner
but it seemed a better place to be than where I was or where I had been, or where
I might be.
I
was feeling like I feel when I look at Hopper’s Nighthawks at the Art Institute: It’s a lonely painting not so much
for the people inside the diner, but for the person on the outside looking in
at the couple seated together and the grill man and the other man seated to one
side: they’re together and they’re inside. And that’s what I wanted most of all on
Christmas Eve, not to be on the outside
in the dark night, looking in.
Say
that it was in Cicero near Cermak Avenue, where the el tracks cross Cicero
Avenue. I pulled the car to the curb
behind an eighteen-wheeler whose motor and running lights were left on. The trailer had a galloping camel painted on
it and the words “Humpin’ to Please.” I
turned the collar of my coat up to keep the rain off my neck and braced against
a cold wind blowing from the north. The
rain jabbed my face with icy needles.
The elements – rain and wind – blew me through the door into the diner
with a rush and roar. Inside, the diner
was quiet – warm and fragrant with the odors and fried foods. A waitress with long hair and wearing a man’s
yellow and black plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves didn’t look up from the Sun Times she was reading. The short order cook’s eyes appraised me in an
instant–because of the sort of neighborhood it was and not because I was alone,
coming into his diner on Christmas Eve. This
was a place where only those who would come to it on a night like this had no
other place to go. No questions asked or
even wondered. Just a quick appraisal to
make sure I wasn’t there to do harm.
Three
booths lined the wall decorated with gold tinsel and a cardboard greeting– Joy to the World.” In the far booth, almost inconspicuous, was a
slight and dark haired woman–a girl really–cupped over a brightly colored cloth
bundle. An el-shaped counter with stools
framed the grill. Two men in corduroy baseball caps with galloping camel logos
and quilted vests sat together at the short end of the counter. A plate glass window behind them faced Cicero
Avenue; colored lights with old-fashioned fat bulbs framed it. And in the center, a five-pointed star,
crudely shaped from white lights, blinked on and off–a beat out of sync with
the Johnny’s ill sign blinking above the window.
I
placed myself on a stool in the middle of the long side of the counter. To my right, the plate glass window looking
out on the street. In front of me, the
grill with the cook, frying a pair of steaks and a huge mound of home fried potatoes,
scraped the glistening back surface with a spatula. I could even see the young woman with the
bundle in her arms by glancing at the grease-splattered mirror above the grill.
Wedged above the mirror in the corner,
an old black and white portable TV tuned to, what else at 8:00 pm on Christmas
Eve but the inevitable “It’s a
Wonderful Life.” I had to laugh to
myself at that little irony. No one was watching the set and the sound had
been turned off so there were only ghostly gray images.
“Coffee?”
the waitress asked. I nodded, yes. She placed a brown plastic mug with spoon
balanced across the top in front of me. “Yell,
if you want anything else.” She returned
to her newspaper. The white-aproned cook
spread butter on the grill and cracked a pair of eggs alongside each steak. It was quiet enough to hear eggs frying in
hot butter. The whites sputtered and
danced while the cook flipped the steaks and rearranged the shredded potatoes
with the spatula. The bundle in the
woman’s arms let out a cry. In the
mirror, I say her hands at the buttons of her blouse before she pulled the
bundle to her breast.
The
door opened and the wind and cold air rushed into the diner for long seconds
while a figure in dark and heavy clothing–a woman–stood in the entrance, as
though deciding whether or not to come inside out of the elements. The waitress as well as the cook gazed at her
but said nothing nor made any movement. It
was as though the woman were looking for something; finding it she smiled a
crooked smile–her face was all to one side–and finally came in the diner, shutting the door
behind her. She chose a stool one away from mine, placing two plastic Aldi
shopping bags bulging with her stuff on them.
Settling heavily and dripping water, she turned to me and said something
that I couldn’t understand. I looked to
the waitress for help, but she had returned to reading the newspaper.
“I’m
sorry, I don’t understand you,” I said. She
repeated herself. I shook my head and
shrugged my hands. “The star,” I finally
understood when she gestured to the plate glass window. “Star. Wonder.” She pointed a finger at the window to the
truck parked in front, cackling “Camel.
Yes, camel.”
She
seemed pleased as she slowly peeled off her coverings: knit gloves, hat and
scarf, coat and sweater. Coat and
sweater puddled around her and over the stool. The smaller articles she piled on the stool
between us. Her fingers were long and
parchment-like with bright red nails, a thick scarf wrapped around hair secured
in small pink plastic curlers. She was
both ancient and young. I judged her a
woman in her thirties, probably prematurely aged by emotional illness and
living on the street out of shopping bags.
When
her coffee came, she poured spoonful after spoonful of sugar into it. Between each spoonful, she looked around the
diner, smiled, and nodded her head. She
turned to me again and said something. I
shrugged that I wasn’t able to understand her. She repeated herself and I was able to
decipher “Who are you?” I told her my
name. “John.” She registered no comprehension, but looked
beyond me at the television and said, “No. Him.” Pointing a long finger at the TV where a
miniature and feverish Jimmy Stewart was walking down a snowy street. I laughed. “Jimmy Stewart?” She shook her head and pointed again, saying
“Him.” It was Jimmy Stewart. She probably didn’t know who Jimmy Stewart
was. So I just nodded my head in
agreement. She stared at me with a
crooked and, I was convinced, crazy smile that made me turn away.
I
thought with bitter irony, “This is a wonderful
life I’ve got. Alone on Christmas
Eve in a dreadful diner in Cicero sitting next to a crazy woman who thinks I’m Jimmy
Stewart but not Jimmy Stewart. She’s
talking to herself and stirring spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee.”
The
door opened again and with cold air conversation also rushed into the room. Four Cicero police officers, three men and a
woman, entered, shaking the rain off their coats and hats, greeting the cook
and waitress by name, sitting together in the booth by the door. They brought a new spirit into the place and
their radios squawked in the background. The woman next to me kept twisting her fight
on the stool and turning her head to look at the cops. Her crooked smile was constant–almost beaming.
Then she leaned towards me and whispered
one word, which I understood immediately as “Shepherds.”
But
then her face grew troubled. She leaned
toward me and whispered, “Wise men. Two.
Missing one! Missing one! Find out.” She left her stool and walked over to the two
men who were finishing their trucker plates of steak, eggs, and home fries. They looked up at her. She leaned toward them, whispering words as
she had done with me. She was asking
them questions and they were answering.
Returning
to her stool, she confided in me fragments of what they had told her: “East…New
York…waiting…phone call.” She looked all
around the room again, smiled her crooked smile, and asked. “See camel?” She rolled her head back in throaty laughter;
but in a moment, she became anxious. “Wait. Mr. Number Three Magi,” she chanted in an
unearthly singsong, as she rocked in her stool and nervously watched the door.
An
el train rumbled past the far wall and stopped at the station across from the
grill. Moments later, the door opened. And the woman next to me laughed loudly, “Yes!
Oh, yes!” A man in a navy blue cashmere topcoat, gray
fedora, carrying a briefcase and Marshall Field’s shopping bag joined our
growing group of refugees. He was dusted
with snow that had begun to fall. He
walked to the phone on the wall and made a call. The woman next to me was exceedingly anxious
now. She watched the new man’s every
move – from shaking the snow off his coat to depositing the coins into the
telephone to hanging up the receiver – and nearly leaped out of her stool with
joy when, after making his call; he sat next to the two truckers and ordered a
coffee. “All here now. And gifts. He bring gifts.” I looked around and saw that no one else was
paying attention to the woman’s antics.
She
stirred two more spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee. She held the mug in both hands and rocked, and
looked from the three men at the counter, to the four police in the booth, to
the black haired woman cupped over the bundle in the back booth. “All here. All here.” She repeated. “Shepherds.” She sipped and rocked. “Wise men.” She sipped and rocked. “Baby Jesus and Mary.” She sipped and rocked. “And him.” Her long red tipped fingers pointed to the
T.V. where Jimmy Stewart was talking to his guardian angel. “Him.
You.” Her red tipped finger was
almost against my cheek.
I
couldn’t resist. I asked her “And you,
who are you?” She stirred another
spoonful of sugar into her mug of dwindling coffee. She pointed to the TV and
the cherubic actor, Henry Travers. “Him. Angel.”
She tipped back her head and laughed
happily. “Your angel!”
Say
that I don’t believe in angels or Frank Capra’s
photographed-through-gauze-vision-of-It’s
a Wonderful Life. I’m a cynic and a
realist. Say that Cicero, Illinois,
isn’t Bethlehem 2000 years ago; nor is
it Bedford Falls of 1946 Hollywood. But
say that as she tipped back her head and laughed, I wondered. (Wouldn’t you have wondered, too?) And it felt so good to wonder: So good to
wonder if the bundle in the dark haired woman’s arm might not be the child of
God born to save this crazy world, because God loves the world; and so good to
wonder if the crazy woman next to me might be my very own guardian angel come
to protect and save me form harm, because God loves me, too.
For
a moment, I was 2000 years back in time in a stable and was also Jimmy Stewart
playing George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Fact and fantasy commingled. I wanted to believe. In that moment, I didn’t feel lonely and
hopeless.
Say
that when I stepped outside, the soft white snow covering the ugliness of the
street kissed and blessed my face, too. Say
that it was quiet. Say that the white
star of the Grill’s window was blinking on and off, a strange star of wonder. Say that above the window the GR of the sign
had come back to life. Say the sign was
blinking, now in sync with the window star, not Johnny’s ill but
Johnny’s Grill …..
Johnny’s Grill ….. Johnny’s
Grill
