Not Beautiful by Rick Kempa

There’s this sorry-looking guy manning the self-checkout lane at the grocery store on Christmas morning. I glance at him as we walk by—stooped shoulders and drooping arms, unbuttoned sleeves and loose shirt-tail—and I say to Fern, “I guess Santa didn’t give him what he wanted.” She pokes me. “Hush!” Later, from the corner of the coffee bar at the front of the store, I eye him.  

He leans on the counter with one balled hand, raps the surface with the other. He shifts his weight from side to side, one untied lace flapping. His forehead is a barrens strafed by winds, his mouth a small round cave, his eyes dull pebbles submersed in shallow, shifting pools. He licks his lips, rubs his palms across his pate.

Oh, the shoppers are bright today, a steady stream of good cheer, of Santa hats and tasseled scarves, a red and gold and green blur streaming through the checkout lanes! They wave at him when they need help, big looping gestures that one might use to catch a friend’s eye in the street. He advances, looms above them, stabs some buttons on the screen, retreats. Their smiles fade, their thanks stick in their throats.

He’s got a box of candy canes he has been told to give away. Such punishment! He tries to slip them in the sacks unseen. A girl in a reindeer suit extends a pudgy hand; he thrusts one at her and she ducks behind her mother’s skirt.

A woman with a gold wreath emblazoned on a black sweatshirt does not go quietly. “Merry Christmas!” she barks, and shows her teeth. He cringes as if slapped, and she mocks him as she flows past in a sing-song way: “…or whatever it is that you say on this day.”

He will say nothing. A single word or half a breath might breach the dam. What is it? Schism? Loss?

Here at my table in the corner with my coffee and notebook and pen, and my body folded into itself, eyes narrowed, forehead creased—apparently I too seem an object of suffering, because the people in line for their Christmas drink are trying to catch my eye so they can assail my gloom. A young woman in a sweat suit waiting for her drink sidles up, says soberly, “Good morning, sir.” I must remind her of her father.

It’s true, I’m hurting suddenly for this man unmoored in the checkout lane and for all to whom I am no help: my daughter’s ex-boyfriend, a good guy, alone today with his video games in this very town; my brother standing at our parents’ graves in Denver, talking to them as if they are all gathered around the kitchen table; the estranged son of another brother in his cheap flat in Brooklyn; the uncounted others out in the street the way I was one Christmas decades back, hearing the laughter and songs and surprised shrieks spill from the tenement houses—“Aw ma, you shouldn’t have!” “Come here child, so I can hug you.” In my pocket were just enough coins for a drink or a phone call, and I walked all morning fingering them because I did not know which I needed most.

Worst of all was this: a man wrestling with a Christmas tree by a dumpster. It was bigger than him, and it fought back. The boughs caught and rode the wind like tinseled sails, and it rose from his hands and bounced on the gravel, once, twice. He scuttled after it. I wanted to say, “Hey man, what’s the rush? It’s eight a.m. on Christmas Day!” I thought of the children in his home staring at its absence. But dumpster space must be seized, or lost. He gripped the trunk and a clump of boughs, rocked back on his heels, and heaved it at the bin. It landed with a whoosh and exhaled the last of the warm air from his living room, and we turned from it, a thing unloved and thus not beautiful.

Poet and essayist Rick Kempa lives in Rock Springs, WY, where he teaches at Western Wyoming College. His books include the anthology ON FOOT: Grand Canyon Backpacking Stories, from Vishnu Temple Press in Flagstaff, and the poetry collection Ten Thousand Voices, published by Littoral Press in Richmond. For more information, visit rickkempa.com.