Christmas - Winnipeg Free Press 2006

Re the holiday thread, and against my better judgment and overcoming my ingrained modesty, herewith a piece that ran Dec. 24th in my favourite market, the Winnipeg Free Press, and as my column in the suburban Vancouver (the British Columbia, Canada, one, not to be confused with Vancouver, Washington) North Shore News:

A Christmas Carol: The rest of the story

By Trevor Lautens

Ebenezer Scrooge IV awoke to the grey muzz that serves as daybreak in a Vancouver winter, and the sound of heavy footsteps.

He half-opened his eyes. Legs were passing by, hurriedly. Then one pair approached and nudged him, none too gently.

"Move, please," said the stern voice above the legs. They stepped over him and Scrooge heard the storekeeper's impatient key in the lock.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Scrooge said humbly. "There ..."

"Are there no shelters?" demanded the storekeeper. "Are there no flophouses?"

"There was no room last night in ..." But the storekeeper made a rude gesture that invited Scrooge to get out of his doorway, and slammed the door shut.

Scrooge rose painfully. His dog Charity rose with him, wagging her tail. My only friend, he thought fondly, gently rubbing her head. He rolled up his bed of old blankets, removed the newspapers he had stuffed for warmth under his trousers and shirt, drew his coat around him, and stepped stiffly on to the sidewalk. Someone shoved past him, made a crude remark, and Scrooge stumbled.

He headed for the homeless shelter where he could count on coffee and a bite to eat.

It had been, he mused, a long, long way down for the Scrooge family fortunes.

His great-grandfather Ebenezer, he knew from oral stories passed on - family diaries and letters had been lost - had accumulated a huge fortune in finance, ably assisted by a hardworking clerk, one Bob Cratchit. Scrooge & Marley had once been a financial institution to be reckoned with in London.

Then one night old Scrooge had some sort of supposedly supernatural scare - investigated with inconclusive results by the British Society for Psychical Research - and overnight became a generous contributor to the poor. Rather late in life he married a widow who produced a son.

His son, Ebenezer Scrooge II, was surprised that he inherited a firm sharply less prosperous than he had expected. It seems Scrooge & Marley after such a strong beginning had latterly been rated a doubtful risk on "the 'change," and had difficulty obtaining credit. His father had impulsively distributed much of its wealth to the unfortunate out of his own pocket, on the street, careless of records or tax receipts. A considerable amount had been spent for surgery for Cratchit's lame son, Tim.

Still, the present Scrooge's grandfather had made a fair living for some years, continuing to give much of the firm's income to the destitute. But the spacious and famous Scrooge family house (where the original Ebenezer allegedly had seen ghosts, lowering its market value) had to be sold, and Ebenezer II moved to a more modest home in the London suburbs. He was popularly admired for his enlightened social ideas as well as his generosity, which didn't help the firm's credit rating.

Scrooge & Marley steadily faded to being a small player in the great city's financial life. Then, with an abrupt downturn in the economy, it collapsed into bankruptcy and was bought for pennies in the pound by, remarkably, its chief financial officer, Tim Cratchit's son, and renamed Robert Cratchit & Sons.

Ebenezer Scrooge II died shortly after - of a broken heart, it was said - and only a fraction of the original Ebenezer's fortune remained for his son, Ebenezer III. The latter admitted he sometimes looked with envy on the family's charitable trust, much larger than his own inheritance. However, he went to work bravely to restore the family fortunes, first establishing a bicycle manufacturing company, then moving into this exciting new area of making automobiles. He paid his employees well, encouraged them to form a union, provided their children with a summer camp, and otherwise continued the well-established family benevolence.

Unfortunately, the automobile Ebenezer III's company proudly made, powered by electricity, was so quiet and refined that the noisy, smoky ones driven by internal combustion engines, so much more exciting, proved far more popular and attracted much more investment money. His electric cars were made the butt of jokes. A strike by his employees finished off his company.

A kind friend gave him work as personnel director of a large plant, but Ebenezer took the employees' side so often that he was let go. He was obliged to get a job in sales in a smart Savile Row shop, where old business acquaintances were shocked to see him and embarrassed to buy from him.

His son Ebenezer IV was left with a gold medal in Greek and Latin from a famous university, a love of art and music, and little else - other than the compassion long evident in the Scrooge family. He decided to emigrate to Canada, and, hearing about the mild climate and (ersatz, he found) English atmosphere, chose Vancouver.

The rest was a terrible slide: He had no marketable skills and lacked the competitive keenness and tough ambition admired on the business pages, and was so automatically open-handed with the less fortunate that when he fell to welfare level - as he did - he was easily taken advantage of, often turning over his cheque to the very neediest and keeping little more than required to feed his dog Charity. Sometimes, with his polite manners and cultured English, he heard the wretched homeless he moved among mockingly call him "the perfessor."

Those were Ebenezer Scrooge IV's reminiscences that day, when he moved from the doorway where he had slept to the shelter lineup for breakfast, and then walked around the shabby area to keep warm, his bright eyes always on the scenes of life around him.

In mid-afternoon he reached a grander part of the city - near the financial centre - and became aware that many fashionably-dressed people were hurrying by with unusual purpose. Then he saw their destination: the cathedral. A woman passed and cried to another: "Merry Christmas!" Yes, that was it - people who looked as if they never saw the inside of a church from Christmas to Christmas, hastening to Christmas Eve carol service.

At that moment Ebenezer almost fell over a beggar. The man was hunched over against the cold and the passersby's indifference, if not open hostility. He plainly had some sort, or sorts, of illness. He wore one dirty white shirt, a dress shirt with incongruous flapping French cuffs, buttoned to the top. The compassion of generations moved Ebenezer. He stopped and peeled off his coat.

"Here," he said (and how could cheerfulness ring through his words?), "you better put this on. Put it on now, before you get cold, then it's harder to warm up." The man gaped, looked incapable of recognition and even less of speech, but finally mumbled "Thank you."

Ebenezer turned away, only to see that this brief scene had been witnessed.

A well-dressed man, with a slight limp, moved toward him. Charity moved forward too and met him with a friendly wag of the tail.

"Well," the man said, hearty with embarrassment, and giving Charity a pat, "that was certainly a kind act. You could use that coat yourself. Do you live around here?"

"Around and under," Ebenezer smiled.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you're obviously an educated man."

"I've learned quite a lot since school."

"Look," said the man, "I don't want to insult you or seem condescending, and it"s not just a Christmas Eve impulse. My family runs a charitable foundation, and I wish you'd come and talk to me about working for it. We need people who understand, well, the less fortunate." He drew a card from his breast pocket. "You'd be doing (ital) me (unital) a favour if you contacted me."

Ebenezer took the card graciously, thanked him, and they parted. He continued his walk, and Charity stepped lively, and people smiled at the dog and some paused to stroke her. The pair passed the cathedral and through its doors they could hear the singing of a people flawed, compromised by daily surrenders, but gathered together in hope and light-seeking: "Silent night ..."

It was in the light of the hostel where he and Charity found shelter that night that Ebenezer Scrooge IV remembered the card and took it from his pocket. It read: "Timothy Cratchit IV, President, Triumph Orthopedic Supplies and Services (Canada) Ltd., Subsidiary of Robert Cratchit & Sons Ltd., London."

- tlautens@telus.net