by E. F. Mulder
“Ouch. I really thought I’d be yesterday’s news by now.”
“I hope no one escapes the kindergarten you volunteer at and ransacks your home while you were at the restaurant.”
I laughed. “Me too. Other than Emily, so far, people aren’t tracking me down in person. As long as I avoid the Internet….”
“Ignore that antisocial media nonsense.”
“The memes are the worst, Mom. I never in a million years expected to be portrayed as Osama bin Laden or Satan, but there I am, setting fire to a Christmas tree as one, and with horns and a tail poking at the manger with my pitchfork in the other. Each one has been shared hundreds of times. These people are hardcore.”
“I hate the one with your face and the target,” Mom said quietly, “where you’re holding that sign.”
“That sign was a bad idea.”
“Yes it was, Noelly, but that’s no excuse to take it that far. I thought you were going to stay off Twitter.”
“I guess I can’t help myself. I go on under Tyler Simpson—as in Durden and Bart. I stole that idea from someone I knew once… or thought I knew.”
“Oh no,” Mom suddenly said.
“What?”
“I forgot all about the radio.” She was distracted and likely hadn’t heard much of what I’d said. “I bet Howard Sterm’s talked about you.”
“Stern, Mom.”
“Let me call your sisters to see if they know.”
“Jesus. You enjoying this?”
“Not at all. I’m making a list, so I can write to them all and demand an apology. And I will be stern. Don’t you worry.”
“That’s not…. Never mind.” It was nice to smile.
“They have no right to make you feel bad and ruin your Christmas. You haven’t even put your tree up this year.”
“Oh. No. I haven’t. You rock. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.”
The moment I ended the call, the phone rang again. “What did you forget? Did Governor Cuomo put me on New York’s most wanted list, or did President Obama tell the incoming one to throw me out of the country for crimes against Christmas?”
“Noel?”
“Oh…. Hung. Sorry. How are you?”
“Fine. You’re the one having a rough day… week… several of them. How are you?”
“Hanging in.” I pulled into Amber’s Bistro and got out of the truck. The air was crisp. The sky was gray, dark enough for the thousands of twinkling lights on the bushes outside the two-story carriage house, now an eatery, to come on.
“We never set up another date… another time to meet.”
“Oh. After closing, I guess. Like I said, it’ll be late.” Damn if his voice didn’t make me smile too.
“That’s okay. I’d like to see you again.”
I got a tingle, not from the chill, maybe from the interesting phrasing. “Me too. Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on.” Now the hairs on the back of my neck stood up for another reason.
“Noel. What?”
There were picketers, a van full of them piling out into the parking lot. “People. About a dozen. Here for me, I assume, with picket signs. Christmas Hates You Too, they say, like the hashtag.”
“Crud.”
“Definitely. They don’t need to bring it here… not where I work.”
“Call 911,” Hung suggested. “Or your friend’s father.”
“No one’s done anything illegal as far as I know. Listen,” I said to one of them. “This is all just ridiculous now. It was a joke.”
“You think Jesus is a joke? America? Freedom? Liberty?”
“I don’t think any of those things are,” I said back to a wiry, scowling guy who looked ready to punch me. “What I was doing that day was—”
“Being a traitor and one of those anti-Christian nuts. Go back to where you came from.”
“Where I came from?” I knew what the guy was insinuating. The irony and ignorance of it, however, was that my family had been in America almost since the original colonies. Still, whatever my religious affiliation and beliefs were, and from day to day I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, none of that was relevant. “Look. I’m not going to confront you or argue. I just want you to leave.”
Laurie, the restaurant manager, came out then. “What’s this all about?”
“I’m sorry, Laurie. I’m trying to get them to go.”
“We have the right to assemble. Despite what this creep would like to do to the constitution,” said one of the first guy’s cohorts.
“The constitution?” I asked in disbelief. “I’m pretty sure they don’t mention Christmas in the constitution.”
“Move to Russia, why don’t you, you communist,” he responded.
“Oh shut your stupid face. Or are you talking out of your ass?” Laurie didn’t take any crap. “You can assemble all you want, but you can’t harass my patrons or employees, and you can’t leave your van there.” Her hands were on her ample hips and a lack of height did nothing to lessen her mightiness. “Customer parking only. And since I have the right to refuse service to jackasses, none of you are customers. In case you’re too stupid to put all that together, you gotta go.”
“I guess she told them,” Hung marveled.
“She’s tough,” I said into my phone.
The guy looked at Laurie—all four foot eight of her—barely a second. “Come on. This loser isn’t worth our time,” he declared to his minions.
“God will see to your punishment.” A grandmotherly type cocked back with a cup of something—a Christmas cup, ironically, decorated with stars and a manger scene—ready to hurl it. “Burn in hell, Christmas haters.”
I leaped between the contents and Laurie, to protect her from whatever it was. At that moment, the van started to back up, even as some of the picketers were still climbing inside. I jerked around. The revving sounded awfully close. The seven-thousand-pound vehicle struck me and knocked me to the pavement. I heard shouting, an apology. “Oh my God. I didn’t mean to hit him!” That was nice to know, at least. Laurie was down on the blacktop. Staff was streaming out the side doors of the restaurant. I heard music when the door opened—“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” sung by Rosemary Clooney. I saw the pretty lights and felt a light snow as it began to fall, all that, plus I smelled the scent of gingerbread we were turning into bread pudding for dessert. Christmas and all it entailed wasn’t so bad after all. I never really thought it was. I was a little bit selfish, I supposed, as the darkness crept in around me. “Both.”
“What’s that, sweetie?” Laurie called me that all the time.
“Noel?” Hung’s desperate voice came through the phone. “What happened? Noel!”
“Why can’t we do… both?” I wasn’t even sure I’d said the words aloud, as I sort of felt myself float above the scene.
4
“MR. AND Mrs. Beebe, I’m…. My name is Hung Liu.”
I smiled, because Hung did the thing with his name—the thing he said he always would, saying “My name’s Hung,” instead of putting it the other way.
“I’m sorry about Noel,” he said. “I wanted to give you some time. We were talking…. Noel and I… before all this happened. I work for an online news site.”
“Get out of here, jerk.” My brother lurched.
“Down, Ned,” I told him. They practically had poor Hung surrounded: my parents, grandparents—both sets—my brothers, sisters, their spouses, and Drew, the lot of them obviously breaking some sort of rule concerning how many people could be in a hospital room at one time.
Hung stood his ground, “No. Wait. We’re… friends. I mean… I think we are. Maybe he wouldn’t. I don’t want to intrude, but I really want him to know.”
“Know what?” Betsy asked. A college wrestler, she looked ready to snap Hung in half.
“So many things.” Hung looked around them all—my protectors—right at me. “If he can hear.”
“Loud
and clear,” I said.
“I’d like for people to know about his kindness and compassion, beyond all the stuff that’s been said over the past week or so.”
“The Christmas thing is the reason he’s here.” My littlest brother was as tough as my big one.
“Ease up, Nyle. All of you, back off.” Despite my order, my siblings closed ranks.
“My grandson is in a coma, young man. He’s been unresponsive for days.”
“I am? I have been? I’m responding now, Granddad.” Then it hit me. “You mean… you can’t hear me?”
“I know,” Hung said. “And I’m sorry. I can only assume you’ve all been avoiding social media.”
“We have,” Betsy told him.
“It breaks my heart,” Mom added.
“There’s a lot of positive stuff popping up on there too. Even before the accident. I’d like to share it with my viewers… with you… with… with Noel.”
Hung’s idea was met with dead silence.
“I can tell I’m intruding,” he said. “I’ll just go.”
“No. What’s your name again?”
“Hung Liu, Mr. Beebe.” He offered his hand to my dad.
“If you can change one opinion… show these people the Noel we know….” Dad shook it. “I’d like to hear what you have to say.”
“I’d like to try.” Hung went fishing down in his satchel once he had his hand back. “I’ve printed off a bunch of tweets and Facebook posts… stuff from all over the Internet, actually, and comments from our website posted at the bottom of our original story on Noel. Experts claim coma patients can hear what we’re saying, so….”
“I can definitely hear you. I see you too, somehow, like the day of the accident. Crap,” I said. At least I thought I said it. “Am I coming back or slipping away again?” Either way, I watched Hung pass out papers.
“Maybe we want to read some of these out loud to him… what people have said. I’ll be including all of them in my piece online.”
Ned started things off. “All this Noel bashing is bullshit. He helped me get back on my feet after I got back from Iraq. Literally. By volunteering at the VA hospital and supporting my weight and my spirits during rehabilitation. Saying he doesn’t back the troops is pure crap That’s all from the news site.”
“All three of my kids were born while I was deployed.” Drew was talking to Hung. Everyone else already knew. “If it wasn’t for Noel, I never would have survived over there. He took care of my home… my wife… my precious babies.”
“He loves those little girls,” Hung said. “I saw it firsthand and he told me, over and over again.”
“I did?”
Drew smiled. It was good to see someone do it. “I know he does.”
“I’ve watched the video of him directing Emily’s class during Sleeping Beauty and playing guitar during production half a dozen times,” Hung told him.
“He plays often, and writes music,” my father said.
“He shared some original compositions with me,” Hung stated.
Had I?
“He sang to you? My condolences,” Drew joked.
“Naw… it wasn’t that bad.”
“I got two,” Nyle said, holding up his sheets of paper. “One’s a picture.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I could see Hung shrink into himself.
“It’s Noel,” Nyle said. “And some guy and a bunch of kids… around a Christmas tree. Who are they?”
“I must have accidentally stuck that in there.” Hung took it back.
“Noelly always wanted kids,” my mother said solemnly.
“He’s going to do the name thing like you did, Mr. and Mrs. Beebe, with J for the girls and Q for the boys. Did he ever tell you that?”
“No,” my father said.
“Oh. He must have just… mentioned it to me.”
“When?” I asked—or imagined asking. “I don’t think we’ve talked about any of that. Unless….” My heart stopped—for just a moment, thank God. “No way,” I muttered. “Guys… listen to me!”
My brother tapped Hung’s shoulder. “Write this down, Mr. Liu.”
Shit. I needed a voiceover guy, like Ethan had when he was in a coma in the preview for his show.
“Call me Hung. I know you’re the youngest, Nyle, but I’m not that much older.”
Hung knew the birth order—not the easiest thing to keep track of. It had to be him.
“Or…. Four-H. Call me Four-H.”
Nyle’s unkempt brow went up—just the one. “Like the agriculture club?”
I smiled. I felt it. “Someone look at me. I’m laughing.” And I was, because I wasn’t mad or even sad about what had happened between us anymore. He came back—and didn’t run when the shit hit the fan. He was standing so close I could touch him—finally—and my God, I wanted to. I had to. “Look at me, Bart.”
Hung shivered.
“It is chilly in here,” my mom said to my dad. “Put another blanket on Noelly, Stuart.”
“I have more covers than a bookstore, Mom. It’s not cold. Four-H shivered, because he heard me, right, Bart?”
“Just a nickname,” Hung said, as he got out his tablet.
“They’re smart, Four-H.” I tried again to compel him to look at me. “Make them figure it out.”
“Hairy and hung? That’s how Noel likes ’em.” Ned looked to Nick, who chuckled.
“Stop that, you two.”
“No, Dad.” I wanted so badly for them to hear me. “Nick’s too quiet. He’s scared. I love seeing him smile. I’m going to be okay. Tell them, Hung…. Four-H. I’m coming back. I need more time to call you that—or maybe Bart, now that I know. And good going, Ned. You got two right away… sort of.”
“I think this is going to work.” Hung nodded, as if he knew. “Nyle, read yours.”
“I don’t have to. I’ll tell you one from us. Every year, on Thanksgiving, we eat dinner at noon. Noel is up before dawn to start the turkey at Mom and Dad’s, and then he heads down to Amber’s to put several in the restaurant ovens. We take those birds down to the Pine Brook Community Center afterward.”
“We’re a one-family volunteer brigade,” Mom said.
It was obvious by looking around. And I would bet anything there were aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins in the waiting room, as many as had been around the Thanksgiving table and at the community center serving others later in the day.
“There’s a tweet about that.” Hung shuffled through some papers. “You’ll always find volunteers on the holidays. Noel is here all the time. And a series of them from his boss at Amber’s. I can’t stand driving home at night from a fancy restaurant and seeing people who haven’t eaten all day on the streets on the way. One of three. Oh.” Hung smiled nervously. “I guess I don’t have to say that part out loud. She says, Noel once told me this with tears in his eyes, and then did something about it. He’s a one-man mission with an infinite heart. Someone Noel helped retweeted Laurie’s words and added some of his own,” Hung said. “I’m grateful to be in a position to jump on the #LoveforNoel bandwagon. When I wasn’t, he was there for me on a cold night with a covered Styrofoam tray full of hot food. Self-centered? Not the Noel Beebe I had the fortune to meet.”
“And you know what he does when we get home on Thanksgiving?” Mom asked.
“I think I do, Mrs. Beebe. Who has that one?”
Betsy read from the paper Hung had handed to her. “This one says it’s from Facebook. I got a Christmas card from him every year I was in Afghanistan. He doesn’t know me. We never met. He and his family must send out dozens—hundreds—to the troops stationed overseas. That’s respect. It’s not un-American.”
“Again this year,” Ned said. “He sits us back down at the table, and we don’t get pie until we’re done.”
“These are from Facebook too. Noel Beebe donates toys for our giving tree every single year,” Hung quoted. “He also brings food and homemade gingerbread men, plus
works the wrapping station the weekend before Christmas. Does that sound like someone who hates the whole thing?”
“Noel played Santa for me just last week,” my grandfather read. “It’s been a rough year, and I don’t even know how he knew what my children wanted. His generosity was supposed to be anonymous, but I’m glad I know, so I can help set the record straight about him.”
“I want to hear the story behind that one.” Bree’s voice was a bit shaky. “I want to hear him tell it.”
“I will, Bree. I will.”
“This is from one of the girls working in one of the coffee shops Noel visited, sent to NowHearThis.com.” Nate cleared his throat, and then continued. “It was funny. I was there, working behind the counter. They were silly and the whole thing made me laugh. It was because of his birthday. My job can be tedious. Some customers are miserable. Noel was fun. It’s just one more case of the media getting hold of something and blowing it all out of proportion. Merry birthday, Noel. You rock.”
“I got one from a kid named Kick,” Nick said. Nick hardly ever spoke in front of a crowd, even one made up of family. He was shyer than Hung. “I met him on Thanksgiving last year. He helped me when no one else in my life cared. My parents gave me the boot because I fell in love with another guy. Noel gave me hope. He hooked me up with the Giving Grace Community Church. At first, I was all ‘Church? No way!’”
“A lot of people have that reaction.” Drew smiled again. Sadly, it wasn’t contagious.
“But Noel explained it’s a place of comfort, not judgment. He helped me find a job. He helped me see the world as something I can be a part of, not something I have to fight. He’s an angel.”
“Okay,” I said. “Stop.” I wanted to shout it, so I did. “Stop!” Hung and Nick looked. They were closest to the bed. “This is starting to sound like a eulogy, and I frigging want to wake up from my coma before Ethan does on TV.”
“Noel Beebe has done more for his local community and total strangers than all of you [expletive deleted] put together. You’re the haters. That one was Drew’s.” Hung nodded in Preacher Man’s direction.
“Motherfuckers,” Drew said. “That’s what I called them, every one of them who hated on Noel.”
