Okay, so Christmas has no great deeper meaning to me since I’m a Pagan and not a Christian, but there's enough little kid inside me to make up for that somewhat. This is especially true if I can do something nice for people.
Christmas Eve in Butlertown on the island of Nevis was not going as I had planned. I had fully expected to spend the evening at the Domino College with my friends Maube and SuperGroovy, but things have a way of happening. What happened was that Father Martin (he pronounced it Mar-teen) came limping up to the table in a Santa suit and vast pain. A bunch of thugs had rolled him and left him in an alley. His bag of toys had been taken, although what grown men were going to do with teddy bears and baby dolls escaped me. SuperGroovy was well on his way to earning his name again, so he got designated to take Father Martin to the clinic where the nursing sisters would see to him. Maube and I undertook to recover the toys.
Why us? Because Father Martin came to our table. There are rules about such things. A table, even in a bar, is like an extension of your home. Guests must be protected, arguments must not result in spilled blood, and you must be prepared to share your last drink or morsel with a stranger or an enemy. This was once called Noblesse Oblige and it was taught to young children along with other courtesies and manners. American kids who grew up watching westerns and swashbuckler movies also developed such rules.
Nevis is a small island relatively speaking and if you spend any time there, you get to know people. You learn who not to gamble with, who not to drink with, and who to run away from when you hear them say, “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
You also learn who would be low enough to attack a priest, attack a priest on Christmas Eve, and attack a priest on Christmas Eve and steal toys for needy poor kids. I mean, come on, there are limits to how low you can get, but Franco, Paulo, and Michel d’Arcy were digging in deeper and deeper!
I went back to the boat and grabbed a couple of things I hoped not to need while Maube talked to a couple of Gendarmes he knew. I’ll keep their names out of it. They directed Maube to a dark alley and told him which door, and how many stairs to go up. They also offered to stay near the alley, but made no promise to go in. It was that kind of alley.
Long story short, and shorn of heroic blandishments, we got the toys back and the d'Arcy brothers, faithful sons of the church that they were, made a significant financial contribution that they probably didn’t remember the next day. Maube's friends at the Gendarmerie were careful not to see us emerge and go on our way. They took special care not to see our shotguns.
Meanwhile, Father Martin had been treated and suitably medicated. He could not take the toys to the waiting kid's at St. Eustatius and I lost the coin toss. So that's how it happened that a pagan dressed as a secular figure entered a Catholic church without alarm bells going off and activating trap doors.
SuperGroovy was already at the church and if he could step inside without bringing down thunder and lightning, I knew I was okay. He had led the kids through every Christmas song he knew and a couple he’d made up on the spot. I wondered how many Mama-slaps he’d earned as children repeated the verses. All was forgotten as I entered and toys got passed around, along with hugs, and blessings.
It was a Christmas that only a crazy ex-patriated American, a nomadic Garifuna shaman, and a perpetually wasted sailor would call a happy one, but it was.
