Wednesday, December 30^th,  2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
On the Sixth Day of Christmas . . . 
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
  
* * *
 
Charles Wesley Bartlett’s
Bleak Midwinter
 
A Story by Matt Matthews
for the Sixth Day of Christmas 
 
                  Charles Wesley Bartlett climbed into his yellow Lamborghini and strapped in. The 12-cylinder engine purred when he turned the key. The road rose up as he accelerated. He took the corners hard. The moon brimmed full, as with silver tears. Winter leaves skittered across the empty black top. Wind lashed at defenseless trees. 
                  Charles Wesley Bartlett didn’t have a Lamborghini. He was 13-years-old. But he did have an imagination. And, as he grinded away at the peddles of his mountain bike, he liked imagining that he was caressing the responsive gas pedal of an expensive car. Ah, the feel of speed in a warm, low-slung racer, the glow of a custom dashboard, and the smell of new leather. 
                  No imagination was necessary for the cold. It was Christmas Eve and bitter. While there was no snow on the narrow, twisting two-lane, the ground had been frozen solid for weeks. As he peddled into numbing wind, he had wished that he had worn gloves. Water from his runny nose had frozen into sharp fangs. Cars zipped past barely missing his handlebars. The swoosh of passing traffic amplified the wind for a few mean seconds. His chapped lips and face stung. It hurt to breath. A smile would crack his skin into a thousand pieces. 
                  But he sang. He sang to warm up. It wasn’t working, but he sang anyway. He sang the harmonies of the carols his school chorus had presented at their Winter Concert a week before Christmas. Harmony was difficult, however, without someone singing the melody. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t find his part without hearing the soprano line and the other parts. A choir sings together, his chorus director was fond of saying. Nobody goes it alone.
                  That’s basically what his mom had said yesterday when she forced him to go to the homeless shelter. Their church was serving dinner for Christmas week and Charles’ middle school church youth group was supposed to help with Thursday’s dinner. He didn’t want to go. It was the eve before Christmas Eve and he wanted to stay home and relax. The word relax pushed one of his mother’s several buttons. She put her left hand on her hip, and when she did that, he knew he was in trouble.
                  “You go because you’re part of a group and you support what that group does even when it’s not convenient,” she said. She lectured about commitment and follow-through.
                  “You are part of our church family,” she had said. She was on a roll. She had a way of looking beyond him when she got into mother-mode, like she was on a stage and she was talking to hundreds of people sitting directly behind him. “Our church family is committed to certain, basic things. Helping others is one of those things,” she said. “The youth group has signed up to help and you are a part of that group. They are not complete without you; and, might I add, you are not complete without them.”
                  Charles felt complete, he said weakly, but there was no use arguing with his mother when she had her hand on her hip.
                  His real excuse for not wanting to go to the shelter with the youth group was that he wanted to go to the movies with his friend Cal. But Carol Bartlett insisted that the movie could wait. When Charles insisted that the homeless could wait, he realized how stupid that sounded, and so he went with the youth group on their mission of mercy even though he didn’t want to go.
                  There were 45 men at the shelter. Some sat chatting in groups of two or three. One cluster played dominos. Their weathered, gnarled hands looked like the shells of ancient turtles. Most sat alone or worked by themselves staking out their sleeping places along the perimeter of the room. Charles approached these solitary men and offered to bring them a styrofoam cup of coffee. They were politely appreciative, but not interested. At eight, they shuffled through the dinner line. By 10 o’clock lights were out and many of them went instantly to sleep, snoring on half-inch foam pads spread around the fellowship hall floor.
                  The room smelled of cigarettes, Brunswick stew, evergreen from table decorations, coffee, and dirty socks. The fellowship hall was muggy with sudden sleep and whispers and the muted sounds of pots being washed in the adjacent kitchen. Charles felt small and lonely, and felt smaller still when he tried to put himself in these men’s shoes. He couldn’t believe he had argued about coming. It was right to be here, but he never wanted to come back, no offense to the men who had no choice. His mother was right, as usual, but he still wished she made a greater effort to understand him even when he was wrong. He couldn’t help what he felt, and, sometimes, she cared more for her principles than she did for her son.
                  Charles was still in a funk the next night when his family got home from the 5:30 Christmas Eve service at their church. The Christmas story always filled him with a lonely gladness. For some reason, being with his family only added to the lonely feeling.
                  Both sisters were home with their husbands and their small house was stuffed. Late the night before they had ordered pizza with double anchovies. Charles hated anchovies. It didn’t help that his explosion with his mom about the shelter hadn’t cooled off yet. He was still mad at her and he hated feeling that way especially on Christmas Eve. His dad was too busy trying to impress Charles’ brother-in-laws to mediate. Besides, David Bartlett knew better than to take anyone’s side but his wife’s. It was no accident that Charles’ parents were still married after 31 years.
                  The family milled around elbow to elbow in the kitchen, grazing through the refrigerator. The big meal was noon on Christmas day. On Christmas Eve nibbling was the custom. His dad sat at the dining room table doling out slices of leftover, cold pizza. The anchovies clotted on the cheese like congealed guts. A brother-in-law dozed at the table while absently scratching his back with a fork he had been using to eat a bowl of ice cream.
                  When his sisters pulled out the Scrabble game, reluctant husbands put on their best game faces. Charles took some pleasure knowing he wasn’t the only one suffering. Carol Bartlett sat next to her husband. Charles stood at the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. They offered him a spot at the table, but he would have had to be on a team by himself and, besides, Scrabble made him feel unintelligent.
                  He felt like the odd man out. The house was burning up. His thin sister complained about being cold. His pregnant sister peeled off clothes like she was at the beach. Her red face looked waxy. Charles decided that the odd man out should go for a bicycle ride.
                  “It’s dangerous on a cold night like this,” his mom said distractedly, sorting her letter tiles. She had an X, two Bs, three Is and an E.
                  “It’s not dangerous, Mom,” Charles said heading down the stairs to the garage. “I’m just going for a little spin. I won’t be gone long.”
                  “It’s cold out,” his dad said.
                  “Yeah,” Charles answered, “but it’s not that cold.”
                  Except that it was. His hands had become smooth marble fused around the handlebars, and the headwind across the open field immediately froze his face. He decided that when he got to the park, he’d cut through the woods on the walking trail which emptied out onto less traveled back roads. Sheets of ice glazed the road. The grass was frozen sharp and white. Headlights from oncoming cars blinded him. He hugged the white line at the edge of the road as best he could, but he had to weave around pot holes and patches of gravel along the narrow shoulder. His glasses kept slipping down his frozen nose. He peddled as fast as he could with rubbery legs. 
                  The manger had a way of interrupting his thoughts. When he was younger, he felt wonder and happiness. Now he felt duty. Who would fetch fresh hay for the manger? Mary and Joseph needed fresh water. Mary needed rest. Charles was inclined to help. The players at that nativity seemed alone and Charles imagined providing helpful companionship. Joseph leading that donkey to Bethlehem on such an unsteady path could use a hand. No help could relieve poor Mary being jostled on that beast of burden. Charles’ pregnant sister was 24-years-old and all she could ever talk about was indigestion and her aching lower back. Once, his brother-in-law Walt rolled his eyes and groaned to Charles, “Don’t ever get a girl pregnant.” She hit him for that, and she was strong. Pregnancy made his sister twice as big, but not only in terms of size, but might. Her glare was bigger. She breathed bigger. She had become a force. Charles couldn’t explain it.
                  Charles stopped at the top of the hill to wipe his nose with fingers stiffened by cold, hard as glass. Ordinarily, the steep hill would be fun to race down, but it seemed steeper tonight, the blacktop blacker, the on-coming headlights more distracting. He thought about where he was headed. He could ride to his church about a mile away and turn around in the parking lot. He knew some kids who lived off this road, but it was Christmas Eve and nobody would want him stopping by for a visit tonight. Everybody is supposed to have something worthwhile to do on Christmas Eve. Aimless bike rides didn’t count. He didn’t know where to go. 
                  The wooded park sprawled out below. The woods would be warmer. Trees would block the wind. Charles pushed off, took a few sore strokes on the pedals, and soared down the hill. The wind caught his loose-fitting jacket like a kite.
                  He could not conjure warm thoughts. Cold and danger made his mind race. He wondered if cold speeds everything up before it freezes everything. He wondered how Mary, the mother of God, might compare with his sister Sarah, the mother of indigestion. Sarah still worked at the bank even though the baby was due any day. Charles pictured her on a donkey on the way across uneven roads to Bethlehem. Joseph would have to leadthat donkey gently, or else. Charles wondered if Mary whined as much as his sister did, if pregnancy made her bigger. Whine might not be the right word. Charles didn’t mean to judge. He had never been pregnant.
                  Getting colder and colder, blurring to ice, he was flying now. He couldn’t feel his hands or face. They no longer tingled. His shirt had become untucked and freezing air snaked up his bare back. At the edge of the park, he leaned in the direction of the trail. The bike shuttered as he aimed for the path. Wind raked through his hair, his clothes flapping like some torn sail. He didn’t see the black ice and went down fast and hard, the entrance to the path shooting past. His numb body took the pavement as he felt himself letting go, the bike clanking away from him, airborne for a moment, flipping, hitting the blacktop with sparks, then darting into the woods. Gravel spit up behind him as he slid across the narrow shoulder of the road, into the ditch, which swallowed him like a nonchalant whale.
                  Everything went from slow motion to perfect stillness. The night became quiet. He felt no pain, nothing, and all he could see were the dark trees leaning over him, and beyond their empty branches, stars.
                  The last time he had been this cold was after they took his tonsils out. 
                  He was six and he remembered that he could not stop shaking. When he shook, it made his throat hurt more. He tried not to cry but he guessed he did because his mother kept wiping at his face. His dad paced around them alternately patting his head and his wife’s. His dad wore the face of someone trying to be brave and only partially succeeding, which made Charles feel colder. The bright light in the recovery room hung like a winter moon, cool, bright, white. The polished floors shined like an ice rink. When the nurse asked him how he felt—which he thought was a stupid question—he couldn’t speak. He tried, but no words came out. He couldn’t distinguish the surgery from the cold. Both hurt. Both seemed a cruel trauma.
                  The nurse handed him a popsicle and he remembered dropping it because his hands were shaking so badly. She came back with something better. A blanket. She wrapped it around him. It was a heated blanket. That was the best feeling he had ever had. Whenever he felt bad since, he’d think back to that moment of absolute comfort when he first got warm after they took his tonsils out.
                  As he lay crumpled at the edge of those ambivalent woods, he thought of that warm blanket, dreamed of that comfort. That split second of peace was followed by the alarming ache of cold and the realization he needed to get help or he’d be in trouble. If he crawled out onto the street, he would get hit by a car. If he crawled into the woods he could pass out and freeze to death. The leaves in the ditch broke his fall, as did the crust of ice that had covered the ditch like bubble wrap. The ice had shattered, but his bones, apparently, had not. Everything hurt, but he could still move.
                  He hiked himself up and lay back onto the bank of ditch. His glasses had stayed on his head in the fall but his helmet had popped off and was gone. He had trouble adjusting the glasses with frozen hands. The berm of the ditch protected him from the wind. He worked his legs and his arms. It was too dark to see if the palms of his hands were bleeding. Frozen skin and peeling skin might feel the same.
                  He looked up into the night sky and thought again of that manger. It may have been a crude setting, but he was certain Jesus was warm. A heated blanket made a soft cocoon. The hay was warm. Mary’s and Joseph’s bodies were warm. Perhaps there was a fire. Perhaps the presence of animals added a muggy, animal warmth as from the sleeping men at the shelter. Or, maybe it was 75-degrees outside. He had never been to Bethlehem. Whatever the temperature, Charles felt certain that Jesus was warm on that night and, right now, that was important to know. At least somebody was where they belonged.
                  The manger interrupted his thoughts like this every Christmas, and tonight the interruption was a welcome respite from his freezing body hardening in the cold. He wished he had worn gloves because his hands were so, so cold. He held them close to his cheeks and could feel gravel embedded in his palms. It hurt. Light-headed, he looked up to the trees. One of them began to speak.
 
                  “You look like a train wreck,” an old voice said. 
                  It wasn’t a tree doing the talking. It was a man whose red cheeks and wild, white beard filled his vision.
                  “I was ambulating through the park, heard this God-awful crash, and came-a-running,” the man said. He stooped, and carefully hopped into the ditch and stood bent over hands on knees, looking down on Charles.
                  “Your bike is 25 yards down the hill, in the woods. Were you clipped by a car?”
                  Charles couldn’t immediately speak. He tried, but no words came out. When he could utter something, he said, “You look like Santa Claus.”
                  “I get that all the time,” the old man said. “Especially this time of year. But I’m not Santa Claus. My friends call me Baskets.”
                  The old man reached out a hand. 
                  “Can you stand up?”
                  Charles grabbed the man’s gloved hand then let go with a shot of pain. He could not grip anything without pain. Charles clutched his hands to his chest. The man grabbed his coat at the shoulders then heaved him up. They both lost their balance on the muddy ice, flailed the air, and collapsed.
                  The man began crying, quietly at first and then with gusts and heaves. Charles mumbled an apology and scrambled quickly around on all fours in front of the man and put his numb hands gingerly on the man’s shoulders.
                  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” the old man said between heavy sighs.
                  His face was wet with tears, but he wasn’t crying. He was laughing.
                  “These woods always surprise me,” he said. He leaned his back against the bank and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He patted the ground next to him, and Charles scooted down in the same way. 
                  “I took my dog for a walk every night in these woods. When it’s late, the traffic dies down. People go inside. When it’s cold, the sky is clear and the stars seem to shine brighter.”
                   “What happened to your dog?” Charles asked.
                  “Died three years ago,” Baskets said. “Wife died two years ago, too. Sounds like a bad country song, I know, but it’s true. You ought to call me Mister Bojangles.”
                  Charles didn’t know who Mister Bojangles was. 
                  The silence seemed perfect except for the sound of their breathing and the slight whoosh of wind in the trees. A car made an urgent hiss as it approached from down the road, from the hill below.
                  “Dogs and wives die, son, that’s the way it is.”
                  The car was zooming closer. 
                  “You all alone at Christmas?” Charles asked the old man.
                  “I’m no more alone than you,” the man said, “out riding a bike in the cold on Christmas Eve all by yourself. That sounds pretty lonely to me.”
                  “I have family at home,” Charles said. “I’m anything but alone.”
                  “Fooled me,” Baskets said.
                  Baskets looked straight ahead, beyond the toes of his shoes to the tree trunks clustered around. Charles studied his profile. 
                  “But you,” Charles asked, “do you have family at home or not?”
                  “Nope,” the man said. “I do not. I don’t have potted plants. I don’t even have a Christmas tree.” He made a sweeping gesture with both arms toward the sky. “These,” he said, “are my string of lights. Why should I lose my religion stringing tree lights when all I have to do is come outside and look up? I’ve always liked Christmas, but I never liked putting up decorations. The wife always made me do it, and I obliged, but—” 
                  The old man’s voice trailed off. He looked at Charles. “I’m not as dumb as I look,” the man said. “Why string lights when God already has?”
                  Charles smiled and cocked his head back up to the stars. “If you ask me, we’re both pretty dumb to be sitting in a ditch on the coldest night of the year.” 
                  The car sped by above the ditch spitting shards of ice and muck, around the curve, then up the hill. 
                  “You’re the first bike wreck victim I’ve ever discovered in these woods,” Baskets said. “If we can get ourselves out of this blame ditch, we’ll walk to the other side of the park to my house. It’s not far. I’ll drive you home.”
                  “That would be great,” Charles said, “but I can ride my bike.”                
                  “Not unless you got an extra front wheel,” the man said. “Let’s get you up.”
                  “I’m fine,” Charles said too quickly. His legs were stiff with exertion and cold. He protected his hands as he stood. “I’m on my way to the shelter.”
                  “Downtown? I can get you there,” Baskets said. ”Do your parents know you’re going to the shelter? On a bicycle? On Christmas Eve?”
                  “Not exactly,” Charles said, “but neither did I when I started out on my ride.”
                  The man looked out over the road and beyond to the empty field. “One day that field will be filled with houses,” the man said. “Mark my words. Won’t be any nature left in this world.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to sound like a John Prine song.” He looked to Charles. “Before your time, I guess,” he added.
                   Charles noticed his right pants leg was ripped at the knee. He leaned forward to tie his converse high tops. His lower back ached a little. His fingers barely moved. He thought of his swollen, uncomfortable sister making the lonely passage to childbirth. He thought again of the punishing ride on a donkey to Bethlehem. He thought of that warm blanket after they took his tonsils.
                  “You can go with me, if you want,” Charles said. “To the shelter.” The man looked at Charles and didn’t say anything. “I’m going because I went last night and I didn’t want to be there. I hated it.”
                  “And?” Baskets prodded.
                  “And it’s Christmas, and we’re all in this together, and no one should be alone, not tonight, not on Christmas Eve, and we aren’t complete without each other. Some of them will recognize me from last night. I’ll just say hey, and Merry Christmas. Won’t take long.”
                  “And,” the old man asked, “maybe you feel a little guilty about last night?”
                  Yes, Charles felt guilty. He felt duty, too. Like he had a small part to play that was his to play. He felt responsible for saying hello, for reaching out. It was something he had to do, and he should have done a better job of it last night. Yes, he felt guilt.
                  Charles also felt physical pain. But he felt some gladness. He was not lost anymore. And he didn’t feel lonely. He was standing here in a ditch with a man who looked like Santa Claus, two lonely people having made a connection. His bike might be in pieces, but his bones were not, even after a spectacular wreck going as fast as a Lamborghini. And he had a destination in mind. He knew where he was going. He’d be home in time for a second round of Scrabble.
                  The woods were quiet. A perfect string of lights hung in the night sky. A midnight journey to Bethlehem, a warm stable, a pregnancy brought to term, a soft manger, and a safe delivery. And thousands of years later, this perfect night. This wasn’t the route he would have predicted when he set out, but it got him exactly where he needed to be.
                  It hurt to smile, so he tried not to. His chapped lips cracked in the cold. Charles and Baskets might have been the only two people at the bottom of that hill who noticed how bright the stars were at the top of that sky. That distant light was bright enough to illumine their way through the woods to Basket’s car. Stopping at the shelter wouldn’t take long. In the scheme of things, it was right on the way. And when he got home, he’d have a neighbor to introduce and a story to tell, after his mother hugged him, and, hand on hip, said I told you so about a bike ride on a night like this being so dangerous. It wasn’t dangerous, Charles would say. I just slipped on some ice. 
                  No big deal.                  
 
P E A C E ,
Matt Matthews
First Presbyterian Church Champaign
A (cool) congregation of the PC(USA)
Church: 217.356.7238; Cell: 864.386.9138
matt@firstpres.church