{"id":32187,"date":"2025-12-29T20:21:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/?p=32187"},"modified":"2025-12-29T20:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:29:54","slug":"3-days-before-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/3-days-before-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Days Before Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nThis happened at Tracy O’Grady’s fabulous Willow Restaurant in Arlington’s Balston neighborhood a dozen years ago. Vic had it as first person, so that is why it reads a little funny:<\/p>\n

Old Jim called me as I was trying to get topics outlined for some uplifting pre-holiday thoughts. The phone was buried in my back-back, and I had to burrow around for a while before I got to it, just in the nick of time before it rolled over to \u201cmissed call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Jim,\u201d I said. \u201cI will be over to Willow in a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey fired Tex,\u201d Jim growled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey axed him. He came in for his shift and they canned him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJim, it is three days to Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly two working days for the restaurant. See you.\u201d Click. Jim is a man of few words on the phone, which he maintains is just for making calls, not researching the internet, reading books or watching clever videos of cats doing improbable things on the internet.<\/p>\n

I got my affairs, such as they are, together and jumped in the Police Car for the short drive from Big Pink to the restaurant. It was eerie quiet, and the sun was sinking well before 1700. Solstice tomorrow, I thought, and brightened a bit. We will be getting another few seconds of daylight right into Spring from there on.<\/p>\n

But not that night. We were slipping into darkness as deep as it is going to get this year.<\/p>\n

Thinking back on it this morning, I was not surprised that things were a little subdued at the bar. Big travel day, I imagine.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI slid into the seat to Jim\u2019s left, which is not his good side, but some civilians had formed a knot around the base of the Amen Corner and I was not in the mood to tell them to move.<\/p>\n

The official who did the firing was to my left, so I felt that discretion was probably the right approach. I wished Jon-without an “H”or John-with one were there, or Jerry the Barrister to give us a legal opinion on what had happened.<\/p>\n

Sotto vocce, I leaned over and said: \u201cWhat the hell happened? Did you talk to Chris?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I was sitting in the front window of our unit up the street and I saw his big black SUV pull into the loading area that goes unrestricted parking at four o\u2019clock. He got out in his civilian clothes like usual and walked across the street to the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he had no idea anything was coming?\u201d I asked. \u201cThat is weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came back out a few minutes later and got in his car and drove off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not sure I would have terminated a large and heavily armed Marine who has a CCP without significant back-up,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree days before Christmas,\u201d said Jim, and waved at Jasper for another beer. \u201cThe freaking week of Christmas. What are they thinking? They didn\u2019t want to give him a bonus?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\u201cLot of that going around,\u201d I mused. Big Jim was there behind the taps and back in the black shirt of a bartender instead of his white waiter\u2019s shirt and tie. \u201cCan I buy a shot of that Valentine craft-distilled vodka I brought in for Tex to sample last night?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, nothing in back of the bar \u2018cept the usual stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I hope Tex took it home,\u201d I said. \u201cGive me a stiff one, hold the wine for tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Terminating Official got up from his stool at the top of leg of the Amen Corner and wandered off to check in on the rest of the restaurant. We were free to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what happened?\u201d we asked Big Jim.<\/p>\n

He shrugged. \u201cNo one is talking, and they have not told the staff, but as you can imagine, this is a restaurant and the kitchen is buzzing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey never give us the story,\u201d said Old Jim.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestaurant code of omerto,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\u201cFood and beverage industry,\u201d said Big Jim. \u201c\u2019shah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t stand it. It is like losing family. It may be an ersatz family, but it is family none-the-less.\u201d I sighed and took a slug of vodka. It warmed on the way down, but did not buoy my spirits. \u201cThe people that leave just vanish like they were kidnapped by aliens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\u201cMaybe they were. It took Liz-with-an-S a couple months to come back on this side of the bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least she is still in our lives. Remember Peter and Javier and Nina all the rest? I can\u2019t even remember the names of all of them, and we used to see them every day and knew their life stories. Gone like the freaking wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cF**k me,\u201d I said. \u201cThree days before Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t touch that one on a bet,\u201d growled Jim. \u201cBut it sure sucks. I didn\u2019t have a lot of holiday spirit to dredge up after this.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at the level of vodka in the glass in front of me. \u201cGoddamned right. I am only going to have three more of these and then I am going home and turn on the Christmas lights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but only the ones outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCopyright 2013 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This happened at Tracy O’Grady’s fabulous Willow Restaurant in Arlington’s Balston neighborhood a dozen years ago. Vic had it as first person, so that is why it reads a little funny: Old Jim called me as I was trying to get topics outlined for some uplifting pre-holiday thoughts. The phone was buried in my back-back, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32190,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32187\/revisions\/32190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}