Life & Other Passing Moments. Victor J. Banis
nor the boy, and I can’t just leave them here.”
Victor saw the boy’s crutch, then, shoved into the corner behind him, and he looked down at the one shriveled leg. No, of course, you couldn’t walk sixty miles on a crutch, with one bad leg.
The boy—Robbie, was that it?—saw him glance at the crutch and gave him back a scornful look. “Daddy, I’m hungry,” he said.
“I know, son, I know,” Don said. “We’ll just have to wait until...well, we’ll just have to wait, is all.”
“I’ve got some food,” Victor said impulsively. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late to take them back. Husband and wife looked over the seat at him, but Robbie stared meaningfully at the white paper bag under Victor’s arm.
“It’s just some old rolls and stuff,” Victor said. He shoved the bag at the boy, feeling resentful, and somehow outmaneuvered, although he didn’t exactly understand how, or by whom. “Here. Take it.”
Robbie snatched the bag from his hand and tore it open. “There’s all kinds of rolls and things, Ma,” he said. He started to take one, and looked at his mother. “It’s okay, ain’t it? He said we could.”
“You sure?” she asked, looking directly at Victor. He wanted to change his mind, say, no, I think I will keep them for myself after all, but her voice and her look were so plaintive, that he nodded his head and said, ““It’s okay. Someone gave them to me, so I guess I’m just passing them on.”
The boy took a big cinnamon roll, and handed the sack to his mother, and she took some kind of scone, and passed the bag on to her husband. He wolfed down a Danish and the bag went round again.
“You don’t want none?” Don asked, crumbs stuck to his lips.
Victor swallowed. “No, I ate just a little bit ago, I’m stuffed, thank you. You folks go ahead.”
They did, eating in silence, chewing frantically. He wondered how long it had been since they ate. The bag was empty in a minute or so. He watched regretfully as Don crumpled it up and dropped it on the floor by his feet.
“Well, I reckon we won’t starve, at least,” Don said. “We are surely grateful to you for sharing.”
“Yes, we thank you mightily,” Ellie said, and fixed her eyes on her son. “Robbie?”
“Thank you,” he mumbled with no sign of sincerity, licking the last ghost of flavor off his fingers.
“This place you’re going, in Pennsylvania,” Victor said, “How much gas do you think it would take to get there?”
“Not too much. This old bus, she eats gas, but even so, I expect ten dollars worth would see us there,” Don said. He sighed, and looked at the frosted over windshield. “Might as well be ten thousand, though, I guess. There’s nobody out tonight. You’re the first person to come by in an hour or more.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Victor thought of the money in his pocket, and those motels across town. Even if he could get to them, there was no guarantee that anyone would rent him a room for the money he had, and once he got there, he would be that much further away from anywhere else. If he went the other direction, he could probably make it to the Seven Eleven. He could get hot coffee there, and a hot dog, and probably they would let him hang out for a while, maybe the rest of the night, if he caused no trouble.
He took the crumpled bills out of his pocket. “I’ve got,” he said, and paused to count them, as if he didn’t know exactly how many there were. “I’ve got eleven dollars here. I could let you have seven of them, if you think that will be enough.”
Don’s eyes widened hopefully. “I expect it might. Anyway, if we got within a couple of miles, we might be able to hoof it the rest of the way, or maybe I could get there and bring somebody back for them. Her mother’s got an old pickup, or she might even have a can of gas. For sure we could get close enough. Only....” He took his eyes off the money and looked at Victor. “Only, it don’t seem right, taking your money. I mean, we already ate your food, and seeing as that’s all you got.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter, I’ve got someplace I was headed, I just have to get there. Here.” He handed Don seven dollars, and then added another one to them. That left him three. That would get him a coffee and a hot dog, or a donut, anyway.
“Well, if you’re sure?” Don gave his wife a look. She licked her lips and held her breath. “I’ve got a gas can in the back, I’ll walk to that Sheetz station we passed a bit ago, and get enough gas to drive us there. You want to wait here, in the car? Say, you could come to Pennsylvania with us, if you like.”
“No, I got some place I got to go,” Victor said. He flung open the car door and got out quick, before the wind could come in after him. Before, he thought grimly, they could wish him a Merry Christmas, but he was too late. Don said it, and then Ellie, and even little Robbie.
“Same to you,” he said back, closing the door, and started off. He cursed himself for a fool all over again. Here he was now, in nothing but a light windbreaker, his food all gone, and nothing but three dollars in his pocket. Talk about your Merry Christmases.
* * * *
He wasn’t sure how far he had walked, or how long—he was light headed now, and he could scarcely feel his feet, lifting and coming down in the snow—when the little girl walked up to him, seeming to come out of nowhere. She was dressed in white, and her face was so pale, she could almost have been conjured up by the snow.
“Mister,” she said without preamble. “I am so cold and hungry, and I got no place to go.”
“Oh, hell’s bells,” he said aloud. He ought to have known, he thought angrily, the way this damned night was going. He yanked the last three dollars out of his pocket and thrust it toward her, but to his surprise, she took a step back from him and did not take it.
“It won’t work if you resent giving it,” she said. “You have to let it go.”
“Won’t work? Won’t work for what?” There was a buzzing in his head, like a host of wasps was in there. He handed the money to her again, but she only shook her head.
He dropped to his knees in the snow and took hold of her shoulders. She felt thin as a bird.
“You are one strange little girl,” he said. “I been giving and giving all night, and you’re the first one refused to take.”
“You have to share it. Not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare.”
He smiled into her face despite everything. There was something about her, a luminescence. She almost seemed to glow in the dark and the falling snow.
“I don’t understand what you are saying,” he said. He had a vague idea there was something else, earlier this evening, that he hadn’t understood either, but he was too tired and cold to think straight.
“If you bless it, we will both share in the blessing.”
“Well, then, if that’s the way of it,” he said wearily. “Take it then, and I surely do bless it, and I bless you.”
She did take the money then from his frozen fingers. Hers felt oddly warm when he touched them. She closed her eyes and looked down, and seemed to be praying. He closed his too, and tried what she said, tried to let the money go, to bless it.
He thought, out of the blue, of his mother again, of an incident when he had been just a boy, he couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. His mother had loaded up a basket of food from their cellar, to take to an aunt who was doing poorly. Mostly, in the winter, they lived on what she had put up in the cellar, and seeing the jars disappear from the shelves, he had said, “Won’t we need this food before the winter is out?”
She had given him a stern look, and said, “I never have been and never will be too poor to share what I have, because