The phone tang five minutes later. The operator said: “Will you accept-”

“No,” he said, and hung up.

The phone rang twice more that day, but it was not Olivia either time.

Around two in the afternoon Mary called him from Bob and Janet Preston’s house-Bob and Janet, who always reminded him, like it or not, of Barney and Wilma Flintstone. How was he? Good. A lie. What was he doing for Christmas dinner? Going out to Old Customhouse tonight for turkey with all the trimmings. A lie. Would he like to come over here instead? Janet had all kinds of leftovers and would be happy to get rid of some. No, he really wasn’t very hungry at the minute. The truth. He was pretty well looped, and on the spur of the moment he told her he would come to Walter’s party. She sounded pleased. Did he know it was BYOB? When did Wally Hammer have a party that wasn’t? he asked, and she laughed. They hung up and he went back to sit in front of the TV with a drink.

The phone rang again around seven-thirty, and by that time he was nothing as polite as looped-he was pissy-assed drunk.

“Lo?”

“Dawes?”

“Dozz here; whozzere?”

“Magliore, Dawes. Sal Magliore.”

He blinked and peered into his glass. He looked at the Zenith color TV, where he had been watching a movie called Home for the Holidays. It was about a family that had gathered at their dying patriarch’s house on Christmas Eve and somebody was murdering them one by one. Very Christmasy.

“Mr. Magliore,” he said, pronouncing carefully. “Merry Christmas, sir! And the best of everything in the new year!”

“Oh, if you only knew how I dread ’74,” Magliore said dolefully. “That’s the year the oil barons are going to take over the country, Dawes. You see if they don’t. Look at my sales sheet for December if you don’t believe me. I sold a 1971 Chevy Impala the other day, this car is clean as a whistle, and I sold it for a thousand bucks. A thousand bucks! Do you believe that? A forty-five percent knockdown in one year. But I can sell all the ’71 Vegas I can get my hands on for fifteen, sixteen hundred bucks. And what are they, I ask you?”

“Little cars?” he asked cautiously.

“They’re fucking Maxwell House coffee cans, that’s what they are!” Magliore shouted. “Saltine boxes on wheels! Every time you look at the goddam things cross-eyed and say booga-booga at them the engine’s outta tune or the exhaust system drops off or the steering linkage is gone. Pintos, Vegas, Gremlins, they’re all the same, little suicide boxes. So I’m selling those as fast as I can get them and I can’t move a nice Chevy Impala unless I fuckin' give it away. And you say happy new year. Jesus! Mary! Joseph the carpenter!”

“That’s seasonal,” he said.

“I didn’t call about that anyway,” Magliore answered. “I called to say congratulations.”

“Congratuwhatchens?” He was honestly bewildered.

“You know. Crackle-crackle boom-boom.”

“Oh, you mean-”

“Sssst. Not on the phone. Be cool, Dawes.”

“Sure. Crackle-crackle boom-boom. That’s good.” He cackled.

“It was you, wasn’t it, Dawes?”

“To you I wouldn’t admit my middle name.”

Magliore roared. “That’s good. You’re good, Dawes. You’re a fruitcake, but you’re a clever fruitcake. I admire that.”

“Thanks,” he said, and cleverly knocked back the rest of his drink.

“I also wanted to tell you that everything was going ahead on schedule down there. Rumble and roar.”

The glass he was holding fell from his fingers and rolled across the rug.

“They’ve got seconds on all that stuff, Dawes. Thirds on most of it. They’re paying cash until they got their bookwork straightened out, but everything is righton.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No. I thought you ought to know. I told you, Dawes. Some things you can’t get rid of.”

“You’re a bastard. You’re lying. Why do you want to call a man up on Christmas night and tell him lies?”

“I ain’t lying. It’s your play again, Dawes. In this game, it’s always gonna be your play.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You poor son of a bitch,” Magliore said. He sounded honestly sorry and that was the worst part. “I don’t think it’s gonna be a very happy new year for you either.” He hung up.

And that was Christmas.

There was a letter from them in the mail (he had begun to see the anonymous people downtown that way, the personal pronoun in italics and printed in drippy, ominous letters like the printing on a horror movie poster), as if to confirm what Magliore had said.

He held it in his hand, looking down at the crisp white business envelope, his mind filled with almost all the bad emotions the human mind can feel: Despair, hatred, fear, anger, loss. He almost tore it into small pieces and threw it into the snow beside the house, and then knew he couldn’t do that. He opened it, nearly tearing the envelope in half, and realized that what he felt most was cheated. He had been gypped. He had been rooked. He had destroyed their machines and their records, and they had just brought up a few replacements. It was like trying to fight the Chinese Army singlehanded.

It’s your play again, Dawes. In this game it’s always gonna be your play.

The other letters had been form jobs, sent from the office of the highway department. Dear Friend, a big crane is going to come to your house sometime soon. Be on the lookout for this exciting event as WE IMPROVE YOUR CITY!

This was from the city council, and it was personal. It said:

December 20, 1973

Mr. Barton G. Dawes

1241 Crestallen Street West 

M-, W

Dear Mr. Dawes:

It has come to our attention that you are the last resident of Crestallen Street West who has not relocated. We trust that you are experiencing no undue problems in this matter. While we have a 19642-A form on file (acknowledgment of information concerning City Roads Project 6983-426-73-74-HC), we do not yet have your relocation form (6983-426-73-74-HC-9004, blue folder). As you know, we cannot begin processing your check of reimbursement without this form. According to our 1973 tax assessment, the property at 1241 Crestallen Street West has been valued at $63,500, and so we are sure that you must be as aware of the situation’s urgency as we are. By law, you must relocate by January 20, 1974, the date that demolitions work is sched-uled to begin on Crestallen Street West.

We must also point out again that according to the State Statute of Eminent Domain (S.L. 19452-36), you would be in violation of the law to remain in your present location past midnight of January 19, 1974. We are sure you understand this, but we are pointing it out once more so that the record will be clear.

If you are having some problem with relocation, I hope you will call me during business hours, or better yet, stop by and discuss the situation. I am sure that things can be worked out; you will find us more than eager to cooperate in this matter. In the meantime, may I wish you a Merry Christmas and a most productive New Year?

Sincerely,

[John T. Gordon]

For the City Council

JTG/tk

“No,” he muttered. “You may not wish it. You may not.” He tore the letter to shreds and threw it in the wastebasket.

That night, sitting in front of the Zenith TV, he found himself thinking about how he and Mary had found out, almost forty-two months ago now, that God had decided to do a little roadwork on their son Charlie’s brain.

The doctor’s name had been Younger. There was a string of letters after his name on the framed diplomas that hung on the warmly paneled walls of his inner office, but all he understood for sure was that Younger was a neurologist; a fast man with a good brain disease.