A Modest Christmas Gift

"Do you realize this is our last shift during the Christmas shopping season," announced Firefighter Chester Kelly as he pushed open station 51's locker room door. "Only one more shift full of traffic accidents involving surly holiday shoppers."

"No more treating COPD victims, that have passed out headfirst into the 50% off bin, while their fellow shoppers fight over discount nighties above our heads," commented paramedic John Gage, leaning further into his locker in search of his spare socks.

"No more Christmas cookies from grateful grannies," added Kelly, wistfully. He shook his head. "So what traditional holiday goodies are you guys making?"

His coworker Marco Lopez snorted. "The shift hasn't even started and he's already thinking of food."

"With the construction on the San Diego Freeway, I had to leave my apartment so early that my breakfast was a granola bar eaten while navigating the Harbor Freeway interchange."

Marco chuckled. "We're all going up to my cousin's in Tarzana and he's gonna roast a goat."

"Roasted goat?" Kelly's eyebrows rose to meet his curly brown locks. "For Christmas?"

"Cabrito al pastor," confirmed Lopez while opening his locker. Smiling with anticipation, he draped his spare uniform shirts on hangers. "My cousin makes the best in the county. First he boils the kid in special spices, then he roasts it over…"

"What happened to the turkey?" interrupted Chet.

"I thought you were talking about traditional family holiday dishes. Turkey's a traditional Irish Christmas dish?"

"Since before the snakes left," blustered Kelly, with a fine disregard for history. "Or at least since my family moved to Boston..."

"That would be the snakes leaving," said Gage.

"Ha ha, Mr. Rattlesnake." Chet took a deep breath and continued, " -- along with canolli from Mike's Bakery."

Clad only in his shorts, tee-shirt and socks, paramedic Roy DeSoto sank onto the wooden bench in front of the lockers and gazed despairingly at Marco. "Can I come over? Joanne's mother is coming for Christmas Eve dinner," he paused and his face twisted into a grimace of profound disgust, "and she's bringing her 'famous' ham."

Lopez stopped lacing his workboots and looked at DeSoto in horror. "Ugh, " he groaned, "I remember last year when she brought her ham to the station."

Chet froze, with his uniform shirt halfway on, and pressed a clenched fist against his chest. "Remember! I still have the heartburn. All in all, I'd rather eat one of Gage's burnt offerings."

"Hey," objected Johnny, surfacing from the expedition to the back of his locker. "My burgers are better than 'Kelly hash' any day. And if that is a crack about my having the cook's chore this shift…"

Roy gazed at the ceiling. "Could you two get some new material?" he begged.

Marco ignored his colleagues' performances. "It tasted like," he trailed off, at a loss for words. He shrugged.

"Burnt Slim-Rite cola," offered Roy, glumly."

"Slim-Rite cola!" chorused Gage, Kelly and Lopez.

"Yeap." Roy stood, turned back to his locker, and resumed putting on his uniform. "It's supposed to be Coke, but she went on a diet in 1969, so now she uses diet cola and we get a burnt saccharine-flavored ham."

Recoiling, Marco turned to John. "What about you Johnny?" he asked hastily. "What traditional holiday feast do you have planned?"

"Yeah, what's her name?" leered Kelly.

Marco elbowed Chet. "Pervert."

"Realist," observed DeSoto, dryly.

John shot Roy a dark look. "I'm not…." He stopped, suddenly engulfed in a wave of pre-holiday depression. "I don't make any special holiday foods."

******

"Uncisi, he won't come," declared Johnny's Aunt Kate, carefully avoiding her mother-in-law's eyes.

Sitting at the bleached kitchen table in his Uncle Howard Red Owl's kitchen, Johnny slowly smeared another thick slice of his Aunt's homemade bread with elderberry jelly and eavesdropped, thankful that for once the adults were forced to argue in English rather than Lakhota. His uncle's mother was a Cree from Regina and despite marrying a Mnikowozu and living most of her life in Red Scaffold on Cheyenne River she did not speak Sioux.

The two women were discussing the Christmas party at the Episcopal mission church in Wambli. His uncle's mother always had her eye peeled for potential converts and therefore especially wanted her pagan and Catholic relatives to go. Earlier that day, his cousins had regaled him tales of glittering Christmas trees and gifts, stories which had filled him a curiosity that overwhelmed the cautionary tales the nuns had told him about the ska u' -- Protestant -- heresies. He took a large bite of the preserve-covered bread and desperately prayed to be allowed to attend.

"You can at least ask him."

Aunt Kate's voice took on the tight calm that indicated she was forceful reminding herself of her kinship obligations. "Yes, Uncisi." Reluctantly, she disappeared behind the blanket that partitioned the living room into sleeping quarters for Johnny's great-grandfather.

After a few moments Kate emerged. "No," she announced.

"Did you tell him there'd be a tree?"

From behind the blanket came the muffled sound of the old man's gravelly voice. Kate nodded slowly. "He says: he remembers going with his mother," Kate translated, "to search for her missing cousin at the church where the soldiers took the people they shot at Wounded Knee. They had a tree in that church too. It was surrounded by rows of pitiful dying women and children lying on piles of straw on the floor. He says, he's seen a Christmas tree."

Howard's mother nodded solemnly. "Ask Marie and the boys."

Silently, Johnny cheered. He reached for some more bread.

"I’m sure that will go just as well," muttered Aunt Kate, stepping into the narrow plywood-walled addition Howard had tacked on to the house to give the family a place to don their winter coats.

******

"O un ye, anpao wakan, cante wasteunyanpi ye," sang Marie Gage, surreptitiously blotting at the trickle of sweat running down her neck onto the collar of her best dress.

Outside the little chapel the winter wind howled, trying to drown out the voices of the singers. The panes of glass in the windows rattled in their frames, and the flames in the two huge propane-fired heaters fluttered in the draft, which offered a brief respite from the stifling heat.

Beside Marie, Kate twitched, uncomfortably aware of the comments and stares that accompanied her arrival at the church. Congregants stole an occasional glance, whispering over the presence of an infamous pagan Indian 'doctor' in their midst.

Letting go of the hymnal, he shared with his brother Dwayne, Johnny turned and tried to peer through the forest of bodies to the Christmas tree at the back of the church. They had passed the tree while entering the church. One of the young missionaries, a student from some east coast Bible college, had harvested the scrawny Ponderosa pine seedling from the bluffs north of Wambli. Its sharp evergreen and pitch smell filled the building. Punched tin icicles and folded gold paper stars, made by the boarding school students, hung glittering amid the long, dark needles, and snowy strands of popcorn swooped from branch to branch. Nestled among the branches were cheesecloth sacks bulging with candy and peanuts. Johnny scrambled onto the bench.

Marie caught his shoulder and leaned over. "You look like Eya," she whispered into his ear, naming the legendary camp-eating monster and glutton from the old time stories. "Or a wasicu," she finished.

Climbing down, Johnny slipped onto the cool, scarred wooden floor between the rows of open-backed pews, drew his knees to his chin, and studied the Indian beadwork designs stenciled on the white painted walls instead. Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the strangely shaped petrified bone he kept there. The fossil vaguely resembled a horse; he would play with it, and dream of the horses he would someday own. Johnny started his 'horse' galloping across the floor.

"Lowan! Lowan! Emmanuel he el nihi kta, Israel." Still singing, Marie hooked her hand beneath Johnny's armpit hauling him to his feet.

"Amen." The Santee lay preacher, closed his hymnal, stepped from behind the pulpit, and walked toward the Christmas tree at the rear of the church. "In honor of the gift of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, that God our Father gave to us, we give each other presents.

Craning his neck, Johnny stared hungrily at the sparkling tree. Two young white women began to pluck sacks from the branches and lift crudely wrapped packages from crates while the preacher read names from a list. "Darlene Meseth, Roosevelt Camps In The Middle, Franklin Camps In The Middle, Johnny Gage…."

Johnny walked slowly toward the trio. The Santee rested his hand on Johnny's head, his heavy jowls creasing with his smile. "Merry Christmas, cousin." He pressed a bag of candy and a wrapped bundle into Gage's hands.

"Thank you," whispered Johnny, suddenly aware of eyes of the two young whites staring at him, filled with a mix of pity and revulsion. He saw himself through their eyes, clad in Dwayne's hand-me-down coat, with it's patched elbow, smelling faintly of the wood smoke from his aunt's stove and the animals he fed every morning while wearing it. Worst of all was the awareness that the women saw him as the debased survivor of a once-proud people, pitifully grateful for a handful of candy and some cast-off toy. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to smile as he returned to his seat.

Marie lightly squeezed his shoulder as he sat back down. Johnny pushed the packages into her lap, slid to the floor, and pulled his bone horse from his pocket.

******

"Christmas is an invention of Madison Avenue to feed bodies into the capitalist machinery…."

John lay twisted awkwardly across the floorboards of the wrecked car, listening to the middle-aged male victim trapped beneath the crushed dash rant. Winter rain seeped through the shattered windshield, to drip on the brim of Gage's helmet, and then run in a cold rivulet down the side of his head, as Gage shifted and finished checking the man's limbs. Pushing himself upright, Johnny again inflated the cuff and attempted to check the man's blood pressure, only to be interrupted by another tirade against the American system. "Sir, please keep quiet," he instructed, repositioning the earpieces in his ears. "We'll have you out in a just a few more minutes."

"…The churches conspire with big business to keep the masses tied to the back-breaking wheel of commerce…."

A second trickle of water began to roll down Johnny's neck. He could sympathize with Scrooge of the Crumpled Car's failure to get into the Christmas spirit. Cold rain didn't exactly send visions of sugar plums whirling through his head either. John gazed glumly through the spider web of cracks on the windshield and watched paramedics Bob Bellingham and Craig Brice work on the accordioned station wagon at the head of the chain reaction pile-up on the opposite side of the intersection.

"…Herds of the bourgeoisie roaming the roads, stoned on religion and Chia Pets…."

John wistfully considered adjusting the heavy salvage cover that sheltered the victim in some manner that would involve shoving a corner into the man's mouth to stop the flood of bitter words. Gage crawled from the wreckage and peered hopefully at Lopez and Kelly. Marco was sliding the Jaws into two holes punched in the fender, positioning the tool to cut the last support in the automobile's frame, and Chet was wrapping a thick chain around the steering column. "How much longer?" Johnny pleaded.

The beam beneath the fender groaned as the hydraulic blades sheared the metal. "Not long," said Marco, pausing to wipe the rain from the plastic shield covering his face. "We're about to roll it." He set the Jaws on the hood. Kelly looped the ends of the chain over the hooks on the spreaders.

Another stream of icy rainwater found its way under his turnout coat collar. John shivered. "Cap, can you spell me for a minute?"

"Sure." Hank Stanley folded his lanky frame into passenger compartment. "Where did you say you taught?" he asked the man.

"USC. I just got tenure last year…"

The scream of overstressed metal obscured the rest of the victim's words. Incrementally, the dash began to inch upwards and away from the man's legs.

"Stop!" yelled Stanley, making a chopping motion with his gloved hand. "Johnny, he's free."

" 'K, Cap." Gage lifted the backboard from the soaking pavement and prepared to slide it onto the seat.

Hank squeezed past him. "My kid's definitely going to U of A, out of state tuition be damned," he whispered in Gage's ear.

Swallowing an unseemly smile, John squatted by the sprung passenger-side door. "Let's board him," he ordered.

******

Still shivering Johnny returned a pair of prybars to their compartment. He closed the bay door deliberately and wishing he could as easily shut away his own encroaching depression.

Bob Bellingham approached 51's squad, carrying two heavy, wooden step blocks. He opened the bay door and slid the stabilizers into place.

"Make yourself at home," grumbled Gage.

"Don't mind if I do," said Bellingham, leaning against the side of squad and watching 16's probie sweep broken glass from the street. "Can you believe it? Six vehicles and no major injuries." He shook his head. "Someone up there must like those people."

"The guardian angel of last-minute-shoppers," offered John.

"And tenured Marxists."

Despite the cold and his mood, Gage chuckled. "I guess so."

"So," Bellingham's voice trailed off, as he listened to a burst of radio traffic on the HT. "What do you have planned for Christmas?" he finally asked.

Johnny shrugged, feeling the chilly gloom settle on his shoulders for good.

"Me and the little woman have rented a cabin up at Big Bear," said Bellingham.

Gage gestured at the leaden sky. "You picked some great weather for it."

"A log on the fire, a sleeping bag on the hearth; what more do you need?"

"Condoms," grunted Kelly, dragging the compressor for the Jaws toward the squad.

"Shame on a good Catholic boy like you, Kelly, for suggesting such a thing," smirked Bellingham.

Before he could be forced to further contemplate Bob 'The Animal' Bellingham and prophylactics, Gage spoke, "What's Brice got planned?" He climbed into the back of the squad and flipped open the lid of the storage bin for the Jaws.

"Personally verifying who was naughty or nice," offered Kelly, heaving the compressor on to the bed of the squad.

Bob snorted. "He and some guys from the union are delivering food boxes to couple of the widows who are having a hard time of it. Then he and Beth are going down to Lancaster to visit his father."

"Hey, Gage, do you know what this means?" asked Kelly, watching John stow the last of the equipment.

"No."

"Even Brice has a date for the holidays."

******

"Take it easy," comforted Roy, guiding Marco up the step into back of the ambulance. Lopez doubled over with another violent coughing spell. DeSoto guided him onto the gurney, situated the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and eased him into a partially reclining position. He held Marco's shoulder until the coughing passed.

"Thanks," gasped Marco.

"Shh." Gage knelt beside his colleague and gently peeled off Lopez's wet, sooty turnout coat. He rolled up the fireman's sleeve and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Lopez's arm. "120/92," he said after a moment.

Marco began to cough again. Struggling upright, he pushed aside the mask, grabbed the wad of Kleenex's Roy offered, and spat. "...Ate some smoke. Just give me some air and a drink, and I'll be fine," he rasped.

"Pulse 120," reported John. He pressed the bell of the stethoscope to Lopez's chest and listened. "Some wheezes." He dropped the stethoscope to the drug box. "Sorry, buddy, looks like you're going to Rampart."

Stanley leaned into the rig. "How is he?" he asked, nodded toward the prone firefighter.

"Some smoke inhalation. Cap, he needs to go to Rampart for a once over," said Roy.

"Damn," Stanley cursed, "on Christmas Eve. " Hank shook his head. "Hang in there, pal." Stanley looked at Gage and gestured. "Johnny."

Gage climbed from the ambulance. "What's up, Cap?"

Stanley drew a deep breath and gazed over Gage's shoulder at the smoking shell of the run-down rooming house. A member of 36's truck company used a pike pole to rake a heap of charred furniture and burnt clothing out a broken ground story window. "One of the guys from 36's found a body in the apartment where the fire started."

"Dead?"

Hank nodded. "Very. Found her in the tub." He stared at the remains of the dilapidated building, his expression hardening.

"It was only a matter of time before this place went up."

Stanley again nodded, his jaw clenching. "Johnny, I need you to go up, verify… Wait with the body." He sighed. "The medical examiner's office will be here soon."

" 'K, Cap."

"Christmas shouldn't be a day associated with death."

*******

Gage slid stiffly from behind the wheel of his Land Rover. The housing plan at the edge of North Rapid, where his cousin Danielle DeCora lived, was dark. Only the occasional streetlight or twinkling string of Christmas lights broke the inky blackness. The folds of the foothills were familiar from his childhood visits to his cousins, but in the aftermath of the flood of '72 and the Indian rights movement the entire area had been rebuilt. The tar-paper covered shacks and mud streets of Rapid City's Native quarter were gone, replaced by rows of modest homes.

Gazing upwards, John arched his back, stretching out the road-induced kinks in his spine. A thick veil of stars glittered in the frigid night air over the Black Hills. Out of habit, he located the constellations of the Seven Sisters and the Bear's Lodge. Then the bitter cold began to seep up the legs of his jeans. He stomped his feet, reached into the back of the Rover, shouldered the backpack full of his clothes, and grabbed the shopping bags of Christmas presents.

John started to rap on the metal screen door of the sleeping house, but then he hesitated. Two weeks ago he had told his family he could not make it home for the holidays. No one was expecting him. Gage took a deep breath and knocked.

Inside he could hear a faint rustle and a light switched on in the upstairs. The door slowly opened. "Hau?" His cousin's husband, Emile, stood in the partially open doorway.

Danielle peered over her husband's shoulder, a colorful crocheted afghan draped over her robe. "Johnny," she greeted, pushing past Emile to hug Gage.

"Danielle." He returned the embrace.

"Come in," she said, releasing him and stepping out of the doorway. "You're half frozen."

"Tunjan, who is it?" Marie's stood at the top of the stairs.

"Mama," said Johnny.

Marie gasped. Her voice shook slightly when she spoke. "Cinski, come eat."

******

Gage watched his mother pat out rounds of fry bread dough; her hands moved more slowly now. Diabetic retinopathy had taken the last of her vision in the spring. Marie handed the soft circles of dough to her niece, who slid them into a skillet full of bubbling oil.

John listened to the sharp crackle as the bread cooked. The warm smell took him back to other Christmases.

Marie reached across the table, feeling for his hand. John gently squeezed her fingers. "This is the best present you could give me," she said.

******

Gage set the platter on the table, next to dish of green chile and chicken enchiladas. Kelly stared suspiciously at the golden puffy rounds. "What is it?" he asked, his mustache quirking upwards in confusion.

"Sopapillas," offered Marco, smiling.

"Fry bread," corrected Johnny. "My holiday tradition. Best eaten warm. With honey and friends."

******

Even as I finally write this, Ken Burns' "The West" is showing the photos of Holy Cross mission, its floors covered with the injured survivors of Wounded Knee and the walls hung with Christmas decorations. The Marxist analysis of Christmas is compliments of a tenured professor of my acquaintance (not from USC). The 'Herds… stoned on religion and Chia Pets' line was far too good to let it languish in obscurity.