by Billy Romp
“Are you ready for another great season?” Philippe asked.
“I’m counting on it,” I told him, trying to make light of it. What I didn’t say—and here’s where that masculine “cover” came in again—was that some reversals earlier that year had put me under serious financial pressure. I came to New York the previous day all too aware of the fact that a good tree season could make my year. A bad one would send me deeper in the hole. Before coming down to the city, I had worked myself up into such a state about our finances that, as much as I hate to admit this, I’d become a bit of a grouch. I was short with Patti and the children, and my left eye had started its nervous twitch.
It had gotten to the point that Patti had to sit me down and give me a stern lecture. She said that she and the children wouldn’t come to the city if I didn’t put my priorities in order. You can rebound from financial difficulties, she argued, but you’ll never have a second chance to spend family time together once it slips away from you. The Jane Street operation should serve our family, not the reverse. If she and the kids were down there only to help sell more trees, we would have defeated the purpose. Patti was right, as usual. So before we left, I made a vow not to let myself get so wrapped up in the commercial side of the business that I lost sight of the meaning within each Christmas tree and the broader spirit of the season within our family.
Philippe looked me over hard. “There’s something different about you this year. Can you feel it? I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
The way he was looking at me, I felt as if he already knew all about my money problems. I found his comment unnerving, so I didn’t answer him directly. Instead, I responded the way Patti always did when she wanted to be both affirming and noncommittal. “You have good instincts,” I said.
He let it go at that. Not pressing the point—allowing me my privacy—was in its own way an act of kindness. The generosity and spirit of the Jane Street community follows me throughout the year. During the eleven months when I’m back in Vermont, I regale my country neighbors with tales of the city. I tell them about the bottomless reservoir of goodwill on Jane Street. Many whose heads are filled with unshakable prejudices can’t believe it. They ask me whether I carry a gun in the city and imply that it’s not safe for us to take our children there. They have a picture of New Yorkers as cold, impersonal capitalists who don’t care one bit about their fellow man.
I have to admit I held some of these stereotypes, too, before my first year selling Christmas trees in Manhattan. That year and every one since, I’ve come to realize that something unusual happens there at Christmas. The kindness on Jane Street is like a force of nature. It takes on a life of its own in powerful and unexpected ways, pulling along unlikely candidates in its path, and transforming them into happier and more vibrant souls.
It would be hard to catalog the many acts of kindness that we have received over the years, but a few stand out. Each year, Angela from down the street brings us a homemade meal shortly after our arrival. One year, when I had contracted a nasty fever, she took me to her apartment, where her daughter, Donna, nursed me back to health. Another time, Andy, who owns a historic brass foundry, left his storefront office to chase down some thugs who tried to steal a Fraser fir from Patti. Another man, Andrew, the neighborhood dry cleaner, offers free dry cleaning service throughout our season. Every year a family across the street gives us their fax line for the month so we can run the line into our camper and have a phone. And then there’s the local meter maid who’s developed a permanent case of forgetfulness about ticketing our camper.
Of all die generosity heaped upon us each year, perhaps the most amazing is the offering of the keys. Every year, a row of hooks over the camper door clangs and dangles with sets of keys to various apartments around the neighborhood. Long-standing friends, like Emma’s mother, Anne Abbott, park a set of keys to their apartment with us at the beginning of the season along with the offer to use their place anytime for showers and shaves. But so do near strangers who, when they hear we have no running water in the camper, feel moved to open their homes to us. One year, I counted seven sets of keys on our rack.
Sometimes, as I hear the words coming from my mouth describing the magic on Jane Street to my Vermont neighbors, it’s hard even for me to believe the truth.
As a Yankee who was raised on the ethic of hard work and self-sufficiency, sometimes I’ve felt a bit uncomfortable with all the kind deeds coming our way. Like, what did I do to deserve them? And how could I ever repay the many kindnesses? The fact is, you can’t put a price tag on generosity or trust.
I gave the matter some thought and came up with a solution. It isn’t much, but I make it a point to carry my toolbox with me wherever I go. When I visit the apartments of my Jane Street neighbors for showers and shaves, I always fix leaky showerheads and faucets. If their doors are sticky, I oil the hinges—little things like that. Occasionally, people notice and say something. More often, they say nothing, and that pleases me. I figure I’ve spotted the problem before they have. I like myself in that role of goodwill elf, stealth handyman.
A lot of people came by the stand that day and greeted us by our nickname, the “tree people.” At first, I figured it was because they didn’t remember our Christian names. But Victor—the man everyone called the mayor of the West Village—knew our first names and called us the “tree people” anyway, out of affection. “Christmas has officially started!” he declared.
When he came up, I was chatting with Don, the neighbor from across the street who’d just hooked up a phone line for us. I trotted out one of my favorite sayings: “It’s another beautiful day in paradise!” Patti and I believe that if you say something often enough, it will come true. If I repeated this often enough, it would certainly calm my nerves about money and let Christmas work its magic on me and my family.
Don and Victor always got into it, kidding around. From inside his canvas bag, Victor produced a bag of walnuts wrapped in cellophane and presented it to me. It was fastened festively with a thin velvet ribbon.
“Walnuts!” I exclaimed. “Ellie’s favorite! Thank you so much.”
Like most of our customers, Victor was fond of our children. Many had personal favorites, the special child in whom they took an interest and followed from year to year. Some had taken a shine to Henry, the Romp family version of Tom Sawyer—wide-eyed, open-faced, and canny; others always seem to favor the youngest, which that year happened to be Timmy, our towheaded toddler. But Victor was an Ellie loyalist, had been from the start.
“They should be chestnuts,” he teased. “But I thought the ‘roasting on an open fire’ part might be hard for you to pull off without a fireplace.”
I chuckled and called my daughter. “Ellie! Look what Victor’s brought!”
Delighted, she could hardly wait to sample one. “Daddy, did we remember to bring a nutcracker?”
“Mom’s the chief cook, bottle washer, and kitchen stocker,” I said. “Ask her.”
Don took one of the walnuts, stuck it in a crumpled paper bag, and laid it on the damp sidewalk. “Who needs a nutcracker?” he said, stomping his heel on the bag. He reached inside and offered the nut meat to Ellie.
“Why didn’t I think of that,” Victor said, before asking Ellie to pick him a wreath—”the best of the lot.”
With an air of authority, she walked down one sidewalk, then up the next, studying the wreaths in their midair lineup. Over the years, I’ve watched Ellie’s role with the public develop. When she was Henry’s age, customers would ask her questions just to hear her talk. More recently, they’d begun to take her seriously.
When she returned with an unusually lovely, supple wreath, Victor exclaimed: “You got it! You found the best wreath on the lot!” He paid me, then gingerly pressed into Ellie’s hand a tip that I learned later was a five-dollar bill.
Victor just stood there. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sweet scent of evergreen. We learned long ago
that this scent could magically transport customers from Greenwich Village to some other place. For many, it was their memory of home; for others, it was their dream of what home should be.
“Who needs to go to the country for the holidays?” he asked, as if reading my mind. “You bring it here—Christmas on Jane Street.”
As he looked from our camper home—parked in its seasonal spot on Jane Street at the corner of Eighth Avenue—to the twin forests of trees, he was unable to suppress a smile.
Don hugged Ellie. “Cut any lumber lately?” he said, teasing her about her jacket.
That day, Ellie and I were “twins” in our matching black-and-red lumberjack shirts and blue jeans. In the morning, Ellie generally waited to dress until after she’d seen what I put on. Dressing alike was one of our most cherished Jane Street rituals. Customers frequently asked, “Is this your daughter?” and seemed pleased to find out she was.
Ellie shrugged, then, spotting Patti, the boys, and Santos the dog in the distance, scampered off to greet them.
“I wonder how long she’ll keep that up,” Don said.
I didn’t follow.
“I mean, how long is Ellie going to continue dressing like you? Most kids grow up so fast these days. Especially the girls.”
“Oh,” I said, dismissing him, “Ellie doesn’t have the same interests of other girls her age. She’s a tomboy. She’s known how to operate an electric drill since she was six. How many six-year-olds would you trust with an electric drill?”
In fact, Ellie often seemed like an old soul, closer in behavior and spirit to Patti and me than she was to her brothers, four and eight years younger respectively. Responsible and hardworking, she had been saving money to buy a horse in Vermont. She’d already settled on a black filly and had picked out a name—Thunder. Her odd jobs back home included helping milk cows and gather eggs for a farmer neighbor at five o’clock every morning. The previous fall, she had grown, harvested, and brought to market several rows of pumpkins.
When Ellie returned, we tackled our favorite job, one of the last in the tree-stand setup. I hoisted her up on my shoulders to nail lights to the top of the tree racks. Whenever possible, I gave Ellie the more responsible job and took the supporting role for myself.
“Look, Dad, no hands,” she exclaimed, flinging her arms off the support rack and reaching for the sky. Sometimes her fearlessness brought out my most cautious nature.
I decided to let it go. “All right, Ellie,” I said in a let’s-get-on-with-business tone. Looking back on that moment, I realize now that she was trying to make a grander statement. It’s funny how clearly you can see something in hindsight that you’re blind to at the time. All the signs of an imminent change were there at that moment, but my eyes weren’t open.
Just as quickly as she’d become the daredevil, Ellie was her serious self again. Expertly, she hammered nails onto the top of the tree racks. Once all the nails were in, she strung the line of lights along and bent the nails back over the line to hold it in place. The string of lights, which ran in a continuous line up Eighth Avenue and down Jane Street, unified our operation. In the dusk and in the evening, it added the magical appearance of twinkling stars above our small city forest.
With Ellie straddling my shoulders, I felt like the luckiest father alive. In my mind, my daughter was perfect—smart, confident, and strong. She could ride a horse or a bicycle faster than most boys her age, fix a flat on a bike, beat me in chess nine times out of ten, and pass for an adult on the phone. Though I’m not by nature a braggart, Patti continually had to restrain my tendencies to boast about Ellie.
I don’t know where it came from, but I do recall having this strong, sudden feeling of gratitude that I could still lift her that year. Since the previous December, she had gained stature, substance, and maturity. I wondered if that would be the last year I’d be able to lift her without straining my back. I wondered if that was the last year I’d be able to call her “my little girl” without seeming like the doting father.
Thinking about how much Ellie had grown made me remember our first Christmas on Jane Street. When we started selling trees there ten years ago, it was on a dare from my wife. That first year we came, Ellie was still in diapers, and Patti persuaded me that it would be fun to spend the Christmas season in New York City. Tree sales were meant to pay our way, no more, no less. It’s always fascinated me how life works. You start in one place and end up in another and never could have guessed how significant that starting point would be. That’s how it was with our Christmas tree stand. It began on a lark and had become the most important thing our family did every year.
Patti returned from her morning errands, holding Timmy on her hip. Henry was at her side, toting supplies. Patti stood at the corner, looking down one sidewalk and up the other. She surveyed our progress for a few moments approvingly, then disappeared into the camper to begin preparing supper.
Henry helped her carry bags into the camper, then dashed out to where Ellie was hammering. Looking up at his older sister, he tugged on my pants leg. “Let me,” he pleaded.
I couldn’t trust him with a hammer. If he hit the nail in the wrong place, it could break his thumb. Well aware of Henry’s jealousy of Ellie and of her special relationship with me, I racked my brain for some special charge I could give him. “Why don’t you get the broom and give the sidewalk its first sweep of the season?” I suggested.
“How come she gets to do all the fun stuff?”
“We’ve been through this before,” I told him. “When you’re her age—”
He cut me off. “ ‘When you’re her age,’ ” he mimicked. “Only thing is, she’s always going to be four years older than me.”
“I have a special job for you,” I told Henry. “Something Ellie didn’t do till she was older than you are now. But you’ll have to wait till after supper before I tell you.”
2
The Corner Tree
Every year for the past ten, we’ve decorated not one but two Christmas trees. The first is “the corner tree.” We never feel fully set up until it’s all decked out, standing proud and tall on the corner of Jane and Eighth, directing traffic and distracting busy New Yorkers from their woes. Surrounded by its kinsmen, the corner tree commands a strong and vital presence, greeting people and calling customers our way. Our second tree is, of course, the one we set up for our family Christmas celebration back in Vermont.
I told my son that first night we were in New York what his special duty would be. “Henry, I want you to pick out the corner tree this year.” I delivered the news in an earnest tone, like I was assigning him a most important task.
His eyes flashed with excitement and possibility. He appeared overjoyed but tried hard to conceal it. “You mean, any tree I pick you’ll put up. Any tree?”
“Yes, Henry,” I said. “Any tree.” Certain children, I’m convinced, would make the very best attorneys, and Henry was one of that group. Literal-minded, they remember every word you say and will repeat them to you when pleading their case. I added: “As long as you choose the best tree for the job. Usually we pick a tall tree, one of the premium Balsams or Frasers.”
It was a weighty decision—one he debated all weekend. Henry’s choice was never far from his thoughts. He posed a series of questions like, “Is it better if the corner tree is tall or wide?” “Can I choose any kind?” He even drew visitors to the stand, like Philippe and Angela, into the discussion. But I suspected that he was more interested in impressing them with his responsibility than in hearing their opinions. I tried to give him maximum leeway: “Those are your decisions, son, as long as you choose the best tree for the job.”
Henry’s intensity about the tree was equaled by Ellie’s enormous anticipation over her long-awaited reunion with Emma. Ellie had been in town for four whole days and not yet seen her dear friend. She had left numerous phone messages on the Abbott answering machine before getting a call back the previous day. It turned out that the family had been
away on a long Thanksgiving weekend, but they would arrive on Monday night—in time for the tree-trimming party!
Ellie had worked alongside me throughout the weekend. She helped me sell and bag trees and even make late-night deliveries. Her initiative was impressive. She made small talk with customers. She told them about her cat, Patches, in Vermont who had kittens twice a year, and she described the horse she was saving up to buy. She had an almost uncanny sense about which customers would want her opinion and around which ones she should remain quiet. She’d also taken it upon herself to help boost wreath sales. Even first-time customers noticed how compatible the two of us were. Several made comments like, “I wish I could get my daughter to help me the way yours does you.” When I tallied the daily sales totals, I saw that our teamwork had worked its magic on our sales figures.
In light of Ellie’s professional behavior on the stand, it might have been easy to forget that she was still a little girl. Except for two things.
One was Zippy. Zippy was Ellie’s stuffed monkey, whom she took everywhere. He was a treasured family member, a favorite of Patti’s when she was a girl in the fifties and sixties. He slept on Ellie’s bunk at night and spent every meal perched on her lap inside the camper. When she was outside, Zippy nestled comfortably in Ellie’s jacket with only his head peeping out to keep an eye on his mistress’s doings. The other thing that brought home Ellie’s youth to me was the fact that her friend Emma was never far from her thoughts.
As soon as we arrived in town, we’d begun posting fliers made by the kids inviting one and all to our annual tree-trimming party that Monday night. We taped these green, photocopied fliers around the stand and tacked them on bulletin boards in neighborhood buildings. We hung a few on the fence and handed some out to customers and pedestrians. The more the merrier! Come one, come all!