No Good Deed

         The snow was still falling outside. It had been for three days. Crowds of schoolchildren were gathering along the steepest streets with their sleds and stolen lunch trays, celebrating their two week escape from teachers and classes and talking about what they would pick out with their parents at Gimbels the next day. The younger ones were chattering excitedly about seeing Santa there, and their older siblings did their best to hold their tongues and not ruin the secret just yet.

            Christopher opened the door to his twenty-third floor apartment. He stepped in, taking off his boots and feeling along the wall for the light switch. His bright red shirt read Gimbels on the right breast pocket and Christopher Creed, Sales Associate on the left. He took off his damp jacket and hung it on the wall before making his way to the kitchen. After rummaging through the freezer, he slumped into his chair at the table and poured a tall glass of chilled Ketel One. He took a long sip, relishing its bite and the subtle flavors unadulterated by ice. Fire ran through him, warming his body and sending chills down his spine.

            In another small apartment on the other side of town a little girl with red hair cried quietly in her room while her mother watched CNN with a box of tissues on the couch.

            Christopher finished his glass and poured it half-empty again. He looked around his cramped apartment, sighing at the dishes stacked in the sink and the many fist-sized holes in the walls. He stood up slowly with his glass and put on his slippers before stepping out onto the snowy balcony. The chill of the night cut through him as he leaned against the railing listening to the delighted shrieks of the neighborhood kids on their sleds. As a child he had ridden stolen trays down those same streets under the streetlights and the snow until his aunt called him home. He used to love this time of year.

            In an old dark warehouse a lost boy in a puffy jacket received his initiation orders from an older boy who had never learned to smile.

            The night was dark. The glass was empty again. Christopher glared at it disappointedly, his anger slowly rising. His eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened around the glass. With a fluid motion he launched the glass off the balcony and into the snowy street below. The glass shattered over the street. Christopher wiped the snow from the railing in front of him. He stepped onto the chair on the balcony and gingerly placed his left foot on the slippery railing. The street below called to him. As Christopher lifted his right foot to put it on the railing the harsh ring of his company cell phone jarred through the night and penetrated the cloud in his mind. He regained his balance and stepped down from the railing, opening the glass sliding door as he answered his manager’s call.

            “Chris, it’s Dan. Listen, something came up with Johnny and he’s not going to be able to come in tomorrow. He was scheduled for the last Santa shift tomorrow and I need you to come in and replace him for the day. The kids will love you. How’s that sound? Good, great, I’ll see you tomorrow, you go on at five.”

            Christopher put the phone back in his pocket without having said a word and walked into the kitchen again. He took a clean glass from the cabinet and poured it half-empty with vodka. He ran the hot water in the sink and rinsed the dishes before placing them in the dishwasher with a sigh.

            The little girl with red hair had fallen asleep on the other side of town, and the lost boy in the puffy jacket was curled up in a corner of the old warehouse preparing his mind for his initiation the next day and dreaming of the father he never knew. The streets were quiet, the schoolchildren in bed, the gangs seeking refuge from the cold dark night.

            Another dirty greasy child climbed up onto Christopher’s lap. Christopher looked at him with a fake smile through his fake Santa beard. “What’s your name kid?” His name was Sammy. He wanted a fire truck. A real fire truck. “Well, I’ll have my elves do their best, but your parents probably don’t want you to have a real fire truck until you’re at least sixteen. Good luck kid.”

            The pillow under Christopher’s shirt helped make him look fat and provided him with an extra layer of protection from the hordes of smelly children wanting to climb all over him. He had swapped his red Gimbels shirt for a red Santa jacket that was hot and itchy. He had almost brought his flask with him, but decided to settle for a little orange juice in his morning vodka. The next kid in line had reached him, his impatient mother waiting some feet away with an elf. “Ho ho ho. What’s your name?”

            “My name’s Timmy and I wann a horse and a race car and roller coaster and-”

            “Kid, Timmy, take it easy. How about a book? You want a book?”

            “NO! I don’t wann a book I wann a robot and a monster and a-”

            “Ok Timmy you monster, monster it is. See you on Christmas kid.” Timmy’s mom glared at Santa as her son stomped away.

            “Chris! Dude you gotta relax,” the elf whispered. “They’re kids dude, the parents are getting pissed.”

            “Try sitting here then tell me to relax,” Christopher mumbled under his breath.

            A lost boy in a puffy jacket stood thirty feet away next to a pillar, staring at Santa.

            Christopher struggled to scratch his chest through the pillow and red jacket. A little girl with red hair and slightly puffy eyes held her mother’s hand as she inched closer to Santa. Christopher looked down at her. She slowly raised her eyes to his as her mother brought her in front of him. “Ho ho ho, what’s your name little girl?”

            “Amanda,” she almost whispered.

            “Speak up honey, Santa won’t hurt you,” her mother said gently into her daughter’s ear as she lifted her into Santa’s lap.

             “And what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas, Amanda?” Santa asked with what he hoped was a welcoming smile. The girl’s shyness struck him.
            The little red haired girl lifted her light blue eyes to Christopher’s but didn’t say anything. “It’s okay baby, tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” her mother said. She had a soft voice.

            “Santa?” Amanda said with eyes full of a child’s hope. “Can I have my daddy’s ring back? He died and all I have is his ring but I lost it and I don’t know where it is and I just, I just really want it back. Can you do that Santa?” Her mother’s eyes watered, but she waited to let Santa respond.

            Christopher’s face tensed for a moment and he shot a terrified glance at the mother before looking back into Amanda’s wide eyes. “Amanda, I’ll have my elves look for your daddy’s ring, and when we find it I’ll make sure we bring it to you, ok?”

            “Thank you Santa,” Amanda said, her shy smile betraying the hope she had that Santa would find her ring.

The elf walked Amanda back to the line, but her mother lingered next to Santa until her daughter was out of earshot. “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry about that. Her father was just killed in Iraq and I thought it would be best if I took his Marines ring from her room so she wouldn’t lose it. I had no idea she was going to ask if you could get it back for her. I’m so sorry to involve you in this more, but would you be willing to give it back to her? I have it in my purse now. I think it would really help her cope if Santa got Daddy’s ring back for her.”

“Ma’am,” Christopher started, choking slightly on his words. “I’d be honored to give her the ring. I finish up here in fifteen minutes. Leave me the ring and come back with Amanda then and I’ll be able to give it to her.”

Amanda’s mother left with Amanda to get lunch at the McDonald’s in the food court, though she knew she would only be able to watch her daughter eat and couldn’t order anything herself. She left the ring with Christopher, who held it in his hand while the elf brought another kid to Santa’s chair. He refused to lose it but didn’t dare to put it on. It was a simple ring, a thick gold band with a dull stone in the middle and the words USMC and Semper Fidelis inscribed on the sides. “What do you want for Christmas kid?” he mumbled. The next fifteen minutes were the some of the slowest of Christopher’s life.

Amanda and her mother returned. For the first time all day Christopher was glad to see a child coming towards him. Amanda walked up to Christopher slowly.

Behind her Amanda’s mother said “Santa says he has something for you honey.” Amanda’s eyes widened, but her expression remained skeptical.

“Ho ho ho, hello again Amanda. My elves found something that I think might belong to you,” Christopher said as he crouched down to Amanda’s eye level. “Close your eyes and give me your hands.”

The girl’s eyes shot open when she felt the ring drop into her outstretched palms. She looked at the ring in her hands, up at Santa’s smile, back at the ring. Her blue eyes filled with tears as she threw her arms around a surprised Santa, whispering “Thank you Santa, thank you Santa” through her sobs. Santa closed his arms around the girl and fought back tears of his own. After a moment her mother picked her up and held her tightly to her chest as they both cried. Her mother looked into Santa’s glassy eyes, thanking him with hers. With a final hug for Santa Amanda and her mother turned and went home to their small apartment.

In the staff locker room Christopher Creed felt his way to his locker like a blind man. He sat on the bench in front of his locker, pulled the pillow out of his shirt, tugged the fake beard off his face. The air was the unnatural warm all locker rooms share, but under his fake Santa jacket Christopher was shivering. He took off the jacket and the pants and folded them on the bench next to him. He took his towel from his locker and made his way to the showers. The hot water from the showerhead rinsed away the hot tears springing from his eyes. He leaned against the slick wall of the shower until the water lost its warmth, then wrapped himself in his towel and got dressed at his locker. He put his necklace back on and tucked it inside his shirt and pea coat before leaving the locker room. On his way out of the store he walked by a lonely looking teenage boy in a puffy jacket. He smiled at the boy as one smiles at a stranger during the fourth week of December. The boy stared at him with bloodshot eyes. He didn’t smile back.

Christopher stepped out into the cold. The snow was falling harder now. He could see the flakes illuminated in the light of the streetlamps. He sloshed through the dirty slush from the road as he made his way back to his apartment several blocks away. Christopher thought the city looked beautiful in the falling snow. The lights became dimmer and spread farther apart as he walked farther from Gimbels. The streets weren’t plowed as well and he had to struggle to fight through the snow that covered the sidewalks. He was not a hundred feet from his apartment building when a dark figure in a puffy jacket stepped out from an alley behind him, the gun in his hand shaking with uncertainty. “Hey. Santa.”

In a small apartment on the other side of town, a little girl with red hair looked at her daddy’s ring while her mother held her tightly on the couch. In an old warehouse a group of lost boys welcomed a boy in a puffy jacket into their family.

Early the next morning the police found a cold body lying with a faint smile in the snow. The dog tags hanging from his neck read Creed, Christopher K., USMC.