“Find It at Manny’s,” read the obscured and faded sign above the door of
the second-hand shop at the corner of Souk Kahn el Zeit and the via decumanus
on the Upper West Side. “’Manny’s’ must have stood there a long time from the
looks of the building’s façade,” mused old Jon Pilgrim as he navigated the
narrow street coloured by what may well have been every character of vendor in
the world. Faded, obscure and perhaps even archaic though it was, something out
of the ordinary obliged Jon’s attention to “Manny’s” and, on a whim, he decided
to wander in. Perhaps he would find a Christmas gift for his young granddaughter,
Aly.
On pushing
open the paint-starved shop door, Jon’s senses were immediately piqued by a pungent
scent that he couldn’t quite identify – some sort of oriental spice mixed with a
lingering rush of musk, no doubt from
the age of the antiquities he found in the store. There was every adhibitious
and well worn item imaginable - all, to be sure, of singular significance to
someone – but not to Jon who, at this point in his life had found himself a
little like Manny’s – obscured and faded, musky and arcane.
Not
succeeding with his Aly-gift search, Jon ambled aimlessly toward the
haberdashery section, a waste of time he suspected – yet – “promising” - Promising, in that a voice in his head that he
had not heard in a long time, beckoned him on – on to find something for
himself no, something of himself.
“Well, clothes
make the man,” Jon smiled semi-sarcastically to himself, for he knew that it is
not what goes on a man that makes him, but what comes out of him. Then it
dawned on him like the iridescent ignition of the Mercury-vapor street lamp
that incessantly illuminated the evening outside – yet creeping into - his
bedroom, that this was his annual
introspection, the journey inside himself that always manifested itself in a
search for himself or something of himself. However, this year bore the promise
of something different because all that was within him convinced to him that it would at last be found.
However,
what was it? What did he seek and did he really
want to find it, or was he afraid to
find it. In finding it, would his perennial pilgrimage be past, his reason for
existence realized and thus, retired?
Perhaps
restated, whom did he seek? Was it
himself or someone else – perhaps someone for whom he had sought his whole
life? “Hmm,” he thought, “deep questions for such a season as this in such a
place as this.” And then he thrust the thought from his thinking – he thought.
Instead, a
cold, somber shudder shot through the sinews of his shoulders – a chill; and he
felt an icy grip grasp at those shoulders. The chill proceeded perceptibly
until it would but engulf the all of him, pushing him, ever so slowly toward
absolute zero, the temperature at which all motion would cease.
Jon neither
sighted nor sensed any heat in the place that would curb the chill; but he did notice
in the corner among all the other odds and ends, a Cardigan sweater displayed
on a half-manikin form. No matter what else he perused in the shop, his
attention returned to the sweater and he edged closer and closer to it until he
reached out and touched it. And when he touch it, he experienced inexpressible
warmth - not a burning as in touching a steaming tea kettle, but a warming emanation
that raced from his fingers up into his arm. It so stunned him that he quickly
withdrew the hand. Yet, the sweater continued to draw him toward it. There as
something pleasingly pleasant about the sweater that was comfortably familiar
to him. Perhaps it was the fabric; perhaps it was the green-gold colour; perhaps
it was the smell. Perhaps, perhaps . . .
“That’s just
like my Uncle Cee’s sweater,” he surprisedly thought to himself! This
realization salved some of the unfamiliarity that had startled him and he again
traced the sweater’s cusp, this time fingering its fabric, fiddling with the
buttons - the buttons that were exactly
like the buttons on Uncle Cee’s old sweater wedded to the wool fabric that,
too, was exactly like the fabric of Uncle
Cee’s sweater. Excitedly, he examined the label and was not a soupçon surprised
that it was the same size as Uncle Cee’s sweater.
As he
continued to ponder the sweater, he noticed that the second button from the
bottom was missing just like on Uncle Cee’s sweater. He carefully surveyed the
sleeves and found a slight hole on the right sleeve just below the elbow. “As I
remember,” he thought, “Uncle Cee’s sweater had a hole right about there, I can
remember finding that hole with my fingers when I climbed on his back to ride
on his broad shoulders.”
Now, his
uncle had been the only father figure Jon had ever known and he had passed away
when Jon was but a young man. Jon remembered fondly times growing up around his
uncle: sitting beside him in the seat of the old blue Dodge truck; picking up
pecans in the big back yard; going with him to his office; and throwing the
baseball around with him. The times that he found the most remarkable though, were
the breakfasts of flowery pancakes and sweet maple syrup when his uncle would always
read the Bible and pray. In those prayer
times, Uncle Cee’s spirit carried Jon close to the very presence of God. It was
as if Uncle Cee and God were on first-name terms. “Those were times when my spirit soared!” Jon rehearsed
wistfully, “how did I ever let myself outgrow them?”
Gently, lovingly,
he unbuttoned the sweater from the manikin form, removed it, and held it up. It
felt like Uncle Cee’s sweater – no,
it was Uncle Cee’s sweater. How very
odd, yet how very wonderful it was. In a strange way, and though it should have,
this episode did not strike Jon as surreal at all rather, it wore on quite naturally.
The next
“natural” thing, then would be for Jon to try the sweater on. He remembered as
a little boy, putting on his uncle’s sweater and finding how bulky it was on
him; how the hem had hung almost to his ankles; and how the sleeves had dangled
like ape-arms. It always made him feel “big” to put on that sweater, almost
like putting on the manhood of his uncle. So Jon put the sweater on and found it
to fit as though it had been personally tailored for him by one of the Brooks
Brothers.
Immediately,
he noticed how the chill from his shoulders had vanished and how welcome warmth
had engulfed his torso. As he summoned the courage to look at himself in a gilt-framed
pier mirror nearby, he noticed the thinning grayish-white hair of Uncle Cee,
yet he found the hair to be firmly attached to his own head.
He continued
to be amazed and overwhelmed at how well the sweater fit and suited him. “I’ve
got to buy this sweater,” he thought to himself, “I wonder how much it is?” He
took it off and looked for the price tag. He could not find where one was nor
ever had been.
Jon looked
around the shop until he saw a Queen Anne’s desk in the back and bespectacled
little man wearing a plaid shirt with a tie and a vest sitting at the desk.
Assuming him “Manny,” he took the sweater over to the desk and said, “Excuse
me, Sir, are you Manny?” “What do you
think?” was the answer from the man. “I think you are,” said Jon. “Then I must be,”
came the answer. “I’d like to buy the sweater, how much is it?” “It’s not for
sale,” the little man shot back, “you can’t buy
it - but I will give it to you.
Consider it . . . a Christmas gift.”
Jon came back, “Oh, I couldn’t accept it without paying for it.” “Then I guess
you won’t have it,” said the vested man – please, take it.” “Ok, then, I will,”
Jon said.” “And will you need a bag for it?” the man inquired, probably knowing
the answer already. “No, I’ll wear it
out. “ – And he did.
Jon must
have walked for more than three hours up the via decumanus as it wound itself
through the Upper West Side. This was unfamiliar territory to Jon. There must
have been a thousand people on that street, walking, talking, selling -
watching - but Jon didn’t notice them, his mind and his spirit were somewhere
else, perhaps in the past, perhaps in the future, perhaps not even here at all. The street began to climb
and now became a hill. Driven on by who knows what or whom, Jon pressed up that hill that day until he reached an
overhang at the apex where “on a clear day,” Jon thought, “you can see
forever.”
Dusk
descended and the Mercury-vapor streetlights began to ignite. To the West, Jon immersed
himself in the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen: surfer blue dashed with
gold-tipped puffs of white popcorn gave way to gray-toned streaks against a
field of rose . . . now crowning crimson . . . now profoundly purple. . . now majestic
midnight blue dotted with a thousand points of pure white-gold light. A gentle wind began to blow, then breeze, then
bluster until it tousled Jon’s thinning gray hair and reminded his knees how
far they had walked that day – and those years. “The sweater felt good,” he
thought.
As he watched the last mahogany lines of day nestle behind
the dim-emblanketed city, he was reminded of the many sunsets and sunrises he had experienced with Uncle
Cee, long since past. And he thought, “This is not the end of an old day, but
the beginning of a new one.” Jon
reached into the right-hand pocket of the sweater and to his surprise (but not
really) , he retrieved a small Testament Bible. He opened it and by the dim,
iridescent dusk-light, he turned to the page that read, “I am the Way.” ”Yes, You are,” thought Jon, and kneeling by an
exceedingly old fragment of wood, Jon, for the first time in ages, prayed - -
and God called him by his first name.
Epilogue – Jon found that in God’s
acceptance of him, he could also accept the self he had become. Acceptance is a
gift from God – and perhaps acceptance of himself was the best gift Jon could
have received that year; likewise, perhaps it was the best gift he could give
to Aly and the best legacy he could leave for her.
Here’s hoping that
you find the “self” that both you and God can accept this Christmas.
Granddaughters, Aly
and Leslie and I wish you a Merry Christmas.
