Remembering Christmas by Drew Ferguson

me?”
    The young man was dressed for a formal portrait, in a jacket and tie, his serious grimace adding a year or two to his boyish face.
    â€œI hired him out of pharmacy school to work in the Cairo store. He’s working as the night manager in a Walgreen’s branch in Vienna now because of the company’s nepotism policy. Evelyn loves him. He takes better care of her than I do.”
    â€œJesus Christ,” James gasped, astonished by this unexpected revelation. “How old is he? Fourteen?”
    â€œVery funny. He’s twenty-six.”
    â€œAnd you’ll be forty-seven on your next birthday.”
    â€œSo?”
    James struggled to find the right words to express his contempt without inflicting permanent damage to their friendship.
    â€œYou’ll look ridiculous.”
    Roy tossed back a shot of Wild Turkey and ordered another round.
    â€œYou know, this isn’t exactly the reaction I would have expected from a jaded and sophisticated man of the world like Jimmy, excuse me, James, Hoffmann.”
    â€œThese things never work out in the end. You’re going to get hurt,” James insisted, his argument grounded as much in envy as in concern. “It can’t last.”
    â€œNothing lasts forever, Jimmy,” Roy said, his green eyes brimming with kindness. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t appreciate what we have while we have it.”
    The altercation between the entertainment and her hecklers had reached a fever pitch. Punches were being thrown, and a microphone stand was being brandished as a lethal weapon. Aloysius calmly reached under the bar and retrieved a pistol, blowing on a whistle to make sure he had the entire room’s undivided attention.
    â€œIf you boys think I won’t use this, just turn around and count all the bullet holes in that wall,” he said without raising his voice, taking aim over James’s shoulder.
    The two thugs, nasty little assholes with sexy jarhead buzz cuts, grumbled, mumbling vague threats as they shambled out the front door. The floor show resumed to appreciative catcalls and applause.
    â€œYou still get raided, Aloysius?” James asked, as the bartender poured a shot of Sambuca to reward himself for his cool head and steady aim.
    â€œNaw,” he said. “No one really gives a shit anymore. I miss them old days, don’t you?”
    Â 
    Them old days didn’t seem so different than these new days, at least during a light snowfall at one-thirty in the morning, the deserted streets of downtown Parkersburg illuminated by strings of Christmas lights. At high noon on a bright, sunny day, it was impossible to ignore that bail bondsmen and auto tag shops now leased the storefronts that had once been occupied by dress shops and bakeries and drugstores with soda fountain service. Commerce had moved out near the interstate exits where strip malls anchored by huge box stores offered acres of free parking. James flipped on the radio in the car, feeling lonely and wanting a bit of companionship. The AM band was wall-to-wall religious music—warbling gospel singers and treacly choirs and, worst of all, some abomination called Christian rock. The FM stations were solid classic rock, “Walk This Way” and Electric Light Orchestra. He slipped a disc in the player and drove home listening to Bach arranged for guitar.
    Damn, he thought, cursing himself for his earlier brief lapse of judgment. What the hell had gotten into him, agreeing to make the trip to Pittsburgh International tomorrow night? The drive north would be torture. He would be a prisoner, forced to listen to candy-colored tales of Roy and Anh Vu shopping together for the perfect leather sofa, snuggling up on a Saturday night to watch Four Weddings and a Funeral on DVD, and planning their weekend escapes to the District of Columbia to see k.d. lang and Sarah Brightman in concert. The long ride home would be even worse, with James