The snow fell slowly but steadily on the streets of Norwalk. It ran silken threads along bony branches, weaving layer upon layer of spider webs amongst the trees. Softly the flakes tapped at Morris Fitzmaurice's bedroom window, leaving his slumber undisturbed. Softly they blanketed the roof of the St. Thomas the Apostle rectory, the roof which sheltered the kitchen where Father Fellini was scalding his mouth by gulping his second cup of coffee, hurrying to be on time to serve the 7:00 AM Christmas mass.
After draining his mug, the priest threw on an overcoat, left the rectory, and walked briskly across the dozen or so yards to the church, entering it through a door leading directly into the vestry. Meanwhile, Jim Brinkley reluctantly left the warmth of his parents' car and briskly walked towards the same destination from the antipodal direction. Entering the sanctuary, Father Fellini removed his overcoat, shook the snow off it, and placed it on a hook. Jim came into the vestry through its other door, mumbling to the priest's back, "Good morning, Father!"
"Good morning, Jim," Father Fellini said, glancing over his shoulder, "and Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas to you, too, Father."
The priest several times ran a comb through thinning locks that hung wet and lank across his balding pate. Jim put on his cassock and surplice, and then proceeded to the chancel to begin lighting the candles.
His partner, the second altar boy serving at the early mass, rushed into the vestry just as Jim exited. Breathlessly, he apologized to Father Fellini for being late.
The priest shook his head, saying, "No, no, I understand: it's Christmas, and I'm sure you have many other things going on. In any case, Merry Christmas." Then he turned away from the boy and continued with his preparations.
Two miles and a million tumbling snowflakes away, Morris Fitzmaurice was exiled from the land of his dreams by a nagging pain. Forcing open leaden eyes, he discovered that his daughter Isa was jabbing him in the ribs.
"Sweetie, please cut that out. You're hurting Daddy."
She stopped poking him, and then, after a moment's consideration, she climbed onto the edge of the mattress beside him. Bringing her cherubic face only a few inches away from his, she batted her eyes and asked, "Can we go and see what Santa brought us?"
He said only, "Uh..." He rolled away from her and saw that Ann was awake as well.
"Jesus Christ, what time is it?" he whispered to her.
"Its seven o'clock, dear."
As he had slept, someone had apparently poured concrete into his nostrils and stabbed a red-hot needle into his left temple. Thoughts had to flail upwards through many yards of some murky, viscous liquid before they surfaced at his tongue.
He muttered to Ann, "Couldn't we postpone Christmas for a day or two?"
"Sure, honey, the kids won't mind," she said, smiling wryly. "I'll be generous: you can sleep another fifteen or twenty minutes. I can hold the little beasties at bay while I use the bathroom and put on some clothes. Then I'll come back and get you."
Numbly he acquiesced—it was the best offer he would get. Anyway, however much he procrastinated, sooner or later he would have to rise.
* * * * * * * *
Isa and Rudy tore through Christmas wrapping, shouting in joy at each new present they uncovered. Morris and Ann watched from the couch, acting surprised about every discovery. Morris tried to share the kids' excitement, but the aftermath of the previous evening's indulgences render the result quite pitiful.
He attempted to vanquish his guilty conscience by telling himself that the whole debacle had been Ann's fault, despite knowing that he didn't really believe his own excuse. But it was true that she had badgered him into attending the Christmas eve party thrown by her boss, Henry Kenner, and his wife, Jennifer. He genuinely had hoped to miss the bash, primarily because he had vowed to remain sober for a few days prior to the drinking that would inevitably occur on Christmas day. Furthermore, he had suspected the party would resemble the typical party where the guest list had been drawn up based on which people the host believed it was in his self-interest to entertain, rather than because he really wanted to socialize with them: Kenner would act as if he was thrilled to have Morris at his house, if Morris would pretend that he was delighted to be there. And everyone present would feel awkward about the artificial conviviality until they got good and plastered.
When Morris and Ann arrived at the Kenner's house, they discovered that Christmas Eve also happened to be Henry Kenner's birthday. A dash of the distaste that Morris felt for adults who threw themselves birthday parties was now stirred into his already sour cocktail of regrets.
The Robinsons, the Kernans, the Litzes, the Burgesses, and the Wilsons were all already there, along with perhaps a dozen others whom Morris did not recognize. Nearly every guest was imbibing steadily, so that they were shedding the polite reserve they initially had donned and slipping into the costumes of conspirators in the covert undertaking of losing the inhibitions that usually restrained them.
Looking across the living room, which was the nexus of the party, Morris saw Ann flirting with Tony Burgess. He became even more sullen and sank back onto an unoccupied couch in a corner. After he had spent a few minutes brooding alone, Maria Robinson wandered over and slid onto the arm of the couch on which he was leaning. When her hip came to rest against his arm it generated a pleasantly erotic tingling at the point of contact.
She peered down at him from her perch, batting her eyes flirtatiously, and said: "Why so gloomy, Morris? This isn't a funeral, you know. I'll have to drag you off under the mistletoe and give you something that will cheer you up."
Morris chuckled, lifting his eyes to meet hers, which had adopted a bedroom demeanor. What, exactly, was she after? Did she hope to disappear to a back room with him, under the nose of his wife and of her husband? More likely, she only craved re-assurance that she was still an attractive woman, one whose charms could commandeer a man's attention, even if her husband habitually chose to ignore her.
"Well, Maria," he said, his tone sincere, his eyes boldly locked on hers, "I noticed an empty bedroom down the hall. Let's sneak off to there and do it like wolverines." He knew he had gone significantly beyond the acceptable boundary of holiday party flirtation, but it amused him to call her bluff.
She broke away from his stare and studied the carpet. Her face turned slightly red, and for a moment she groped for a response that might patch over the breach in decorum.
"Morris, you are simply too much!" She laughed nervously. "After your wife and my husband pass out, I'll meet you there."
She gave him a smack on the arm, and then stood up and walked over to join a nearby conversation. Morris decided to get up as well. He drifted over to the table that held the liquor and poured himself another drink. After he took a gulp, he listlessly approached a cluster of guests including Tom and Joan Kernan and Harry Robinson.
Tom lifted his eyes from his cocktail to regard Morris, declaring: "Your arrival shows good timing. Joan and I were just telling Harry about what a hard time young Tom—you know our son, don't you?—is having finding a decent job. He graduated from UConn last spring with a degree in chemistry, but he wanted to see if he could make it in pro hockey. He spent a month in the Devils' pre-season camp before they cut him. Since then he's had some offers, but not anything... well, you know the way it is. I hate to impose, but is there some way you can help him out?"
"Sure, have him give me a call. I've know that he's a bright kid, and I'll see what I can do." Morris was pleased at the opportunity, as influencing another person's life suggested that his own existence might have some significance.
"Thanks, that would be great," Tom said. In a sudden, unexpected gesture of familiarity, he put his arm around Morris's shoulder. "So what's it been like, being a Nobel-Prize winner?"
"It's more than I had bargained for. I really never expected to be a celebrity."
Joan gave him a playful nudge on the arm. She said, "Sure, but you can't deny the plus side: the esteem, the free travel, appearing on TV, seeing yourself in magazines and newspapers..."
With a vehemence that surprised even himself, Morris said, "Frankly, it's a big pain in the ass. I'd rather be left alone to do my work."
An awkward silence reigned for a moment. Harry took a slug from his martini, and then launched into a lecture:
"Well, Morris, I think you should try to get a little more perspective on things. Most people would trade places with you in a heartbeat. You've got a beautiful wife, two lovely children, a prestigious job that you enjoy, wealth, respect, and fame. Isn't this bellyaching a bit much, when there are people living on the street, refugees fleeing bloody wars, political prisoners rotting in filthy jails?" As if to put an exclamation mark on his speech, Harry again took a hefty guzzle of his drink.
Like a movie camera dollying back to view a scene from a distance, Morris disengaged his emotions from the group of people around him. In a flat tone he replied, "I suppose you're right. I really do have a wonderful fucking life." He looked down into his cocktail glass while rattling around the ice cubes that were its only contents. "But you'll have to excuse me—I need a refill."
As he mixed another drink, he wondered why he was always an outsider. He imagined a scene in which he was standing, solitary, in the darkness of a frigid night, drawn to the golden light shining through an elegant French window, gazing at the celebration he glimpsed beyond the panes but incapable of yielding to its festive invitation. It occurred to him that Ann had committed a terrible blunder in yoking her life to his shade of one.
He glanced towards the corner where he had seen her and Tony talking, but they were gone. He scanned the entire room but failed to spot them. He told himself that he shouldn't resent her for for wanting to spend time with someone normal, instead of a freak, one whose chief connection with most other people was his desire to guzzle their liquor. He wondered if Ann wanted to sleep with Tony—indeed, perhaps she already had. He felt certain that she had taken on lovers over the last few years. But what right did he have to protest—if she looked elsewhere for passion, then the blame lay mostly with him. After all, he was the one who had suggested that their marriage should be free of jealousy and possessiveness. What had ever made him think that he was cut out for married life? If there was anyone more obviously unsuited to living with another person than himself, then Morris hadn't met the son of a bitch.
His thoughts wandered back over the events that had brought him together with Ann. When he first met her, as a student taking a night class he was teaching, he certainly found her attractive. But what had really piqued his interest was how attentively she listened to him discuss his work, since he craved confirmation of its importance. Once the semester had ended he asked her out. She moved in with him after their fourth date; seven months later they were married.
Somehow, despite their frequent squabbles, they had avoided a divorce. When he surveyed those days with a self-critical gaze, Morris suspected that he might have stayed with Ann simply because muddling along with the existing arrangement involved less bother than changing it, since that would mean unpleasant scenes between the two of them, the awkward explanations of what was going on that he would have to provide to his friends and family, and legal hassles over monetary matters.
Then the kids had arrived, Isa barely a year after Rudy. Since Morris recoiled at the thought of subjecting his little pumpkins to the trauma of a divorce, even in the face of his growing conviction that he was meant to live on his own, he was stuck. A sour desperation rose up from his gut, gagging him. Maybe another drink would wash it back down.
While he was fetching it, Tony and Ann reentered the living room. Then they separated, with Ann joining the group of people Morris had just left and Tony meandering into the kitchen. Morris nonchalantly drifted into his wife's field of vision. When he caught her eye, he shot a look of reprove her way, but she didn't respond. Had she missed it, or was she choosing to ignore it? Her attention returned to the conversation around her. Morris studied her, almost as though he was seeing her for the first time.
He had to admit that Ann was still an attractive woman. Age and childbearing might have softened her figure, but that change had actually been a net plus, enveloping her with a voluptuous sensuality that hadn't been there in her youth. Her dark chocolate hair had always presented a delectable contrast to her milky skin. The years had crinkled the corners of her eyes and mouth a bit, but her face still could unexpectedly bewitch him, just as it had in the beginning.
Even though her visage was so familiar, even though his body and hers had intimately met so often, even though their union twice had brought forth new flesh from old, both sacrificing a twisting helix, a coded message from the depths of their being, to be torn apart so that it could intertwine with the other's offering, nevertheless Morris was bedeviled by the impression that he was observing a stranger. If he didn't really know Ann, then the gap between any two humans was surely unbridgeable.
The conversation whose penumbra he now haunted had turned to the participants' confrontations with the onset of middle age. Ann related a episode when, soon after she had moved in with Morris, he had taken her out for a drink at his local watering hole. The bartender had refused to serve her, and had issued Morris a stiff warning not to bring a minor into his bar again. "You see," she explained, "I was twenty-one but I only looked seventeen." All the members of her immediate audience chuckled in appreciation of the tale, but, unaccountably, for Morris it provoked a cringe.
A yelp sounding like it originated just inside his ear canal blasted Morris from his review of the party right back to the present, where it was Christmas morning, and he was seated on his couch watching his adorable progeny shred gift wrapping and wrench open boxes. Isa had been the source of the sonic boom, unable to restrain her glee upon discovering an Umberto the Ultimate Unicorn doll. Umberto was currently her favorite cartoon character, having de-throned an elf named something like Luthrean, and Ann had hunted down a state-of-the-art likeness of him, featuring programmable voice recognition and the ability to respond to over 600 spoken phrases. Morris plunged his head into his hands, pressing their heels against his eyelids. From the darkness inside his skull there blossomed forth a neon kaleidoscope of evanescent, geometrical patterns. Would he find surcease from sorrow if he turn his back on the transitory world of the shadows and climbed up from that cave towards the enduring fire that illuminated the forms pirouetting before his eyeless sight?
"Look, daddy, look!" Rudy called.
Morris raised his head. His son was standing in front of him, thrusting forward for his father's approval a pair of mythical, winged warriors. Morris was possessed by the fantasy that their flaming swords, tips touching, formed a numinous rune, an ominous sign of warning. Grim sentinels barricading the gate.