The Modern Magi, or Miracle at the Angel Tree - 1. The Modern Magi, or Miracle at the Angel Tree

The Modern Magi, or

Miracle at the Angel Tree

Manny Bautista could see it plain as day. At the bottom of the crowded staircase was a lottery ticket.

The cold air and the rush of the workers wanting to get down to a train compelled him to both clutch at the opening of his coat and keep his eye trained on the unadorned scrap of paper. He suspected someone, anyone, would snatch it up before he got there, but he was wrong.

He bucked the crowd and bent to pick it up. Sure enough, it was current, for the date printed on the front was the same he'd been looking at on his phone all day: December 23rd.

For a moment, he held the ticket suspended in his hand and let his gaze drift around. Surely, he wondered benevolently through all the commotion, a person was looking for this…but…he saw no one pay attention to him; no one rushed to him with a smile or a 'stop-thief' attitude.

He shrugged and stuffed the lotto receipt in his pocket, not knowing what else to do with it. NYC subways had stopped having lost-and-found departments years ago due to terrorist fears.

Instead, Emmanuel 'Manny' Bautista moved on to the gates and pulled out his pass.

A sad thought crossed his mind as he swiped it, namely that it might be the last one he could afford. He'd been out all day in the relentless chill looking for a job, and his phone had been his only companion, vibrating faithfully with each new position posted online. He had looked diligently at each fresh possibility, and gone to several places to see about any kind of a work – a dishwasher, a man to sweep up – any kind.

He cleared the gate and turned to the right where he'd catch his uptown train. His mobile vibrated again in his pocket, and more sadness coursed through from him as a wordless sigh; this might be the final week he could afford to pay for his phone as well. Three months of just getting by without a regular income had taken its toll on Manny.

Suddenly, that dark thought was there once more, the 'solution' the young man had tried to deal with by mostly ignoring it, for things had not always been this bleak.

While treading the steps down to his platform, he considered he used to lead a blessed life, at least it felt blessed to him, for opportunities had seemed to be there when he needed them. Although still only 23, he had served a four-year tour in the Navy, and become a boxer. In the service he had been good at it too and kept it up after his Honorable Discharge, but now with the unsteady job situation, he'd been forced to quit training at his gym because he couldn't afford to pay. He sorely missed the sweat and the exertion, but more so, he missed the easy camaraderie of men like him who did not seem to judge; that he missed that relaxed acceptance most of all.

No job for such a long time had left him desperate. Maybe the potential bosses took one look at his muscles, and at his battered, broken and healed nose, and thought they couldn't have 'trouble' in the workplace. That broke Manny's heart – that idea of them projecting onto his gentle and giving soul the nature of surly discontent. No one gave him a chance.

The express train roared by him as he waited on the platform. His hands involuntarily thrust themselves into his jacket pocket for warmth. He felt his phone in one, and the unfamiliar, sharp edges of the ticket in his other; he had already forgotten about it.

For some reason, Manny glanced around and let himself acknowledge the many holiday shopping bags for the first time. Of course, it was almost Christmas, but it did not feel like despite the date on his ever-cheery phone screen. It was not like it used to be for him. Not like when he considered his life was blessed and guarded. Even little Emmanuel knew as a kid his childhood was happier than most. Although his Puerto Rican family was small, his parents made sure Manny knew he was loved, did his schoolwork, and stayed 'good.'

He smiled at the memory of how his folks, and his father especially, enjoyed this time of year. However, that all seemed a long time ago now. His mom and dad had left their lower-Manhattan apartment when Manny was in the Navy to go out to Houston for better work opportunities. Now he was alone, and he felt it most acutely remembering Papi's love of the season.

He looked straight ahead. The dark thought had intruded again, and Manny did not know what to do about it.

˚˚˚˚˚

Sometimes sorrow is like a song: begin singing one refrain, and more follow, all dominated and regulated by the timing of the chorus.

He had waited a while for a train that he could board, and now back on the street again, it was nearly dark on 8th Avenue.

Within the scant shelter of the doorways of some buildings leaned hustlers in impossibly clean clothes, and who cast out far-away, hollow gazes.

As Manny moved on and neared his own walk-up tenement, he smelled the presence of some homeless person nearby. Although out of sight, the unmistakable halo of human derogation announced their proximity, but Manny knew it was not their fault they had limited access to shower and shampoo.

He felt he'd soon be one of them – no money equaled 'no room at the inn.'

The sadness of his current existence returned to sing to him with more recollections. Bundling up as he trod on, there was no shield from thinking how happy his dad had been to celebrate this time of year. 'Magic,' he had called it, and exploited all the free variety New York had to offer a little wide-eyed tyke like his son, Manny.

Papi would be guaranteed to take his mom and he out one evening every year to see the tree, lights and ice skaters at Rockefeller Center. Then they would stroll along 5th Avenue to inspect the windows at Saks and Lord and Taylor. 'Free magic,' his dad would laugh and raise little Emmanuel in his arms so he could see over the heads of other people.

He loved his dad; he loved his mom, and he missed them to a frightening level.

As he got to the bottom step of his building, and as his hand went out to touch the ice-cold stone of the handrail, the familiar smell touched his nose again.

He halted; he may not have anything, but maybe just a word or two would be enough. He looked to the side, and down in the recess under his stoop peeked out a scrap of cardboard. The lower legs and shoes of a man stuck out a bit on top of it.

Manny inhaled slightly and descended the few steps. When he got there, he was greeted by a pair of intensely blue eyes. They regarded him with surprise, and with something akin to 'you shouldn’t be down here' concern.

The boxer regretted his appearance once more, thinking the homeless man was judging him for his build and looks. His hands went absentmindedly into his pockets again, for whatever he had intended to tell the man had flown from his mind. The sharp edge of the forgotten ticket poked against his finger, and a sudden inspiration hit him. He pulled it out and held it to the man.

"Good luck…" was all he could manage to say.

The blue eyes faltered a moment, but the homeless man slowly grasped the ticket.

Then Manny turned and left him alone. However, there had been something in those eyes that set the young man back on his heels. He shook his head thinking it was ridiculous to feel they seemed recognizable to him.

As he went upstairs to his cold and empty room, he allowed memory and sorrow's refrain to fill his head once more.

˚˚˚˚˚

His lonely meal was over, his lonely existence on the other hand…

Manny sat at the table of his one-room apartment feeling little if anything. He had eaten the hot ramen from its styrofoam container barely tasting it, and done so experiencing no satisfaction or enjoyment at all, although it had been his one and only meal of the day.

Now, he wondered what had happened to him. Only the retuning dark thought seemed to offer a way out.

He sighed and drew his phone to him. Manny searched for and pulled up the New York State Lottery page. He wished the homeless man luck, for as low as he felt, he knew there were others suffering worse than he was, and besides, finding that ticket did not feel 'right.' Or perhaps the notion was that keeping any luck originating in Manny finding it should be passed along to the next person.

But still, the boxer wondered how the action of giving it away was supposed to make him feel. Glad? Hopeful for the man's chances of winning? Or, should Manny feel he'd 'done good?' instead, he felt nothing.

He closed the app and set the phone down. His chair squeaked as he leaned back and glanced at his dresser drawer; that place was the seat of power for the dark thought, and he got up.

A moment later, he returned, sat down, and placed his service pistol on the table. Now arrayed in front of him were the bright, needlessly cheery screen of his phone on the left, and the angry, black metal gleam of 'the solution' to his right.

Alone with his misery, Manny's dreaded notion had free range within him, but like a light spied through the gloom, more memories of Papi and his 'magic' intruded.

For in addition to the free sightseeing a young family might take their kids to enjoy, his dad had also made sure to include a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the angel tree. 'Donations' to get in there were recommended to be five dollars a person, but Papi would always fold a pair of ones in a five and quickly shove it in the box like it was the required fifteen bucks. In return, the staff behind the counter would dutifully hand over three little tin badges for Manny and his parents. The boy would then watch while his mom and dad folded the small tab over to secure it to their lapels, and he'd do the same to the collar of his tee-shirt. He'd keep them afterwards, and wound up with quite a little collection pinched to the rim of his dresser mirror when he was a kid – each a different color, but each one proudly bearing MMA in white letters.

Those badges were long gone now, seemingly like the potential of his ever having a happy life.

Slowly, but without fear, he picked up the revolver. As his fingers gripped it tightly – feeling it's cold-metal bite, and uncaring heft – a dreadful resolve added itself to Manny's chorus of sorrow.

˚˚˚˚˚

The next day, and late in the afternoon so there would be few people around to get upset, he stood before the angel tree.

Under the confines of his coat, he held the revolver against his abdomen pointing up. Being in the Navy had taught him to aim and hold steady, so in his mind's eye, he knew the pistol's sight was locked on Manny Bautista's heart for destruction.

This was going to be his last view, the final thing he would contemplate, for it was one thing that never changed. It was just as pure and blameless now as when he had been a young boy gazing up at it in awe and wonder.

At those moments, his father would bend down and tell him "Feliz Navidad, niños," and about one of the figures on the tree being of the boy's guardian angel. Manny had believed him. The 'blessed life' he felt he had led was grounded on the belief that such a being looked out for him, and always would.

What it meant to the boy was a search every year to find 'him' on the tree, the one particular angel figure he had selected and just knew in his gut was his protector because of a certain sparkle in his painted eyes.

He shifted the position of the gun in his hand.

Again, like last night, he tried to conjure up how he was supposed to feel. Sad? Relieved? Anxious or nervous…? Anything?

He had dreamed even as a little boy of being here with his own family. And although it seemed like an impossibly faraway dream now, Manny used to hope he'd stand here lovingly one day, as part of a little huddling group that included a husband and their child. He wanted to be here just as his mom and dad had been, and tell his own boy to look for him, because one of the figures represented his son's guardian angel too.

And then all of a sudden, he knew how he felt, and the finger poised on the trigger grew calm and resolute.

'I feel disappointed,' he realized. 'I've let so many down, and now… It's time I disappoint me too.'

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

He was sure the hammer had struck; he had felt the vibration through his palm and wrist.

He pulled again.

Nothing.

Again and again – each time, six in all – nothing.

A hand touched his shoulder.

Manny slowly turned, using the time to tuck the firearm down the waist of his jeans.

The man in front of him…those eyes…blue and intense.

It was the homeless man from last night, only now he was not homeless. He was the same man for sure, despite the total change of appearance, for the one before him now had a scrubbed face, clean but slicked-back hair, and wore an expensive suit, overcoat and silk scarf. But those eyes – the impossibly familiar eyes he had known from his childhood – stared with complete compassion and love at him.

"Many thanks for the gift," the man said. "But you were always meant to find it."

Gloved hands placed the lottery ticket into the boxer's grasp. As he fingered the thing, looking speechlessly upon it, he heard the angel – his angel – tell him, "And be careful with that gun, Emmanuel. It's loaded, you know."

Manny's gaze shot up.

He was standing alone; a quick glance across the wide-open expanse confirmed it, there was no one around.

Swallowing down fear, he slowly extracted his phone. Manny opened the Net, and went to the last page he had viewed.

The New York State Lottery drawing had taken place last night, and he held the cheery phone screen in his left palm and the ticket in his right.

One number matched.

A second matched.

A third one too.

And then all the rest as well.

He didn't have to contemplate how he felt. It was just there. Relieved, relieved and hopeful too. He would go to Houston tonight and spend the holidays with those who loved him – that's how he felt!

The boxer noticed something scrawled on the back of the ticket. He flipped it and read: "Feliz Navidad, niños."

Tears began to cloud his vision, but he turned around and desperately scanned the tree until he found 'his' protector – the one with the special sparkle in his painted blue eyes.

He could not bring himself to say the words out loud, but in his heart he wished his guardian angel the very merriest possible Christmas as well.

~