Chapter Text
NOVINGER, MO
1953
They spend Christmas 1953 in Novinger, Missouri, and for as long as the snow keeps on falling they feel safe in the little town. The white crystals frame the narrow streets and little picturesque blue and pink and yellow houses in a peaceful border, inside which nothing bad can take place and through which no harm will pass and make its way to them.
Colourful women’s hats and monotone men’s coats bounce in sync with slow feet carefully sliding down the boulevard; children in white fluffy hats play in mountains of hard-packed snow. For being the day before Christmas, the town is still relatively peaceful - however, a sparse population of about 250 isn’t exactly prone to causing a terrible ruckus any other day of the year.
Earlier this evening, the odd duo trudged their way down Novinger’s slippy Main Street. They made for an interesting sight; a gloomy Irishman so pale he would have blended right in with the snow if not for his big clothes, and a cheerful black boy in his pre-teens, sporting blue jeans, a Russian fur hat and a brand new leather jacket. Some heads were turned - as they always are, no matter where the two of them are - but most of the inhabitants have gotten used to their presence and either ignore them or nod courtly when meeting each other in the street.
Satchel stood with his face and both of his hands pressed against the display window of a pet store, ogling all the accessories, cages and bags of food. They were presented so aesthetically perfectly they could have appeared in a newspaper on its whole own page as an ad for some high-end company, framed by lazy snowflakes and twinkling rainbow lights.
Satchel had tugged at Rabbi’s coat, and with huge sparkling eyes he said, pointing to a leather collar with a copper tag in the shape of a dog bone hung from the middle;
“Can we get this for Connor?”
Rabbi’s brow had furrowed as he leaned in to check the extravagant collar’s price, idling his hand on Satchel’s upper back. Upon focusing his eyes enough to read the fine numbers on the price plaque at the collar’s side, he involuntarily scoffed and shook his head quickly, straightening his back and huffing.
“No, it’s too expensive,” he mumbled, stuffing his hands into his coat’s pockets, “you could stay a whole week in a motel for that, Jesus Christ!”
Satchel crossed his arms and pouted, glaring up at Rabbi in a way that might have been intimidating if he wasn’t thirteen years old and still had the entire Wall of China of development ahead of him before becoming any kind of man.
“You didn’t even get me anything for my birthday this year.” He scowled. Rabbi’s shoulders sank with a sigh, and he looked away, pretending not to notice the burning gaze glued onto him. Because what the boy was saying was true - amidst moving from one motel to the other, picking up another sack of money at a nearby ranch, and fighting - and dumping the body of, but of course Satchel doesn’t know that - some racist punk trying to start shit, Satchel’s birthday had drifted into the very periphery of Rabbi’s mind.
His terrible conscience left a sour taste in his mouth and a dagger through his heart. He cleared his throat and shuffled awkwardly, avoiding looking the boy in the eyes.
“I’ll think about it,” Rabbi promised, “in the meantime, I have to go get us a little bush or something we can use as a tree. Could you go back to our place and put a pot of water on the stove?”
Satchel had already skipped down half the street - his arms stuck out at his sides to keep his balance - when he froze in place and began struggling his way back up the cunning ice towards Rabbi. When he finally got to him, he stretched his gloved hand out and lifted his brows high up in his forehead.
“Keys?”
*
Now, Rabbi is hovering by a toy shop window, mesmerised by the model railway in the display. After he got his groceries from the shop at the very top of the street, he has slowly been making his way back down - slow enough to be spellbound by the miniature train and its carefully sculpted surroundings, presumably a scaled-down version of Novinger.
A distant memory, sun-bleached and green with mould around the edges, slowly fades into Rabbi’s periphery.
It was a Christmas not unlike this one, only thirty years earlier and some hundred miles away - the falling snow, laughing children, stressed adults, red-white-green decorations nicely paraded in windows all around the town. All the same as back then.
Rabbi had neglected his chores around the Fadda household in favour of sitting wide-eyeD and gazing up at the richly decorated Christmas tree, as had Josto and Gaetano and all their other siblings and cousins and whatnot. Even Calamita, who at this point was somewhere in his late mid-teens, had hovered in the tree’s periphery with crossed arms, his nose stuck up in the air, sporting a slicked-back ‘do that was as perfect and flyaway-free as always.
The large pile of presents were all addressed to the Italian children and their parents. Wrapping paper and tape flew everywhere as the gifts were loudly and joyfully unwrapped, the scene reflected in shining red christmas tree decorations. A lone Irish boy watched and sat mute with empty hands and repressed tears as the night progressed; the sky darkened, as did his mood, his heart.
However, at the very bottom of the pile, was a small box wrapped in blue paper with a snowflake pattern scattered across the navy background, around which a golden ribbon was tied. In the middle of the knot was a tag with empty stars on the side, reading; “for Patrick, from Santa”.
And a dozen Italian heads turned, their green and brown eyes wide open. They passed the gift between themselves before it finally made its way to Rabbi; and when it did, they gathered around him in a circle, peering over his shoulders and over his head to get a look at what was inside.
Rabbi peeled the wrapping paper off carefully, making sure to be careful with whatever was inside, and as the blue paper fell away, he had the breath knocked out of him in wonder.
Inside was a shining red wooden train with hand-painted white windows with black borders and colourful arrays of flowers underneath; Milligan Railroads written in golden cursive handwriting on the side.
The Italian children were green with envy, and some even tried trading the train for some of their gifts, but Rabbi refused. He kept the train either in his hand or inside his hat for the remainder of the day, and thereafter in a safe place in his attic room. Only ever taking it out to admire it, and once more feel that pride at getting such a nice gift, made just for him.
Tears of joy, warm inside. Enough to keep him going through the winter; and the one after that; and the following; and the following, ad infinitum.
Abruptly torn out of the fog of memories by a car’s screeching tires, the adult Rabbi looks behind himself and, in the distance slightly off of the town’s main road, sees the one-story rental he and Satchel are staying in for the coming month. Smoke is rising from the chimney, and two squares are lit from the inside with warm yellow light - windows, the panes belonging to which Satchel has organized his schoolbooks by author, title and subject on top of.
Rabbi thinks about the little red train. That one thing, so symbolic, that brought him so much joy and made him feel so cared about that the light it lit inside him threatened to force him open.
The dog collar. Rabbi shifts his weight from one hip to the other, brow knit, thinking.
Missed his birthday.
Guilt.
We never stay long enough for him to make any friends, he only has the dog.
Guilt.
Not for him, but for her. He never asks for anything, yet I still don’t give him anything when he does.
Guilt.
The pet store has a somewhat rusted metal sign hanging above its door that reads of its open hours being until six in the afternoon on ‘Special Holidays’. Rabbi runs his tongue across his lower lip, regretting it the moment its chapped surface, now damp, is exposed to the winter cold that seems to want to dig its claws into his skin.
Palms at his pocket; little metal tube. New Vaseline.
Snowflakes tumble through the sky only to melt the moment they land on his warm face; he breathes white clouds, feels his feet freezing in his broken shoes.
And painstakingly slowly, but nonetheless determined, he begins trudging through the snow back towards the pet store.
*
Satchel spots the present on his pillow the moment he walks into the room. Immediately lighting up, so excited he can't form a full sentence, he asks;
"For me?"
Rabbi only smiles and gestures to the present. Satchel takes and squeezes it, shakes it next to his ear and traces the shape by depressing the red wrapping paper with his thumb. A yellow ribbon ties it together, curled and bouncy at the ends. Rabbi hides the evidence of the failed first attempts to get the ribbon this nice by folding his sliced thumb against his palm.
He nods and lifts his hand briefly from his lap before connecting it with his knee, and feels that comfortable, soft warmth he only ever feels when he makes the boy happy blooming out from the black hole that is his heart, forking his veins, erasing a line or two in his face, straightening his back just the slightest.
Rabbi watches fondly, smiling a little, as the kid tears the paper apart and is royally amused at how Satchel’s mouth falls open like a hinge when he discovers what’s inside. He turns the collar in his hands, bathing in the feeling of leather against his skin, tapping the metal clasp next to his ear as if to control that it’s real, letting out some choked sound of sheer disbelief.
And without warning, he launches himself at Rabbi and locks his arms around his neck with such force Rabbi’s breath is knocked out of him.
“Thank you so much!” he beams. Rabbi holds him close and pats Satchel’s back, his eyes closed, all of his teeth on display and his pale cheeks pink with laughter.
"Merry christmas, Satch," grins Rabbi, feeling as though he doesn't weigh more than a feather when Connor and Satchel gather together on the floor, "I better see that collar lots, every time you're out with the damn dog."
Satchel listens with half an ear, humming for an answer, trying to hold Connor still enough to secure the collar around her neck.
“Rabbi, look,” he says, suddenly, “I’ve taught her to sit. Look! Are you looking?”
Rabbi leans forward, shaking his hair out of his face.
“I am looking.”
Satchel turns his full focus onto Connor and makes some kind of gesture, her head attentively following his hand’s every move. He rotates his wrists and commands;
“Sit!”
Connor takes a seat, her wagging tail hammering like a drum against the floor. Rabbi nods, smiling, when Satchel, exuding pride, looks over for his approval. Excited and fuelled by his guardian’s enthusiasm, he turns back to Connor and exclaims;
“Roll-around!”
She flops down on her back and rolls around on the floor like a cigar after a free fall. Quick back on her feet, so eager for a treat she winces and half stands up.
The commands keep coming, one after the other, some trickier, some easy, some well known, some odd. Connor executes them all, just happy to be there and to be petted and fed a cube of bacon for every trick she does right. Rabbi is audibly impressed, silently wondering when and where on God’s green earth the kid learned all of this, and equally quietly warm and at peace as though Satchel’s enthusiasm was a fireplace in a snowstorm.
As the evening progresses and the dark sky slowly is decorated by white stars like diamonds against black velvet, fewer and fewer cars passing through the city make their presence known with blaring horns and beaming front lights. Window lights in the city and its’ outskirts are extinguished one by one; including Rabbi and Satchel’s rental as the two of them - and Connor - prepare for the night. They brush their teeth together outside - Satchel huddled up in Rabbi's coat and the latter pretending like he isn't freezing - and follow-up with their goodnights and turning out and extinguishing any lights left on in the bungalow.
Upon a final visit to the restroom before the night, Rabbi glances over his shoulder one last time before sinking into his bed. A weak shine like that of a flashlight is visible through Satchel’s bedsheets, presumably aid for reading in the dark. With a little smile and a slight rolling of his eyes, Rabbi decides to let it slide, thinking in quiet reflection; the only thing I hope to be remembered by is that I made you happy.
And for the first time in all his thirty-nine years, Patrick Milligan goes to bed feeling like he’s good enough.