Christmas Eve

I can’t take the southbound 9th ave. bus without winding up in conversation with an elderly gay man. I suppose this is because the bus passes through Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea where men who survived the AIDS crisis are aging in place. This time I was sitting on the bus recovering from the cacophony of the clanking and banging of the MRI machine overlaid with classical music from the headphones they placed over my ears. Lying there in the machine I kept thinking it was like being at a concert with a jackhammer breaking up the sidewalk right outside. Suddenly a tiny, gnome-like old gay man next to me starts talking. “It’s a free country,” he says. I don’t know where this came from so I say “well, certainly not now. “ “That’s what they say,” he continues, “it’s a public place. What they mean is I can do anything I want.” I think about my activist friends, how often we tell cops and security cards and various other people that it’s a public place, we have a right to protest here, but that’s not what he means. “You can’t say anything,” he says, gesticulating with his stubby fingers. “If someone is talking really loudly, you can’t say ‘please lower your voice’ or you will be attacked. And the people who agree with you won’t stand up for you but the ones who don’t will join in attacking you.” “The social contract is unraveling,” I say. “The social contract is gone,” he retorts. “The social contract used to be that you would do something for someone you didn’t even know and people would do good things for you. Now they just want to do things for themselves.” “That’s the argument people make against universal health care,” I say, “ ‘why should I pay for someone else’s health care?’ Even though when they need health care it will be there for them too.” “Parents are afraid to let their kids outside, they think they are going to get kidnapped,” he goes on. “Even though most predators are within the family or someone they know,” I say. He nods in agreement. He starts talking about how parents don’t let kids do anything themselves “They call it ‘helicopter parenting,’” I say. “That’s what caused this,” he says, “that and social media.” “Selfishness?” I ask. “Narcissism,” he says. “I say something anyway, but they will attack you, say ‘it’s none of your business,’ but you won’t get stabbed. Getting stabbed is random and it doesn’t happen very much.” With that he got off the bus and I continued on my way to Union Square. I sign in for shoulder PT to try to get the shoulder moving a little while I wait for regime change so I can have it replaced. Standing at the desk with the computer festooned in red garlands, I noticed I was standing next to a menorah with the shamash and two candles lit. “Chanukah is over, “ I told the one person working the desk on Christmas Eve. She called out to someone in the back “did you plug in the Chanukah thing?” The person must not have heard her, so she said “the Chanukah lamp?” I don’t hear the response but next she said “Chanukah is over,” and the person came and removed the menorah. A black man in scrubs came out as this was going on, and the receptionist said to him, “You celebrate Kwanzaa right? With those long candles?” “Yes,” he answered and then the one who took away the menorah said, “You’re Jewish right? Because you don’t celebrate Christmas?” I’m wincing at the confusion of this sentence, but the man in scrubs patiently corrects her in a tone that makes it clear he has this conversation often. “Kwanzaa was created in response to the over commercialization of Christmas.” Leaving PT, I am surrounded by that over commercialization of Christmas, people pouring in and out of the 14th st. Target for last minute gifts, and the subway filled with people with wrapped packages poking out of shopping bags. I think about how much of this is plastic that will make its way into our oceans and our brains, and I think about all the money and energy that goes into creating an artificial happiness to go with the artificial snow to celebrate the birthday of someone who wasn’t even born in December.