A tale of three Christmases
In 1985 after working a month of ten hour days sitting in a shopping mall doing portraits of everything from children to dogs,
I went to my sisters for a Christmas eve meal with the rest of the family visiting from around the country. I lived in Mexico but did the Christmas in a mall gig to support my meanderings there. I stayed at my mother's house while in California and we were to have Christmas dinner at her house the following day.
As I had put in my final ten hour day that day I was exhausted. I begged off early and returned to my mother's house about ten miles away.
Walking up to the house, I noticed the door ajar and ran to my bedroom at the top of the stairs to find all my money missing.
A months worth of portraits profits gone. The money I had already spent in my mind was gone. It is hard to describe the feeling, but it was far
worse than death, I'm sure. With death, it's over. I still had Christmas dinner to deal with. Needless to say I was a bummer not only to myself but to the twenty people visiting from distant parts. I stayed bummed out for some time to come.
I gained weight and started smoking again. When I finally pulled myself out of it, I swore to never get bummed out about money again,
It just wasn't worth it.
I 1992 I was house sitting for a friend who had overstayed his trip in the US at Christmas and I had already rented my own apartment and
moved in before he returned. His place was left empty and I felt guilty, but My new place was fantastic and I was eager to begin the experience. The first night I was away someone broke in and stole the boom box and the vcr. An old friend and Viet Nam vet suggested that rather than call the police, we should stay up the next night and see if he came back for the stuff he didn't take the night before. We laid there in the dark for hours waiting. About five AM we decided he wasn't coming and closed our eyes. I started to have a dream of someone peeking in the window and woke with a start to be face to face with the thief peering in the window. He couldn't see me for some reason and started for the kitchen window where he had entered the previous night. We quietly got up and crept to the dining room with our machetes and waited as he fit his way into the dark kitchen.
When I thought the time was right I jumped around the corner and swung my machete with full force at what I thought was his neck. The instant I felt my blade hit flesh I knew of my error. I realized I wasn't in a movie and I wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger and in an instant I released my grip on the weapon and tackled the intruder. I felt his blood as the he kept calling me his Amigo from underneath me.
He was much shorter than I had anticipated and that fact alone kept him from dieing and me from killing. It did give him ten stitches in the head though, something I am not proud of.
We had the police come and pick him up and the next day they asked me to go sign a complaint. When I arrived at the district attorney's office
his wife was there waiting for me. She was young and pretty with two children. 15 as a matter of fact. She told me he had lost his job
and her kids were sick and that she still had the things he took and would happily return them. It was Christmas, though I don't know why that would affect me, as agnostic as I am, but I bailed that little fellow out of jail that day and took him to my new house and taught him how to make wood frames for the paintings I was doing. Soon I had more frames than I knew what to do with and had to start painting harder just to fill them.
Soon, I had more paintings than I knew what to do with and so opened a gallery and WOW one thing has led to another until I now own my own home and a restaurant and a motor home and all kinds of shit I don't need just because I bailed that little guy out of jail.
Last night someone stole my car. While I'm writing this in response, therapy I suppose, I have to wonder about the poor guy that is reduced to stealing cars at Christmas time.
It must be worse than doing portraits in a mall at Christmas time is all I can say. I hope his next job is better.