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Subject: Repost: "Christmas Dinner" by Tom Bombadil (no sex)
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I did not write this story, the author is Tom Bombadil <Tombadil@aol.com>.
Please send him your comments.



Christmas Dinner  [ Christmas Contest ]

Short Story #26
by Tom Bombadil  (c) Dec 1997

Disclaimer:  All the standard rules apply.  If you are offended 
by explicit descriptions of sex or the human body, if it is 
illegal to possess such materials at your location, if you are 
under-age by law in your location, or if somebody else thinks you 
might have too much fun reading it, stop right now and remove this 
text from your computer.

This is purely a work of fiction, with all characters and actions 
described by me coming straight out of my imagination.  As a work of 
fiction, it does not condone or condemn any of the activities or 
actions described, nor does it relate to any type of real events in 
my life, or known to me in the lives of any of my friends or 
relatives.

You've been warned.

I give permission for anyone to archive or share this story.

********************************************************************

"Hey Jack, how ya doin' t'day?"

"I'm hot, I'm sweaty, my feet hurt, and I need a shower something 
terrible," replied Trevor McDaniels.  "In a word, awful."  He smiled 
and winked at the old man as he scooped up some turkey stuffing and 
plopped it onto the old man's tray.

'Seagull' Dan, dressed in at least a dozen layers of old, patched 
clothing, smiled back.  "Glad ta see yer havin' a good time.  Grub 
looks pretty good this year, too.  Better'n last year, even."  With 
another quick grin, Dan moved on down the line, holding out his 
plate for a dollop of gravy.  When another tray got shoved under his 
nose, Trevor reached into the tub for more stuffing.

Trevor McDaniels, or Jack, as everyone there believed his name to 
be, was hot, sweaty, in need of a shower, and his feet did hurt.  He 
had been working his station in the food line for two hours, and 
would likely be there for another hour at least, by the looks of the 
lineup stretching out the church hall doors.  This was after 
spending eight hours labouring in a kitchen to help prepare enough 
food to feed an army.  Literally.  With the vicious cold snap that 
had come down from the north, they fully expected to serve a 
thousand turkey dinners that day.

Volunteers from all over came in at Christmas time for this one big 
day.  Businessmen opened up their pocketbooks.  Restaurants donated 
their facilities and their employees' labour.  Housewives, 
television and radio personalities, and local politicians all 
pitched in to help.  It was the one time of year when mixing with 
the unwashed dregs of society was not only permissible, it was 
looked upon as a truly virtuous act of kindness.  Thus, the great 
Christmas Day Feast was almost always a great success.

Two young women, girls, really, were next.  They kept their eyes 
down, staring at the food, obviously too nervous to look up at 
whomever was serving them, huddling together for security.  Their 
nervous gestures, the gauntness of their features, and their 
deep-set purple-rimmed eyes told him everything he needed to know.  
Without looking, he could almost guarantee that there would be 
needle tracks running up their arms.  A bulge under the younger 
one's coat almost made him weep.

Both of the girls were strangers to him.  They were probably passing 
through, heading south to warmer climes, trying to escape this 
particularly vicious winter.  He doubted he would ever see them 
again.  Directly after them came Granny Smith.

Nobody knew the old lady's real name.  Trevor doubted that she even 
knew.  She answered to Granny Smith, and that was that.  For the 
twenty-odd years he had been working this kitchen, she had been 
coming in; old, grey-haired, and senile.

He gave her a scoop of stuffing, and she gave him a semi-toothless 
smile in return.  They knew each other well.  Three strangers 
shuffled along behind her, each more anxious than the last to get 
theirs before the food ran out.  In twenty-odd years it never had, 
but they probably didn't know that.  Even if they had, they probably 
would still have been edgy.  Constant hunger tended to keep people 
slightly paranoid.

He gave them their scoops of turkey stuffing, and they moved on.  
More followed, an almost endless stream of unwashed bodies and 
patched clothes mixing in with those who were more recent hard luck 
victims.  On this day, everyone who came through the doors would be 
fed.

In his other life, as he called it, Trevor was a successful 
businessman.  He owned a half-dozen dry cleaning stores, a men's 
clothing shop, and a drapery company.  He had two daughters, three 
grandkids and seven great-grandkids, a paid-for house, two cars, and 
a cottage in the country.  He, personally, hadn't been out to his 
cottage for twenty-odd years, but his relatives used it regularly.  
At sixty-four years of age, many of his friends and relatives were 
now urging him to retire, but retirement wasn't something he was 
prepared to succumb to.  In his opinion, he still had the energy and 
the will for doing what he had been doing all his life, so he was 
damned well going to keep right on going until the day they buried 
him.  Besides, he usually continued, what the hell would I retire 
to?


Several hours later, Trevor was sitting in his favourite armchair, 
in front of a roaring fire, with a hot rum toddy warming his hands.  
Memories carried him back to the first time he had ever helped out 
on a Christmas Day Dinner For The Homeless.  It wasn't his idea, it 
was his wife's.  For weeks, she had hinted, then asked, then 
cajoled, until he finally agreed.  "It's not like we're going to 
miss out on anything special," she had argued.  "Both girls are away 
at college.  We'd be spending the day alone together anyway.  Why 
not spend it helping those less fortunate than ourselves?"

That had been an eye-opening experience for him.  Despite the 
newspaper reports, he had never actually believed how many people 
were in need.  The numbers simply overwhelmed him.  After the first 
few, they became nothing but blank faces; bodies to be served; trays 
upon which food was to be placed.  The reality scared him, enough so 
he swore to himself he would never volunteer again.

Over the course of the following months, his wife began to spend 
some of her time at a local soup kitchen, usually one day a week.  
While Trevor didn't begrudge her the time, since he was working six 
days a week at his various businesses, he did feel uncomfortable 
with it, and frequently hinted that he would rather she spend her 
time doing something more worthwhile.  

"You saw all the people there on Christmas day.  Where do you think 
they go the other 364 days a year?  What do you think they eat?  Do 
you think they came into town, just for that one day, because you 
happened to be there?  No, husband, those people are still out there, 
hidden from your sight, but real, none the less.  I can't turn my 
back on them."

It became something she did that he no longer really thought about.  
Every Tuesday, she did her thing, and every Tuesday, he cooked 
dinner instead of her.  He listened politely to all her gossip about 
the day, but didn't pay any real attention to the meaning behind the 
words.

All that changed about a year later.  One word, delivered by a man 
in a white lab coat, who had a pitying look in his eyes for both of 
them.  

Naturally, they tried everything.  They exhausted every faint hope.  
They took turns going through periods of denial.  Hysterical crying 
fits interspersed themselves with times of forced gaiety and 
maniacal bursts of energy.  Sometimes they made love with a 
fierceness never before shown, losing themselves in the moment, 
denying reality entry into their own private world.  Other times, 
they simply lay in bed, holding each other, touching, trying to keep 
their tears at bay, knowing they only had a limited time left 
together.

Through it all, they also tried to maintain some semblance of a 
normal life.  Trevor kept up with his businesses, but hired and 
trained a manager to look after the bulk of the work.  His wife 
slowed down in her activities as well, although she steadfastly 
refused to give up her Tuesdays.  Even when she was too weak to do 
any actual work, she would go down there to spend the day with her 
friends, as she called the regulars.  It was something special for 
her, something she treasured.  

It all ended one bitterly cold winter morning.  Trevor almost 
ended his own life that same day.  If his children hadn't been 
there, he might have.  Even so, he shut down for close to two 
years.

A newspaper article sparked his slow re-emergence into the land of 
the living.  It was a small article, near the back page, taking up 
only a few paragraphs of space.  A soup kitchen was appealing for 
donations to help keep them from having to close down.  Her soup 
kitchen.  The one she had been working at for years.  The one she 
had called her other home, where her other friends were at.  Trevor 
cried, reliving the pain he had tried to bury.

An anonymous donation helped keep the charitable organization who 
operated the service afloat.  The following month, another donation 
arrived.  And, the month following, another.  One day, Trevor 
dressed up in his grubbiest clothes and went down to the place to 
see what it was like.  The food was plain, but filling, and nobody 
questioned his right to a free meal.  There weren't the crowds that 
he had remembered from that one Christmas meal he had helped with, 
but there were still over a hundred people sitting around, eating. 
Some were talking, some were silent.  It was a Tuesday, of course.

The following Tuesday, he returned.  A few faces he recognized.  
Most, he didn't.  What startled him was the fact that one of the 
people dishing out the food recognized him.  Not as Trevor, but as 
a man who had been there the previous week.  When asked, he made up 
a fictitious name.  Jack was the first one to spring to mind.  That 
was also the first day he met 'Seagull' Dan.

Dan talked to, or rather at, Trevor, for hours, about his life in 
the army as a general, in politics as a mayor, in college as a 
teacher, and just about every other profession imaginable.  

"I done it all," Dan said, "so I don't need to do nothin' no more."

Trevor didn't argue.

Two weeks later, Trevor was asked to help in the kitchen, peeling 
vegetables.  That's how his other life got started.  Nobody in the 
kitchen knew who he really was.  They simply accepted him as another 
person in need.  There were no questions, no inquiries.  No 
government officials were there to pry into his past.  The only 
question he was asked each week was "Are you hungry today?"


Trevor put down his glass, then got up out of his chair.  It was 
after midnight.  Another Christmas had come and gone.  He made his 
way up the stairs to his bedroom.  In the morning, he would drive 
to the cemetery to visit his wife.  There would be fresh flowers of 
course, left there the day before.  Their children always left 
flowers on the anniversary of her death.  He would add some of his 
own.  In the afternoon, he would drive to his older daughter's house 
for a boxing day dinner, hand out presents to his grandchildren and 
great-grandchildren, and submerge himself in the warmth of his 
family's love.

Thus it had been for twenty three years.

Thus it would be until he and his wife were once again together.

<Fin>

********************************************************************





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