Christmas Angels

By William M Balsamo

The joy which accompanies the passing of a test after a series of failures approached euphoria. To celebrate this achievement Richie bought a new car, a Ford Maverick with its six cylinder engine and forest green color; a budget priced new toy. The smell of the new car had freshness hard to describe and for a new motorist it was intoxicating.

The Christmas season was in full gear and people were rushing from store to store in a mad frenzy shopping for gifts for kith and kin. The air of the season was festive and ever busy. Richie decided on this one Sunday to take his children to see the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center all lit up in its holiday glory with scores of bulbs and tons of tinsel and oodles of holiday spirit.

“You’re crazy to take the kids into the city at this time of year.” his wife complained.

“Why?”

“First of all, it’s too cold. Second of all, there’s too much traffic, And third of all, you’re a lousy driver.” she said this while sipping a cup of decaf coffee on a lazy Sunday morning before doing the week’s laundry.

Richie didn’t bother to answer her. He knew that anything he suggested was up for criticism and when he pursued an argument he usually lost.

When the kids finally woke up he told them, “Dress up! Today I’m going to take you to see the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center.”

Their response was rather lukewarm and low-keyed. It wasn’t that they had no interest in the Christmas tree. It was just that they did not want to go with daddy.

“Mommy will dress you up nice so that you don’t catch a cold and we’ll leave in an hour.”

“Isn’t Mommy coming with us?”

“No, Mommy is not feeling well. She’ll stay home and get better.”

Mommy was feeling fine but she offered a sigh of relief and scarcely a word of protest. She had no interest in seeing the Christmas tree at Rockerfeller Center and the pretentious ice skaters below and the hoards of people feigning on being happy and enjoying the holiday season. Besides, she didn’t want to drive with daddy who often crawled through full stop signs and took traffic lights more as suggestions than commands.

“No, mommy has a headache. You go with daddy and I’ll stay home and rest.”

Richie and Dora got into the habit of calling each other mommy and daddy so as to establish a feeling of intimacy with themselves and their children, but it reached a point where the children had forgotten their parents’ real names and the utterance of “mommy and daddy” was coated with contempt the day they realized they no longer loved one another.

“Just make sure daddy makes a full stop at the stop signs and not a rolling one,” she instructed the children just before they got into the car, “Daddy sometimes likes to roll through stop signs,” she said with a sardonic laugh.

But Richie did not think it was funny. “Critical Bitch,” he murmured to himself as he wrapped a scarf around his neck and reached for the car keys lying on the table.

The two girls were at the age when everything was impressionable and new lessons were learned every day. They were keen observers and watched every detail. They knew all of the fairy tales from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty. They knew right from wrong, good from evil and the difference between sincerity and deceit. Nobody had to teach them. It was an innate gift that all children possess before they lose their sense of innocence.

Kathy, the elder of the two, was the perfect little lady. She was neat and proper, very feminine for her age and attentive to personal hygiene. She loved to collect dolls and stuffed animals and the mere speck of dirt and dust would bring on fits of hysteria.

Karen on the other hand was exactly the opposite. She collected cars, fire engines and bugs and was not as concerned about being clean as her sister was. Roughing it up a bit was part of her package and she relished being different from her sister. No two girls could be so different from one another and there was only a year’s difference in age between them. They came from the same home, had the same parents, lived in the same sheltered environment and yet were such different personalities.

This was to be their first visit to Rockerfeller Center and their first chance to see the Christmas tree all lit up. They had seen it on TV and were aware of the size of the tree but had never seen it with their own eyes.

Richie had just recently gotten his driver’s license. He was in his mid-thirties, at an age when most people had been driving since they were in their 20’s. But he had delayed his entrance into the cult of motorists for several reasons. The main reason was that he could not afford to own a car when he was younger. Secondly, he managed to develop a lifestyle where owning and driving a car was not necessary.

His decision to buy a car and become a motorist was related to parenthood. He bought the car for the kids, for weekend outings into the countryside, trips to the zoo and forays to the mountains. He would have been content to use public transportation anｄ was not adverse to walking long distances with no objective in mind, but it was through his wife’s urgings that he decided to become a motorist.

“We need a car, daddy,” his wife Dora would say.

“But, why?”

“For the kids. We’ve got to take them places when they grow up.”

“Why can’t they walk?”

“Don’t be silly! You know what I mean.”

He did and didn’t actually. When he did finally get a car he proved to be awkward on the road. Actually quite dangerous paying little attention to Full Stop signs and Flashing red lights. Within months their new auto had dents on three of the fenders and scratches on both sides.

“Daddy!,” mommy screamed, “Look what you did to the car!” She shouted this after daddy came home one afternoon and a large and long scratch ran down the side door.

“Mommy,” Richie contested with sarcasm, “I didn’t do it. Some teenager geek ran by me on a motorbike and ran a nail across my side. I couldn’t stop him.”

The nail which the biker ran down the side of the front door left a scar deep into the surface of the car like an anatomical wound.

Dora was almost in tears when she saw it and Richie promised he would bring it to the body shop for repair. Once he got the estimate from the body shop owner he decided to live with the scratch reasoning that it would never happen a second time and that a scratched-up car discouraged would be thieves from ever stealing it.

The girls were all dressed and waiting for their trip to Rockerfeler Center. They were always well behaved wherever they went. They made few demands and caused no trouble. It was odd that they should be such model children having inherited such neurotic parents. They were really Christmas angels.

Dora put the finishing touches on to their dressed-up look by placing a small brooch with a holly design on the lapels of their coats.

The girls sat in the back seat of the scratched up car and daddy played Christmas songs to create a holiday atmosphere. The way to Rockerfeller Center was something like a trip to Oz sans yellow brick road. Yet, it was fraught with hazards unknown to the two little girls sitting in the back seat humming, “Frosty, the Snowman,”

The first mishap occurred when Richie took the wrong rank on the Expressway and headed west to Kennedy Airport instead of east to Manhattan. He first noticed his mistake when some low flying jets roared overhead on their final approach to the airport.

He managed to get off the expressway and to find the proper entrance which led into Manhattan.

“O.K. kids just sit back and enjoy the scenery. We’ll be there in no time at all.”

The tape in the car now sang, “Rudolf, the Red-nosed Reindeer” and the two girls were happy to enjoy the scenery and sing along with the music.

At last, Manhattan! Now the problem was how to find Rockerfeller Center and to park the car. Traffic roared in both directions. Yellow cabs vied with gypsy cabs for control of the streets. Humanoids walked fearlessly between parked cars and negotiated their way across the streets to get to the opposite sidewalk.

“Why am I doing this?,” Richie thought to himself. “I should have stayed home.”

He came to Lexington Avenue and made a left turn. He observed that the ongoing traffic took up most of the street, actually all of it. What he had thought was a two-way street was actually a one-way street an he alone was going in the wrong direction.

The sound of a car’s siren cut through the reprise of “Frosty, the Snowman” and a patrol car drew up beside Richie’s car. The policeman stopped his car with its flashing red light right in front of Richie’s Maverick and the oncoming traffic maneuvered to avoid collision with both of them.

The policeman approached Richie and banged on the window of the car.

“Hey, Mack, this is a one-way street. Let me see your driver’s license.”

Richie pulled out his license from his wallet and meekly offered an explanation.

“Officer, I’m sorry. It’s these kids. They have been making so much noise in the back seat that they distracted me from paying attention to the road.”

The officer checked the license plates and then took a look at the back eat of the car where the two little Christmas angels immaculately dressed with holiday brooches on their coats sat in perfect silence.

“Yeah, well you just be careful. I also have kids and you could have killed them. Now back up and get into the side street and watch where you’re going.”

The girls never got to see the tree because they never found street parking and all of the garages wee full.

Kathy never forgot daddy’s lie. Twenty years later after many Christmases had passed and the seasons had come and gone, after years of small events most of which had been forgotten, Kathy always remembered daddy’s lie.

On an ordinary day with no special significance, after she had long left college and became a woman of business and stature, she approached her father and said, “Daddy, I will never forget the time you took my sister and I to see the Christmas tree in Rockerfeller Center and you lied to the policeman. You told him that you made a wrong turn because we were making a lot of noise, but we were so good that day. We were angels.”