Happy Birthday Jesus

Christmas Eve 2011. For midnight prayers, the old church in the center of the park glowed warm with the light of what must have been a thousand candles.

The big man entered quietly, and was grateful to find a seat in the back, near the aisle. With half a dozen excellent rellenos and half as many cocktails in his belly, Jorge joined the prayer-service in progress.

Head bowed, eyes closed, he'd joined just in time to hear the solemn call for world peace.

He gave a reflexive nod to the concept, but war and suffering on the other side of the world weren't really his concern. In truth, Jorge gave no thought at all to world peace. His hands were full with the war and suffering in his own world - holding his own ground - keeping the wolves at bay. On a good day it was two steps forward, one step back. He hadn't seen too many good days lately. In his line of work, keeping the wolves from the door is no small achievement.

Half an hour later he rose to leave the church before the service ended. He detested obligatory chatter and intentionally avoided situations that would call for it. To Jorge, obligatory Christmas chatter merited it's own unique disdain. He stepped quietly through the doors, outside into the cold. He took a deep breath of cold air, felt the burning in his nose and lungs. It was good to be away from the humid shoulder to shoulder feeling of artificial intimacy that he felt in a church.

He stood outside for a moment, alone on the steps and checked his watch. If he hurried he'd make his rendezvous on time. Jorge knew he'd find his own peace, in a nightcap - or tonight, maybe two.

He carefully descended the slippery steps, then leaned forward, head down into an icy wind. He pushed across the park, unconsciously counting off the hundred and eleven paces to the cone of pale yellow street light that revealed his gleaming black Lincoln Navigator. For a big man, Jorge moved quickly and effortlessly through the shadows of leafless trees, aware only of the wind, the crunching of frosty-frozen grass beneath his boots - and his own troubled thoughts.

He stepped into the light, slipped into the Lincoln and settled into his pre-heated leather seat.

As the engine warmed, his eyes followed the parallel broken lines of his own foot prints, back across the icy grass, through the tree shadowed park, to the steps of the church. The stained glass windows above still shone rich and warm with candle light. Inside, he knew that with heads bowed, shoulder to shoulder, the dutiful still prayed. He sighed, relieved to no longer be among them. His breath fogged the drivers-side window. He grinned and whispered "Happy Birthday Jesus".

The big man turned up the heater and tapped the button bearing the defroster symbol. He eased the Navigator into first, checked his watch again, then pulled slowly away from the park - out of the light - into the night.

He hadn't noticed that in the back seat, just out of the rear view mirrors reach, sat a silent passenger. Jorge was not alone.

His headlights carved the image of a two-lane blacktop from the surrounding darkness. At twenty three minutes north of the church, he hadn't seen another vehicle. To be alone on this old highway was more common than not. As it was Christmas Eve, his aloneness on the road was virtually assured.

Jorge turned right, onto an unmarked dirt road. His destination, deep in the apple orchards, was a one hundred and fifteen year old, two-room adobe structure. It was known only as "The Cantina" and known to only a handful of patrons. The building stood at roughly the halfway point on a dusty one-lane road, that beyond The Cantina, looped almost aimlessly through seemingly endless orchards and opened onto a highway in the next county.

The proprietress of The Cantina, whose hair shone like polished silver was reverentially referred to as "La Viuda Plata". The Silver Widow never imposed. Her perfect expression of old-world grace and discretion generated the essence of The Cantina's unique atmosphere.

The Cantina was never closed. For her patrons, The Cantina was refuge from the world's madness. The Cantina was respite - simple elegance, warmth and security, the kind that the uncommon souls of uncommon men depend upon.

And so it had been for generations of such men - since the fathers of the fathers of The Cantina's current patrons, had themselves, been young uncommon souls.

The widow's role had, over time, afforded her considerable comforts. She'd, quietly financed seven grandchildren, and as of this Christmas Eve, eleven
great-grandchildren - through college and into positions of political authority.

Far beyond such appearances of power, the humble widow's fulfillment was in knowing that her many descendants, her progeny, her star seeds, were rooted deeply within the unseen, first sphere of power and influence - the cadre of beings that create human reality.

Jorge turned left, from the dirt road and onto the long, dust covered flagstone driveway that led to The Cantina. He was rolling to a stop near the front door and saw between barren trees, the unusually muted lights in the windows.

He didn't realize that in this instant, he was rolling through an invisible opening, passing through a tear in the fabric of time and space that forms the collective human perception of what we call "reality".

He didn't realize that when he opened the door of the Navigator
he'd step into a drastically altered version of reality - A version from which he would never return.

Jorge would realize however, in the next few moments, that he was not alone.