"When the chips are down, what can you do but dig a little deeper into the dumpster?"
- Albert Robeson
I guess you could say it was like any other story of two people searching for warmth in the cold night, except perhaps for the fact that Albert and Marianne found themselves sharing the same cardboard box in a dark alley off of Seventy-Third Street. Yeah, they'd seen each other from time to time, but the weather was warmer then and they were just two more people competing for spare change on the street and edible food in the dumpsters. But in late December, on the coldest night of the year, Albert had found a small space between two dumpsters, right beneath an air vent in the back of a dry cleaner's. Besides the warmth, the chemical smell from the vent masked a bit of the stench from the dumpsters.
Albert was always resourceful, so it wasn't strange that he found such a good place to spend the cold evening, what was strange was that he let someone share it with him. It wasn't that he hated people, it's just that since things fell apart for him, he'd forged a reasonable solitary life. Sure he was homeless, foraging the local dumpsters for food and begging on street corners for some money, but he had survived, which wasn't an easy thing to do on the streets.
So now, as he arranged his cardboard and old blankets in the flickering colored light from Christmas decorations, he prepared himself for the end of his eighth Holiday Season since his world ended. Normally Albert hated this time of year, he hated the hypocrisy as people who'd ignore him eleven months of the year, who'd kick him as he slept in the street and then give him blankets, or jackets, or a bit of spare change. He never turned down the charity, he just swallowed what little pride he had and hid his aversion.
Beyond this hypocrisy, Albert, who lived eleven months of the year relatively satisfied with his solitude, found himself haunted, haunted by his own personal ghost of Christmases past. Not sure if it was the lights in the streets, the Holiday music that seemed to slip though every door or the impending chance of snow, but the normally clear headed Albert found himself remembering his wife, his children, his life before.
It was in the midst of his memories that Albert slipped onto the nearby cemetery and took several fresh flowers left just that morning. Holding them loosely in his jacket to protect them from the cold, he wandered back toward his alley dodging the traffic and bustling last minute shoppers. On his way back, he diverted a bit, walking a block or two out of the way so he could check out a couple of street corners.
On the second street corner, he spotted Marianne and slowly headed her way. Though he had never really looked closely at her, he had noticed her hair and the way her breasts looked when she wasn't so heavily bundled up. Now, as he approached her, he took a closer look, letting his eyes move down her body. Her brown hair was beginning to show some gray and it frizzed out wildly except where she had tied back the part that fell down her face. There were no bald spots or matted clumps in her hair and he never noticed her scratching her head so she probably didn't have too many lice.
Her cheeks were very red, chapped in the cold wind Albert figured, but it gave her a cheery glow that she didn't have in the summer. Though deep set, her light blue eyes seemed to shine brightly in spite of the bags underneath. She did smile a lot and seemed to have most of her teeth.
He couldn't see her neck, and bundled up as she was, he could only see a slight bulge in her jacket where her breasts were, but he remembered how nice and plump they when he saw them in the summer. All in all, he was looking at one of the most beautiful women he had dared to look at in a long, long time.
Feeling like a schoolboy he walked casually up to her and pausing a moment for her to finish panhandling a small group of people, he took a deep breath and slowly pulled the flowers from inside his jacket. They had fared well considering the weather and the jostling they took on the walk over. When she finished she moved to lean back on the building and then noticed Albert standing there.
Albert was a sight, with his ratty and torn wool cap, a dirty gray beard, a badly stained pink jacket with fake fur collar and ragged blue jeans. His brown eyes peeked out from badly overgrown eyebrows, his nose was twisted to one side and his lips were curled up in a shy, shit eating grin. In other words, though he wasn't absolutely gorgeous, he was incredibly cute to Marianne.
"Why Albert, you ain't elbowing in on my corner here are you?"
"No Ma'am Marianne, I'm here to invite you to Christmas Dinner."
"Christmas Dinner? Where on earth did you find a Christmas Dinner?" she asked moving a bit closer to Albert.
"Oh... these are for you," he said, handing her the flowers.
"They are pretty Albert. I'm sure whoever you stole these from paid a lot of money," she replied smiling. "Thank you," she continued, taking the flowers and bowing her head to him. She stood waiting for Albert to say something, but after a few moments she spoke again, "Christmas Dinner?"
"Oh yes... well, I'm staying near a dry cleaners and well I heard they're having a pizza party for Christmas Eve and then leaving early. I figure they should be finishing up real soon."
"Warm pizza?"
