A Not So Horrible Christmas Story

Christmas Eve in Toronto starts to go quiet after 6pm when most of the stores close. Generally, there was a disproportionate amount of men on the streets, awkwardly moving along with too many parcels.

Trying to find a final fare before it slowed down, I spotted an older man walking from a book store in that last grey blue light of December. It was also snowing with those big floupy snowflakes that seem to make everything quiet. Slightly slippery, he was walking very carefully. He didn't seem happy and when he got in my cab, I could feel his disappointment. I asked where he was going and he asked me if there was still anywhere he might find a store still open. He "had one person left to buy for", and it was his daughters fiancee, a professor at U of T. I could see he was also out of ideas.

His world was very different from his future son in laws. He was one of the people who arrived in Toronto in the early sixties from Europe, in his case Italy. He worked with tile, stone, cement and was able to buy a house in the West end and raise a large family. I remember summers during high school, working on a construction site. The Italians worked like no one else. They only took 15 minutes for lunch and it was back to work. We got an hour and got to watch. The younger ones had to mix cement in a wheelbarrow and get yelled at all day by their fathers and uncles. As a teenager I was doing landscaping in the heat with several others and we all felt sorry for the skinny Italian kids mixing cement. This guy was one of (those) kids. He learned a trade and worked like hell for 40 years doing tile work.

"You might as well drive me home then. I don't know what I would buy him anyway. I like him and I just don't want to embarrass my daughter." .

He had walked out of a used bookstore, so I had an idea..... I said, " I know this cabdriver who is constantly buying books. He just got kicked out of his place because his books were more important than his rent and he gave me 10 boxes full. Some are junk but some are really great books. I have something in mind. My studio is a three block detour but in the same general direction as your home. I'll charge you ten bucks for the cab and you can have the book. I'm not going to read it anyway..... ? "

"YES!" , he said.

I had a great studio at the time. I couldn't use it enough because I had to drive too much just to keep it. It had a 14 foot ceiling and 6 foot windows on two sides. It was in a warehouse located on Florence Ave. in Toronto. It also had piles of books in it thanks to Pete "The Professor" Allen.

We arrived. I invited him to follow me in. I opened the door to the studio and as he walked in, he took off his hat and looked up as if he were entering a cathedral. On the wall was a poster from a film about Pietro Annigoni. He pointed at it and was speechless, he knew Annigoni's work. Art was sacred to him. Fortunately, I knew which book I was after and where it was. Since Pete already had the 12 volume set, he gave me the condensed version and told me all about it. I handed it to the guy and told him what it was. "Is it a good book?" he asked. "Yes, it's The Golden Bough by a guy named Fraser and was written in 1890. All the books written on mythology since reference it, and your future son in law will cherish it, especially if You sign it. He paused and was by now almost in tears. We went back to the cab. He was silent for most of the short trip to his home but kept saying "thank you". This was more important to him than I could understand.

As we pulled up under the streetlights to his house , I glanced in. It looked full, maybe 20 or 30 people in his front room including kids. He once got off a train from Halifax with nothing. Leaning forward he said quietly, I must pay for the book. It was a matter of pride for him. I handed him a pen to sign the inside and said, " Ok, how about 20 bucks for everything?". I was getting far more from this than he was. He signed the book, handed me $20, then gave me one of the most sincere "thank you's" I probably have ever had.

I watched him walk slowly and carefully towards his front door under the same giant snowflakes as when he got in my cab. His family were all in the front room eating, drinking, talking and laughing.

He made all that.

I drove away.