Kenny's Christmas

Kenny's Christmas

Kenny sat slack-jawed in the dark watching a test pattern on his TV,
imagining what might have been, but it was too late. All the channels
were off the air.

Kenny was a loser and he knew it. His flat was a dump. He had no job.
He had no friends. It was Christmas Eve and he could feel the blessed
event coming on like a bad cold.

"There's no way I can dodge this bullet," he thought and reached for
the fag end of a flat beer.

"Christmas!" he swore. "Bloody stupid.... I'm not getting anything this
year, and even if I had something to give, no one would want it."

Life could be worse, he conceded. It could be raining.

"I wonder what mom and dad would say if they could see me now," he
muttered aloud. That was a tough question. Kenny never knew his
parents. He grew up in orphanages, foster homes, and on the streets. No
one wanted him. He didn't want himself. It's hard to say which came
first.

Kenny picked the letter up from the floor. It answered some of his
questions, but it raised even more. He was trying to find his parents,
just to see why they didn't want him. Yeah, sure, there could be lots
of good reasons, but he needed to know. There might not be much time
left. Kenny led a high-risk life. It wasn't his fault exactly; he'd
been born that way.

"It's looks like I'm getting close this time," Kenny burbled. The
letter gave him a name and address. It might be his father. It might be
a dead end. It might be both. Kenny was past disappointment. He just
fuzzed along through life and whatever happened, happened. Don't judge
him too harshly. It was the best he could do.

Kenny woke up a few hours later watching the Big Breakfast against his
will. He was cheered by the thought that all over the country people
just like him were watching the Big Breakfast against their will, many
of them on an empty stomach. He felt better already, empty stomach or
not. He was no longer alone. And it still wasn't raining.

This promised to be Kenny's big day. It was Christmas Eve and he was
going out to look for his father. The information in the letter was
skimpy, and who knows how reliable, but it was the best he had. It was
all he had. No percentage in being fussy at this stage of game, he
thought.

Kenny pushed his shirt into his trousers, pulled on a heavy sweater and
stiff-legged it to the sidewalk. The address in the letter was too far
to walk, but Kenny was in no hurry. He strolled along, puffing a bow
wake of steam out of his mouth, thinking about the girl he'd almost
married.

Her name was Lana. He'd met her in a massage parlor in New Orleans five
years earlier. He still had a soft spot in his heart for Lana. She was
such a pleasant girl, always had a big smile and a kind word for him.
He became more than just another customer, or at least that's how Kenny
saw it. Lana was as close to a girl friend as he'd ever had. Of course,
they were never any where near getting married. In fact the subject
never came up, but Kenny always thought of her as the one who got away.
He'd tried to contact her after returning to London, but she'd moved
and he couldn't track her down. Maybe he didn't want to find her. It
was hard to tell. Kenny kept secrets from himself.

Kenny shivered his way towards the tube stop thinking about the hot
streets of New Orleans in August. He felt better just thinking about
those days. He wasn't in London anymore. He was in New Orleans. He
looked up from the sidewalk for the first time that day and smiled. He
was looking at the entrance to the parlor.

Kenny strode to the door and knocked with authority. Lana answered. She
was expecting him. He always called ahead to make sure she was on duty.
She had that big smile ready and greeted him like an old friend, which
he was. At least he believed he was.

"Hi, Kenny! Come on in, I was expecting you. Kinda hot today, isn't it?
Take a seat and cool off in front of the air conditioner for a minute,
Kenny. Would you like some ice water?" It was probably just her usual
routine, Kenny thought, but she made it sound so special, just for him.
No one else had ever bothered to make him feel special. Kenny felt
special when he was with Lana, and that's all that mattered to
him.

A galloping bus charged through a puddle of cold dirty water and
brought Kenny back to London with a splash. "Bloody stupid git," he
swore at the bus's tailpipe. "YOU COULD BE DRIVING THIS BUS," he read.
"Yeah, but only if first they let me strangle the screwhead who's
driving it now," he thought.

Back in New Orleans, Lana motioned for him to follow her upstairs. "OK,
Kenny, we can go up now." Kenny followed her upstairs for their regular
session. He could hardly wait. She was such a lovely girl, never a
harsh word. He always asked after her daughter. Lana had a 10-year-old
little girl. She was doing very well in school, he recalled. Lana'd
shown Kenny a picture of Charlene. She was a pretty girl, big smile, a
happy kid, he remarked. "Yes, but the most important thing is she is
smart. She does very well in school, top of her class," Lana said
proudly.

The train screeched to a halt, jolting Kenny all the way back to
London. He slouched and grumbled toward the escalator, thinking too
much for his own good. He found himself following a hot number up the
broken escalator. She had the word "Virgin" stitched on the left back
pocket of her pants, and the word "Mary" on the right back pocket.
Kenny felt himself getting religion fast as she bounced
VIRGIN-MARY-VIRGIN-MARY-VIRGIN-MARY up the escalator. 'So much spandex
and so little time,' he thought wistfully.

The Holy Mother disappeared at the top of the escalator and Kenny was
left holding that thought all by himself. "Shyte," he swore aloud.
"Where did she go? YO! HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! SWEET VIRGIN MARY! WHERE THE
BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? "

Statements like that were not uncommon in this neighborhood, especially
on Christmas Eve. Kenny was bewildered and disappointed. That made him
feel at home already. He slipped his ticket through the machine,
lowered his head, and slouched past the ticket inspector. Kenny turned
back to ask Ticket Man if he'd seen the Virgin Mary passing through,
but thought better of it and shuffled out into the gray chill.

Kenny was nervous. He'd never known his father. He was afraid of what
he might find, and even more afraid of finding nothing. Maybe that was
his biggest fear: finding his father and finding nothing at the same
time.

Kenny'd spent decades imagining what his father might be like. When he
was young, Kenny made up all kinds of stories to tell the other kids.
One day his dad had been a war hero. The next day, a gangster. The next
day, a scientist killed in an experiment gone bad. After three days of
this, the kids had him pegged for a liar and ignored him. No one
believed Kenny for an instant, and with good reason. They were all in
the same boat. They all had similar fantasies, but most of them were
ashamed to admit it, or just didn't want anyone to puncture their
balloons. Either way, Kenny had been odd man out from day one. Some
things never change.

He found the address easily enough, and pushed the buzzer for Flat
Seven. Nothing. He pushed again. Nothing. Then he pushed and pushed and
pushed and pushed and at last a gruff voice answered, "Who the bloody
hell are you anyway?"

Kenny froze. He didn't know what to say. He wasn't expecting such a
difficult question.

"For Christ's sake, who are you and what do you want?"

Kenny inhaled and expelled, "Is this Mr. O'Donnel? Mr. George
O'Donnel?"

"Yeah, that's me. Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Kenny. I?I?I think you might be?.uh?.I think?I think?.. I
might be your son?.Please?.can?.we?.talk?"

There was a brief eternal silence.

"Yeah, OK. Wait a minute."

It was cold outside. Kenny stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and
shuffled his feet, trying to stay warm and not wet his pants. Christ, I
can't walk into my father's flat after wetting my pants, he worried.
What would he think?

He heard a small noise inside the door, the lock turned, clicked and
the door opened. In those few moments Kenny felt his heart stop
beating, then he saw?..

"LANA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Hi Kenny. Come on in, he's waiting for you upstairs. Follow me,
Kenny."

"BBBut?."

Lana motioned for him to follow and as she turned, Kenny saw the
VIRGIN-MARY stitching on Lana's spandex pants pockets.

"BBuuu?..wwwhhaaaa?.I..I?"

Lana said nothing and started up the stairs. Kenny collected himself as
best he could and followed. It was a long climb, but he had the
VIRGIN-MARY to comfort him on the way up.

Lana was standing next to the door to flat #7, waiting for Kenny to
catch up. It had been a long time since he'd followed anyone up four
flights of stairs, or had any reason to do so. He caught his breath and
looked at Lana for encouragement. Silently she made knocking motions
and waved Kenny closer. Without speaking Kenny knocked a few times on
the door. He heard steps approach, stop, the door unlocked and opened,
revealing an old man in a heavy gray tee shirt, holding a cigar and a
whiskey tumbler in his left hand.

"Yeah, so you're Kenny, eh? Come in."

Kenny glanced at Lana. She motioned towards the open door, "Go ahead,
Kenny. It's OK."

Kenny entered the flat. Lana followed

Kenny sat on a small couch opposite the old man who was sitting on
another small couch. No one spoke. Kenny was trying to find a
resemblance in the old man's face. He was grizzled with longish
scraggly hair and a sense of physical power out of proportion to his
rather average size, not handsome, but not ugly either. Kenny risked a
clich? and decided the face had character, but just what kind of
character?

"So you think I'm your father, huhn? What makes you believe
that?"

"I have this letter. It gave me your name and address."

"Let me see that."

Kenny handed the letter to the old man.

The old man read it, perhaps several times. He was in no hurry.

"I see what you mean, ah?what was your name?"

"Kenny."

"Ah, yes, Kenny, well?.."

Lana sat down next to Kenny on the couch, put her hand gently on his
left knee, asking "Kenny, would you like something to drink?"

"Yes, thank you, Lana. Some ice water would be nice."

"Kenny, this is December in London. Wouldn't you prefer some hot
tea?"

"Yeah, you're right. OK, tea it is," he chuckled to himself.

"Well, Kenny," the old man continued, "there's no sense in prolonging
the inevitable. You found me. I am your father. I always wondered how
long it would take you to find me, or if you would even look, or if you
would give up before finding me. Obviously you didn't give up, and I'm
glad you didn't."

"But why didn't you look for ME!" Kenny cried. "All these years! Why
did you abandon me? Why didn't you look for ME!! And who was my mother?
I couldn't find anything about her! WHO WAS SHE?" Kenny clinched his
fists and pounded on his knees, sobbing, rocking fore and aft. He
couldn't speak anymore. He just cried.

The old man sighed, emptied his whiskey and handed it to Lana to
refresh, and took a long slow drag on his double corona. When Lana
returned with a full glass, he took a long sip, set the glass down on a
side table, took another long slow drag on the cigar, and began to
explain.

"It's ok to cry, Kenny. Go ahead. There's no shame. I'll do my best,
but if you don't believe me, that's ok. If I were in your position, I'm
not sure I would believe me either."

Kenny nodded OK and kept on sobbing quietly.

"Kid, your mother was the village idiot in our small town. She wasn't
exactly stupid, not an idiot in that sense, but she acted like an idiot
and everyone called her the village idiot, so for us that's what she
became. One night when I was about 22 a lorry carrying 250 cases of
wine broke down just on the edge of town. In those days, telephones
were scarce in the villages, so the driver had to walk 12 miles to
phone for help. It was a bit of a trick, see, because there was a
telephone only 2 miles away, but we weren't about to tell him. Well, it
was already nearing dark, we sent a couple of guys along with the
driver to make sure he got good and drunk in the next town and couldn't
come back before the next morning. Then we looted the truck and drank
all the wine. It was as if the town well started giving wine instead of
water. We drank it dry, so to say. The whole village of 50 souls got
rip roaring drunk, including your mother and me. You can guess the
rest. Your mother couldn't hold her liquor worth a damn and had no
recollection of what took place. Later when she turned up pregnant, she
claimed not to know how it happened, and I was not about to volunteer
the answer. She even claimed that nothing had happened that night! Can
you imagine? She convinced herself that the baby, that's you, came from
nowhere. What an idiot! Her reputation was richly deserved. Anyway, a
group of us chipped in to buy the baby, that's you, a place in an
orphanage, and we let it go at that. Your mother eventually married a
commercial traveler a few years later and they moved up north. I could
never understand what this guy saw in her, but then again, he was no
prize himself. I guess neither one of them had very many choices.
Anyway, she died a few years later without ever knowing what had
happened. She never had any more children. That was thirty years ago
and the last I ever heard of her. The husband disappeared. We don't
know where he went or if he's still alive. So Kenny, that's the story.
Believe it or not, that's the story."

Kenny had stopped sobbing and was staring blankly at the carpet. He
felt the rage rising. He was pissed off:

"So this is what I'd been waiting for all these years, to learn that
I'm the bastard son of the village idiot and the town drunkard? But
what's worse, you just abandoned me, you drunken shit! You never
bothered to contact me. You just let me drift in the dark for thirty
years. Fuck you!"

The old man blew a large smoke ring and let it drift slowly towards the
floor, then blew a second smoke ring, smaller and faster, and watched
as the second ring passed through the first ring, slowed, expanded,
smashed on the floor, followed by the first smoke ring which gently
disintegrated, roiling on the floor. He smiled, drained his glass,
handed it to Lana for a refill, drew a deep breath, eased back on the
couch, and exhaled with a sigh.

"Y'know, kid, blowing smoke rings like that is a great talent. It's
almost physically impossible. I had to practice for years to arrive at
this level of proficiency. I may not be much otherwise, but I can blow
smoke with the best of 'em."

"Fuck you!"

"I thought you'd say that. Maybe you're right. But you're forgetting
something. Ask yourself how Lana got here. Well??"

Kenny was stumped. He'd forgotten about Lana, but how could he forget
about Lana? And how the hell did she get here?

"OK, old man, you tell me."

The old man never had a chance to explain. Lana raised her hand to stop
him, tapped Kenny on the shoulder, and said: "Kenny, does it really
matter how I got here? Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Well, yes, of course, but?"

"No buts, Kenny, you're happy to see me and I'm happy to see you, real
happy. So let's just leave him alone and you come home with me, it's
just across the hall."

"You live across the hall!"

"Sure do, Kenny. Real convenience, isn't it? Well let's go."

The old man had said nothing this whole time. He just stood there
listening, puffing on his cigar.

Lana and Kenny held hands and turned to go. The old man let out a horse
laugh and mocked, "Go with my blessing you two love birds." They did
not turn to look. They left the flat and closed the door behind them
with a hearty thump.

Kenny and Lana stood at the door to her flat. Kenny was sobbing tears
of joy. "Thank you for everything, Lana. I love you."

"Don't talk, Kenny, just come in with me. Everything will be all
right," she purred.

The door closed after them with a gentle "Click."

Hardly any time passed and there was a loud knocking at the door. BANG
BANG BANG?..BANG BANG BANG?.BANG BANG BANG?.

"OK, I'm coming."

The door opened to reveal two policemen standing in the hall. The door
to the flat across the landing was open.

"I understand you called the police, something about a man dying in his
sleep? I am PC Strewe and this is PC Falles. Are you Sophie
Barnsworth?"

"Yes, I am, and here he is." She motioned for Strewe and Falles to
enter. She was barefoot, cold, and naked except for Kenny's old
bathrobe, which she pulled tightly around her as they entered the
flat.

They followed her into the flat and found a dead 30-something year old
man sitting in a chair staring open-eyed at a television tuned in to
the Big Breakfast. His arms dangled over the sides of either armrest
and he was covered from the neck down in a white sheet.

"You found him like this?"

"Not exactly. He was in the chair like that all right, but I put the
sheet around him."

"Why?"

"I didn't know he was dead. It was several hours ago. I woke up and
noticed that he wasn't in bed, so I came out here and found him just
like he is in front of the telly. I thought he was sleeping, so I
wrapped the sheet around him to keep him warm. I guess he falls asleep
in this chair a lot."

"How well did you know?uh?Kenny, was it?"

"Yeah, Kenny. Well, I'd known him for a long time. I live just
downstairs, but this was the first night we?.well?."

"I see," said Strewe.

The police photographer popped into the room. "Just finished next door.
Want any pictures here?"

"Yes. Take a full set," replied Falles.

"Next door? Did something happen to that old man?"

"It looks like a freak accident. Did he drink a lot?"

"Lord yes," she said. "He was an alcoholic, that's for sure."

"We thought as much. There were wine bottles, breadcrumbs, and
half-smoked cigars all over the flat. It looks like he was drunk and
trying to do a crossword puzzle standing up. He probably slipped on one
of the wine bottles we saw rolling around on the floor, fell, and the
pencil rammed straight through his eye into his brain."

"Holy shit! What a way to go!" Sophie cried.

"Sure is. But this is even more peculiar," Falles remarked, holding up
an opened envelope and a Christmas card. "It's a Christmas card for Mr.
O'Donnel from Staybel Wines and Spirits. They must be his supplier.
Their empty boxes are all over his flat. It was probably delivered to
Kenny by mistake. The peculiar thing is this note Kenny wrote on the
back of the card: 'Thank you for everything, Lana. I love you.' Do you
have any idea what that means, or who Lana might be?"

"Not a clue. Kenny was very quiet. He kept secrets even from himself,
if you know what I mean," she said.

"Yes, we know the type," Strewe said. "It looks like a natural death.
No signs of foul play or suicide. I guess his heart just stopped.
Unusual for such a young man, but it happens. Thank you for calling us
so promptly, Miss Barnsworth. Ah, good, I see the coroner's men have
arrived. Take him away, gentlemen. You will be required to sign a few
papers later this week, but there shouldn't be any trouble."

There was an awkward silence for a few moments while the men in white
coats gathered up Kenny's body and removed it to the waiting van. Kenny
and the old man shared a ride to the morgue.

Sophie was left all alone.

"Jesus, what a weird day!" she exploded as she quickly shoved her
clothes into a ball. " I'll never wear these bloody VIRGIN-MARY pants
again as long as I live. Bad karma. SHIT. A girl tries to give a lonely
guy a Christmas present he'll really appreciate and she hopes he'll
remember for years, and what does he do? He bloody well dies on her! I
just hope none of my regular customers hear about this. Bad for
business, it is. Bloody hell! Then again, maybe not. Maybe they'll
think I'm so good I can give a strong man a heart attack. Yeah, that's
how I'll play it. Yeah, every cloud has a silver lining, don't it? And
to think, we never even did it! We just fell asleep in each other's
arms and next thing y'know, there he was in the chair. I know! I'll
tell my girl friends it was The Immaculate Punt! HA HA That's it! The
Immaculate Punt! Ah, Sophie, girl, you're a treat. HA HA."

Sophie stuffed the ball of clothing under Kenny's bathrobe next to her
stomach and fluttered barefoot down the stairs to her own flat. "Gar,
someone might think I'm pregnant if they saw me like this. HEE HEE,"
she giggled aloud.

Sophie locked herself in for a nice long hot bath and a nap. Then, she
thought, "Afterwards, I'll call all my girl friends?."