Jesus, Baby!

by Jonathan Dixon

That afternoon’s issue of the Loffeer, Illinois Courier heralded the news:

Come one, come all to First Church’s Christmas pageant “Jesus, Baby!” which will be held this evening, December 15, at 7:00! This year’s Christmas pageant will be a milestone event because this will be Esther Ford’s fortieth year directing the pageant . . . .

Setting the last of her Christmas cookies on the rack to cool, Esther Ford wiped the flour from her hands onto her apron and picked up the paper on the counter. Opening it up, seeing the article on the pageant, Esther wondered why, after thirty-nine years of pageants, thirty-nine years of coaxing, begging, and bullying those kids into learning their lines and then wiping their runny noses backstage when they cried after forgetting them anyway, had she been talked into doing it again?

Not willing to read any further, she put the paper down and headed for the pantry in her kitchen where she kept her liquor.

With a gin and tonic in hand, and taking the newspaper in the other, Esther walked to the living room. Lounging into her sofa, Esther set her drink on the doily resting atop the end table. She stared into the blinking multicolored lights from the Christmas tree dancing off of the ice cubes in the glass of clear liquid.

Two thoughts came to Esther’s mind: first, she should have retired from the Christmas pageant business last year, as she’d planned. Instead, she’d let herself be talked into one last pageant by the new minister, Pastor Tom. Her second thought was that forty years seemed impossibly long to have been doing this – she almost wanted to gasp, was this annual pageant going to end up being her life’s legacy?

Ironically, she’d only started directing the pageants in the first place as a favor to an elderly woman in the church, old Mrs. Bollman, who’d done the pageants since time immemorial. Mrs. Bollman hadn’t been able to continue after she’d fallen on ice a week after Thanksgiving and broken her hip. She had literally handed Esther the baton – she gave Esther the baton she’d used every year, saying that Esther would be needing it now.

Here it was forty years later and, except for the broken hip, she was old Mrs. Bollman. Esther even still had that baton.

Even more depressing was the fact that she actually had some of the grandkids of some of her original cast members in this year’s show.

Picking up the gin and tonic and taking a deep gulp, she picked up the article in the paper again. The piece continued:

To honor Esther, refreshments will be served in the church’s fellowship hall after the pageant. A table will be set up with pictures and memories of each of Esther’s Christmas pageants over the past forty years. All present and past pageant “actors” and “actresses” are especially invited to share in the fun!

Well, she thought, sipping from her drink, at least they thought to put quotations around ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’. She clinked the ice in her glass. If she could have bottled the energy she’d spent motivating those kids over the years she’d have a cellar full of it – and if she could have bottled the collective talent over the years she might muster a vial big enough to fit into her medicine cabinet next to her Geritol.

Taking another sip from her drink, she thought of what she’d do – she’d take along that baton she’d gotten from Mrs. Bollman and share the story at the reception of how she’d gotten it. The folks would love a charming story like that. Then she’d find someone to take it off her hands.

One fast swig finished off her drink.

Just as she was getting up to pour another, the telephone rang. Hoisting herself up from the sofa, she reached the phone on the third ring. Just as she was picking it up, she saw the name on the caller I.D. – “Frances Ford” – her sister. Not in the mood to endure a call from her at that moment, she let the voicemail pick up the call. Frances was supposed to bring the programs to the pageant tonight. No doubt, she was only calling with some excuse to try to get out of the task – just as she had done each year for more-or-less thirty-nine years now.

Esther returned to the pantry for another gin, and not so much tonic. Pouring the drink, Esther realized that the title of this year’s pageant should have been the first thing to tip her off that maybe one more year doing the pageant was a bad idea. Over the past thirty-nine years the pageants had borne more traditional titles, with billings like “A Holy Night” or “This Is The Night” or “The Holy Night Of Nights.” “Jesus, Baby!” was Pastor Tom’s idea. When he’d approached her with a suggestion that they try a Christmas musical written by one of his seminary friends, she’d been thrilled with the idea – after all, this was his first year at First Church after graduating the previous spring, and she had no idea what fresh material she could possibly conjure up anyway. Esther had simply been relieved to have gotten Pastor Tom’s interest in the production.

Had she known that the score for his friend’s production called for electric guitars and a band of drums she might not have signed over to his suggestion sight unseen.

Esther strolled over to her front window, and peeked out from behind the drapes. Snow flurries were drifting down in the glow of the streetlight at the corner. Esther smiled. Maybe – dare she hope? – this year might be different. Maybe the new spin on the annual event might finally inspire someone else to take it on next year.

Toasting to that thought, she took a deep and satisfying drink. She retired to her bedroom to get dressed for the evening.

Driving to the church in her black Lincoln, Esther felt for old Mrs. Bollman’s baton in her breast pocket just to make sure it was there. Suddenly, amidst the snowflakes, a loose piece of paper fluttered up in the breeze and blew across her windshield.

It instantly reminded Esther of a nightmare she’d had the night before.

Each night before a pageant had brought Esther a nickelodeon parade of nightmares over the years. There were dreams where the children came on without their costumes, in some versions of the dream they wore nothing but their underwear, in some versions they marched on wearing costumes from some other production altogether like “The Sound of Music” or “Fiddler On The Roof.” There were dreams where the audience booed, and dreams where, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get her car to the church, where each mile to the church stretched on forever as the curtain time loomed nearer and nearer.

But none of those nightmares compared to the one she’d had last night. She was driving in her Lincoln to the church, and a light dusting of snow was floating down through the streetlights, concealing the blackness of the road. The radio was playing Tony Bennett singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”

Driving along, though, the flakes of snow began to fall heavier and heavier. Esther turned on her windshield wipers to maximum speed, but snow only fell harder and the wipers would hardly keep the windshield clear.

The snowflakes not only fell harder, but also grew larger, and changed shape. She realized that whole sheets of paper were pelting the hood and windshield of her car, coating the road, and spinning up onto her wheels into the undercarriage of her car.

She could barely see as the sheets of paper were caught under the wipers flapping back and forth across the window. In a moment of panic, she swerved to pull over to the side of the road, but she was going far too fast . . . she was skidding off the road . . . a blinding flurry of white paper surrounded her . . .

Esther had snapped up, wide awake, in a cold sweat.

Arriving at the church, Esther hung up her coat, shaking the snow off of it, and took off her boots and slipped into her pumps.

Making her way back to the choir room, she bumped into Pastor Tom.

“Has Frances arrived yet?” she asked.

“Haven’t seen her,” he replied.

“When you see her,” she said, turning around to continue toward the choir room, “send her to me! Got to get to the children!”

“Will do,” Pastor smiled.

In the choir room, minutes before curtain, Esther made her way through the crowd of children and adults taking a final head count, making last minute costume checks, coaxing parents to take their seats in the church, and going over the lines with the principal parts.

Just as she was making sure that the boy playing the archangel Gabriel knew the play’s opening lines, Esther looked up to see Pastor Tom making his way toward her.

“Has Frances gotten here yet?” she asked.

“Actually, I was coming back here to ask you the same thing. We’ve got the church two-thirds full and no programs. Do you have any idea where she could be?” he said worriedly.

“I have no idea . . . well, she did try to call before I left,” Esther started to say. “I should have picked up the phone. I was in such a hurry to get here . . . .”

The lights in the church dimmed.

“Anyway,” Pastor smiled, patting her shoulder, “with or without programs, the show is about to go on. Break a leg!”

Esther watched Pastor Tom leave to take his seat in the sanctuary. Maybe, she thought, Frances would at least make it in time for them to hand out programs during intermission.

Taking one last look over the heads of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, magi, and the angels all about to make their entrances, Esther mouthed, “Here goes nothing!”

She took her place at the side door of the sanctuary. The band started up the overture, and Esther positioned Mary and the archangel Gabriel to enter stage left.

As the band’s last note died away, Esther cued them to go on. A spotlight came down on Mary with Gabriel coming to her, and the first notes from the lead guitar and bongo drums began for the opening “Hail, Mary” number.

“Esther!” A loud whisper from behind her pierced Esther’s concentration. “Esther, dear!”

Spinning around, Esther saw Frances standing in her coat behind the shepherds roughhousing. Touching her finger to her lips to shush her, Esther rushed over to her, breaking up the shepherds, absentmindedly straightening their robes.

“Frances, where on earth have you been?”

“Well, Merry Christmas to you, too!” Frances retorted. “Has the pageant started?”

“Has it started? Frances! Yes, the pageant has started!”

“I tried to call you to ask you when it started. Didn’t you get my message?”

“What message?” Esther snapped. She scanned the children to find Joseph. “You’re next on, dear – stand over here,” she whispered to him, positioning him by the door.

Turning back to her sister, Esther hissed, “You have the programs right?”

Frances leaned in close to Esther, and sniffed. “Is that gin you’re wearing again this year?” Frances turned to look for anyone who would listen. “Does anybody else smell gin?”

“How could they, what with the overpowering smell of scotch that just entered the room,” Esther snarled.

Meanwhile, an angel chorus line kicked on stage singing, “Glory! Glory! Glory! What a heavenly story! Glory in the highest! Let’s give it our finest! What will this day be? It’ll be a day for you, Jesus, Baby! All for you, Jesus, Baby!”

A guitar riff interlude started in while the angels arced around Mary, kicking like Rockettes.

Esther waved to get the attention of the shepherds, motioning for them to line up behind Joseph and get ready to go on.

“Frances,” Esther turned, glaring at her sister, “I’ve got a stage full of kids and a church full of their parents expecting to see little junior’s and little miss’s name in print on the program. Remember those thirty-nine years’ worth of programs downstairs for the reception to honor my fortieth pageant? Well, thanks to you we’ll be short one year’s worth of programs!”

“Take it easy, Esther!”

The angel chorus line finished their number on stage and were filing back into the choir room. Esther tapped Joseph to go on.

“Frances, I don’t have time for you’re games right now. Honestly! I give you one simple task, and you, somehow, can’t even manage that!”

“Oh, I can’t manage what, Esther? What, exactly, can’t I manage?”

“Don’t start again. Please, not this year. Every goddamned year you do this to me! You push my buttons every year!”

“Every year? And what about me, Esther? Every goddamned year I’ve been here for you, printing the programs, setting up the reception, helping with the cleanup after the applause for our dedicated pageant director has died down!”

“Keep your voice down, Frances!”

The lead shepherd tugged Esther’s sleeve. Esther’s head was swimming.

“Isn’t it time for us to go on?” he asked.

Esther looked out and saw the band, Mary, and Joseph staring at her, not a peep coming from the audience.

“Get out there,” she said, shoving them out the door.

Watching the shepherds file onstage, Esther turned to see the three magi standing back, mouths gaping. “Don’t just stand there,” she told them, then caught herself, and tried to regain her composure. “You’re next on, boys. Ready?” She placed them for their entrances.

She watched their entrance, the three of them rapping that they were “scoring their gold and myrrh at the shops/to hang at Jesus’ crib and give their props.”

After she watched them hand over their offerings to the baby Jesus, Esther pivoted around on her heel to face her sister. “Frances, the programs please?” Esther thrust out her hand to receive the programs.

“What if I don’t have them?”

“You do have them.” Esther thrust into the inside of Frances’s coat. “You’ve got them stashed in here, right?!”

Frances recoiled, trying to brush Esther’s hands away. Frances’s gesture only knocked Esther off balance, however, and Esther flung her arms to right herself, swinging like Mohammed Ali at Frances, sending her reeling backward, and landing on her butt.

“Frances!” Esther gasped.

The rage in Frances’s eyes pierced through Esther.

“You want your programs? Here are your goddamned programs!”

Frances pulled out the programs, and threw open her arms releasing one hundred white pages of programs into the air, engulfing both of them. Esther rushed to gather them, but a false step with a sheet of paper caught under her pump sent her reeling through the air.

With a thump that thundered through the church, Esther hit the floor, next to her sister.

After the reception, Pastor Tom stopped by the hospital emergency room to collect Esther and Frances.

Esther, her head wrapped thickly in white bandages, and Frances, her ankle wrapped in a splint, smiled weakly when he entered her room.

Pastor Tom stood in the doorway, smiling at the sight of the two of them in adjoining beds.

“Anything happen after we left?” Esther asked.

“Well, I think that, at first, the audience thought the ambulance siren was part of the show – as though it were arriving to whisk Mary off to the delivery room or something.”

“I’d laugh if my head didn’t hurt so much,” Esther offered.

“How is your head?” Pastor asked.

“The doctors say the headache will subside.” Frances answered for her sister. “Maybe that knot on her head will even go down eventually. As if her head weren’t big enough already.”

“My head may be big, Sister, but you’re lucky you landed on your biggest feature,” Esther retorted.

“Anyway, the doctor tells me that you’re both ready to go. Let me offer you ladies a ride home,” Pastor Tom said, picking up their coats.

Helping Esther with her coat, Pastor Tom offered, “You know, Esther, there were some great tributes said for you at the reception.”

Esther grimaced and shook her head.

“Sister,” she said to Frances, “You’ve given me a Christmas to remember. And, Pastor, I have something for you.”

Reaching into her breast pocket, she pulled out Mrs. Bollman’s baton. “Here,” passing the baton to him, “I’m going to give this to you. Merry Christmas!”