“Very philosophical.”
The clerk nodded to his copy of Small Arms Monthly. “I do a lot of reading.”
Gerald studied the rows of pint bottles over the clerk’s shoulder. He drank infrequently, almost never hard liquor. He remembered his granddad, his mother’s father, who he called Popsy, quaffing E&J XO Brandy from a coffee mug. Regular days he preferred beer or rye and never until six o’clock, but on Christmas it was brandy only and brandy early. Gerald asked for a bottle.
“The St. Remy costs a bit more but it’s a lot better,” the counterman said. “It is Christmas.”
“You just said it’s only a holiday if you want it to be.”
“Depends,” said the philosopher-clerk, “if you want the XO or the St. Remy.”
Gerald returned to the restaurant with his brown bagged bottle and waited another five minutes for his order to come up. The longer he sat, the more he worried that the untended fire had broken free from the Holiday Hearth, and was right now swallowing up the station. He sped back to find the building standing cool and quiet in the snow.
Inside, he refueled the fire. Then he cracked open his bottle to celebrate a successful caper.
* * *
Gerald was delighted to find the marsupial front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt perfectly fit a pint of brandy and two egg rolls.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” he muttered.
He ambulated up and down the hallways, sipping and munching. The brandy’s sugary sharpness tasted not entirely unlike sweet and sour sauce, and paired nicely with the greasy dough and savory pork. He made an illegible mental note to share this discovery with the Golden Gardeners.
Gerald left a wake of glistening crumbs behind him as he meandered from office to office. In Dean Phillips’ desk he found a disorganized free-for-all of paperclips and uncapped pens and, deep in the back, a gently used cocaine spoon. Next to the typewriter stood a framed picture of Dean and his blonde, tanned wife bookending sunshiny kids standing proud in their bathing suits on Dean’s pontoon boat, the “News Anchor’s Away!”
It was difficult to imagine coiffed Dean as a family man. Watching kids play sports without the buffer of sportscaster Dan Tremain. Waking up next to a woman with no makeup and sleep-smushed hair. Telling his wife he loved her without the aid of a teleprompter.
I love that story.