It's a rare thing for Marty Guilfoyle to catch a break so close to Christmas. Usually it's unpaid bills, expensive gifts on installment, a whispered suicide too far removed to matter. When his foreman rings the bell hours ahead of schedule on Christmas Eve without saying a word, the men on the production floor don't ask questions. Factory work is hard-- harder with a boss who only speaks to kick your shins-- so every little drop of humanizing grace is savored. The day shift punches out in a huddle with talk of pungent eggnog, women too weary from chasing excited children to put up a fight, and sanctified gifts of matrimony that only come on special occasions after the honeymoon's faded. Most of them are lying. They'll sleep as unsatisfied as ever. A wise man once warned Marty not to marry for love, but for friendship. Love will recede with beauty over time. A companion of the truest form will be there when you wake without teeth in the morning someday. That same sage went mad years later. They said it was work-related, but Marty knew better. There are thousands of ways a man can make money, but far fewer means of rationalizing the race. Something told Marty the catalyst had a name and a face, a way of pinching the outside corners of her eyes when she smiled. He thinks of what she might smell like in the morning as he lets his coworkers clock out ahead of him to embark on their hopeful homeward dash.
Marty's trek is not a long one. When he and Ethel picked a place to call their own he made it a point to keep it close to the living, breathing building where he slaves for minimum wage and partial benefits. Even on his days off he can hear the whistle that punctuates the beginning and end of lunch break. Ethel has always criticized him for his inability to expand his horizons. This year he's hoping to make up for his simplicity with the boxed and wrapped necklace he's clutching in the pocket of his heavy overcoat with threadbare elbows. After last year's mistaken gift of a kitchen appliance he swore he'd never fall short in the present department again. Ethel never once made waffles, before or after that doomed twenty-fifth.
A headline jumps out at him from the remnants of a tattered newspaper decomposing in the gutter. The Communists are taking over in a land too far east for him to fathom. Marty could never comprehend how a foreigner's chosen system of government could affect his daily living or justify sudden absences in positions once held by young men at his factory. That was another point of contention for Ethel-- a prime example of his naivete that kept her crawling up the walls. The concept of a Cold War escaped Marty's narrow thinking. If anything, he sometimes joked to himself, the term should be used to describe love after forty.
When he climbs the steps to his apartment a chill comes over his shoulders like a cold breath from above. Something doesn't feel right. The hallway seems too quiet. There are no squeals of merry children sneaking under loosely fitting doors. Without noticing it he clings harder to the small package in his pocket that cost him three-weeks' pay. Ethel's taste is specific. He hopes he's gotten it pinned this time. A strange unfamiliarity descends as he reaches for the lock with his battered brass key. The knob turns, but the door is caught by the chain. Ethel never uses that added means of safety and laughs at Marty's paranoia when he secures it before bed. No lights or sounds come from the gap revealing his slice of rehearsed Heaven. Marty looks down and sees a pair of boots he doesn't recognize on the uneven hardwood floor. Instantly he knows; he knows and doesn't want to.
"Just as well," he whispers to the peeling paint of Apartment 4B's entrance. With a loveless toss the perfectly wrapped jewelry box lands in the Stranger's left boot, a penance paid for having come home too early for the motions to continue. There's an opportunity for overtime on the aptly named Bachelor's Shift that appeals to the place where Marty's heartache should reside. A man, if given the chance, will gracefully go gray. He hurries down the stairwell hoping not to hear the whistle that designates beginnings of the shift and his new life. Saint Nick and the Communists aren't the only coming red-clad men.
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