Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 I put this together for inspitration and happiness the season brings me. 
There's no sex implied or intended, read and enjoy or dont read, again its
all up to you.  Merry Christmas..  Politically incorrect, I know but then
again I dont care.  Beth xoxoxox

   A Christmas Tale

   Sarah sat in what had been her parents's gas station on a cold Christmas
Eve.  If the loss of her parents hadn'nt been a kick to the stomach, the
sudden loss of her life companion to cancer of the spine within weeks of
her parents passing, certainly was.

   At forty five the bloom had begun to leave her cheeks, although never a
beauty, at first glance she looked younger, it was only up close, someone
would notice her skin coarsening and that her makeup was applied a little
heavier.  Not that she hadn't done anything else but work there in the
three years since her family and loved one had passed away leaving her the
gas station and memories of happier times as an inheritance.

   It was just another day to her.  She didn't hate Christmas, just
couldn't find a reason to celebrate.  She was sitting there looking at the
snow that had been falling for the last hour and wondering what it was all
about when the door opened and a homeless man stepped through.

   Instead of throwing the man out, "Lezzie", as she was known by
customers, told the man to come and sit by the heater and warm up.

   "Thank you, but I don't mean to intrude," said the stranger.  "I see
you're busy, I'll just go."

   "Not without something hot in your belly." Sarah said.

   She turned and opened a wide mouth Thermos and handed it to the
stranger.

   "It ain't much, but it's hot and tasty ...  Stew ...  made it myself. 
When you're done, there's coffee and it's fresh." She said pointing to a
freshly filtered pot, still steaming on a "Bunn" coffee maker.

   Just at that moment she heard the "ding" of the driveway bell.

   "Excuse me, be right back," Sarah the lesbian said.  In the driveway was
an old '56 Chevy.  Steam was rolling out of the front.  The driver was
panicked.

   "Lady is there any way you can you help me!" said the driver, with a
deep Spanish accent.  "My wife is in labor and my car is broken."

   Sarah popped the hood.  It was bad.  Steam swirled, hissed, wistled and
billowed from what appeared to be a cracked block.  Probably cracked from
the cold and run without being warmed up first.  Obviously the car wasn't
going very far.

   "You ain't going in this thing," Sarah said as she turned away.

   "But.........  Please help ..."

   The door of the office closed behind Sarah as she went inside.  She went
to the office wall and got the keys to the tow truck, and went back
outside. She walked around the building, opened the garage, started the
truck and drove it around to where the couple was waiting.

   "Here, take my truck," she said.  "She ain't the best thing you ever
looked at, but she runs real good."

   Sarah helped put the woman in the truck and watched as it sped off into
the night.  She turned and walked back inside the office.

   "Glad I gave 'em the truck, their tires were shot too.  The ones on that
'ol truck are brand new." Sarah said thinking that she was talking to the
old bum, but the man had gone.  The Thermos was on the desk, empty, with a
used coffee cup beside it.  "Well, at least he got something in his belly,"
She thought.

   Sarah went back outside to see if the old Chevy would start.  She had
learned plenty about broken down vehicles since taking over the gas
station. It cranked slowly, but it started.  She pulled it into the garage
where the truck had been, and lowered the door.  She thought she would
tinker with it for something to do.  Christmas Eve meant no customers.  She
discovered the block hadn't cracked; it was just the bottom hose on the
radiator.

   "Well, shoot, I can fix this," she said to herself.

   She rummaged through the shelf of radiator hoses and found one similar
enough to replace the cracked one; she rolled up her sleeves, grabbed a
wrench and screwdriver, and set about fixing the couple's beat up car.

   "Those tires ain't gonna get 'em through the winter, either." She took
the snow treads off of her late parents's prized but dusty Lincoln.  They
were like new and it wasn'n as though they were going to need them where
they were now, anyway.

   As she was working, the silence was shattered by loud explosions, guns
were being fired.  She ran outside and beside the open door of a police
cruiser an officer, she knew as Chuck and recognised from infrequent
fillups of his private vehicle, sat slumped forward on the cold ground,
bleeding from the left shoulder, a bullet had shattered the radio attached
above the breast pocket of the wounded officer's uniform, the cop moaned.

   Recognising Sarah, he lowered his gun.  "Oh God, Lezzie......Please help
me." He groaned.

   Sarah gently helped the officer up and half carried him inside her
office.  She remembered the training she had received in the girl scouts
many years ago.  She knew the wound needed attention.  'Direct pressure to
stop the bleeding,' she thought.  The uniform company had been there that
morning and had left clean shop towels.  She used those and duct tape to
bind the wound.  She didn't even bother with the first aid kit the law
required her to display.

   "Hey, they say duct tape can fix anythin'," she said, trying to make the
policeman feel at ease.

   'Something for pain,' Sarah thought.  All she could find were the pills
her girlfriend had used for her back, still sealed in a child proof
container in the top drawer of the desk...

   "These ought to work." She put some water in a cup and gave the
policeman the pills.  "You hang in there; I'm going to get you an
ambulance."

   The phone was dead.  "Maybe I can get one of your buddies on the radio
in your car." She went out only to find that a bullet had gone into the
dashboard destroying the two way radio.

   She went back in to find the policeman sitting up.

   "Thanks Lezzie," said the officer.  "You could have left me there.  The
kid that shot me is still in the area.  Slim and short.  Wearing a black
jacket and jeans, young too, with long blond hair.  I need to get hold of
the precinct..." He slumped back, drained.

   Sarah sat down beside him, "Man or woman, I would never leave anyone
injured in the snow and I ain't gonna leave you." Sarah gently pulled back
the makeshift bandage to check for bleeding.

   "Looks worse than what it is.  Bullet passed right through the radio and
then through you.  Good thing it missed the important stuff, though.  I
think with time you're gonna be right as rain."

   Sarah got up and poured a cup of coffee.  "How do you take it?" she
asked.

   "None for me," said the officer.

   "Oh, yer gonna drink this.  Best in the city.  Too bad I ain't got no
donuts."

   The officer laughed and winced at the same time.

   The front door of the office flew open.  In burst a young woman in a
black jacket and jeans with a gun.  Her blond hair was windblown and awry,
it was her eyes that held Sarah's attention not the huge gun in her icy
cold, unsteady hand.  The brown eyes were, hunted....afraid and terrified,
like a puppy that had been kicked once too often.  Acceptance, there was
nothing left in her.

   Give me all your cash!  Do it now!" the girl yelled.  Her hand was
shaking and Sarah could tell that she had never done anything like this
before.

   "That's the kid that shot me!" Exclaimed the officer."Oh my god, its a
slip of a girl, not a guy at all."

   "Honey, why are you doing this?" Sarah asked, "You need to put the gun
away.  Somebody else might get hurt."

   The young woman was confused.  "Shut up, or I'll shoot you, too.  Now
give me the cash!" She gestured wildly the barrel of the gun between
Sarah's eyes seem incredibly large and menacing.

   The cop was reaching for his gun.  "Put that thing away." Sarah said to
the cop.  "We've got one too many in here now, as it is!"

   She turned her attention to the woman with the gun.  "It's Christmas
Eve. If you need money, well then, here.  It ain't much but it's all I got.
Now put that away."

   Sarah pulled $150 out of the till and handed it over, reaching for the
barrel of the gun at the same time.

   The girl released her grip on the gun and began to cry.  "I'm not very
good at this am I?  All I wanted was to buy something for my son," she went
on.  "My man walked out on me when he heard I was pregnant, then I lost my
job, to cap it all, today I got robbed after getting my welfare check
cashed." She sobbed.

   "My rent is past due, my car got repossessed, everything is gone ...Oh
my God." She sobbed and continued.  "Everything is such a mess,
then......then.....  I found this gun in an alley it was like a sign from
God." She pointed at the cop.  " Then you started chasing me." Tears
streamed down her cheeks.

   Sarah handed the gun to the cop.

   "We all get in a bit of squeeze now and then.  The road gets hard
sometimes, but we make it through the best we can."

   She sat her down on a chair across from the cop.  "Sometimes we do
stupid things." Sarah handed the girl a cup of coffee.

   "Bein' stupid is one of the things that makes us human." Sarah said
softly.  "Comin' in here with a gun ain't the answer!  Now sit there and
get warm and we'll sort this thing out." She ordered with a soft smile.

   The young woman had stopped crying.  She looked over to the cop.

   "Sorry I shot you.  It just went off.  I'm sorry.  I didn't know it was
even loaded."

   "Shut up and drink your coffee." the cop growled into his own coffee
mug.

   Sarah could hear the sounds of sirens outside.  A police car and an
ambulance skidded to a halt.  Two cops came through the door, guns at the
ready.

   "Chuck!  You ok?" one of the cops asked the wounded officer.

   "Not bad for a guy who took a bullet.  How did you find me?"

   "GPS locator in the car.  Best thing since sliced bread.  Who did this?"
the other cop asked as he approached the young woman.

   Chuck answered him, "I don't know, the guy, ran off into the dark.  Just
dropped his gun and ran.  Lezzie here dragged me back in here and has been
tending to my shoulder, waiting for the cavalry to arrive." He said
pointing at Sarah.

   Both woman looked puzzled at each other.

   "She work here?" the cop asked.

   "Yep," Sarah said, "just hired her this morning.  Girl lost her job, got
a little one at home to look after."

   The paramedics came in and loaded Chuck onto the stretcher.  The cops
were mulling around and getting ready to go themselves, obviously
preferring paperwork in the warmth of a precinct house to patrolling the
neighbourhood with wet and snow-slick roads.

   The young woman leaned over the wounded cop and whispered."Why?" As he
was being wheeled out by his companions and the paramedics.

   Chuck just said, "Merry Christmas, promise me you'll never do anything
this stupid again ..."

   "And you too, Sarah, and thanks for everything."

   "Well, looks like you got one doozy of a break there.  That ought to
solve some of your problems."

   Sarah went into the back room and came out with a box.  She pulled out a
ring box.  "Here you go; something you can go pawn I don't think Michelle,
my late girlfriend would mind." Sarah smiled wryly.  " She said it would
come in handy some day."

   The young woman looked inside to see the biggest diamond ring he ever
saw.  "I can't take this," She said, "It means something to you."

   "And now it means something to you," replied Sarah.  "That's all I
need."

   Sarah reached onto shelf behind her.  An airplane, a car and a truck
appeared in Sarah's hands.  They were toys that the oil company had left
for her to sell.  "Here's something for that little man of yours."

   The would-be stick-up artist began to cry again as she handed back the
$150 that Sarah had handed her earlier.

   "And what are you supposed to buy Christmas dinner with?  You keep that
too," Sarah said, "Now get home to that little boy of yours."

   The young woman turned with tears streaming down her face.  She slipped
the ring on her ring finger, it was a perfect fit.

   "I'll be here in the morning for work, if that job offer is still good."
She half asked.

   "Nope.  I'm closed Christmas day," Sarah said.  "See ya the day after."

   Sarah smiled as the young mother almost skipped out of the door.  She
turned around to find that the hobo had returned.  "Where'd you come from?
I thought you left?" She asked, startled.

   "I have been here.  I have always been here," said the stranger.  "You
say you don't celebrate Christmas.  Why?"

   "Well, lets just say after my parents and Michelle passed away, I just
couldn't see what all the bother was." She smiled whistfully.  " Puttin' up
a tree and all seemed a waste of a good pine tree.  Bakin' cookies like I
used to with Michelle just wasn't the same, and besides I was gettin' a
little chubby." She patted her still flat belly.

   The old man put his hand on Sarah's shoulder.

   "But you do celebrate the holiday, Sarah.  You gave me food and drink
and warmed me when I was cold and hungry." He said before continueing.

   "The pregnant woman you helped will bear a son and he will become a
great doctor." He smiled.

   "The policeman you helped will go on to save 19 people from being killed
by terrorists." He closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

   "The young woman who tried to rob you will make you a rich woman and not
want any for herself; you and she will have a love that is deeper and more
intense than anything you ever have shared with Michelle.  That is the
spirit of this season, and you keep it as good as any man." He added, his
eyes twinkling.

   Sarah was taken aback by all this stranger had said.  "And how do you
know all this?" She asked.

   "Trust me, Sarah.  I have the inside track on this sort of thing.  And
enjoy the love you and your new partner will share, you both deserve
happiness."

   The stranger moved toward the door "If you will excuse me, Sarah, I have
to go now.  I have to go home where there is a big celebration planned."

   Sarah watched as the old leather jacket and the torn pants that the
stranger was wearing turned into a white robe.  A golden light began to
fill the room.

   "You see, Sarah ...  it's my birthday.  Merry Christmas."
   Sarah fell to her knees and replied, "Happy Birthday, Lord."