By Alphie McCourt
“The Christmas tree should last well into the New Year. Don’t buy it too early. It will only dry out and shed and shred all over the place. And a dried-out tree is a fire hazard.” Every Christmas I said it. “The price goes down the closer you get to Christmas.” That was my reasoning, a rationale, a rearguard action designed to justify procrastination. I would do just about anything to delay the actual moment of setting out to buy the Christmas tree.
Every year, within my self-imposed limit, a radius of 10 blocks of our apartment, I bought an 8- or 9-foot tree and carried it home through the streets of what had become the Upper West Side This was my ritual, begun in 1974. Now, 20 years later, it is Christmas Eve again and I’ve secured a nice-sized tree. We’ve rummaged in the back room and unearthed the stand. The tree stands in the northwest corner of the living room. A few strands of lights and my job is done.
Lynn, my wife, has been waiting. There had been little or no Christmas in her Jewish upbringing but she makes up for it. Chanukah, Passover and the principal Jewish holidays, all of these we observe. Easter, Christmas and everyone’s birthday, all are cause for celebration. So, on this Christmas Eve presents are wrapped and ready and she places them under the tree. Lynn and her mother settle themselves on the couch to watch TV and savor the tree.
I retire to the quiet of the kitchen, to a cup of tea and the newspaper. Kitchen counter, sinks and stovetop are loaded with the ingredients for tomorrow’s Christmas feast. Dinner tonight is every man for himself. I settle for a pre-Christmas bagel. For 10 minutes all is quiet. Then, from the living room, comes a shriek. “Lynn,” I think. “Something funny on the television. And not for the first time. She’ll have changed the channel by now.”
I was wrong. Another shriek follows; then, “Alphie, Alphie!”
A rustling among the wrapped presents had captured Lynn’s attention. From a sitting position she had leaped over her mother’s outstretched legs and taken refuge in the doorway of the apartment. “There’s a mouse, a mouse,” she cries. “Do something! Do something.”
“Do what?” I say.
“Catch him.”
“He’s gone, by now,” I assure her.
All I want is to get back to the tea, the Christmas bagel and the paper. My wife trusts me and trusts my calm assurance that the mouse is gone. But she doesn’t entirely trust me. Experience has taught her to mistrust my fondness for the tea and the bagel. And well she knows my addiction to reading and that when I am reading, I can be oblivious.
“Go and get Tony!” Lynn says.
“I will not,” I say.
Tony, the building superintendent, is Dominican.
“Dominicans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. He’s having a party. I’m not going to disturb Tony. It wouldn’t be fair. Why don’t you go and talk to him? And ask him for a few glue traps while you’re at it. He’ll be sympathetic to you. He may even forgive you for disturbing him.”
Lynn agrees to go. Anything to escape the monster under the tree.
In a few minutes Lynn is back, glue traps in hand. “Tony wishes you happy hunting and a Merry Christmas.”
I say nothing. I place the traps strategically: under the tree, beside the couch, close by the radiator. Then I have an idea; THE CAT! I rouse our China from her turkey dreams, carry her into the living room and place her on the rug. China stretches, yawns and rolls over. “Useless,” I think. It dawns on me then that this Christmas Eve tree is so fresh and its scent so strong that not even China, a Pennsylvania import, almost a wild cat, can sniff out the mouse.
Lynn and her mother return to the couch. I go back to the kitchen. Tea is finished. The bagel is well on its way to digestion and the newspaper opened to the editorial pages. This is the meat of the newspaper, with text galore, glorious text, and no need to turn any pages for a while. Peace reigns, hand in hand with progress.
Again comes a shriek. This time I hurry to the living room. Lynn, already at the elevator, has her passport in hand and a suitcase at her feet. Her mother stands in the doorway.
I look around the living room. Yes, there is a mouse, by the radiator, stuck now on a glue trap. China, the huntress, shares the glue trap with the mouse. Her paw is stuck on it. “There’s a lesson here somewhere,” I think, something about the shortage of living space in the city, something about sublets. But I have no time to ponder the question. Mouse and cat are in distress. My wife is leaving me. It will be difficult to explain my wife’s departure, on Christmas Eve, no less, especially when I have to name a mouse as co-respondent.
I consider the problem. “Gravitas, not grab ass,” I had been told when I was young. “Women respect gravitas. They may not love it. And it doesn’t have much sex appeal. They may not even recognize it, but in time of crisis they will respect it.”
Were I wearing a hat I would remove it, scratch my head and place the hat back on my head. As it is, I just scratch my head, survey the situation and walk around the battlefield.
It becomes clear that another pair of hands is called for. But I am alone. Tony, the superintendent, is entitled to a peaceful Christmas Eve. And I can’t call upon neighbors, family or friends. How can I remove the cat from the trap without encountering the mouse? How to deal with the mouse without rousing the cat? “Gravitas, man,” I remind myself.
I hoist China with my left hand, at the same time balancing mouse and glue trap with my right. We three begin a slow march to the bathroom. A stream of lukewarm water in the hand basin soon frees China’s paw. She wanders off, stops, licks her paw and continues on.
With the aid of a basin of water I soon free the mouse from the pain of his captivity and place him, glue pad and all, in a paper bag. Gently I slide him over the wall of the park across the street. There he will be at one with his brothers and sisters. Reborn, he will rejoin the cycle of Life. Lynn returns to the kitchen and continues her preparations for the Christmas dinner. Nowadays she laughs when we talk about that evening. As for me, every December I remember Christmas Eve and the mouse. With a great fondness I remember him, the mouse who came before Christmas.
December 21, 2002
