In the midst of one of late twentieth century America’s worst recessions, Ed Podolak, an unemployed worker from western Pennsylvania, winds up in Cleveland looking for a job. It’s Christmas Eve, and all he has to his name is forty-eight bucks—and that isn’t nearly enough to buy Christmas presents for his wife and his kids. On impulse, he steals a wad of cash from the kettle of a downtown street-corner Santa. He thinks he’s gotten away with it—until he realizes he’s been observed by a bright-eyed six-year-old boy.

Excerpt: I was standing there in Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio, listening to the Christmas music being banged out by a high-school marching band and watching the skaters whirl around the ice in their sparkling ballet, some of the women and kids in short little skating skirts and others in plain old blue jeans. One young fellow was wearing green earmuffs and a red scarf that he’d wrapped around his neck a few times so that he looked like Tiny Tim, and from the complicated dips and twirls he was executing you could tell that he’d been skating a long time. He was kind of a showboat, but graceful and talented. All around the temporary rink, Clevelanders were ignoring the cold to watch the fancy twirls and figure eights or just to enjoy looking at other people enjoying themselves. The holiday spirit was all over the place.

Publisher: The Cobham and Hatherton Press

Publication Year: 1991

Pages: 32