Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked at him. Over the intercom, a bell softly chimed.
    “Recess,” said Parker, and they all ran outside to play.

O Tannenbaum

    C hristmas is about friends. You have to believe this and not get discouraged. Look around you. Everyone here is poor—some poorer than you—some are crazy, but look at them, eating turkey generous people donated, opening baskets full of clothes that are meant for them. All gifts of love. All symbols of human kindness. Today, of all days, you can’t give up.
    Here, pull up a chair. Grab a plate of turkey. Go ahead. Fill it up with dressing too. Everybody always shares. As long as I’ve lived, people have been kind. Maybe today I can give you a little in return for all that’s been given me.
    So there won’t be any surprises, let me tell you something straight up front about me as an explanation. This Christmas Day, I turned twenty-one—it’s my birthday, I think, but not for sure. It’s different for me. Lots of people don’t know for certain when they’re born. They’re abandoned at birth, so a birthday is assigned to them, probably one pretty close too. A baby, you can tell within a month or two how old they are, but that doesn’t work for me. See, I have to count days, because for me, it’s always Christmas.
    Well, that’s not exactly true. Lately it’s been Christmas—the last five years ago or so, and for the five years before that, it was the last day of the Saturnalia. And before that, one kind of winter solstice celebration or another as far back as I can remember. My years, of course. Not your years. Really, for me, it’s always Christmas.
    Like this morning, I woke up in this shelter. The cot felt solid under my back, and the bed roll was worn but clean. Smelled old, you know, but not bad. Some folks were already stirring.
    Guy next to me sat up coughing. Young looking fellow. Maybe my age, but a real dry cough that doesn’t bring up anything, and he kept going for a couple of minutes.
    “Got to quit these coffin nails,” he finally said, lighting one up, tears still streaming down his cheeks. He took a deep drag. “Gonna be a good one today. I can tell,” and he offered me a smoke. See, first thing that happened to me today was an act of generosity.
    I shook my head. People moving all around. Elderly ones, or the touched ones, talking to themselves. Bundled up, mostly. Like that guy over there—three trashed coats and two grimy scarves. Hat pulled over the ears. It’s warm in here, but homeless folk hold their clothes tight.
    Gina entered my head then. I hadn’t thought of her at first, and that made me sad, you know, ’cause every time we talk now it’s probably the last. Without a miss for two-and-a-half months I’ve called her in the morning to say hi, to see how she is.
    My months, that is, not yours. Like I said, every day is Christmas for me, and for me, two-and-one half months ago was 1915 when this soldier I met, Humphrey, asked me to call Gina. He sat next to me in the trench; I’d found out earlier in the day that we were twenty miles south of Verdun. German trenches were a hundred yards to the east, but you couldn’t see them. Broken spirals of barbed wire, torn up dirt, a busted ambulance were all I could see. Night had fallen, and it had gotten very cold. A sentry walking by, head low, broke through a layer of fresh ice that had formed over the mud, so every step crackled, then squished. We had to pull our feet back to let him pass. The soldier’s boots made a silly little squeaking sound when they pulled free.
    Humphrey laughed. He was tired and scared, an eighteen-yearold Brit with a downy, blonde moustache and bloodshot eyes. He laughed at the ridiculous sound though, and then he started telling me about his family and his girlfriend, Gina. He talked for an hour, low and passioned and non-stop. He made me swear to contact her if he didn’t make it home.
    “It’s Christmas,” he said, and he didn’t say anything about where we were