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72 Christmas Is A Sad Season For The Poor

Christmas is a Sad Season

for the Poor

By John Cheever - December 1949

Christmas is a sad season. The phrase came to
Charlie an instant after the alarm clock had
waked him, and named for him an amorphous
depression that had troubled him all the
previous evening. The sky outside his window
was black. He sat up in bed and pulled the light
chain that hung in front of his nose. Christmas
is a very sad day of the year, he thought. Of all
the millions of people in New York, I am
practically the only one who has to get up in the
cold black of 6 a.m. on Christmas Day in the
morning; I am practically the only one.
He dressed, and when he went
downstairs from the top floor of the rooming regular and profound vibration, and the sullen "Oh, Charlie!" Mrs. DePaul was a stout woman
house in which he lived, the only sounds he noises of arriving steam heat began to resound, with an impulsive heart, and Charlie's plaint
heard were the coarse sounds of sleep; the only first in the lobby and then to reverberate up struck at her holiday mood as if she had been
lights burning were lights that had been through all the sixteen stories, but this was a caught in a cloudburst. "I do wish we could
forgotten. Charlie ate some breakfast in an all- mechanical awakening, and it didn't lighten his share our Christmas dinner with you, you
night lunchwagon and took an Elevated train loneliness or his petulance. The black air outside know," she said. "I come from Vermont, you
uptown. From Third Avenue, he walked over to the glass doors had begun to turn blue, but the know, and when I was a child, you know, we
Park. Park Avenue was dark. House after house blue light seemed to have no source; it appeared always used to have a great many people at our
put into the shine of the street lights a wall of in the middle of the air. It was a tearful light, and table. The mailman, you know, and the
black windows. Millions and millions were as it picked out the empty street and the long file schoolteacher, and just anybody who didn't have
sleeping, and this general loss of consciousness of Christmas trees, he wanted to cry. Then a cab any family of their own, you know, and I wish
generated an impression of abandonment, as if drove up, and the Walsers got out, drunk and we could share our dinner with you the way we
this were the fall of the city, the end of time. He dressed in evening clothes, and he took them up used to, you know, and I don't see any reason
opened the iron-and-glass doors of the to their penthouse. The Walsers got him to why we can't. We can't have you at the table,
apartment building where he had been working brooding about the difference between his life in you know, because you couldn't leave the
for six months as an elevator operator, and went a furnished room and the lives of the people elevator—could you?—but just as soon as Mr.
through the elegant lobby to a locker room at overhead. It was terrible. DePaul has carved the goose, I'll give you a
the back. He put on a striped vest with brass Then the early churchgoers began to ring, and I'll arrange a tray for you, you know,
buttons, a false ascot, a pair of pants with a ring, but there were only three of these that and I want you to come up and at least share our
light-blue stripe on the seam, and a coat. The morning. A few more went off to church at eight Christmas dinner."
night elevator man was dozing on the little o'clock, but the majority of the building Charlie thanked them, and their
bench in the car. Charlie woke him. The night remained unconscious, although the smell of generosity surprised him, but he wondered if,
elevator man told him thickly that the day bacon and coffee had begun to drift into the with the arrival of friends and relatives, they
doorman had been taken sick and wouldn't be in elevator shaft. wouldn't forget their offer.
that day. With the doorman sick, Charlie At a little after nine, a nursemaid came Then old Mrs. Gadshill rang, and when
wouldn't have any relief for lunch, and a lot of down with a child. Both the nursemaid and the she wished him a merry Christmas, he hung his
people would expect him to whistle for cabs. child had a deep tan and had just returned, he head.
Charlie had been on duty a few minutes knew, from Bermuda. He had never been to "It isn't much of a holiday for me, Mrs.
when 14 rang—a Mrs. Hewing, who, he Bermuda. He, Charlie, was a prisoner, confined Gadshill," he said. "Christmas is a sad season if
happened to know, was kind of immoral. Mrs. eight hours a day to a six-by-eight elevator cage, you're poor. You see, I don't have any family. I
Hewing hadn't been to bed yet, and she got into which was confined, in turn, to a sixteen-story live alone in a furnished room."
the elevator wearing a long dress under her fur shaft. In one building or another, he had made "I don't have any family either, Charlie,"
coat. She was followed by her two funny- his living as an elevator operator for ten years. Mrs. Gadshill said. She spoke with a pointed
looking dogs. He took her down and watched He estimated the average trip at about an eighth lack of petulance, but her grace was forced.
her go out into the dark and take her dogs to the of a mile, and when he thought of the thousands "That is, I don't have any children with me
curb. She was outside for only a few minutes. of miles he had travelled, when he thought that today. I have three children and seven
Then she came in and he took her up to 14 he might have driven the car through the mists grandchildren, but none of them can see their
again. When she got off the elevator, she said, above the Caribbean and set it down on some way to coming East for Christmas with me. Of
"Merry Christmas, Charlie." coral beach in Bermuda, he held the narrowness course, I understand their problems. I know that
"Well, it isn't much of a holiday for me, of his travels against his passengers, as if it were it's difficult to travel with children during the
Mrs. Hewing," he said. "I think Christmas is a not the nature of the elevator but the pressure of holidays, although I always seemed to manage
very sad season of the year. It isn't that people their lives that confined him, as if they had it when I was their age, but people feel
around here ain't generous—I mean I got plenty clipped his wings. differently, and we mustn't condemn them for
of tips—but, you see, I live alone in a furnished He was thinking about this when the the things we can't understand. But I know how
room and I don't have any family or anything, DePauls, on 9, rang. They wished him a merry you feel, Charlie. I haven't any family either. I'm
and Christmas isn't much of a holiday for me." Christmas. just as lonely as you."
"I'm sorry, Charlie," Mrs. Hewing said. "Well, it's nice of you to think of me," he Mrs. Gadshill's speech didn't move him.
"I don't have any family myself. It is kind of sad said as they descended, "but it isn't much of a Maybe she was lonely, but she had a ten-room
when you're alone, isn't it?" She called her dogs holiday for me. Christmas is a sad season when apartment and three servants and bucks and
and followed them into her apartment. He went you're poor. I live alone in a furnished room. I bucks and diamonds and diamonds, and there
down. don't have any family." were plenty of poor kids in the slums who
It was quiet then, and Charlie lighted a "Who do you have dinner with, would be happy at a chance at the food her cook
cigarette. The heating plant in the basement Charlie?" Mrs. DePaul asked. threw away.
encompassed the building at that hour in a "I don't have any Christmas dinner,"
Charlie said. "I just get a sandwich." (Continued On Page 73)