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Christ in the Snow
by
Harry Buschman
From The Westlake Village Collection.
Thanksgiving Day at Vinnie Esposito's house on Roxbury Drive is the signal to
get started on the Christmas decorations. Vinnie and his family live in
Westlake Village, a nondescript little town wedged with almost surgical
precision
between Castle Gardens and East Prospect.
It takes Vinnie and his two teenage sons, Spencer and Lloyd, a full month to
string their lights, set up the illuminated and animated manger, and mount the
twelve tiny reindeer on the roof of their two-story house. But long before
that, in a secluded corner of his basement, unseen by the people of the Village,
Vinnie has been working on his holy figures and their costumes for nearly a
year. Christmas is a big deal with Vinnie Esposito.
During the Christmas season, four thousand people from nearby towns will
drive past the Esposito's modest home on Roxbury Drive and check on the progress
of the Christmas display. The Westlake Village "Guardian" features a
photographic record and a regular report. The electric company, girding
themselves for
the power drain, promises Vinnie Esposito an uninterrupted supply of
electricity.
Christmas is an emotional time for people of Latin origin. It certainly is
for Vinnie and Rose. Even though they are second generation Italians and no
longer familiar with the language and customs of the old country, Christmas is a
call to arms.
Vinnie made his final break with the past when he named his two sons, Spencer
and Lloyd. Rose, would have preferred Joseph and Dominick, but with motherly
modesty she shrugged her shoulders, crossed herself and sighed; the naming of
the children was the father's privilege, after all.
Vinnie is a tile mason ... bathroom floors and walls. He is used to taking
orders, not giving them. He has a good strong back, callouses on his knees and
completely devoted to Rose and their two strapping teenage sons. But when
Christmas decoration time arrives, and the calendar page is flipped over to
December, Vinnie becomes an autocratic figure -- an il Duce! His love of the
Savior
is displayed with an iron will and a firm hand. He expresses it in the same
gaudy fashion as the revered artists of the Italian Renaissance.
During the summer months and into fall he rents space in a warehouse downtown
and works on new figurines and multiple light show displays. He rents a
U-Haul the first week in December to cart the reindeer, the Santas, the Holy
Three,
the Wise Men and the menagerie of domestic animals that reflect his
conception of that magic night two thousand years ago.
Vinnie and Rose began in a small way with an obligatory wreath on the front
door, but when the children came along, the Yule spirit evolved into an
obsession. The wreath was flanked by tall red candles ... then garlands of
holly, and
a waterfall of blinking bubble lights under the eaves. A strange and hitherto
unsuspected competitive frenzy soon launched Vinnie into eclipsing the
decorations of his neighbors. Eventually the neighbors threw in the towel. Now
they,
along with the rest of us in Westlake Village, gasp in wonder at the
Christmas miracle of Roxbury Drive.
By the twentieth of December the panorama is complete. Mary is rocking the
cradle just as Lillian Gish did in "Intolerance" -- but with every beat, a halo
blinks on and off above the head of the Holy Infant. The three Wise Men stand
by offering elaborately wrapped plastic-waterproofed packages with logos of
Bonwit Teller and Bloomingdale's. Animals of all kinds are abundant -- Vinnie is
not a naturalist, therefore he's included pandas, penguins and porcupines,
not realizing that such species had never been seen in Bethlehem. The human
figures are second hand mannequins purchased from Hess's department store many
years ago. They gaze at the Christ child with the frozen stare of dummies and
are
clothed in gorgeous robes bought from Harry's Costume Parlor in Castle
Gardens. Mary, for example, wears a replica of Nancy Reagan's inaugural ball
gown.
Heavy rain and high wind can be a problem, but not as tragic as deep snow.
Deep snow would inhibit the visitors to Roxbury Drive. Vinnie, therefore, has
contracted with a plowing company to keep Roxbury Drive snow free until the
fifteenth of January.
We don't have to be reminded that man's grandest designs; his most glorious
inspirations, are often thwarted by the forces of nature. The Titanic and the
Hindenburg are two examples of man's impotence in the face of natural disaster.
Nature exhibited this force to the Esposito's just prior to the Christmas of
1995.
A low pressure area in the vicinity of the North Carolina coast made its
appearance on the satellite map and an alert was sounded from there all the way
up
to Cape Cod. It promised the kind of weather all coastal dwellers fear. High
winds and a mixture of rain, snow and sleet. As the storm approached
Washington, D.C. it encountered an entrenched high and began to circle around it
in a
counter-clockwise direction. The temperature dropped quickly and the storm
became a blizzard of enormous proportions. It slowly but inexorably worked its
way up the coast in the direction of Westlake Village.
Vinnie's work was finished two nights before Christmas. He added an
innovative addition that year. He installed a meandering walkway of duck boards
leading
around the back of the house and out to the front again. Along the way, the
visitor would walk through a miniature Bethlehem. It was as accurate as
Vinnie's imagination and knowledge of the town as it existed in the year zero.
It was
the talk of the Village. The only other talk in town was the approaching
storm, which by the day before Christmas was blanketing Pennsylvania with
eighteen
inches of snow.
It arrived in force at Roxbury Drive on Christmas Eve. It attacked the
Village mercilessly -- like no blizzard ever had before. Winds of more than
fifty
miles an hour kept the snow from collecting on the ground, instead, it built up
on the lee side of houses to the extent that first floor windows were soon
covered. It snowed horizontally and soon the walls on the windward side of each
and every house in the Village was thickly plastered.
The visitors to Vinnie Esposito's Christmas pageant beat a hasty retreat when
the wind picked up and the first flakes fell. By then the Christmas lights
were coming undone and waved wildly in the growing storm. Santa was blown out of
his sled on the roof, and two of the three Wise Men had fallen face down in
the snow. Vinnie and Rose could no longer see the street from their living room
windows ... then ....
"Mother of God!" Vinnie exclaimed, as every light in the house went out. The
warm comforting rumble of the furnace in the basement shuddered to a stop, and
the house grew colder almost immediately. They could see nothing, and all
they could hear was the ungodly howl of the wind in the eaves. Suddenly there
was
a rumble on the roof as the twelve tiny reindeer and the sled tobogganed into
the front yard.
Vinnie tried to phone the electric company but couldn't get a dial tone. He
remembered there were oil lamps down in the basement somewhere ... but he
couldn't recall where he last saw them, he couldn't remember where he left his
flashlight either. He'd have to build a fire, but the wood was outside in the
snow
and he couldn't get the back door open. Spencer had some matches, and
together, he and Lloyd found the oil lamps in the basement. They were bone dry
--
Vinnie recollected there was a can of kerosene somewhere in the garage. The four
of them stood together in the darkness -- all they could hear was the
swishing of the snow on the outside walls, as though someone was shoveling sand
against the side of the house; that, and the remorseless howl of the wind.
"Tell you what, Pop," Spencer said, "We're gonna die in here without heat.
There's some rope down there in the basement -- you and Lloyd let me down outta
the upstairs bedroom and I'll get the goddam back door open."
"We'll lose you," his mother wailed, "and please, no 'goddam' it's Christmas
Eve."
Everyone but Rose thought the risk worth taking, and gradually they convinced
her it had to be done, ("Oh Holy Father forgive my boy the goddam and bring
him safely to the ground below"). Spencer's bedroom window, now a pearl gray in
the swirling snow, was on the lee side of the house. He rappelled down the
wall with Vinnie and Lloyd paying the rope out inch by inch.
" O.K., I'm down ... I'm down!" Spencer shouted.
Vinnie stuck his head out the window, "How deep is it?"
"Over my hips. But if I stay close to the house I think I can get to the back
door. I should have brought a goddam shovel with me."
Rose wailed again. ("Oh Holy Father protect my eldest son ... grant him the
use of Thy name in vain!").
Spencer fought his way along the back of the house, and with nothing but his
gloved hands, managed to claw away the snow blocking the back door so that
Vinnie and Lloyd could push it open. They brought in all the wood they could
carry, then the three of them waded out to the garage to find the kerosene.
They had light and heat throughout the night as the storm raged outside.
Toward morning it seemed to have snowed itself out and the wind calmed a bit. By
standing on a chair and looking out the living room window Vinnie was able to
see the frightening spectacle outside. The storm was over by noon and although
it had snowed less than twenty four hours, the battery operated radio said
there was 26 inches officially registered at the airport in East Prospect.
There were no signs of Vinnie's Christmas pageant. Even the waiting Christmas
tree in thebreezeway had disappeared. Rose couldn't cook without
electricity, and the lights and phone were gone. It seemed that the Yule season
had
deserted the family in the house on Roxbury Drive. They ate cold food for three
days and the four of them slept by the fireplace at night. Spencer and Lloyd
were
suffering from cabin fever and with nothing to do after the battery operated
radio went dead they shoveled out most of the driveway.
On the morning of the 28th Vinnie saw blinking lights at the end of Roxbury
Drive! They signaled the approach of the first snow plow. As it labored its
way up the street and bulled its way past the house the blade excavated what
appeared to be a human figure!
"Don't look, Rose, don't look!" Vinnie pushed Rose from the window convinced
the plow had uncovered a victim of the storm. However, it was only Caspar,
still in his Richard the II regalia ... "Thank God," thought Vinnie ... "it
could have been Mary or Joseph!"
He threw on a coat and dashed out just as the plow braked to a halt.
"It's O.K., Mr. Esposito ... no problem, it's just one of your dummies."
Vinnie stopped in his tracks, and realized with growing horror that somewhere
under that heavy blanket of snow lay the Christ child and the virgin Mother,
along
with Joseph and the entire city of Bethlehem. In tears, he gathered up the
broken body of Caspar.
"Vinnie! Come back in here," Rose pleaded from the front door. Vinnie slowly
turned to her, the tears freezing on his cheeks.
"The others, Rose ... the others, where are the others?"
Dummies? No! They were not dummies! To Vinnie they were the living breathing
symbols of the Christmas season.
He left the shattered remains of Caspar by the front door and went inside. At
that moment, as if by magic, the phone rang! ... every light in the house
blazed into life and the furnace kicked in.
"Holy shit, Pop! ... we're back in business," Spencer sang out. "C'mon Lloyd,
let's finish the driveway and check out the town."
("Excuse him for the 'shit' dear Lord -- he is young.") Rose answered the
phone. "It's the phone company, they say the phones are working."
"It's a fine thing for them to let us know the phones are working." Half
talking to himself, Vinnie went on. "Like nothing ever happened ... like
Christmas
never happened. Go on, you kids -- you go downtown, We don't wanna see the
downtown ... mama and me ... we wanna stay here. Mama, we get the turkey ... we
start up the Christmas dinner, okay?" Without realizing it, Vinnie had slipped
into the dialect of his father.
"You okay Pop?" Spencer asked, "Ma, I think this has been too much for him."
"Go ahead, I'm okay ... okay ... I was an altar boy, did I tell you? Long
ago, for Father Salvese. That's why Christmas Day ... always such a big deal
with me. Altar boy ... the sun through the stained glass windows, like here --
like the ice on the living room window. Organ music ... incense ... Italian
church ... mass in Latin, sermon in Italian, Saints on all four walls. With all
their hearts everybody believed in Christmas. In such a church no way a storm
could stop Christmas Day."
"He'll be" okay," Rose smiled for the first time in three days. "He'll be
fine. Go downtown. Be good ... poppa and me, we start dinner."
©Harry Buschman 1997
(2220)
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