The Christmas was grey and chilled. He was not there to give it warmth. The wind’s icy fingers fondled him beneath his father’s blue wool overcoat, massaging the nape of his emaciated neck and the bony outlines of his ribs.
Aside from the swirling snow, nothing else moved on the block of shops closed for the holy night. The huge flakes drifting down from heaven to the dirty, sodden streets of middle America seemed to soften the industrial noises of the surrounding middle class town. Not a sound could be heard on the darkening streets: not a passing car, no the soap factory churning out hundreds of bars of glycerin soap by the minute. Jonas couldn’t even hear the trucks or semis zooming past Haxton on the adjacent interstate.
Jonas wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck and face as he stared into the window of Kesey Gallery. A life-size photograph of a pre-adolescent boy gazed back at him. The young boy’s naked chest and arms were marred by white scars waxen with age. The boy in the black and white still carried a teddy bear by one ragged paw and had a rifle resting on the other shoulder.
Jonas recognized the scars as being from deep cuts and serious belt lashings. Yet the photograph’s subject wore the spider webs of scar tissue as an armor, as though proud that his interconnected weaving on his chest would shield him from the worst of the world.
Jonas studied the blank eyes in the photograph, hoping to see some sort of humanity, or innocence, or light reflected in those pools of dark sorrow. It wasn’t until he tasted the salt that he realized that he was weeping. Tears fell slowly in a lazy zig-zag down his face much like the snow fell.
It was as if he were meeting his brother for the first time—a recognition of hared terror, pain, and violent retribution. Jonas swallowed his gum, pulled his hat down over his ears, and wandered into the cold night in search of pancakes and possibly a warm place to sleep.
Photo: day-light
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