And you may see me cry―
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
― Langston Hughes
Some say April is the cruellest month bringing the promise of rebirth and hope where there often isn't any.
I know it sounds cynical, but that's the way of the world, folks—you get beaten down, rise up, only to get beaten down again...and only the fittest survive.
Sounds brutal, you think? Well, I may have agreed a year ago, before I got my Christmas surprise.
I used to be naive and believing but Life has a way of wisening you up.
That's why I think December is the cruellest month, because everyone is trying hard to spread the Christmas cheer but a hot toddy and a crumbling Christmas cookie might be as close as you get to that.
Excuse my gloom but it's a wet, misty December morning and I'm shivering waiting for the furnace to heat the house.
I'm a bit down on my luck, a euphemism, for simply being tapped out. The lawyers have taken most of my cash and I've got to cut a few corners this month and try to resist overspending by cutting back on gifts.
Yeah, I'm cynical and can't stand myself. I don't exactly have a Christmas list mainly because I have no friends.
A year ago on this day, I found out that Stevens' Property Holdings was bankrupt, My partner of ten years, Jeff Forestall, took all the assets and jetted off into the sunset.
By the time the dust settled, all I had left was an older maisonette building with 6 units, entered through a main hallway with each having two stories, a basement and a small garden patio.
Since most of the units were occupied and subject to rent control, I barely made any profit and had to maintain the property myself.
Yes, thank you spirits of Christmas Past and Present for ruining my future.
There’s a knock on my door. I glance at the clock and see it’s just past 7 am—that can mean only one thing—an emergency.
I open to Marin Ellis, a single mother struggling to support twin girls. She looks exhausted.
“Sorry to call on you so early, Cole, but we have no heat. Can you take a look at the furnace?”
“Sure, I can, Marin, but that won’t help much in terms of getting the kids ready for school and you to work. Here, take this and grab breakfast at McDonald’s.”
I hand her a twenty—it’s all I have, but she’s frazzled and chilled and needs it more than I do.
“You don’t have to do that, Cole,” she protests.
“Yeah, I do. Keeping things repaired is my job. Sorry about the cold start. Hopefully, when I call you at work, I’ll be able to tell you your heat is back on.”
“You’re the best,” she smiles, “the twins love McDonalds—it’ll be an adventure.”
I close the door on one problem only to be confronted by another—I’m out of milk.
The prospect of drinking black coffee doesn’t thrill me, but at least I have bread for toast and my unit is warming up. It beats being out on the street like the homeless man I spotted last night, taking shelter in the small foyer,
I didn’t have the heart to turn him away—not with the temperature hovering around 20 F and a strong wind blowing down the street.
Yep, three weeks until Christmas, but not everyone’s celebrating...
Not Marin barely scraping by with two little girls to feed and clothe—not the homeless guy sheltering at nights in the foyer...
And certainly not me, trying to make sense of why I'm even still trying when nothing else seems to be going my way.