The X-Mas Spirit

“Any specials today?”

“Sure, whatever you like.”

“Perfect. Just gimme a pint, please”

She charged me a dollar– one fourth the normal price– and I paid with a twenty.

“Keep the change,” I said neutrally but penetratingly. It was the most sincere gesture I made in a long time. That was the night I had become a more sincere person. The bartender was a petite woman of about sixty with weathered hands and a gold ring. She didn’t know me, but she welcomed me like family.

“How’s your Christmas, Johnny?”

My name isn’t Johnny, but names didn’t seem to matter that evening.

“Been an interesting night, I gotta say. I’ve never been so motivated to do something with my life and I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt as ambitiously emotional as I do right now.”

“Sounds like the Christmas spirit alright, but that’s the last thing I’d expect to hear in a dive bar like this. Look around you.”

I looked around. It seemed like an ordinary night at any other hole-in-the-wall pub, but that’s exactly what troubled the bartender. I knew what she meant.

“Bridgette, lemme tell you what I’ve just been through,” Her name probably wasn’t Bridgette either. “Whatever you see here, I’ve got you beat…

“My parents were never really religious and Christmas has never really meant anything to me at all. Frankly, it’s just a day off of work, which is fine by me. I usually spend the day with a handful of my Jewish friends. My girlfriend doesn’t celebrate Christmas, either. I’d be with her tonight, but her kid brother is in town for his winter break and they’re hanging out all day. I’m gonna join up with all of them in a bit. Her brother's great, I haven't seen him for about two years. He's really like my own brother, ya know. So anyway, today was pretty much an ideal lazy Sunday for me until about seven o’clock this evening, when I met up with my buddies to go bar hopping. We had an impossible time finding a place to knock a few back and so one of us had the bright idea to go to a strip club-“

Bridgette wasn't able to hold back a loud laugh and she slapped the bar with the palm of her hand. I knew it seemed like an ironic way to spend Christmas night, and that’s why I went. I'd thought I would be in for a good laugh, too.

“So we made our way over to The Admiral, you know that one?”

“Yeah,” Bridgette said “that place has been around forever.”

“Right, well it was everything you see on TV: beautiful naked women, sexy waitresses serving cocktails, and the place was packed wall-to-wall with men from every walk of life handing out singles and fives and wolf-whistles…. Just like you’d expect.”

“Yeah I went to one of those places once a long time ago just for kicks. Same thing.”

“So my buddies were having the time of their lives. The girls were great, the service was excellent, and pounding down a couple shots was just what the doctor ordered. We were all thinking that spending Christmas in such an off-beat way was a hoot!”

Bridgette poured me another pint.

“So sure, I was going with the flow until I saw out of the corner of my eye there was this girl. She couldn’t have been older than twenty, and a real knock-out. She goes up to this guy, winks, and sits in his lap. You could tell the guy was a regular. The guy slips the girl a twenty, she kisses him on the cheek and wishes him a merry Christmas. The guy was grinning ear to ear and watched his girl head in back. We made eye contact and he winked at me. You could tell he was on Cloud Nine, I swear.”

“Sounds about right!”

“Yeah, but that wink was the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Johnny, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Look, I turned around and I swear this place was packed wall-to-wall!”

“And..?”

“Bridgette, lemme ask you- what the hell kind of a man spends Christmas at a strip club??? These people had nowhere to be, nowhere to come home to, and no loved ones waiting for them. I swear to God, the place was completely filled with loneliness.”

“Son of a bitch, that actually gives me the creeps…”

“And the combination of intimacy and anonymity that the men were paying for just made the holiday seem like a tragedy, too.”

Bridgette pulled out two rocks glasses and poured a measure of Johnny Black in each, handing me one.

“Anyway, my buddies are still back at the strip joint. I don’t think they were as shaken by it as I was. The girls weren’t so bad, come to think of it. Anyway, like I said, the whole thing was just so unsettling that it made me feel like I really need to do more with my life. I’m never going to go to a strip club again. I’m never going to let myself become one of those men who had no families and no passions. Look here,”

Then I rolled up my sleeve to show her something I wrote on my arm during the cab ride. It was a short list.

“A few of these things really just clicked. Here are some things that I need to do. My life depends on it, really. I just can’t end up like those men. Tomorrow morning when I get to my computer, I’m going to write my boss an email telling him that I deserve a promotion, and then there’s this other thing…”

Bridgette and I talked while mulling over our glasses of scotch. She made all of her Christmas patrons feel like family, and there was indeed a type of solidarity in the bar that evening. It didn’t get under my skin the way the men at The Admiral did.

Eventually, I left Bridgette’s bar. It was really a timeless place; it was more of a concept of a spent evening than it was a tangible location. Fine by me. That night– that Christmas– was a landmark in my life. It was the night I went home and proposed to my girlfriend.