Christmas Carol Vibes: A millennial scrooge in New York City.
Eliza dipped out of work early, respecting her own boundaries. Her dumb fat dadbod coworker, Bob, protested, insisting Christmas Eve was one of one of the toughest nights of the year to work the bar at the Olive Garden in TimesSquare. He went on, whining about his “wife” and his “baby’s first Christmas.”
“Please? You already told me you don’t have plans so why would you make me close? You can’t just switch our shifts.”
“Well I’m shift manager so yes I can. Don’t even worry. Babies don’t even know it’s Christmas.”
“I know and Emily knows.” Bob’s whining continued.
“Your weird wife probably abandoned your baby to take one of her creepy nighttime runs. I see her out all the time, you know? Running. Probably from you.”
“She runs when she has time, is that a crime? Wait, no, don’t distract me. My shift ends at 7 and yours ends at midnight.”
“Dude. You complain about not having money, then you complain about working. How can I keep up? Let me help you. My shift ends now.”
“My shift is supposed to end in one hour and get me home in time to put milk and cookies out for Santa with my kid. You’re keeping me here not only past 7:00 but til midnight. What is wrong with you?”
“You wanna leave before midnight? Here’s a tip: one thing I do is not bother with sidework. The morning shift gets bored anyway, they can roll silverware. I’m out.”
He pressed his face into his hands, like he could press a functioning brain into his poor head and he then gave up. She won. It was a busy yet tipless time, full of folks too broke to try, too tired to care, and too spirited to stop drinking the house wine. She left Bob knowing he’d be there late into the night, essentially for no reason at all. He had an excellent work ethic. But, it was Christmas Eve and she hadn’t started shopping yet her family yet, and she’d have to get whatever she found sent off to Jersey for them. She’d originally planned to buy them nothing but she’d already told her parents and sister that their presents were in the mail, a lie easily substantiated or covered up by the incompetence of the USPS. She could shrug it off, they’d shrug back, too bad. She had been trying to pick out gifts since Black Friday. It was the deals her parents appreciated more than the gifts themselves because she usually used their credit card. Despite her best efforts of popping into stores and online shopping before, after, and during shifts, she kept only finding things for herself, because she knew her self so much better than she knew them. This evening being her last night for shopping, she knew exactly what to do. But first she needed to get home to reheat her Italian Trio and breadsticks- a shift meal that Bob had prepped for himself, but she figured he would have time to make another one between the afterwork rush and close.
At 5:30 PM the sky was dark already, not that anyone could see it through the street and Chrismtas lights. She could navigate the monotony of the city with her eyes closed as tightly has her heart. She shoved her way through tourists toward the 7 train, a blur in their posed and gimmicky pictures; she pretended to step over but rather stepped on the same blind man shaking a Coke cup of coins; she spit on the feet of the Black Israelites. She had read that routine was good for both her own brain and for the community, so she never skipped shoving or stepping or spitting on people once she had established these rituals. Then, she descended into the subway with the rest of the scum of New York City. As she was about to swipe her card, a voice came overhead to announce that the 7 train was running with delays in both directions due to a “customer injury.”
“Seriously? If you’re gonna kill yourself, jump off the Empire State Building. People are so inconsiderate.” She muttered, as she turned back toward the light to take a cab.
“Excuse me,” A tiny voice of an old lady said. “If you’re not going to use your swipe, may I? I’d like to get home for Christmas, you see I just don’t have the means…”
“If your family wanted you there, they would have sent the means,” Eliza spewed, thinking of the money her family had sent her to come home. Enough to cover the PATH, and then enough to cover a cab, and then enough to cover a flight from JFK to Newark. They missed her. It was pathetic.
Eliza hurried away, sanitizing her hands and spraying disinfectant in her general area and at the tiny old lady. At the top of the stairs, she was bombarded by failed Broadway hopefuls who called themselves Christmas Carolers. They harmonized flawlessly and shamelessly slowed foot traffic further and blocked her view of the oncoming cabs. After they finished God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, they had the nerve to hold out their costume top hats to her. She scoffed. She would not pay people to slow her down. She had an Italian Trio to get home to.
*
The cab dropped her off a few blocks from her apartment in Sunnyside, Queens, a place that, despite its name she would describe as a desolate joke, eons from Manhattan yet too close to New Jersey. It was the only neighborhood she could afford. Or the only place she could compromise with her parents for help with rent. They paid the rent in full as long as she covered utilities. She was resentful to have a zip code in Queens and would show her disdain for the borough by refusing to support their small businesses, by hating the Mets rather than just liking the Yankees, and by occasionally spray painting the word “swifty” onto buildings in the ugliest script she could muster. She wrote 1-star reviews of restaurants she would never try, and reported nail salons to the health department. Queens would benefit from her high standards. She would elevate its rank to King.
Her favorite way to cheer herself up in Queens was to check the mail. Her own, sure, but mostly other peoples’. She collected coupons from Burger King and Bed Bath and Beyond; she accepted thank you notes from UNICEF; she signed other people up for more cable, a chore she knew they would hate to do, but she figured it would keep these thugs and creeps off the streets. It was natural, she figured to love checking the mail in December. December yielded Christmas cards. Christmas cards rocked. Christmas cards always held a hilarious notion about good tidings and often held money. From 39th pl to 43rd street she checked doors, pried open mailboxes, and gathered up as many Christmas cards as she could find. Letters go missing all the time. The mail was a fickle thing, especially this time of year. When she had a ream of cards shoved into her bag she declared her Christmas shopping complete. Finally she hurried home, ransacked her own building’s mailbox and pounced up all five flights of stairs at nearly merry pace.
*
She shoved her door open, set down her bag, and locked the door behind her, another swift routine: drop the bag, twist the lock on the door handle, turn the larger lock about it, and slide the heavy deadbolt. Solitude. But, when she shoved the deadbolt across the crack of the door, it broke off in her hand. She pounded the door to punish it for being so shabby, so unreliable, such absolute trash. She beat the absolute shit out of the door for being lockable, but not dead-boltable. She heard a second bang on top of hers.
“Hola? Tu buena?” her neighbor knocked back and shouted.
“Shut up!” She screamed back, unsure if she should say it in Spanish to make her instructions clear, or if English was the right choice to keep the distance between them. She took the broken bolt to the trash. As she was about to toss it, she flinched. For a moment she saw a face in it, her own grandfather’s face. She looked away, squirming, shaking off her own stupidity. She looked again, and clearer now, she saw his face in the broken bolt, giant nose and all. She must have been having delusions of hunger. Of course, his face would be in a broken piece of crap — that’s what he was. He had piles of his own money but never shared a penny with her. He was a menace of greed, but she understood and respected that he was a clever businessman.
She turned on the oven and scooped her Italian Trio onto a tray to heat up the right way, slow and steady with a reasonable risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from the rickety old oven. She wondered if her CO2 detectors even worked. She knew it was a colorless odorless gas but pictured a light purple haze, cozy as a lavender candle. Inspired, she struck a match and lit a festive Yankee candle, a present she couldn’t help but pick up for herself a few weeks back.
As she waited for her Christmas Eve dinner to warm up, and for her candle to lure her into a calm, she did not resist diving into more presents. She piled up the greeting cards that she’d collected on the way home, in all the red and green paper. She read each one slowly as if she were the intended recipient. In the first one, $20 from a grandma and bible verse. Then $50 from grandma and a bible verse. Happy holidays from Aunt Mabel. Season’s Greetings from a longtime friend. Wishing you a white Christmas and offering whiter teeth from the dentist. Finally, a card wrapped in a white envelope nearly lost in the bills, return address from J. Marley. Grandma? A card that was actually for her in the piles of stolen goods. Weird. Nice.
She tore the envelope open to a card with a nativity scene, complete with goats, wisemen, and the star shining over Bethlehem guiding everyone to baby Jesus, happy in his pile of hay. She opened it to an intense bible verse, instead of a milder, universal message of cheer. And a note.
Eliza,
1 Timothy 1:15–17
“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”
As you get older, my dear, you remind me of grandpa, as he got older. I worry because he wasn’t such a grump until his life was lived out. But you’re young. I do pray you’ll learn from his example.
I do hope to see you for Christmas but I know in my heart you would rather grinch around, and it’s my Christmas prayer that you learn tonight what it’s like to be alone at Christmas, as you insist on being. Goodness, I’ll send Grandpa’s ghost if I must! Though I suppose that’s not Christian. Golly, kiddo we just miss you.
Love,
Grandma Marley
Eliza rolled her eyes at the guilt trip and counted her money. $140 total. Christmas shopping was complete but once again, she thought she would appreciate this more than the rest her family might. They made it clear that all they wanted for Christmas was her. She could gift them with her presence sometime, but not tonight. The thought of the PATH train made her quiver with disgust. The idea of New Jersey made her queasy. She had hated Queens but decided it was better than any alternative on Christmas Eve, after that dramatic card from her sad-sap Grandma. She’d settle in for the night. She opened Tinder and got to swiping while she waited her dinner to warm up in the oven.
The first face was named Jacob. She smirked as she thought of her grandfather again, to think there were so many reminders of that cranky, greedy, loon tonight. She did admire his commitment to the distrust of holiday spirit, a nonsensical exploitive season. Neither of them minded the commercial and capitalism of it all because it made sense to be on the money-making end of the season. That’s good business. It was the performance of happiness that irked them both. She swiped right on the Jacob, a shirtless-in-the-mirror type. He seemed like someone who would understand good business, but not necessarily people. That suited her.
She laughed out loud at the next profile. Another Jacob. Well, Jake this time. This one a tortured artist type with a guitar, and plenty of candid group photos to indicate that he might have a lot of friends or a codependency complex. She swiped right and committed to do so on all Jacobs. A game within the game.
And the next profile, Jakob. This time she cringed at the eeriness of the coincidence. She hesitated in her new game, but his profile humbly bragged that he was 6’2” and loved to travel. As she swiped right, she had a message already from the first Jake. And then the second.
“Hey. Good to meet ya.” The first Jacob said. “In town for Christmas? Or seeing family?”
“Yeah. Just got out of work. Just me.” She jumped right into the conversation, which was not her usual approach. But maybe this would be a Christmas gift to herself.
“Meet me in the city for Christmas Eve dinner?” he asked abruptly. She laughed. Better than being here. She her coat as she messaged back.
“Tell me where.” She got out of Queens as quickly as the 7 would take her. If she had her way, she’d visit all three Jacobs by midnight. She deserved it.
*
“Jacob?” His smile was easy to spot in the crowds between coats and hats near Union Square.
“Hi!” He was excited to see her like she was an old friend, like they’d already met. She was put off by his familiarity.
“I hope this is okay..” he said pointing to a McDonald’s. Her face must have shown that she didn’t get the joke. “I’m kidding,” he mansplained, “but, I do hope this is okay?” He walked her to a tavern she’d never seen or maybe never really noticed.
“Of course,” she said, agreeable as first dates required to make them work in her favor. The tavern had an unintentionally vintage look of the early 90s. The Christmas lights over wood paneling reminded her of the house she grew up in, like it might have a brown and wooden armed couch left over from the ’80s. They even had the same dancing Mickey Mouse wearing a Santa hat. No need to come home when she could come here. They were seated right away in a booth under more strings of lights and greeted by a server with an elf hat and jingle bell earrings.
“I figured we’d embrace the spirit?” Jacob offered, innocently. Genuinely. They ordered Christmas margaritas with candy canes instead of umbrellas. It looked and tasted like a “potion” she and her cousins would have concocted in the kitchen as kids out of any liquid in the fridge from milk to salad dressing. The sweetness rushed into her, and she felt flushed already, rosy cheeked as a child building a snowman. She shook away the sweet snowglobe image.
“Not into sweet drinks?” He laughed, “What’s your usual Christmas like? I bet you don’t always spend it with strangers.”
She sucked half her drink through her straw to assert that she was not so readable.
“This drink is obnoxious but it’s fine. I’ll even have another. I used to go home to Jersey for Christmas but I’m sick of it. I don’t see the point? You? Why are you available tonight?”
“Flight was canceled. I was off to Raleigh where I’m from. Pretty bummed since I was looking forward to the warmth and family time. But now I get to have a city Christmas. I don’t mind trying to make the best of it. So what are you so over?”
“All of it. My grandma actually tried to guilt me into coming home but I refuse to take the PATH or the ferry or a car.”
“Maybe JFK to Newark?” he mused. “Did you like Christmas growing up?”
She laughed uneasily as he echoed her family’s offer to pay for a flight from JFK to Newark. But then they’d have to pay for the cab to JFK. “I mean sure. We always had an annoyingly big tree, and we had to move the furniture around to fit it in our stupid house. And the whole family would come over. We used to make gingerbread houses, and they were way too disgusting to eat, we just, liked building the towns. Even my cousins were there.” She felt herself spilling her life story and she didn’t know why. She resented this Jacob for bringing so much of her past out of her, for making her remember Christmas as a kid. She quickly changed the subject.
“So what about Raleigh?”
“Not yet, I want to know more about these houses, these cousins? I was an only child, so this always fascinates me, even makes me jealous! Mind if we grab another drink? Let’s try a new one.”
“Sure,” she kept talking. The sugar rush made her feel like an actual kid, a kid who couldn’t shut up about whatever they were excited about after eating pounds of candy. Whatever, maybe talking about childhood could be like free therapy. “As kids we just played. My grandpa was a staple in his chair, with his newspaper telling us to hush up. I liked to sit by him and be grumpy, actually. One time we practiced our signatures, and he had this big looping J. It was so bubbly, I made him show it to me over and over! Anyway. The cousins moved so fast and ran and they were inside and outside. I couldn’t keep up. I wanted to. I would have love to catch up and beat their asses. But they were so wrapped up in their stuff.” She felt herself feel pity. And a bit of embarrassment because she knew she shoehorned in that stuff about beating their asses to appear tougher in front of Jacob, who was bringing out too much sweetness in her.
“Damn. That sounds a little lonely. But better than being alone. You miss them, don’t you? Here, wanna try this weird purple gin they make now?”
“Yes,” she said efficiently answering both questions. They sat sipping their drinks, taking in the Christmasy environment.
“Indigo doesn’t exactly match the Christmas theme but this is awesome.” He was so excited by the novelty, the purpleness of a drink that’s normally clear. What a child. She tried to roll her eyes in a charmed way but when her eyes were near the back of her head, she whiplashed herself forward, and suddenly sat up straight.
“What? Did you see another ghost?” he laughed.
“Another? I saw, sorry, it’s not a big deal, but that’s my ex over there. It’s not a big deal, just a surprise.” She sipped her indigo gin and tonic to keep her mouth busy. She kept her eyes forward.
“Awe that’s tough. Break ups are hard. Do you wanna tell me about him or pretend he doesn’t exist?”
“We were engaged. But he didn’t want to live here and it was this whole thing and he said I’d never love him as much as I love making money in the city, which was a solid point. So now I pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“Damn. Do you feel like you missed out? Do you make enough money to make it worth the trade? That sounds like the real deal.”
“There’s no such thing as enough money but no, no regrets. If I had been with him I wouldn’t have met you.” She congratulated herself on great line.
“That’s true. I wouldn’t need to be here if you had gone ahead and made that work.” He smiled. His smile continued to make her uncomfortable because he smiled like a brother. She was ready to leave.
“I’m having a nice time.” He said, “But it’s time for me to call it a night.”
And she was annoyed even though she agreed the date was over. She wanted it to have ended on her own terms instead of feeling like it was being taken from her.
“Yup sounds good. I have another date after this if I’m being honest,” she lied.
“Maybe even two more,” he joked. Again his familiarity made her nervous. She hadn’t finalized her plans with Jake and Jakob yet, let alone told him they were possibilities. Her first Jacob paid the check, offering his swooping signature as one last thing to remind her of home. He waved awkwardly and left her sitting there clinking her ice cubes. Her phone light up with a notification from Jake, the tortured artist.
“Bushwick tonight?”
*
Eliza opened her phone to call a car out of habit but felt she could use the train as a buffer between the two Jacobs, maybe see some drunk Santas on the way. She hadn’t taken the L into Brooklyn in years and she mixed herself in with a jumble of families coming home from Christmas Eve services and people her age raging in their crop top and winter coat ensembles. For the first time since she left her apartment she realized she was still wearing her tie from the Olive Garden. She cringed but figured she could pass it off as a choice. She got off at Jefferson Ave.
“Eliza!” He had been waiting outside the House of Yes for her.
“How did you guess?”
“I saw your picture… I saw you…? So not much of a guess, right? You look cool!”
“Thanks, yeah I’m pretty cool. Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiled. He was cool so easily they way she wanted to be. “So, I was gonna say we should dance or like some molly or whatever but like, my buddy’s house just burned down. So everyone is doing a party to help him out, you wanna come? We could still do molly.”
“Oh wow I’m sorry that’s awful,” she was sympathetic but also annoyed to getting involved with such a sad guy. “I don’t get how we help, is this like a GoFundMe party?” She didn’t understand how this would be a party at all.
“Nah, see he was squatting in this lighthouse and it burned down, so he didn’t have much to lose anyway. So he’s just like, partying to celebrate being alive? You wanna celebrate being alive?” He laughed as he asked. She did not know how to celebrate being alive, or want to, but figured she was already in Brooklyn and there would be alcohol. Or molly.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Hell yeah that’s what I’m talking about! I’m gonna just grab a pizza and we’ll bring it over with some beers? If it’s lame, we’ll duck out. You’ve got options, E.”
And a nickname from a guy she just met, she thought. Great.
The house party was packed, and every single person was celebrating life in their own way. Some by dancing, some by smoking, by talking exclusively about themselves, by being lost in bits instead of real conversation, by gathering around a tiny screen to watch TikToks, by quietly petting two disgusting looking hairless cats in the corner, by being unconscious, by slowly looking around the room to silently judge everyone. Jake took her hand to distract her from slowing looking around the room to judge everyone. He led her to the kitchen. The kitchen was huge, fitting a table big enough to gather a family or friends around. She couldn’t name the style of the room, except that it was beautiful, oddly balanced, combining the tastes of the 7 roommates who lived here, looked like the combinations of the 1950s and the 2050s. But it all came together as the decades themselves glide through time. She was lost in it until a in a flareup of envy, she remembered herself. Jake handed her a beer.
“Thanks!” She screamed over the music.
“I love this song! I have to admit I’m a huge Swiftie! You?”
“NO!” She lied, surprised and relieved to hear palatable music. But then the party was screaming along, I just wanna STAY in that lavender HAZE!
“I think you secretly are! You just want to be cool! And you don’t know how to do it!” She could barely hear him as he screamed in her ear but hoped nobody else heard. She looked around to be sure she hadn’t been exposed by this know it all.
“Where’s the lighthouse guy?” She didn’t care about the guy whose stolen home burned down but turning the attention to him was better than the amount she was receiving.
“Oh yeah! Let’s bring him his pizza! Damn there’s so much food here. You should eat some!”
The lighthouse guy was one of many gathered around a phone to watch TikToks and YouTube, which glowed a purple tint on his greying hair. He looked up from an old Tonight Show clip to say hi, and was startled.
“Eliza? Woah woah Eliza Scrooge?” The lighthouse squatter jumped up and hugged her. She squeezed him back.
“Fez! Oh my gosh! Wait your house burned down? Wait you lived in a lighthouse? Fez? Holy shit.”
“Yeah yeah all that, who cares, how have you been? Thanks for coming here. What’s up? You on Broadway yet?” His question ripped the air from her lungs as she tried to push out a laugh. “No, no I’m still at the Olive Garden. Actually, I have your old job!”
“Oh wow that’s too crazy. Hey it’s a job. You still singing though? I’m back in town I’d love to see you! When’s your next gig?”
Jake jumped in. “Oh nice, a singer, huh? Hey plenty of musicians here if you wanna collab or just like, feel the pain with us.”
“Oh I assumed you must have met at a show or something!” Fez looked back and forth between the two but didn’t inquire further. That was exactly why Eliza had loved him so much back in their days at the Olive Garden. He didn’t ask questions. He just knew what was up. He made work stupid and fun. She felt herself slump into how stupid and serious it felt now.
“It’s so good to see you.” She said. She meant it. “Oh, and how do you know Jake?”
“When I opened my own bar in Maine he toured there a lot and we just stayed in touch, you know? But. The bar didn’t make it through the pandemic so I’m back in Brooklyn, loving life!”
“Oh, sorry to hear that. Not the easiest couple of years, it sounds like?”
“Nah but I mean who cares? Nobody died nobody got hurt. I got to have my own bar, that is so cool. And now I’m saving to open one right here. Life is good. Hope yours is too.”
She looked to Jake, maybe to apologize for giving her full attention to another guy, but isn’t this who they had come to see? Jake was unphased and smiled the fraternal smile she’d been seeing too much of tonight.
The hipster who’d been holding up his phone spoke up, “Hey, hey I found the thing I was trying to show you guys, check it out.” He held up iPhone with a tattooed hand to show an old Tonight Show clip. “Dude so this guy sings, like, you just have to hear it.” And he pushed play on the spectacle of Tiny Tim screeching over his ukulele. Eliza winced. She’d seen this clip before. She pitied Tiny Tim and anyone who had to hear him. Jake noticed.
“Not a Tiny Tim fan?” He laughed. And the others turned their heads to make her feel like she was in trouble.
“No. No not at all. That’s not music. That’s just a weird guy doing weird stuff. I don’t tolerate it masquerading as music.”
“Well, he’s pretty happy as weird guy doing weird stuff. I imagine. I guess I don’t know,” Jake said like a question that he turned to the rest of the group. She had offended Tattoo Hand Guy.
“TBH,” he spelled, rather than using the words ‘to be honest,’ “This guy is the reason I am who I am today. Like, for example I’m tall. And I play ukulele. And I’m queer.”
“I don’t know that he was queer,” Eliza questioned, not helping.
“But he made everything okay. Because he just did his own thing and did not care. This guy just wanted to play his songs, like don’t you get that?”
“Yeah. Well,” she wanted to move on. “He’s dead.”
“No, he’s not,” Tattoo Hand said.
“Woah,” Jake said, inserting himself in between what just happened and what was about to. “He his physically dead yeah, bummer, but like, his spirit is alive, don’t you think?”
Eliza rolled her eyes.
“She wants his spirit to be dead.” Tattoo Hand pointed at her with his tattoo hand. “You kill a lot of spirits don’t you? Because you don’t have one.”
“I didn’t kill your or Tiny’s Tim’s spirit.”
“Yes you did. You’re a spirit killer. It’s people like you. It’s your fault! All the dead spirits are because of people like you and you think your dreary energy is either cool or doesn’t matter but all you do is make life suck. You suck life. You’re a life sucker.”
As dramatic as this random guy was being, she felt him suck the life out of her.“Alright alright, I’m happy for you and your weirdness.”
“It’s too late. You killed Tiny Tim and me and this whole party.”
Jake gently grabbed her hand before she could be caught in a spiritually deadly eyeroll, leading her outside. “Let’s… tiptoe through the garden.”
They fought through the happy crowd of partiers who were not dead physically or spiritually and through the smoke outside the back doorway into a shared backyard with a corner worn grassless by dogs. The grass that remained was dusted with frost and crunched under their boots.
“Sorry,” was all she was willing to muster. She was still debating if she was a spirit killer but she knew she killed some of the party. The TikTok phone circle had been a certain casualty.
“What are you sorry about? You haven’t killed my spirit. But like. Mine’s not really killable. You seem like you like being a grumpy girl at the party.”
“I don’t like being the grumpy girl at the party. I guess I don’t like being a bitch I just am one,” she trailed off and Jake leaned in closer to hear her. She turned away to prevent a kiss and rambled to busy her mouth. “I guess I could have a little more chill. I guess.”
She voyoured into the buildings surrounding them, each window illuminated with a Christmas Tree or with families gathered. One fat dadbod shadow even looked like her coworker, Bob. In fact, as she peered closer, she was sure it was him. She gasped. Jake followed her eyes to a fourth floor window, with a man, a woman, and a baby. They were dancing like fools.
“Bob lives in Bushwick? And dances? And he’s happy? What the fuck?”
“Looks like Bob lives in Bushwick and dances and is happy,” Jake parroted. “I bet he wishes he could spend more time like that.”
“Yeah. Sure. I bet. Maybe I haven’t entirely killed his spirit yet.”
As she slumped into her thoughts, two ugly, wrinkly, hairless cats ran outside, crunching in the frost. Eliza had never liked animals, and always found hairless cats to be atrocious to look at but these were worse; they were emaciated, maybe abused. She could not believe she was sympathizing with two mewling, scrawny, rat-looking cats. Some chick in a fur coat but barefoot, the host of the party, ran after them. Was she taunting the cats by wearing fur?
“Iggy! Wannabe! Come back! Can you grab them?”
“No they’re gross. Sorry. No offense. Ugh. Ew. Okay. Oh my God I can’t stand this!” Eliza picked them both up. “Why do they feel like demons in my arms quick take them take them back. And feed them or something!”
“Ha! This bitch thinks she can just walk into my home and tell me my cats are sick. You’re the sick one. Look at these babies. Look at them. LOOK at them.”
The cats each puked down the fur coat of their cat mom. Eliza looked at Jake. The end of the date was obvious.
“So. Like, before you go, I hope you had fun though? Like. You can have fun. It’s okay to do, like it’s just a choice to make. Ya know?”
“Well. I was having fun until I got involved.”
“You killed your own spirit, didn’t ya?”
“I may have, yeah.”
“Hey so I wanna give you a little Christmas present?” He reached in his pocket and pulled out pinkish purple crystals. “They’re for improving your energy, ya know? Or if you don’t believe in that stuff, it’s just a reminder to choose to lighten up. Plus they’re kinda cool looking.”
She smiled at him and took the crystals. Why not?
Her phone buzzed to show the final Jakob of the night, ready to meet. It wasn’t quite midnight, still Christmas Eve. The timing was too perfect. She and Jake said goodbye with a friendly hug and she took a cab back to the city. By midnight, she’d be having fun. Jakob had suggested karaoke.
*
In Korea Town she scanned a row of what looked like abandoned hotels, but she saw the address he had given and opened a heavy door directly to an elevator. She felt the preemptive humiliation of walking into her perfectly avoidable murder. Would he push her off the building? Strangle her? She’d read that erotic choking was going out of style, so she doubted it would be that death. The elevator beeped as she reached the 25th floor and the doors open to a violent violet neon, tinting everyone and everything with a pinkish glow and deep purple shadows. Everyone looked bruised. On stage, singing, “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths was a guy who looked like it might be Jakob. He looked like he was 6’4”. He looked like he loved to travel. He saw her and waved, finishing a pretty damn good rendition of a sad weird song.
“Hi.” He stood close but didn’t touch her, no hug, no little cheek kiss, no awkward handshake. Maybe he wasn’t really 6’ 4”. Maybe he just seemed huge because he was so up close, an optical illusion. She stepped back and he stepped closer.
“So Eliza? You like to sing? In public?”
“Hi.” She said, trying to rewind the conversation to a normal starting point.
“We’re past that. I put your name on this list already but the way this place works is that nobody will watch you or sing along with you unless they have a reason to. Okay?”
“That seems a little uptight.”
“High stakes. I come here a lot so everyone already knows and likes me. Also lots of these women want to sleep with me. And a lot of the guys too. Just saying. So that usually their reason to watch me.”
“Well maybe I won’t go up when they call my name. Seems deranged.” Eliza felt herself want to stay, to try to have fun like Jake would have insisted.
“Should we get a drink?” she suggested.
“You have to go up when they call your name. No choice. And yeah grab me a whiskey sour.”
She knew then that he probably wouldn’t murder her, he’d just be a terrible date. A whiskey sour at a karaoke bar? She turned toward the elevator to sneak out, but she had promised to choose to have fun here. She did a shot of whiskey and then ordered one on ice for herself, and one sour for him. All feminism aside, she was irritated to be meeting at a place he picked, paying for his drinks.
“$65.” The bartender demanded.
“What the hell? Fuck this place.” Eliza handed over her parents credit card and brought back the drinks.
“Why does the bar tender look like she hates you?”
“Because this place is a rip off. This place is stupid.”
“Well, we’re here. You chose to be here, right? All your little decisions brought you here, didn’t they? Don’t act like you don’t have the money to pay for these drinks, I know exactly what kind of girl you are and have always been.”
“What are you talking about? You have no idea who I am, you creep, I’m leaving.” And then her name was called. She hadn’t chosen a song. People looked around for whose name had been called and by process of elimination, all the eyes of the crowd landed on her as a single-minded monster.
“Go up.” One tube topped chick demanded. Nobody cheered the way she was used to any other time she’d experienced karaoke in the past. Or the way she’d experienced singing in coffee shops and bars. Everyone seemed angry that it was her turn to have the spotlight. She turned to the elevator, and Jakob blocked it with his enormity. It was like he was getting bigger. She backed further away to correct the illusion, and succumbed to the tiny stage. Everyone turned their backs to her, faced the bar to ignore her song. No music started so she shrugged and stepped off the stage.
“NO!” the crowd and Jakob yelled. The screamed at her. They threw trash, with impeccable aim considering they were avoiding looking at her. “You have to stand through the whole song. And the song can’t start until you convince at least one person to give a damn that you’re up there. That’s how this WORKS. That’s how life works!” He bellowed, facing away from her. She tried to step out of the violet spotlight again but was promptly yelled at.
“I can’t make you people care!” She screamed back, approaching hysteria.
“Yeah, way too late to make us care. I’d take a bribe though!” shouted some poser looking punk. “Buy us all a round! You’ve got money! Then we’ll care!”
And, in exchange for a crowd, and to end this weird nightmare date safely, she did. She handed her parent’s credit card over to the bartender. Then sang quickly and terribly and ran off stage to Jakob, who finally stepped to the side of the elevator doors. “I’m leaving.”
“Yeah, I have other places to show you anyway.” He said and took a final sip.
“You’re not coming with me!” She yelled, almost crying. And then felt a smallness in her embarrassment for feeling so much. All night she had been more emotional than she’d want to be with a guy on a first date, but this one was too much. She was tired. She wanted to go home to her Italian Trio. She wanted to go home to New Jersey.
“I am though. The date’s not over.” He stalked her into the elevator doors, not a push — he still had not touched her — but used a lurking of his massive body that moved her along. “We need to take a walk.” So maybe she was going to get murdered.
In the street she wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her coat close and looking as outwardly miserable as she could, in case any other human would notice and try to save her. People pushed past her on their way to the trains, or wherever they were heading this close to midnight on Christmas Eve. They kept their heads down and shoulders up, locking their worlds closed. Jakob’s coat was thin but he seemed warm, maybe from the drinks she bought him, but maybe from the joy of tormenting her. They stopped at a tiny cemetery, outside a small gothic mini cathedral.
“We’re breaking in. Taking a walk among the dead,” he winked. A wink to seal her death. His smile was sly and his teeth were more yellow than the picture. In the dark, his skin still had the deep purple undertones of bruising. He still didn’t touch her, just moved his body to move hers through the gate and on the path that would spiral along the outside of the graveyard from the outside in.
“Nobody cared about your singing.” He taunted.
“Yeah that’s fine. I’d like to go home.”
“You’re not fine with it. And honestly that makes sense, because we all want to be liked, and loved. You’re in the grey area of human nature and narcissism. You’re so mad that so few people came to your solo shows that now nobody at all wants to come to your shows.”
“Who cares about my shows, how far back did you stalk my IG before this? It’s too much. It’s creepy. You could just be normal on this date and get to know me.”
“Just like you’re getting to know me? Just like you got to know all my friends up there?”
“Those weren’t your friends those were people you were trying to impress.”
“I didn’t think you’d know the difference. Knowing you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, and you know who else doesn’t know you? Anyone. Do you have a friend? Or just people you’re trying to impress? You didn’t know the guy you work with every day lived in Bushwick? You don’t know if your neighbor speaks English? You don’t know your family. You don’t even know Queens, which is actually the best borough.” He stated the facts like they were offensive to him. They were offensive to her, laid out for like that by someone who had no business knowing.
“How would you know all that?” She asked, needing to catch her breath, realizing she didn’t have control of it. She felt intruded upon, and violated that he could know so much about her that she hadn’t shared. Even if they weren’t her worst or only qualities, she’d be uncomfortable with his knwong them. He continued his lecture.
“And if you thought karaoke was brutal, picture your funeral!” He pushed her, hard, and 6’ passed quickly. She landed on her back in the bottom of a freshly dug grave, screaming.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? This shit is not funny! Get me out!” She screamed, jumping up to claw her way up, her Christmas crimson fingernails filling with dirt. “Help! Somebody help me!” She cried. She didn’t know where she was other than in a grave. What cemetary? Who would hear her? Who would look for her here?
“Scream all you want, nobody cares. Not even me.” He kicked some dirt into the grave, and his frame shrank as he sulked away from her in the moonlight. For the first time, he looked small.
“No! No! Come back! Help! Somebody help me!” Her voice was petrified. And she heard footsteps, light and springy. Joyful, even.
“Oh hello down there!” A cheerful woman’s voice called from above.
“Help! Oh my God please help me.”
“Hmm. I have to say I don’t mind this at all, Eliza.”
“What? How do you know my name? Wait, Emily? Bob’s wife? Wait. How? Hi. Oh thank Gof for your running routine. Please help me, I was pushed in this grave? I can’t believe you’re here. Or that you recognized me,” Eliza started to laugh, an uncontrolled hysteria.
“Oh geez, hi Eliza. See, I didn’t recognize you at first, I just read the name on the headstone. Says right there, it’s your grave. You can’t see it on account of being in it, so you’ll have to just believe me. When I heard the yelling, I came over to help but. Like I said I don’t mind this.”
“What? No, please help me.”
“You’re right, I’m being mean! Keeping you from the people you love. Gee I don’t know where I learned this behavior. Well, kiddo I don’t know how I can help ya seeing as how I’m not very strong. Maybe use your tie to lasso your headstone your something.”
“What?”
“Okay Merry Christmas!”
“What? Come back! Come back! I’m in a fucking grave for God’s sake! In the middle of the night! I’m in a grave! My own grave!” She heard the light and cheery footsteps dancing back toward her.
“Eliza? No. One. Cares,” she said plainly. And pranced away.
Eliza screamed. She clawed. She tried to lasso her headstone with her tie. She sat down in the dirt, shaking from cold and exhaustion. She laid back and hopelessly screamed one more time. She pounded on the walls of her grave, harder than she had on her apartment door earlier. “Please! Help! Please, somebody care! Please! Hello! Hello! HELLO!”
She felt mocked as she heard the echo of the walls of her grave pounding back to her. She could hear her own hello repeating, growing louder and more desperate. Hello. Hello! Hola! It wasn’t her voice.
“Hello!” It said. It pounded on the walls of the grave, “Hola! Estás bien? Hello! Hello?”
*
The shouting continued along with a beep like the elevator door had made, alternating sounds. Hola/beep/hello/beep/are you okay? And then the pounding. Like someone was banging on her casket. No, she reminded herself she wasn’t buried yet or dead. The banging sounded urgent and finally she lifted her head to the sky.
She saw the ceiling of her kitchen. There she was at her table, with a pile of Christmas cards torn open.
“Hola!” an urgent scream and pounding from behind the door.
“Hello? Ma’am?” Another voice, with more authority but less urgency. He said something else but Eliza couldn’t hear it.
“What the fuck?” Eliza felt queasy and turned to the door to see what her neighbor could have wanted so badly. There was a incessant beep from above her. She stood up, and fell weakly to her knees. Finally, the door busted open.
“You are alive! Get out!” Her neighbor screamed like a ghost warning her of something worse. The shape of a man or a monster filled the doorway, sending the neighbor further back into the hallway. Eliza got up, confused, but entranced by the urgency of the spirit moving toward her. He picked her up and carried her down the stairs. A firefighter. Her neighbor yelled ahead of them, and held open the door to the stoop and the street.
“My alarm was blasting!” The neighbor screamed when they were outside, more neighbors gathered around. The firefighter set Eliza down in front of an ambulance. “You have none? You’re lucky. You’re very lucky the door is also broken. You breathing? Big breath. Fresh air. Okay?” Her neighbor shook her to see if she was paying attention, “Hello! Hola. Are you okay?”
“Hi,” Eliza whispered. “Is it Christmas?” The fireman interrupted.
“Not yet. Still Christmas Eve. I was worried. I thought I smelled gas in your vents, then I said no, I don’t think so. Then may CO2 keeps beeping, I knew you were not safe. There you were.”
“How long was I gone?”
“I don’t know, the things started beeping not long after I heard you come home,” the neighbor was still breathless with urgency.
“I mean, I went into the city? I went to Brooklyn. When did I get back?”
“I heard you stomping around an hour ago?”
“You got lucky somebody called,” a young EMT spoke up. “You can die that quickly with a leak like that. I’ve seen it a lot. People heat up food in their shitty ovens and die.”
“Wait, I never ate…What time is it?” Eliza asked, still taking inventory of her surroundings.
“I think time to go home,” said the neighbor. “Go see your family. So, sleep somewhere safely. Have Christmas dinner. I’m sorry I broke more of your door.”
“You helped me,” Eliza said quietly.
“I help you! I saved you!” She laughed and gave Eliza a hug. Eliza surprised herself and hugged back. She squeezed her hard. She had no idea what time it was or how long it had been since she’d been out and she didn’t understand if she had been out or stayed in. She felt drunk, because hadn’t she been drinking all night? No, she’d been poisoned by carbon monoxide. Maybe that was similar. She was hungry. She never got to eat her Italian Trio. Bob’s dinner, which she stole.
“I’m going to go. Okay. Thank you! Goodbye! Thank you!”
“Bye bye! Merry Christmas Miss Eliza!”
“Wait. What’s your name? I’ve lived by you for years, I don’t know your name.”
“I am Carman.” She smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Yes. Okay. Carman. It’s nice to meet you! Bye! Adios! Feliz Navidad!” She tried, but dismissed her embarrassment, and she ran with her coat flapping open to the 7 Train. She been rescued.
On the way to the train she took note of all the businesses whose Yelp reviews she would correct on her way into the city. Everyone received a 5 star review and she swore to herself she would visit each tiny, family owned spot first thing January. A resolution. And on her way to those businesses, she would return stolen cards and money. Right now, she had to get to the Olive Garden.
When she reached Times Square, she ran off the train. The woman who had been waiting for a subway swipe was still there.
“Merry Christmas,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d have a swipe to spare?”
“No,” Eliza said. And she walked to the booth to buy her a new metro card. She handed the stranger a week’s worth of swipes!
“Oh God bless you. God bless us, everyone!” She said, so sincerely Eliza might have winced. But instead, she smiled. She carefully weaved around tourists, barely knocking them over just giving them light little “New-York-experience bumps” that they could tell their friends about. She stepped over the blind man instead of on it — on HIM! She corrected her thought quickly. And then she flipped off the Black Israelites instead of spitting on them. She felt her heart growing, changing. She burst through the doors of the Olive Garden where Bob was pouring wine into the glass of a woman who had had too many and would need several more before she was ready for her holiday.
“Bob!” She shouted, disrupting everyone was here and therefore, family. She ran behind the bar, “Go home. I’m sorry. It’s my shift. Go home. Be with your family and your bad ass wife and your cute baby.”
“What? Did you go home and turn around? You’re going to close?” He was startled, but taking his apron and tie off quickly in case she changed her mind. In case she was teasing him.
“I’ll close. I was supposed to close. I’ll close. And then I’ll go to New Jersey to be with my family.”
“Okay…?” Bob was confused but not willing to question it. “I guess you haven’t missed much. Alright. I guess.. I’ll get my coat,” he said, as a test.
“Oh here. And your hat! It’s cold out. And! Keep this as a gift from me.” She grabbed a bottle of red wine from behind the counter, paid for it because it was the right thing to do, and handed it over. “Take the rest of the week. I’ll work New Years.”
“What happened to you?”
“I’ve seen what I don’t want to become.”
“But why are you filthy?” Bob looked her up and down. She was covered in dirt. Looking at the bottle in her hands, her nails were caked with dirt. Her tie was missing.
“Oh.”
He left her there speechless. Maybe in the hustle to escape her apartment, she got a little dusty.
“Hello! This glass ain’t gonna fill itself!” The lone women yelled. Eliza smiled. It was hard to be nice to a woman who probably wouldn’t tip but she tried.
She tried.
She texted her parents, Behind the bar til close. But I’ll be home for Christmas.
Do you mean by midnight? Her smart ass grandma Marley asked.
By midnight, I promise. Unless the PATH sucks, which I actually think it will but what I’m saying is I’ll be home to spend Christmas day with you all.
We can’t wait to see you honey from Mom.
*thumbs up* from Dad.
She hurried around the bar doing her side work and prepping for close as fast and as well as she could. The openers on the day after Christmas wouldn’t have to lift a finger. She’d prep so hard that if they complained, she’d poison them with CO2. Just kidding, she thought. The journey to be a better person wasn’t going to happen magically just because she had been ghosted by three guys in one night. But it was a start.
“Hello! I’m running out of wine!” said the Alone Lady.
“Oops! Here you are.” Eliza grabbed her glass, filled it halfway with water and topped it off with wine. “This one’s on me,” she said, like a good person would, making someone else happy without killing them. There weren’t many people left in the restaurant. Most had either gone home or never come out in the first place. Or come out but tipped exceptionally. She stood looking around, at her “family,” glad to be in a comfortable, happy place. Happy to know she was on her way after her shift to an uncomfortable happy place. It was indeed a merry Christmas. And she would contribute to the happiness. She sighed and shoved her hands deeply in her pockets. Her fingertips found a couple of rocks. She laughed and pulled them out.
And inhaled, a backward scoff to find the pink and purple crystals. Her instinct was to throw them in judgement and terror, but instead, they reminded her to lighten up. To have a good time.
