Cynthia Manson (ed) (21 page)

“But wouldn’t you have found out
about the plumber anyway?” Jane asked.

Connie grinned ruefully at her. He
jerked a thumb toward the plumber. “Meet Patrolman Hilbert. Doesn’t know a pipe
wrench from a faucet. We just took the chance that Kistner was too eager to
toss the girl out the window— so eager he didn’t make a quick check of the
Men’s Room. If he had, he could have laughed us under the table. As it is, I
can get my Christmas shopping done tomorrow. Or is it today?”

Dan and Jane left headquarters. They
walked down the street, arm in arm. There was holly, and a big tree in front of
the courthouse, and a car went by with a lot of people in it singing about We
Three Kings of Orient Are. Kistner was a stain, fading slowly.

They walked until it was entirely
Christmas Eve, and they were entirely alone in the snow that began to fall
again, making tiny perfect stars of lace that lingered in her dark hair.

“Up there, Grandma,” Debbie pointed,
all excited, tugging at my skirt, “in the top row. Against the wall. See?” I’m
not really her grandma, but at six and a half the idea of a great-grandmother
is hard to understand. All her little friends have grandmothers, so she has a
grandmother. When she’s a little older, I’ll tell her the whole story.

The firehouse was crowded this
Friday night, not like the usual weekend where the volunteer firemen explain to
their wives that they have to polish the old pumper and the second-hand ladder
truck. They give the equipment a quick lick-and-a-promise and then sit down to
an uninterrupted evening of pinochle. Not that there’s all that much to do in
Pitman anyway—we’re over fifty miles from Pittsburgh, even if anyone could
afford to pay city prices for what the big city offers—but still, a man’s first
thought has to be of his wife and family. Lord knows I’ve seen too much of the
opposite in my own generation and all the pain and trouble it caused, and mine
could’ve given lessons in devotion to this new generation that seems to be
interested only in fun. What they call fun.

Still, they weren’t all bad. Even
Homer Curtis, who was the worst boy of his day. always full of mischief and
very disrespectful, didn’t turn out all that bad. That was after he got
married, of course: not before. He was just voted fire chief and, to give him
credit, this whole Rozovski affair was his idea, may God bless him.

Little Petrina Rozovski—she’s only
four years old and she’s always been small for her age—her grandfather was
shift foreman over my Jake in the mine while we were courting. We married young
in those days because there was no future and you grabbed what happiness you
could and that’s how I came to be the youngest great-grandmother in the county,
only sixty-seven, though that big horse-faced Mildred Ungaric keeps telling
everybody I’m over seventy. Poor Petrina has to have a liver transplant, and
soon. Real soon. You wouldn’t believe what that costs, even if you could find
the right liver in the first place. Seventy-five thousand dollars, and it could
go to a lot more than that, depending. There isn’t that much money in the whole
county.

There was talk about going to the
government—as if the government’s got any way to just give money for things
like this or to make somebody give her baby’s liver to a poor little girl—or
holding a raffle, or something, but none of the ideas was worth a tinker’s dam.
Then Homer, God bless him, had this inspiration. The volunteer firemen—they do
it every year—collect toys for the poor children, which, these days, is half
the town, to make sure every child gets
some
present for Christmas. And
we all, even if we can’t afford it, we all give something. Then one of them
dresses up as Santa Claus and they all get on the ladder truck and, on
Christmas Eve, they ride through the town giving out the presents. There’s a box
for everyone, so nobody knows who’s getting a present, but the boxes for the
families where the father is still working just have a candy bar in them or
something like that. And for the littlest kids, they put Santa on top of the
ladder and two guys turn the winch and lift him up to the roof as though he’s
going to go down the chimney and the kids’ eyes get all round and everybody
feels the way a kid should on Christmas Eve.

We had a town meeting to discuss the
matter. “Raffles are no good,” Homer declared, “because one person wins and
everybody else loses. This year we’re going to have an auction where everybody
wins. Everybody who can will give a good toy—it can be used, but it’s got to be
good—in addition to what they give for the poor kids. Then the firemen will
auction off those extra toys and the idea of that auction is to pay as
much
as possible instead of as little.” That was sort of like the Indian potlatches
they used to have around here that my grandfather told me about. Well, you can
imagine the opposition to that one. But Homer overrode them all. Skinny as he
is, when he stands up and raises his voice—he’s the tallest man in town by
far—he usually gets his way. Except with his wife, and that’s as it should be.
“Anyway,” he pointed out, “it’s a painless way of getting the donations
Rozovski needs to get a liver transplant for Petrina.”

Shorty Porter, who never backed
water for anyone, told Homer, “Your brain ain’t getting enough oxygen up there.
Even if every family in town bought something for ten dollars on the average,
with only twelve hundred families in town, we’d be short at least sixty-three
thousand dollars, not to mention what it would cost for Irma Rozovski to stay
in a motel near the hospital. And not everybody in town can pay more than what
the present he bids on is worth. So you better figure on getting a lot less
than twelve thousand, Homer, and what good that’ll do, I fail to see.” Levi
Porter always had a good head for figures. One of these days we ought to make
him mayor, if he could take the time off from busting his butt in his little
back yard farm which, with his brood, he really can’t.

“I never said,” Homer replied, “that
we were going to raise enough money this way to take care of the operation and
everything. The beauty of my plan is... I figure we’ll raise about four
thousand. Right, Shorty?”

“That’s about what I figured,”
Shorty admitted.

“We give the money to Hank and Irma
and they take Petrina to New York. They take her to a TV station, to one of
those news reporters who are always looking for ways to help people. We have a
real problem here, a real emergency, and Petrina. with that sweet little face
and her big brown eyes, once she appears on TV, her problems are over. If only
ten percent of the people in the U. S. send in one cent each, that’s all, just
one cent, we’d get two hundred fifty thousand dollars. That would cover
everything and leave plenty over to set up an office, right here in Pitman, for
a clearing house for livers for all the poor little kids in that fix. And the
publicity would remind some poor unfortunate mother that her child— children
are dying in accidents every day and nobody knows who or where, healthy
children—her child’s liver could help save the life of a poor little girl.”

Even Shorty had to admit it made
sense. “And to top it all.” Homer added, “if we do get enough money to set up a
liver clearing house, we’ve brought a job to Pitman, for which I’d like to
nominate Irma Rozovski, to make up for what she’s gone through. And if it works
out that way, maybe even two jobs, so Hank can have some work too.” Well, that
was the clincher. We all agreed and that’s how it came about that I was
standing in front of the display of the auction presents in the firehouse on
the Friday night before Christmas week while Deborah was tugging and pointing
at that funny-looking teddy bear, all excited, like I’d never seen her before.

Deborah’s a sad little girl. Not
that she doesn’t have reason, what with her father running off just before the
wedding and leaving Caroline in trouble; I never did like that Wesley Sladen in
the first place. The Social Security doesn’t give enough to support three on.
and nobody around here’s about to marry a girl going on twenty-nine with
another mouth to feed, and I’m too old to earn much money, so Carrie’s working
as a waitress at the Highway Rest. But thanks to my Jake, we have a roof over
our heads and we always will. My father was against my marrying him. I was born
a Horvath, and my father wanted me to marry a nice Hungarian boy, not a damn
foreigner, but I was of age and my mother was on my side and Jake and I got
married in St. Anselm’s and I wore a white gown, and I had a right to, not like
it is today.

That was in ‘41 and before the year
was out we were in the war. Jake volunteered and. not knowing I was pregnant, I
didn’t stop him. He was a good man, made sergeant, always sent every penny
home. With me working in the factory, I even put a little away. After Marian
was born, the foreman was nice enough to give me work to do at home on my
sewing machine, so it was all right. Jake had taken out the full G. I.
insurance and, when it happened, we got ten thousand dollars, which was a lot
of money in those days. I bought the house, which cost almost two thousand
dollars, and put the rest away for the bad times.

My daughter grew up to be a
beautiful girl and she married a nice boy, John Brodzowski, but when Caroline
was born, complications set in and Marian never made it out of the hospital. I
took care of John and the baby for six months until John, who had been
drinking, hit a tree going seventy. The police said it was an accident. I knew
better but I kept my mouth shut because we needed the insurance.

So here we were, quiet little
Deborah pulling at me and pointing at that teddy bear, all excited, and smiling
for the first time I can remember. “That’s what I want, Grandma,” she begged.
“He’s my bear.”

“You have a teddy bear,” I told her.
“We can’t afford another one. I just brought you to the firehouse to look at
all the nice things.”

“He’s not a teddy bear, Grandma, and
I love him.”

“But he’s so funny looking,” I
objected. And he was, too. Black, sort of, but shining blueish when the light
hit the right way, with very long hair. Ears bigger than a teddy bear’s, and a
longer snout. Not cute at all. Some white hairs at the chin and a big
crescent-shaped white patch on his chest. And the eyes, not round little
buttons, but slanted oval pieces of purple glass. I couldn’t imagine what she
saw in him. There was a tag, with #273 on it, around his neck. “Besides,” I
said, “I’ve only got eighteen dollars for all the presents, for everything. I’m
sure they’ll want at least ten dollars for him on account of it’s for charity.”

She began crying, quietly, not
making a fuss; Deborah never did. Even at her age she understood, children do
understand, that there were certain things that were not for us, but I could
see her heart was broken and I didn’t know what to do.

Just then the opening ceremonies
started. Young Father Casimir, of St. Anselm’s, gave the opening benediction,
closing with “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” I don’t know how
well that set with Irma Rozovski and the other poor people there, but he’ll
learn better when he gets older. Then Homer brought up Irma, with Petrina in
her arms looking weaker and yellower than ever, to speak. “I just want to thank
you all, all my friends and neighbors, for being so kind and...” Then she broke
down and couldn’t talk at all. Petrina didn’t cry, she never cried, just looked
sad and hung onto her mother. Then Homer came and led Irma away and said a few
words I didn’t even listen to. I knew what I had to do and I’d do it. Christmas
is for the children, to make the children happy, that’s the most important
part. The children. I’d just explain to Carrie, when she got home, that I
didn’t get her anything this year and I didn’t want her to get me anything.
She’d understand.

I got hold of Homer in a corner and
told him, “Look, Homer, for some reason Deborah’s set on that teddy bear in the
top row. Now all I’ve got is eighteen dollars, and I don’t think you’d get
anywhere near that much for it at the auction, but I don’t want to take a
chance on losing it and break Deborah’s heart. I’m willing to give it all to
you right now, if you’ll sell it to me.”

“Gee, I’d like to, Miz Sophie,” he
said, “but I can’t. I have to go according to the rules. And if I did that for
you, I’d have to do it for everybody, then with everybody picking their
favorites, nobody would bid on anything and we couldn’t raise the money for Petrina
to go to New York.”

“Come on. Homer, this ain’t the
first time you’ve broken some rules. Besides. I wouldn’t tell anyone; I’d just
take it off the shelf after everybody’s left and no one would know the
difference. It’s an ugly looking teddy bear anyway. ‘

“I’m real sorry. Mrs. Slowinski,” he
said, going all formal on me, “but I can’t. Besides, there’s no way to get it
now. Those shelves, they’re just boxes piled up with boards across them. You
look at them crooked, and the whole thing’ll fall down. There’s no way to get
to the top row until you’ve taken off the other rows. That’s why the numbers
start at the bottom.”

“You’re a damned fool. Homer, and
I’m going to get that bear for Deborah anyway. I’m going to get him for a lot
less than eighteen dollars too. so your stubbornness has cost the fund a lot of
money and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

We didn’t go back to the firehouse
until two days before Christmas Eve. Monday, when Carrie was off. Deborah had
insisted on showing the bear to her mother to make sure we knew exactly which
bear it was she wanted, but when we got there the bear was gone. Poor Deborah
started crying, real loud this time, and even Carrie couldn’t quiet her down. I
picked her up and told her, swore to her, that I would get that bear back for
her, but she just kept on sobbing.