The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. He hadn't been anywhere in years, since his wife had passed away. It was just another day to him. He didn't hate Christmas, he just couldn't find a reason to celebrate. He was sitting there looking at the snow that had been falling for the last hour and wondering what it was all about when the door opened and a homeless man stepped through.
Instead of throwing the man out, Old George, as he was known by his customers, told the man to come and sit by the heater and warm up.
"Thank you, but I don't mean to intrude," said the stranger. "I see you're busy; I'll just go."
"Not without something hot in your belly," replied George. He turned and opened a wide-mouth Thermos and handed it to the stranger. "It ain't much, but it's hot and tasty...stew...made it myself. When you're done, there's coffee, and it's fresh."
Just at that moment, there was a ding of the driveway bell. "Excuse me, be right back," George said. In the driveway was an old '53 Chevy.
"My wife is with child, and my car is broken," quickly explained the panicky driver, as steam rolled out of the front of his car. "Can you help me, Mister?" he asked with a deep Spanish accent.
George opened the hood. It was bad. The block appeared to be cracked from the cold. The car was dead. "You ain't going anywhere in this thing," George said, as he turned away.
"But, Mister, please help," again asked the panicky driver.
The door of the office closed behind George as he went inside. He walked to the office wall and got the keys to his old truck and went back outside. He then walked around the building, opened the garage, started the truck, and drove it around to where the couple were waiting. "Here, take my truck," he said. "She ain't the best thing you ever looked at, but she runs real good."
George helped put the woman in the truck and watched as it sped off into the night. He then turned and walked back inside the office. "Glad I gave 'em the truck; their tires were shot, too," he said. "The ones on my ol' truck are brand new," added George, thinking he was talking to the stranger. However, the man had gone. The Thermos was on the desk, empty, with a used coffee cup beside it. "Well, at least he got something in his belly," George thought, before turning around and going back outside to see if he could get the old Chevy to start.
It cranked ever so slowly but finally started, so George pulled it into the garage where the truck had been. He figured he would tinker with it for something to do, since he didn't have any customers. He soon discovered the block wasn't cracked after all. The problem was just a cracked bottom hose on the radiator. "Well, shoot, I can fix this," he said to himself. So he put on a new one, then turned his attention to the worn out tires. Knowing they wouldn't last the winter, either, he decided to replace them with the snow treads off his late wife's old Lincoln. They were like new, and he wasn't going to drive the car anyway.
As he was working, George heard shots being fired. He ran outside and found an officer lying on the cold ground beside his police car. Bleeding from the left shoulder, the officer moaned, "Please help me."
George helped the officer inside and went to work on him, using the training he had received as an Army medic. He knew the wound needed attention. To stop the bleeding, he grabbed clean shop towels the uniform company had left there earlier that morning. He bound them with duct tape, saying, "Hey, they say duct tape can fix anything," to try and make the officer feel at ease.
Then George started looking for something to help with the officer's pain. All he had were the pills he used for his back. "Those ought to work," he thought. So he gave the officer a cup of water, along with the pills, and said, "You hang in there. I'm going to get you an ambulance."
The phone was dead, but he figured maybe he could get one of the officer's buddies on the talk box in the police car. He went outside only to find that a bullet had gone into the dashboard, destroying the two-way radio.
Returning inside, George found the officer sitting up. "Thanks," said the officer. "You could have left me there. The guy who shot me is still in the area."
Sitting down beside the officer, George said, "I would never leave an injured man in the Army, and I ain't gonna leave you." He then pulled back the bandage to check the bleeding and noted that it looked worse than it actually was. "Bullet passed right through ya," he said. "Good thing it missed the important stuff. I think, with time, you're gonna be right as rain."
George got up to pour a cup of coffee, asking the officer, "How do you take it?"
"None for me," said the officer.
"Oh, yer gonna drink this," said George. "Best in the city. Too bad I don't have some donuts."
The officer laughed and winced at the same time, just moments before the front door of the office flew open and in burst a young man with a gun. "Give me all your cash! Do it now!" the young man barked. His hand was shaking, and George could tell that he never had done anything like this before.
"That's the guy who shot me!" exclaimed the officer.
"Son, why are you doing this?" George asked. "You need to put the cannon away. Somebody else might get hurt."
The confused young man shot back, "Shut up old man, or I'll shoot you, too. Now give me the cash!"
The cop now was reaching for his gun, but George stopped him, saying, "Put that thing away. We got one too many in here now. Turning his attention then to the young man, George said, "Son, it's Christmas Eve. If you need money, here, take this. It ain't much, but it's all I got. Now put that pea shooter away."
As George handed the young man $150, he reached for the barrel of the gun at the same time. The young man released his grip, fell to his knees, and began to cry. "I'm not very good at this, am I? All I wanted was to buy something for my wife and son," he went on. "I've lost my job, my rent is due, and my car got repossessed last week."
George handed the gun to the officer before continuing his conversation with the young man. "Son," he said, "we all get in a bit of squeeze now and then. The road gets hard sometimes, but we make it through the best we can."
Getting the young man to his feet, George seated him on a chair across from the officer. "Sometimes we do stupid things," he said, before handing the young man a cup of coffee. "Being stupid is one of the things that makes us human. Coming in here with a gun ain't the answer. Now sit there, get warm, and we'll sort this thing out."
The young man looked over at the cop and said, "Sorry I shot you. It just went off. I'm sorry, officer."
"Shut up and drink your coffee," the officer responded.
George could hear the sounds of sirens outside. A police car and an ambulance skidded to a halt, and two cops came through the door with guns drawn. "Chuck, you OK?" one asked.
"Not bad for a guy who took a bullet. How did you find me?" asked the injured officer.
"GPS locator in the car" came the response. "Best thing since sliced bread. Who did this?" asked the other cop as he approached the young man.
"I don't know," replied the injured officer. "The guy ran off into the dark. Just dropped his gun and ran."
George and the young man both looked puzzled at each other.
The one cop then asked George if the young man sitting there worked for him, and George replied, "Yep. Just hired him this morning. Boy lost his job."
When the paramedics came in to load the wounded officer on a stretcher, the young man leaned over and asked him, "Why?"
The reply he got was "Merry Christmas, boy...and you, too, George, and thanks for everything."
"Well, looks like you got one doozy of a break there," said George. "That ought to solve some of your problems."
George then went into the back room and came out with a box. He pulled out a ring box and handed it to the young man, saying, "Here you go...something for the little woman. I don't think Martha would mind. She said it would come in handy some day."
The young man looked inside to find the biggest diamond ring he ever had seen. "I can't take this," he said. "It means something to you."
"And now it means something to you," George responded. "I have my memories...that's all I need." George reached into the box again, retrieving a toy airplane, car and truck. An oil company had left them for him to sell. "These are for that little man of yours."
The young man began to cry again as he handed back the $150 that the old man had handed him earlier.
"And what are you supposed to buy Christmas dinner with?" George asked. "You keep that, too. Now git home to your family."
The young man turned, with tears streaming down his face. "I'll be here in the morning for work, if that job offer is still good."
"Nope. I'm closed Christmas Day," said George. "See ya the day after."
George then turned around to find that the stranger had returned. "Where'd you come from? I thought you had left."
"I have been here. I have always been here," said the stranger. "You say you don't celebrate Christmas. Why?"
"Well, after my wife passed away, I just couldn't see what all the bother was. Puttin' up a tree and all seemed a waste of a good pine tree. Bakin' cookies like I used to with Martha just wasn't the same by myself, and besides, I was gettin' a little chubby."
The stranger put his hand on George's shoulder. "But you do celebrate the holiday, George. You gave me food and drink and warmed me when I was cold and hungry. The woman with child will bear a son, and he will become a great doctor. The officer you helped will go on to save 19 people from being killed by terrorists. The young man who tried to rob you will make you a rich man and not take any for himself. That is the spirit of the season, and you keep it as good as any man."
George was taken aback by all this stranger had said. "And how do you know all this?" he asked.
"Trust me, George. I have the inside track on this sort of thing. And when your days are done, you will be with Martha again." The stranger then moved toward the door. "If you will excuse me, George, I have to go now. I have to go home, where there is a big celebration planned."
George watched as the old leather jacket and the torn pants the stranger was wearing turned into a white robe, and a golden light began to fill the room.
"You see, George, it's my birthday. Merry Christmas."
George's mouth dropped open as this man...well, he just clean disappeared before his eyes. Merry Christmas indeed!
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