Virgil Christmas
By Patricia Crisafulli
Some people complained the holidays gave them headaches, a throb at the temples that escalated day by day. For him, pain started in the lumbar region and traveled upward along his spine, one vertebra at a time, like a countdown to Christmas. It came with the job, the route, the season.
Virgil drove a delivery truck for a hardware and home goods superstore. You ordered a microwave oven, he delivered it. You needed a new washer and dryer, he finagled them onto a dolly and hoisted them up your walk, your porch steps. Usually he had help, some skinny kid from the warehouse—like Jimmy who was riding shotgun with him today. Jimmy was a good kid but had no idea what “lift with your legs, not your back” meant.
In eighteen years of driving and delivering, Virgil knew that no one ordered a new stove hood as a Christmas present. More likely, customers had families descending on them for the holidays and the old appliances could not handle the crowd. Whatever the reason, December made his back hurt. But Virgil never turned down the hours and accepted all the overtime he could get. Let the people with families have days off up to and after Christmas. He’d rather be hauling and installing, filling up a void of time and avoiding an empty apartment.
Virgil stabbed at his smartphone with a thick finger, and an app told him what to drop off next and how to get there. In the old days, when he was thirty-five and his muscles were ropey and strong, he had only needed a sheet on a clipboard to collect customer signatures and a wrinkled roadmap on the dashboard. In the name of progress, at the age of 53, Virgil used the app.
Virgil swiped his sleeve across his damp forehead as he and Jimmy bumped the dolly up the stairs, one at a time. No one had told them the delivery was going to a second-floor laundry room.
“Careful of the banister,” he muttered with a tight jaw. Jimmy lacked both muscle and common sense but at least could steady the load.
Back in the truck cab, Virgil swallowed a couple of Tylenol with a swig of tepid coffee from his to-go cup. One water purifier, then a new stove later, they were back on schedule and headed to their 30-minute break. A bachelor, Virgil packed his own lunch, saving money and avoiding clogged arteries from too much fast food. Jimmy peeled the cellophane from a stick of jerky and polished it off in four bites. Just as Virgil picked up the second half of his sandwich, something hit the windshield—a loud smack like a sloppy kiss. His eyes took in what his ears had already registered. It was snowing.
Virgil restarted the truck. “We’re getting everything done before it starts sticking.”
“Too late,” Jimmy grinned, pointing out the passenger side of the cab. “Gonna be a white Christmas.”
“Gonna be hell on wheels,” Virgil muttered.
The farther out they drove, the more the countryside rolled with hills that became progressively steeper. They couldn’t push it on these roads, but the deliveries went smoothly, and they were done by quarter to four. Right on time, but a long way out.
An empty truck skidded easily, so Virgil cut his speed. Jimmy cranked up the carols on the radio and talked a steady stream.
These roads were familiar—back to when Virgil was twenty-three or so, with a Firebird convertible he’d fixed up and his girlfriend in the front seat. He’d been slim and sandy-haired in those days, wearing mirrored shades and a baseball cap low on his forehead.
A sign loomed on the right; the letters carved into the wood spelled out Happy Dale. Virgil smiled at the memory of pulling off the road with his girlfriend and finding a secluded spot in that old campground. But a year or so later, she’d wanted to get serious, make plans for the future, but something had held him back—until he was left behind.
“What’er you frowning at?” Jimmy asked.
Virgil tapped a palm against the steering wheel. “Nothing.” He cranked his head, swore, hit the brakes. “There’s a car back there.”
The road was too narrow to turn around so Virgil backed up slowly. Only the front bumper and two headlights, still illuminated, protruded from the deep ditch on the opposite side of the road. Jimmy pointed to the tire tracks, marking the spin of a car losing traction.
Leaving the engine running, Virgil stepped down into the cold that penetrated the layers of flannel over thermal. Jimmy shuffled behind him, stamping his sneakered feet, blowing on his hands. A head moved inside the car, and Virgil’s heart stuttered.
It took both men to wrench open the door and help the woman out. She was small of stature—no more than five feet, Virgil guessed—but gripped his hand with strength. “Hurrying home,” she said, with a shake of the head. “And me, a school bus driver. Shoulda known better.”
A fellow driver, Virgil thought, impressed. But he’d rather haul appliances than thirty elementary school kids. “Not gonna get a tow truck here tonight. Maybe in the morning.”
“My neighbor has a tractor,” the woman said. “He’ll help me.”
Virgil looked at the delivery truck, its side panels now coated with snow obscuring the logo. Giving someone a ride was against the company rules, a cause for dismissal. “How far you live from here?” he asked.
“Another five miles.” The woman pointed down the road with a mitten that look handknit. “I’m Susan,” she added.
Virgil took in light brown hair threaded with gray, bright blue eyes, a nice smile.
“And you?” she prompted.
A deep breath first, as always preceded saying his name. His grandfather, who’d studied the classics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, passed down the name—son to grandson. But by the time it reached Virgil, the pedigree had not come with it. So, he’d been stuck with a name that got him teased unmercifully as a kid and sometimes as an adult.
“Nice to meet you, Virgil,” Susan said.
Jimmy stepped up, stuck out his hand. Virgil took out his phone, waved it around for a signal. Nothing. “Well, at least they won’t notice we’ve gone off the route—not right away,” he said. If there was fallout, he’d deal with it later.
Jimmy unloaded the groceries from the car, four bags in all. Susan extracted a small white bag with a pharmacy’s name printed in bold. “One of the kids got an earache.”
The driveway was pitted, flanked by a sagging fence on both sides. Virgil downshifted, gunned the engine a little, and made it up the steep grade. An old farmhouse faded from white paint to gray boards stood at the top of the rise. The front door opened a crack; a small face appeared and then another. Virgil’s heart squeezed.
The house was clean, he could say that much, but everything seemed worn down to the nub. Ancient linoleum cracked with patches missing in spots. A refrigerator hummed a little too loudly, the strain of a compressor about to give out. He looked through the archway into a dining room, except it seemed to have a bed in the corner, crowding out the table.
Feet sounded overhead, and children came running. There were five of them. The oldest girl—ten, eleven maybe—held a toddler on her hip. “All yours?” he asked.
“All mine,” Susan said, putting her jacket on a peg. “I’m 57—with five grandkids.” She rolled her eyes, then laughed.
He was only four years younger, on his own but without responsibilities. Seeing no other adult in the household, he couldn’t imagine how tough it was for her. “Their parents?” Virgil asked.
Susan shook her head. “Not around. But we manage. Can I offer you a little instant coffee?”
Virgil declined. “We gotta get back. They’ll be wondering where we are.”
Susan thanked them, the children stared, and Virgil hunched his shoulders against the cold as they walked back to the truck.
The dispatcher never asked, and Virgil didn’t tell. When he turned in the truck, no one mentioned the extra forty-five minutes he’d spent on the route, other than to ask him how the roads were out there.
The next morning—his day off—Virgil awoke in the apartment over his landlady’s house, went down the backstairs, grabbed a shovel and cleared all the sidewalks, her front steps, and the porch. He did the same for the neighbors on the left and right—one an elderly couple, the other young parents with a small child. With every scoop he thought of Susan’s car, whether the neighbor would manage to pull it out of the ditch, how she’d get to town if one of those kids got sick. He leaned on the shovel, catching his breath, then pulled out his phone. It was Jimmy’s day off, too, and he never had anything going on.
An hour later, they were on the road in Virgil’s SUV—178,000 miles on it, a dented fender, and a heater that only worked on high. As they crested the hill on a snowy road pinstriped by vehicle tracks, the tractor came into view. Slowing down, Virgil saw Susan standing out of the way with two children beside her.
The neighbor had a chain hooked to the front axle, but it wasn’t enough to free the car half-buried in snow. Virgil and Jimmy worked in the ditch—digging, pushing, digging some more—while the tractor engine revved and groaned. Finally, Virgil felt the car give.
It started on the third try, belching blue exhaust. The neighbor shook hands and waved. Virgil kicked a clod of snow with a steel-toed boot. “We’ll follow you home. Make sure you get there.”
Susan’s kitchen was warm, though he suspected it was more from cooking than the furnace. She offered instant coffee, and this time Virgil and Jimmy accepted. As the kettle heated and came to a boil, Susan told them how she’d grown up in this house, moved back with her husband after her father died to care for her mother, raised both her sons on this land. One died young—car accident. The other—she shook her head—was not around.
“He’s not coming back for these kids. And their mother—if you’d call her that—is out of the picture.” Susan picked up her coffee mug, drank. “My husband passed four years ago, right after my mom. So it’s just me and the kids.”
Virgil heard the drip of a faucet across the room, tried to ignore it. All it would take was some tightening. He folded his hands in his lap—not his business here.
Susan swiveled in her chair, pointed to the children who stood like steps on a staircase—Kaylee, Brad, Sally, Anna, Kyle. Virgil knew he’d never remember the names, but he’d have a hard time forgetting the wide eyes that looked back at him with curiosity and shyness.
“You wanna see our tree?” one of the boys asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I’m like a Christmas junkie.”
Virgil saw Susan wince at that last word and thought of her missing son. “Jimmy here is a regular elf,” Virgil said, and the kid laughed.
A scrawny tree stood in the corner of the front room that Virgil’s grandmother would have called the parlor. Handmade decorations of paper and aluminum foil dotted the branches, and a plastic star stood cockeyed at the top. Reaching up, Virgil fixed it.
He was a Christmas cliché, Virgil scolded himself, pushing a cart around a discount department store on the night of 23rd of December. He didn’t know these people, wasn’t even sure of their needs, other than assuming Susan was living on one paycheck to the next. He picked out presents he thought the kids would like, plus a couple of fleecy blankets, a canned ham, a case of soup, another of ravioli and spaghetti, boxes and boxes of cereal.
With the blip of each item scanned, Virgil wondered why he was doing all this. To prove some point, to show he was a nice guy? The questions punished, and Virgil had no answers.
The next evening, after a shortened workday, Virgil arrived at the exact time Susan had agreed to—four o’clock on Christmas Eve. The sky darkened, night seeped in from the tall trees behind the house. The windows on the first floor blazed like anxious eyes.
He handed the lightest bags to the children, hefted the cases of canned food himself. He saw the pinch of Susan’s expression as he passed the door she held open.
“I thought—” Virgil cut himself off. No answers or explanations at the ready, only his raw need to help, to fill his beefy hands with something besides the inside of his pockets. To fill himself, he admitted, finally grasping a thread of an answer. Something more than the loneliness of glimpsing other people’s houses and other people’s lives during the time it took to deliver an appliance and plug it in.
He set the cases of food on the counter.
“I can and do take care of these kids,” Susan said.
The comment stung, poor still meant proud.
Susan turned away, beckoning for him to follow through the dining room and into the parlor where plastic rustled as the kids pawed through the bags. He’d brought too much, Virgil realized too late.
“I didn’t mean—” he began.
“I’ll save the stuff I bought for them for another time—birthdays and such.”
“No—” Virgil gasped. “You should—.”
“What? Spoil them? Get them to expect this every year?” Her tone sparked like a log on a fire.
Virgil backed up. “I better go.”
Susan reached over, set a hand on his arm. “You only meant kindness. I’m sorry for what I said. County, state, school district—you name it, and I’ve had to defend the way I raise these kids. I do my best to keep a decent roof over their heads.”
“More than decent,” Virgil echoed.
He could picture a spring day, up a ladder, fixing a shutter here, a window there. He and Jimmy could do that kitchen floor in a weekend. Virgil blushed at his own thoughts.
Threading her way through the children, Susan found a small package wrapped in brown paper and handed it to him. “Open it.”
A scarf, five feet long if it was an inch, coiled out.
Susan thrust her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, a gesture that transformed her in a blink to what she must have looked like thirty years ago. Virgil noticed, smiled, then looked down.
“Started making it for myself a couple of weeks ago,” Susan explained. “Then I decided to give it to you. Sat up half the night finishing it.”
Virgil wound the scarf around his neck three times, feeling the comfort of every rotation. “I always did like red.”
“Virgil Christmas,” Susan said, brushing the fringe that lay in a clump against his sleeve. “What other color would there be for a heart as big as yours.”