AN ANGELIC CHRISTMAS TALE WITH A WHISPER OF GRACE AND PROMISE OF PEACE
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” – The Bible
I could write a book about people I’ve met in coffee shops. Well, if not a book, certainly a TV sitcom. I’ve met people from far away places and homeless people with no places to be from. None is more memorable than a young man I met several years ago. I was Christmas shopping in downtown Monterey when I stopped for a break at Starbucks on Alvarado Street. No small tables were available, so after I got my drink I grabbed a seat at a long communal table, draping my jacket over the back of the chair. I began working on the Word Game in the newspaper, where you unscramble the letters of a host word and extract as many other words from it that you can. The word was “ocarinas.” The first word I extracted was “corn” I stuck with the C words and got cairn, coin, casa, and casino when a voice said: “I see you’re buying a lot of corn.”
A young man with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes sat down next to me. He set down his coffee cup, then proceeded to place three silver dollars portraying the likenesses of Washington, Eisenhower and Kennedy in front of him. Then he added a medallion with an American flag on its face. His clothes said homeless, or perhaps a wanderer. I told him I wasn’t buying corn and explained the word game to him. He said it was OK if I didn’t want it to get around that I was cornering the market on corn.
He told me his name was John, which he wrote down for me along with his last name, and his Incan name, Yanaconas, given to him by the spirits. He added his address in Pebble Beach, and his birthday, October 17, 1988 at 6:45 a.m. He asked if I was familiar with the Chase Bank across the street. I told him I did my banking at a Chase branch in Carmel. “I’m in the process of buying it,” John said. I asked where he got the money to buy the bank. “I already own Bank of America. So money isn’t a problem, but I’m going to change the name to Bank of America.” Then he told me that because I was so friendly, he was going to give the bank to me. I thanked him for his generosity, but told him I liked the name Chase. He wasn’t sure about that and suggested I come up with an alternate name. “How about Bank of AmeriChase,” I said.
“Deal,” he exclaimed. Then he pointed to the silver dollars. “Which one do you like?”
“I like Ike.”
“Here, take it. It’s a gift.”
“I’ll only take it if you accept a greenback dollar for it.” He didn’t want to do that. I told him to consider it another business transaction, like buying the bank.
“I’ll accept it under those circumstances.”
I asked about the gold medallion. “The President gave it to me at the White House for meritorious service to the country.” “Which President?”
“Eisenhower, of course,” he smiled. Then he excused himself and went to the restroom, leaving the coins and medallion on the table. Another coffee drinker sat down across from me, opened his laptop, attached his blue tooth phone to his ear and immedi- ately began a phone conversation, speaking loudly as if he were alone in the coffee shop.
I gathered my newspaper, coffee, and John’s coffee and coins and moved to a small table that had become available. Moments later John stood in front of me holding the jacket I left draped over the chair. I explained why I had moved and invited him to join me. Just then the store manager came up and asked if “this man” was bothering me. I said no. The manager said she had been observing John and asked him to leave. I repeated that he wasn’t bothering me. She was adamant.
“It’s OK,” John said, as if he was used to such treatment. “I was just about to leave, anyway. By the way, you’ll make a killing in corn.”
The manager told me customers had complained about him on other occasions. Perhaps he was a little too animated for those people. My choice would have been to toss the computer guy, especially since he didn’t offer to buy me my own bank.
I never saw John again. I like to think he was a messenger to remind me that Christmas is a whisper of grace with a promise of peace. Now years later I sometimes wonder if meeting John happened, and was there really a gentle breeze from the flutter of wings unfurling when he went out the door? Then I look at my Eisenhower silver dollar and wish I had bought corn futures.
Merry Christmas.
