Joyfully Out Of Step With The World

December 16, 2013

     As Christmas approaches, I find pleasure in remembering all the incidents of Christmas seasons past which speak to my contrarian streak.

     One thing I have always enjoyed about New York City is that although the Christmas season may be a national preoccupation throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories, in New York City someone --in most cases, a fair number-- will be participating in the holiday season in idiosyncratic ways.

     My late husband, Bill Barbeosch, found Christmas shopping a particular nightmare, because many clients would call with last-minute tax-planning requests in December, days before the deadline for implementing new tax structures.   Our first dates during the season often had me helping Bill to find where to buy the gifts he was asked for by his family, which has a tradition of exchanging Christmas lists.  Thinking about the incoming Mexican tax law change while simultaneously trying to figure out where to find the latest trendy perfume, was not Bill's idea of a good time.  Fortunately, what stores were carrying what was the sort of thing I was usually up on, so, improbably, our relationship deepened as together, we endeavored to find the "Cabbage Patch" doll, or "VCR Plus" or Elizabeth Taylor's new perfume, "Passion" --whatever the American middle class' consumerist hopes were pinned on that year.

     If Bill had to shop all day on a weekend (the other, he would be working a full day in the office), he wasn't going to suffer the experience without respite, however.  In one of our first  conversations about making a shopping foray together, he announced to me a discovery that would provide refuge from the frenzied crowds for years to come: the $8 glass of Tättinger champagne "Caviarteria" --around the corner from the Delmonico on Park Avenue and 59th Street, in the heart of Manhattan's retail district-- offered during the holidays.  "I went out at lunch looking for something for my mother when I found a light lunch and a glass of champagne for under $30", he said. --From then on, we always looked forward to a break there from our Christmas shopping exertions.

     Christmas shopping could have been an Olympic sport as practiced in New York before the advent of online shopping.  On account of the press of work, we always pushed the task to the last weekend before Christmas, which added a further level of arduousness to the challenge of buying each person what they wanted.  One year, trying to find "VCR Plus" --one of the first devices that allowed TV programs to be taped at home in the absence of the owner-- was like jumping hurdles: no matter how many stores we reached, it was unavailable, so we had to go on to the next outlet on our list.  Late in the day, we finally found a store in the West 40s that had "VCR Plus".  -But there was one complication: Bill had rented a car for Christmas week, which we were using to pick up presents, buy our contribution to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners and to get to them.  When we found the electronics dealer that had "VCR Plus" in stock, we had to double park in front of the store because all the parking was taken.  Bill asked me to sit in the car while he rushed in and consummated the purchase, which I did.

     The only problem with that was that I did not drive at the time, and if a policeman working motor vehicle duty came by ticketing illegally parked cars, I could not move the car.  Unfortunately, one did.  In my panic at the thought of our getting a ticket while trying to buy Christmas presents for family, I pled vainly with the policeman who began writing a ticket in due course, my explanation and protests notwithstanding.

     Then I lost my temper and said a choice word to the man in blue --who immediately said he would take me down to the precinct and charge me with disorderly conduct.  Instantly, I became the most abject, tearful and sorrowful female within a five-mile radius.  Fortunately, the policeman let me off with just a warning --and handed me the parking ticket.

     Perhaps because I find the pressure of the Christmas season so intense, I am glad that New York is home to many, many people for whom it is not normal to celebrate Christmas with family: performers, hotel staff, grocers that specialize in not closing on holidays (my own never closes).  Two writers, speaking of the liberating effect living in this rarefied world can have, said it this way:

     I did everything with that great mad joy you get when you return to New York City.
                                                                                                       Jack Kerouac

     A dark New York noon, the sky a gray silhouette.  A storm is blanketing the city, Ten inches of the stuff, and still the subways are on schedule, the Times stacked high in the newsstands…Even the corner vendor is there for you, Fagin-like, fingerless gloves spearing kabobs, boilers billowing smoke like cauldrons.

     The Northeast is on its knees, says the weatherman.  But the city is impervious, defending its dreamers like a castle.
                                                                                                     Kurt Wenzel
                                                                                                     "Lit Life"
                                                                                                     Random House 2001

     I raced against time in the middle of a blizzard one Christmas Eve a few years ago.  I wanted to buy Bill his Christmas present, a ceramic teapot in the shape of Winston Churchil's head, with the famous "V" sign formed by his fingers molded to the side of his head, one of them creating the teapot's spout.  I had seen this bit of Churchilliana at Myers of Keswick, the grocery store on  Hudson Street near 14th that caters to U.K. natives homesick for pork pies, Scotch eggs and others staples of the British diet.  I hadn't had the time to actually buy the the piece for Bill, and here it was Christmas Eve afternoon, with the snow coming down heavily, and Bill still at the office.

     I called the grocery before I left our home in Morningside Heights and raced to 14th Street and Seventh Avenue by subway, walking as fast as I knew how to get there before Myers of Keswick closed promptly at 6:30 p.m.  I arrived at 6:25 p.m., triumphant.   --Not only did I buy the Churchill teapot, but I brought home some pork pies and a plum pudding, too.

     Happily carrying my haul, I decided to eschew the subway in favor of the bus, and walked to Greenwich and Horatio Streets, the first stop on the M11 bus, which travels northward to Morniingside Heights.  There used to be a Spanish restaurant on the corner, El Faro, established in 1927, now closed by the City for health violations.  The entrance had a step that had to be breached to enter, which created an alcove to wait in when the weather was particularly bad.  I don't remember having to wait long, though, the bus visible lumbering through the white powder only a few minutes after I found my niche in the alcove.  The bus was entirely empty, save for the driver.

     I got on and enjoyed what amounted to private chauffeur service most of the way home.  The bus rumbled through Chelsea and the Garment Center, through Hell's Kitchen and past Columbus Circle.  It was only near Lincoln Center that anyone at all got on.

     The streetlights illuminated the bus' way as the darkness deepened: the city was white and silent and empty.  I felt a great mad joy, the kind you feel when you are joyfully out of step with the world, but happy in your own.