as pretty battered up around the lower branches, but it
really could have sufficed to cheer someone's holiday--if one cut off a
couple feet from the bottom and turned the bad side toward the wall so
it couldn't be seen. You only decorate half the tree anyway, right? I
started trying to explain this to my countrified acquaintances, but
they would have none of it.

"Look, mister," CJ drawled, propping up the tree with one hand. "We
busted out yer headlight. Hell, the least I can do is give ya the
tree."

The woman tilted her head and shot out a hand to touch my arm. She had
a horrified look in her wide eyes that I could see even through her
dripping mascara. "You ain't already got one do ya, mister?"

I glanced at my watch and tried to weasel out of it. I'd already nixed
the idea of a Christmas tree--told my family (meaning my daughter,
Jenny) we weren't having one that year, and that was final. They just
shed all over the carpets and had to be tossed out at precisely the
right moment in January or the city garbage folks wouldn't pick them
up. We'd had a tree one year that sat around well into February
because we missed the magic pick-up date. I finally chopped it into
little bits and threw it out a piece at a time over the next six weeks.
I had no use whatever for a Christmas tree.

In the end, I didn't want to argue with them--it was cold, exceedingly
wet, and I was already going to be late for the concert. So CJ helped
me load the mortally wounded conifer into my trunk. We groped around
for the twine, but couldn't find it, so he battened down the lid with
his girlfriend's belt. She had high-tailed it back into the Jeep to
wait for him out of the rain. He whispered into my ear while he
cinched up the belt. "She don't really need her belt," he said. "I'd
have it off her in another couple o' miles anyways." He gave me a wink
and wished me a Merry Christmas.

By the time I arrived at the hall, the concert had long since begun and
it was almost intermission. I detest arriving late for these things,
and I had to wait around the lobby until the first part was over. I
was thankful I'd not been any later. Jenny would have been sorely
disappointed if I'd missed her big debut: about twenty minutes from
the time I arrived in the lobby, she was scheduled to begin her first
public performance as a featured soloist--playing "Harold in Italy".
If you don't know it, it's a fine piece of music, but it's not in