Christmas time. The time of goodwill and cheer. The time of warmth and of love and of celebration. Well, for some people, yeah. Not for Joe Shmoe. Joe was just your average Jew from New York. Lived in a semi-expensive apartment, worked for a firm that used him as a slave, had annoying relatives, and hated both Khalid Mohammed and Louis Farrakhan. He looked out of the apartment--another lonely Christmas.
Well, he didn't really believe in Christmas so it was just another lonely holiday. Actually it wasn't going to be that lonely. He'd give his sister a call in Los Angeles, as he did every Christmas, and then probably go to Manny's grill for the Christmas ball. Maybe he'd get lucky and score. Talking about scoring, he'd actually met the mayor's daughter earlier that week. Cute girl, but she had breast implants.
His mother had passed several years back--she used to live with him. He had several acquaintances, but none you could really call a friend. Not except if you counted Susan, the administrative assistant from work. They had a lot in common and she was the only one he could call on the phone just to talk and get some steam off. He didn't really need that many friends anyway. As long as his sister was there, he was alright. He looked out of his window and tried to count how many snowflakes fell within a ten-second span.
It was somewhere between twenty seven and two thousand. He laughed out loud. This year had been especially good to him in a way. He'd gotten the raise--something he didn't even dream of as a programmer-analyst for Goldman, Okogun and Sachs. He was just about finished paying his student loans, and he was even looking into buying a small house in New Jersey. He looked at the clock. He'd been in all day. That wasn't a good thing on Christmas day. Maybe he'd brave the cold and take a walk in the snow before he called his sister. And then if he felt like it he'd, for yet another year, go to Manny's for the ball.
Last year he hit big and brought home a nice looking female. He later found out, much to his chagrin, that she was a minor--not even seventeen yet. The girls of today are growing way too fast, and putting on way less clothes than they used to. Well, since no one found out about it he more or less used her for a month or so, and then let her go. No sense in getting charged with statutory rape. It was one of those things he could consider a skeleton in his cupboard--but we all have those.
Just silly little things we have done. Nothing major. After all, if you saw the girl, she looked at least twenty five, and she never really told him how old she was. He just happened to have seen her ID card by mistake the other day. Oh well. Life goes on. Like most people, he'd asked that if God would get him out of that spot of trouble without any fuss, he wouldn't do it again. I guess we all do that at least once in our lives. And then when we really need God to help us, we've used up our chance. He put on his coat, grabbed his gloves. It was seven-thirty and he was going for a walk.
"Merry Christmas" the old woman greeted him. "Hmm? yeah." he mumbled. Not many people out tonight he observed. Why should they be? He walked about five blocks when the cold really began to get to him. This was stupid. He should be home by his fire. He could have put on TV or something or done some programming. He looked at his watch, but the snow was falling so hard he couldn't see what time it was.
He estimated it was about eight p.m and decided to return home. He got back into his building, really flustered from running the last block--the cold really didn't spare him at all. While hyperventilating and red in the face, he nodded a Christmas greeting to the doorman and found his way to the elevator. He was somewhat dizzy and he staggered quite a bit. He looked at the clock when he got to his apartment and it was almost eight-thirty. He decided that he'd take a little nap before calling his sister. He wasn't feeling too well. Perhaps he wouldn't go to Manny's after-all. The guys there would notice, he knew, but who cared?
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