| A Year Above Christmas Tree Lane, by Michael Harvkey |
Winter
Daryl had been up high on the Santa since breakfast. He'd brought enough water-thin red to cover the plentiful stain left by the resting birds that the sun baked hard as plaster. He'd started at the head and by noon had made his way down about nipple high. Up close those nipples were foot-longers, big as truck tires, and they hugged the slope of two fat tits, pointing to God. Santa was a woman at Christmas Tree Lane. She was an eighty foot tall, acre-wide, freestanding thing, and every year she ate up a week of Daryl's life. For twenty-one years she has stood near the clouds looking down on all the men of Nolan.
Up in all this freshness Daryl tasted the air and took note of Nolan's other risen icon: The Circle K sign. Lunchtime was nigh. He couldn't miss that roadside logo high on its pole. And inside there, between the mints and the cigarettes was the new gal Tammy, her name tag called her, a real nice round woman with a tired eye. Daryl had caught it trailing after him once or twice. He figured if he kept on her for his lunches and turned up the man-ness like he could, she'd sure go for him. New faces in Nolan were rare. A week ago she'd appeared, and all days since Daryl had lunched at the ‘K' as cars and trucks slipped like ants under the island outside, gassed, and left. Daryl lowered himself down the giant mother Santa thinking thoughts of a future where perhaps it will be. He wouldn't be thirty-nine and single. He wouldn't weigh near three hundred. He'd be happy.
He drove over with his yearly pay in his pants. Boy, it was burning a hole. Like everybody else at the Lane, Daryl got the pay in one post-Christmas lump. At the pump he fed his truck the best. That gas smell spread around him. He let his lungs have it. He went inside walking tall as a man ever can and said, "Afternoon, ma'am," without care. She said, "Hi," two times the way she'd done before, like a skip-stone.
He went about choosing his lunch. Here and there he would pat his tight squarish wad and grin down this aisle or that. He followed his noontime fancy and noticed her eye trailing him more than once. Other customers came in for warming, chattered at her, and left. Some lingered. The men, they lingered. Daryl watched them making conversation with her in such lazy ways. They mustn't be working men to find so much comfort in leaning. He waited his turn and then took it. His purchases crowded the counter to near full. He said, "That oughta do it, huh?" and dug in that tight pocket.
She held the money up in front. "Wow, a hundred dollar bill."
"I got paid today," Daryl told her.
"I guess so." She took a little shuffle-step back and looked off at the door behind the slow-roll wiener carousel. It gave Daryl a first-time full-on glimpse of her surplus. A mighty such-much it was. "I don't think I can break this, sir."
"Call me Daryl."
"Daryl," she said, trying not to smile, "I just haven't made enough money yet to be able to change a hundred dollars."
"Well," Daryl said, looking out through the windows to where his truck sat in the silver bright cold. The Nolan Bank was across town and it was noonish. There'd be a mess of people and money. The line would inch in and everyone would be sour. Daryl didn't have the time for it. He leaned on the counter and grinned. "Well durn it then, I guess I'll just have to see you twice today. I wonder if I can stand it."
Tammy shut her eyes and used the back of a hand to move her hair away. She said, "I sure am sorry," blinking and hooking a strip behind her ear that fell again just as quick.
"You ain't been in Nolan long, have you, ma'am?"
"How'd you know that?"
"Cause I have been."
Tammy shrugged and touched one of Daryl's bags. "About two weeks now," she said. "I'd done Strawsburg, you know? Completely."
"Well I tell you what," Daryl said, "it's Strawburg's loss. I always knew them Strawsburg men were idgits."
Tammy flushed warm and grapeish. "Oh you're good, mister," she said, unable just now to stand still.
"Daryl," he told her. "You call me Daryl or we'll have to reevaluate our entire relationship."
"Relationship," she said.
Daryl stood there waiting and watching Tammy who was looking at everything but him. He slid his groceries off her counter top and said, "Tell you what, it's new year's eve, I'm going over to Harrisonville to celebrate with the Mexicans. Ever had one of Pancho Villa's wet burritos?" She couldn't help but grin. "What?" Daryl said.
"I honestly don't think I've ever met such a confident man."
"Oh it's all an act," he said. "I'm normally shy as a deer." She laughed and her black hair tumbled.
Daryl liked Mexican food and wanted a supper time companion. Here was a pretty gal who wouldn't count calories and eye up the mirror morning, noon, and night. A gal who'd let him hold on her how he wanted. A gal who'd maybe hold on him the same. The way she smiled now and let that strong eye linger Daryl knew he had her, knew she'd share with him burritos and beer. She'd eat as much as he'd done, and they'd drive back to Nolan warm and tipsy this very night. He'd let the man-ness go slack at her door, and if the kiss went full open hot mouth he'd keep it sweet. He'd bring along some mints. One thing Daryl knew of himself was that he needed the pure and honest affection of a woman.
Daryl went back to work and raised himself up the Santa again, taking another batch of red to coat her bigness, and a batch of oil-dark black for the belt and such. High in the air above Nolan he watched the light change over the land of his birth and home. Santa's big tits bulged out on either side of him, her tire truck nipples pointed north.
Safe in Santa's bosom Daryl raced the sun.
Summer
At the restaurant Daryl finished his plate and sat back chewing, his fork and knife in a surplus of brown. He washed the last bite down with some Corona. The lime wedge was afloat in there, the green fruit meat frazzled like a battered boat full of Mexicans lost at sea. Daryl sighed big and reached through the condiments with an opened palm. Tammy was chewing and cutting a square from the burrito's rubber-most side. She saw the palm face, warn tree hard, the calluses raised and yellowish.
Daryl drew back and pressed the little white plastic toothpick dispenser on their table. "Toothpick?" he said.
"I'm not finished, hon," she said.
He worked on his own mouth a while. "You know what I use at work when I need a toothpick?"
She shook her head and took a bite. A flap of burrito skin fell over her chin and left a brown stain she wiped off with her fingers and some napkin.
"A durn pine needle," he said.
"That works?"
"Sure it works."
"It's not too soft?"
"Well, it's softer than a toothpick, but it usually does the trick. Can't use it for very long, or nothing. I'll sometimes take a piece of bark and whittle myself a little toothpick."
Tammy finished her plate and sat back. An enormous sigh left her and she said, "Boy."
"Good, huh?" Daryl said.
"The best."
"Tell you what," Daryl said. "Before I met you I was never much for ritual and whatnot, but I guess I like it pretty good. I'd almost consider making this a weekly thing."
Tammy held out her hands. "How big you want me to be?"
They laughed and Daryl paid, same as always.
"Is that all you're leaving him?" she said when Daryl laid down the tip. "There wasn't nothing wrong with the service, Daryl." She dug in her purse.
"No no," he said. "I got it." He pushed off the chair to free the wallet and laid a bill on top of the two resting across the shiny black tray on the table.
Tammy laughed, but had more of a mean look to her. It wasn't a look Daryl much liked. He did what he could most times to avoid making that look rise up on her. "That just now barely makes fifteen percent," she said.
"Yeah."
"Twenty percent's pretty much the standard now, Daryl."
"Says who, the waiters union? Tell you what, my dad always leaves a dollar. If something is durn near heavenly he'll pony up two."
Tammy hooked her purse on her. She was shaking her head and she went through the dining area without pause. Daryl dropped some coins on top of the bills, frowning more with each one. A nickel rolled off the table and onto the seat. "I'd durn near expect a back rub for all that," he said, watching Tammy push on one of the double front doors.
Out in the lot on the way to the truck he hooked an arm around her. "How much you intend to leave me changed?" he said. "I left that man per near four dollars."
Tammy said, "Good. Four dollars is a good tip."
Daryl chewed the factory-thin toothpick, took it out to look at, put it back in, shifted it around, tried to make it work. Tammy gripped his forearm and moved out of the way. "It's too hot, hon."
Daryl said, "You're what's hot," and smacked her on the ass. He got her up into the truck and threw a salute to the Pancho Villa sign before getting himself seated.
Into Nolan they took the slow curve around the pine forest that packs Christmas Tree Lane's fifty acres tight as Daryl's belt. "What the hell do you all do out there in the summertime?" Tammy asked him, looking at the glowing Santa above the pine ridge far off in the back. The Santa was under lit at night, casting a shadow at the sky.
"I'll show you," Daryl said.
Tammy yelled when Daryl laid on the breaks to make the turn. "Dad gummit, Daryl," she said, smacking him on the leg. The truck lamps swept to a thin dusty road cut through man high summertime grass. Tammy put one hand on the dash and the other near Daryl on the seat. Daryl himself knew all the dips and bumps and could brace for them. He took the turn into the Lane just past that old wood sign and parked in the customers' lot like he never does. He killed the lights and they got out and down into the rocks. He pointed off at a square of dull yellow light up the hill at the back of the property behind some not-for-sale pines. "Mr. Twitty's place," he said. "The owner." Tammy followed Daryl into the first section of trees.
It was dark as the inside of a can in the trees. Tammy gripped Daryl's hand with hers and used the other to sometimes hook his belt loop when they stepped on a hard patch of uneven earth. Daryl took her through the small trees, the ones that always sold, no matter, and then onto those that were taller yet. In between the areas was a softened flat space smelling of nothing but pine. Daryl stood there pointing at the trees up ahead. "In there are the sixteen, eighteen footers."
"Wow," Tammy said, still holding onto Daryl. The air in the trees was a little cooler than the town-kept air. "Who the heck buys a tree that big for Christmas?"
"Rich folks mostly," Daryl said, laughing out his nose. "Gotta have a house big enough to fit one, right?" Daryl pinched off a handful of needles. He rubbed them between two dry flat palms and held his empty skin up to Tammy's face. "Smell that," he said.
"Mm," she said. "That's real nice."
"Ain't it? That's about the nicest smell I can think of." He put his hands to his face. "I love it out here, boy, especially in the summertime when it's just me and the trees."
"You know what I'd love right now?"
Daryl pulled her closer. He felt her squish up against him on the side. The way her hip fit so perfect in under his. "No, but I got some ideas."
Tammy laughed and pinched him. "I'd love to see the Santa Claus."
Daryl led her to the light. Four silver-backed halogen bulbs mounted in the cement at the base baked the paint on Santa's shins, lighting her up all night every night. The lift bucket was at the far end below a thick pull-chain that ran the whole of her seventy-five feet. Three-inch bolts drilled foot-deep into her head secured the chain at the top. Daryl had only gone up solo; he'd never taken along company. "Hope you ain't afraid of heights none," he said.
With the both of them secured pretty good in the lift Daryl started in on the pulling. "It ain't quick," he told her, "but it's a nice night, at least." He rose them up. Tammy held on while the earth fell away. Rising, he told her to take a good close look at that Santa. He wanted her to point out anything she found funny.
"Mostly out here in the summer it's just maintenance things," Daryl said, pulling hand over hand. "I make sure they all get enough to drink. On real hot days I roll a tarp over the six-to-eight lot to keep them cool. July and August. If one's getting too big I'll transplant it up to the next lot. That alone can take half a durn day. And there's always this one," Daryl said, slapping the Santa that stood two feet away. "Just cleaning off all the bird dirt can take me per near a week."
When they reached the top Tammy just said, "My God."
"Pretty good, huh?"
"It's amazing."
Daryl took a look at Santa's mountainous front side. Those nipples cast door-sized shadows up the beard. It was funny how few folks ever saw this Santa for what she was. He couldn't stop himself from giggling. "Hey," he said, nudging Tammy, "notice anything funny?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know, you tell me." He looked right at them big Christmas boobs.
She looked at Daryl, then back at the Santa. Just a lot of redness and tumbling beard. Just an enormous Kris Kringle, plaster and paint and underneath, wood, cement, and the rest. "I don't know, Daryl," she said, "all's I see is a big freaking Santa Claus."
Daryl leaned in. "It's a she."
"What?"
"Look at the tits."
"Daryl."
"Breasts," he said. "Pardon me." He took a pinch of tobacco from his can and folded his cheek back, stuffed it in there, flicked it off his fingers. "They're big'ns though, ain't they?"
"I guess," Tammy said, turning back to that never-before view of Nolan. She leaned on the guard rail of the lift and just looked.
"Twitty built her after his wife had passed."
"Oh," Tammy said. "That's sad."
"We always said he put her here so he could stare at her ass from his house." Daryl pointed off back behind where they were. Through some trees the yellow square still burned. Daryl laughed and squeezed out a stream of tobacco juice from his lips. It fell away.
Tammy looked at the ground down there. Except for the patch of light rock where Daryl's truck sat, the earth below was pine stuffed. "A whole year to grow a tree for one day," she said.
"Yes'm."
"Don't you ever think it's weird growing trees just for one day?"
"Christmas, now," Daryl said. "Ain't just any old day. Folks love Christmas."
"It's like raising a pig that you know you're gonna eat."
"A tree's a tree," Daryl said.
She hugged herself around the top. Daryl pushed on her and pulled her to him and hoped she got some of his warmth. "Still love me?" he said.
"You know I do."
He shifted himself in the lift, making it hop. "Well, you still attracted to me?"
Tammy unhooked his arm and looked off in another direction to see what that had to offer. "Don't ruin this, please, Daryl."
"You shouldn't make me have to ask all the durn time."
"It's not as difficult as you make it out to be."
"Huh," he said. "That's easy for you to say. How come it's always the woman saying something like that?"
Tammy was still looking out there. Below them stretched Nolan. Late night blackness, a few dim lights, people still up with their TVs or love. Route 0 winding through like a slow worm. It was mid-August. Daryl took some time to consider his finances. He figured, if he thinned out what he had left, took it real careful from here on to the payday December thirty-one, he could get something nice for her, something to make her happy, some smallish but pretty thing to make her get her love up on him again.
"Tell you what," he said, "I'm gonna get you something real nice here pretty soon."
"You used to be so sure of yourself, Daryl."
"Sorry to disappoint you."
"Please don't ruin this, Daryl."
"Excuse me?"
"Please." She was leaning out over Nolan. It spilled out and faded beneath her. There could be peace up here in the sky. There could be wonder.
Daryl said, "Bullshit," and jerked the pull-chain so that it smacked him full in the face. The pain shot in and his eyes watered up. The lift rig bucked and took a chunk of plaster out of Santa's beard, then bounced out and away. He grabbed on and said, "Ho!" and put out a blind hand. "Hold on," he said, touching the mother Santa, stopping the rig from eating more plaster. He got it stopped and steady and tried to soak up the water that was spilling faucet-quick from his eyes. He dried them enough to see that he was alone. She hadn't made a sound on the fall. Quiet and graceful as a bird. She was down there somewhere in the dark.
Winter
This and all mornings since October Daryl showered in a cold spray. He slept in hat and gloves under six inches of cover, his breath a gray hanging cloud. Only in the truck had he been truly warm when winter came and turned Nolan crisp. Had he any more money for gas he would have driven around nights. The October truck payment he'd managed well enough, but not November, and not December. Middle of the month they came and took it without a word or warning. Every morning since, Daryl had walked the three miles to work. His pay was yet a week away.
Christmas eve passed slow at the Lane with Daryl and the Mexican seasonal help cursing the snow that kept customers away. A sizable storm had started at sunup and fell now thick and endless from a black sky. The Cadillac came in the last hour of the day and Daryl told the seasonal help, "This one's mine." A Cadillac in Nolan meant money. The driver would want a six footer; the whole transaction would take Daryl all of five minutes. The driver would appreciate his commitment and hustle in the face of such snow. Daryl stomped up and said, "Merry Christmas," to the rolling-down glass. Then he turned to the boys and said, "Shit." The driver was black. The blacks never tipped any good. Daryl backed up to let him out. "We're just about closed, mister."
The man climbed up and out and looked at all the pine. It surrounded them. He clapped his gloved hands and shot breathy white jets out his nose. His face was wide and round and near covered with beard. He said, "I need a tree."
"What kind?"
"I'm damned if I know."
"Well shit," Daryl said, standing there unstill in the cold. "We got all kinds here, everything from tabletop models to big mothers that'll break my saw."
The man's eyes glowed deep and sunken in his face. Even his eyes were in danger of his hair; it spilled up from the beard and down from his brow in curving gray arcs. "A big mother," he said.
Daryl laughed. "You mean to put it on that?" The man looked at his car and shrugged. "Well," Daryl said, "I'll just have to find one that'll fit it."
Daryl led the black man into the trees. The sky bled snow that swirled in living circles around them like an endless school of fish. The light from the shack floodlit the black sky in a soft snowy circle that made the storm seem to exist only here. Christmas Tree Lane felt to Daryl like an ever-shaking snow dome in which he was tightly sealed. He made a path for the black man to follow. They stopped in the clearing between the six-to-eight footers and the older growth trees that would be disposed of in the coming weeks. Some of the pines in there Daryl himself had transplanted. He said, "How big?" pointing at where the pines grew on.
The black man looked where they'd been to and then to the trees yet ahead. He bent his head on his neck and let the snow fall upon his face. It stuck in his gray beard. In five minutes he'd be covered. He stayed as he was and so did Daryl. Nothing made any sound worth noting. Then Daryl smacked his gloved hands for warmth and the man looked at the tall side. "In there," he said.
"I don't know if one of those will fit on your Cadillac."
"How tall they in there?"
"Eighteen feet, some bigger."
"It'll fit."
Daryl nodded but said, "There are some safety concerns. They make us say that, but in weather like this I don't think it's half wrong."
"Nobody's on the road tonight, man, and I mean nobody."
"There's always your own safety, sir," Daryl said. "I wouldn't wanna be responsible for ruining your family's Christmas."
The man laughed and clapped two dull smacks. "Oh I know," he said. "Tell you what, there's a nice tip in it if we do."
Daryl said, "Give me a minute, then," and ran off slip-step through the snow. He returned with a bigger saw and led the man into the forest of the eighteen-footers.
Daryl spent good solid time with his ax, popping out bright triangles of wood flesh that made dark holes in the snow. Then he used the saw. It took him nearly thirty minutes to fell the chosen tree. He said, "Watch yourself," when it started to lean, though the meeting of snow and pine was always soft and slow, and only the most unlucky could be hurt by it. They dragged the felled tree out, carving a flattened path behind. The snow fell so strong and thick they had to bat it away.
The tree covered the car. The Mexicans laughed and pointed at the front end, where the tip of the pine drooped groundward. "Damn," the black man said.
"I'm not sure about this," Daryl told him.
"How the sam hell am I gonna get it off?"
They all laughed at that. The snow fell. Sedentary things disappeared. The driver walked a wide ring around his car. "I'm gonna need help," he said, looking at Daryl. "There's a good tip in it for you."
They drove slowly. The headlights got the snow as it dipped to the road and followed the arc of wind cut by the Cadillac. Snow spiraled up and around either side of them and away. Daryl said, "I sure hope the cops aren't out tonight." When they made Route 0 they saw nothing but blackness and the swarm of snow in either direction. There were no lights coming from any moving thing. The black man put on the blinker and checked both sides a few times, trying to see through the pine. The snow in the air seemed not so much to fall, but to hang.
They took the slow curve away from the Lane. "Hey," the man said, looking off past Daryl at the ridge of forest far off the road, "Didn't there used to be a big Santa Claus out there?"
Daryl looked off at the same ridge of tree. "Used to be," he said.
The man leaned back for the drive into town. "I thought so," he said. "Somebody told me it was supposed to be female. That true?"
Daryl watched the two thin tracks cut before them in the snow by some earlier thing. "I don't know," he said. They were entering Nolan proper. The man bent the blinker on his left side.
"Pit stop?" Daryl asked.
"Need some gas."
The Circle K was lit up orange and red against the snow. The bright insides glowed like a sanctuary under glass. The lot was empty, there were no other customers inside, and just the one employee.
"Shit," Daryl said, sinking in the seat even though the tree hid him pretty good.
"What?" the man said. He had tried to open his door against the wall of pine needles and now saw her in there. "Ahh..." he said, drawing it out into an easy smoker's warming laugh. "I got you, buddy, I understand."
"I thought she worked days."
Tammy was leaning on the counter, flipping pages in a magazine. A thirty-six ounce soda stood nearby. "Looks warm in there though," he said. "You sit still, I'm gonna fill this up." The man took a plastic gas can from the back and forced his door. He squeezed out and walked to the entrance, each step slipping away to the side loose and penguin like. Daryl watched Tammy stand up full and put the magazine under the counter when he went in. He raised up his gas can in there and Tammy pointed at the pump. The man went into the rear of the store and came back with two styrofoam cups. Tammy rang him up. Daryl watched her in there, wondering if something had changed. Then she had a step to take and he saw her with the crutches. The black man talked at her the whole time, lingering at the door a long minute before leaving. Tammy looked out at the car one or two times. Daryl started cursing but remembered he was sitting in a Christmas tree on wheels.
The man handed Daryl one of the cups and said, "Thought you might want something hot."
"Thanks," Daryl said. The door shut again and Daryl listened to the hollow filling of the gas can outside get less hollow. About Tammy the man only said, "She seemed nice enough," when he got in again, putting the heavy can between Daryl's legs. The gas sloshed about. Daryl liked the smell of gas. They pulled out and went on. At a point farther along Route 0 the man said, "Women, huh?" and Daryl laughed. He watched the snow fall at them and race over the hood and away to a second of red tail glow in the back. "Guy told me once, about women, ‘you gotta treat ‘em like shit, cause it's the only thing they respond to.' What do you think about that, Daryl?"
Daryl watched the snow and sipped his coffee. It would not be warm for long. "I don't know," he said. "Who said that?"
The black man waved a hand and shrugged. "Some asshole," he said. "I never believed it. I always try to treat my ladies well."
"So do I."
The man was quiet a while. "But it ain't always easy."
"No sir."
"A man needs affection," the man said and Daryl nodded in the dark. "What does a woman need?" the man said. Daryl looked at him and tried to think. Both of them were quiet as the storm outside. "That's right," the man said. "We just don't know."
Daryl finished the coffee and began tearing small chunks of the cup from its rim. He dropped them into the cup as they drove on. He kept tearing piece after piece, around and around. The cup got smaller and fuller at the same time until Daryl had to stop. He said, "Me and that gal back there used to go out."
"You and the lady from the gas station?"
"Yes sir, the Circle K."
The man grinned. Daryl liked the way that grin widened and remade his face. Daryl thought he'd like this man if he knew him. "I know," the man said.
"Guess I didn't hide it too well."
"No you didn't. But she told me too."
Daryl said, "Guess she saw me."
The man slowed down to near sedentary. He eased the Cadillac onto a side road, the tires slipping still despite their nothing speed. It was almost impossible to see out either side. Frontways driving was the only way for it, snow-pecked as it was. When the car was safely on this new road, the man said, "She saw the tree."
Daryl raised his head and said, "Oh... right. Sure."
"She asked me if a guy named Daryl had helped me with it. Big guy, mustache. That's you, right?"
Daryl shrugged. "She say anything else?"
"Nope."
"No?"
They rolled to a slow stop. Daryl saw out the front that they were in one of the tall-treed, well-paved residential neighborhoods. "Not really," the man said. "I told her you were out in the car if she wanted."
Daryl blew long silver breaths at the windshield. Now that the car was off the windows fogged and the neighborhood closed in on them. "Dad gummit, sir, I'm sorry but I wish you hadn't told her that."
"She didn't seem to mind," the man said, working at getting the door open again. "Try to be quiet getting out. She also said to tell you ‘Merry Christmas.'"
The inside of the car was darkening. The man laughed and shoved on his door. The pine was fighting him. "Merry Christmas," Daryl said.
"That's right. She said, ‘we used to go out,' and to say ‘Merry Christmas.' Lots of love out there, huh? Boy oh boy. Now let's get this tree off my car."
Daryl forced open his door and stepped shin-deep into snow on an unknown front yard. Down each side of the street tall lamps lit yellow circles of snow high above. And Daryl saw brown paper bags disappearing along the curbs. He had heard of neighborhoods where they put out bagged candles on Christmas eve. The man was halfway up the yard when he said, "Shit," and looked at the unmessed ground. He began to jump in big leaps in all directions. Behind him sat a house, dull and small against the sky. It was single-story and blue, and one light was on inside. Daryl said, "Is this it?"
The man jumped and jumped in the yard, paying no mind. Then he sank chest-deep in one particular spot. He laughed and shoved away the snow around him. There was more of him gone than showing. He flipped a hand and said in a loud whisper, "Mind helping me out of here?"
Daryl pulled him out and the two of them got the tree off the Cadillac. Daryl said, "I don't see how it's gonna fit in there."
"This is an outside Christmas tree, Daryl," the man said. "That's why I had to find that hole." They dragged it to the hole and eased it in. "I dug this out last night, before all the whiteness came and fucked up my plans." Daryl grabbed big handfuls of pine needle and yanked the tree as straight as he could. "It should be deep enough to hold it up well enough," the man said, pushing from where he was. They let the hole take as much stump as it would. Standing back, they considered the tree. "It doesn't have to be perfect," the man said.
"Better than that, though," Daryl said. It was leaning something awful, pointing at the neighbors across the way.
"It's fine," the man said.
"It's forty-five degrees."
They considered the tree.
"It oughta be better than this," Daryl said. "It's Christmas."
The man nodded and said, "What was wrong with her?" Daryl looked from the tree to the man. The man was leaning with the tree, then he stood up straight and said, "The woman at the gas station. She was fucked up."
"Was she?" Daryl said. He looked at his gloves. Pine needles stuck to them in bunches. The tree had bled sap that glued the needles down. Daryl began picking at them like sores. "She fell about sixty feet, broke her back."
"Damn!" the man said. "Off of what?" Daryl had cleaned one glove of pine and started in on the other. The man's eyes burned bright again like new dimes. "You push her?"
"No," Daryl said, raising both hands. Needles fluttered out. "What sort of man do you think I am?"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"It was an accident," Daryl said.
"She fell sixty feet and it didn't kill her? Damn!"
"She landed in the trees."
"Damn! And she dumped you after that?"
"No sir," Daryl said, bending his head on his neck to line his eyes up to the tree. "We were okay until she was out of the hospital."
"And then she dumped you."
Daryl looked off at the street. He and the man collected snow on themselves.
"The bitch," the man said, shaking his head. "The bitch, after all that."
"Well," Daryl said.
The man took big high steps back through the yard to his car. "The hell with her. She wasn't any good any more anyway. I understand that, boy oh boy. Consider yourself lucky, Daryl."
Daryl wanted to say something but he would have had to yell to make it clear so he kept quiet and turned to the house. He could smell the wood smoke from the chimney. Mixed with the near pine of the leaning tree it made a perfect scent, one that recalled for Daryl times of simplicity and ease. The curtains in the front window of the house were closed. They were light colored and thin and sewn into them was some sort of arabesque. It could have been Tammy inside the house, and the black man helping Daryl with his own tree, hoping for a tip to carry him through the weekend. Anyone looking on would have imagined it to be. But Daryl knew why it wasn't. He could waste his time with a private repine, but to what end?
The smell of gas demanded his full attention. It left the red plastic can and soaked the tree just as fast as the man could shake it out. "What the hell you doing?" Daryl said.
"Shhh," the man said, throwing the can into the air when it was empty. Daryl watched it land in the yard without a sound. The snow around the tree was going gray. The man got out a matchbook and lit one that went right out.
"What the hell are you doing?" Daryl said again.
"I paid for it," the man said. He got a match lit and flicked it and the tree exploded with light. "Whoa!" he yelled. He no longer seemed worried about being quiet. Daryl backed away. "Look at that!" the man yelled above the noise of the flame and the pine needles popping with heat. "Damn!" He was closer to the burning tree than Daryl, and Daryl saw the snow melting into his beard, turning it wet and black so that his face looked like a small animal curled against a storm.
Lights came on in the house, and in other houses nearby. It was near midnight. The door flew open and a black woman hurried onto the cement porch. She stood there, lit up bright as noon, and saw Daryl first. "What the fuck are you doing, asshole!?"
Daryl heard other voices now. People were gathering.
"Merry Christmas, Anita!" the black man yelled above the noise of the fire. He came out from behind the tree to reveal himself as the source of her current troubles.
"James?" she said, holding a hand out to shield the brightness of the burning tree from her eyes. Then she threw her hand down like there was something in it she needed to cast off.
"Where's Jefferson and Dawn?" the black man said. "They asleep? They should see this." He gazed at the brightest tree he'd ever seen with a full, open face.
"Are you fucking crazy?" the woman yelled from the porch.
James, the black man, shook his head and laughed. He started dancing in the gray slush, clapping and scatting. To Daryl it was nonsense.
Yellow and reddish flames stood high above the tree in the orange-black sky. Above the tree, snow no longer fell. Pine needles popped from burning branches and floated down to infect the ground. Daryl felt nothing but intense and awful heat. He wanted no part of the black man's perdition. But here he was, there this man James was, and there the woman Anita. He knew nothing of what had passed between them to cause this hateful moment. Feeling much heat, and then less, less still, and then no heat at all, Daryl remained. The snow still fell, and the sky above the yard was dark again. James was kicking up snow and saying, "What? What the hell?" in a hollow voice that felt as distant to Daryl as Santa Claus. The tree stood green before him, as if unburned, unharmed. James and Anita grew quiet and still, as did those who had come out to witness, as did Daryl, but for reasons he chose to keep private. He removed his work gloves and approached the tree. He rubbed his bare, rough hands on the pine and raised them to his face.