I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [44]
The table has been cleared.
The other guests have left. All except me.
I have had a couple of espresso shots and am clearing my head with a little cognac.
It’s Neil and Machiko and me and we do what we have done over the past few years. We discuss where we want to spend next Thanksgiving.
“How does Argentina sound?” asks Machiko.
“Don’t cry for me . . .” I begin to sing.
I sound great. At least I think I do. I have risen from my chair. Oh, no, I am singing and dancing. What is the matter with me, I don’t even like the song.
Then I look at Neil and Machiko. They are stunned, and maybe a little horrified.
It’s time to go home.
CHRISTMAS, 11:45 P.M.
Another Christmas Comes to an End, and Our Hero (Obviously Not Quick on the Uptake) Learns a Lesson
After the day I’ve had, it’s amazing I can walk. It’s amazing I am able to climb into the cab. It’s like exercise. I roll into it.
I am not so much drunk as bloated. If I were filled with helium rather than food and drink, I would make a perfect float for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I have eaten more than any single man should at one sitting. I have eaten more than a small village should at one sitting. There is not enough Lipitor in the universe for me right now. I have been a piggy pig pig pig piggy piggy.
In my act I yell about idiot politicians and greedy businessmen, and yet here I am, just as idiotic and greedy. And on Christmas Day. Shame on me, for I am at this moment the fatty of the fattiest. I am not talking girth, I am talking filled to the brim. I am oozing blubbery lipids.
Years ago, when I was a young man just out of college, I would have mocked someone who had just spent the day as I had. (Well, not so much the amount eaten, but the foods themselves and the pricey wine.) I feel guilty about my self-indulgence and I begin to wonder what I should have done differently today.
Should I have given more to charity? Should I volunteer to be a volunteer at all of the places that need volunteers? Would that make up for all of this excess? I don’t know.
How do you live a good life? I just can’t bring myself to do what Jesus would do, which is to give up everything and follow his path. Why can’t people do that? Why can’t I?
And if I did, would it change anything, since Jesus himself didn’t get much done while he was alive. Christmas isn’t even my holiday and yet I get to celebrate a better Christmas than the hundreds of millions of impoverished Christians around the world. That’s not right. Of course it isn’t.
But right now, I am too bloated to do anything about it. (Jesus Christ, the cabdriver just hit a pothole and jostled me. I feel like I’m going to implode.)
And even though I’m feeling fat and remorseful, I know that what I did today was a great way to spend the day.
I just wish I could share it with everybody. But I don’t like everybody.
If this guilt weren’t enough, on the cab ride home, I go through all the failed relationships I have had in my life. How, Where, Why, When did I go wrong? What is it about commitment that leaves me uncommitted? Am I that much of a narcissist? Am I so self-absorbed that I cannot share my life with anyone? I don’t know. Didn’t these women who gave their love so freely to me deserve more than I gave back? Unquestionably. Do I really believe I am that much of a fucking prize? (Probably, but that’s no excuse.) These were all women who were looking for a real marriage and a real family. And in every one of those relationships I had the best of intentions and I left them with what must have looked like the worst intentions.
I’ve managed to leave a trail of tears, and yet they were all lucky to be rid of me, I think.
“This is it,” my Israeli cabdriver informs me. “And a Happy Chanukah.”
As I ride up in the elevator, I realize that my software