Page 13 of A Christmas Harbor

Paul bit his lip to keep from cracking up. It had worked!

David checked his mic. “Go ahead, Martin.”

“Aye-aye, cap’n.” Martin played the intro again, with more conviction.

David sang. His voice started out hushed, then grew louder with each line, but every note of the first verse was perfect and lovely and so reverent it brought tears to Paul’s eyes.

Then he went into the second verse, his voice turning rough and nasally.

“‘I,’ said the donkey, shaggy and brown,

‘I carried his mother up hill and down…’”

It was fucking adorable.

At the end of the verse, David gestured to Paul, offering him a chance at redemption. He would not waste it.

“‘I,’ said the cow, all white and red,” Paul sang in as deep and bovine a voice as he could manage on short notice. “‘I gave him my manger for his bed.’”

The old guy from the nearby table appeared next to David, who handed off his microphone.

Paul finished the cow verse, then bowed to his successor.

“‘I,’ said the sheep, with curly horn,” the man sang in an almost Muppet-like voice. He smiled at the laughter it provoked from the tiny crowd…

…including the McSaltys. Yes!

Paul hustled over to their end of the bar, gauging in an instant which one would be more receptive. He held out his mic to Ms. McSalty and showed her his phone screen.

She laughed again but drew back, holding up both hands. Paul answered with a pleading look, pressing his palms together in prayer formation.

She heaved a melodramatic sigh, then grabbed the mic from Paul. “Fuck it, it’s Christmas,” she said.

He spun in a circle and pumped his fists.

“‘I’ said the dove, from rafters high,” she sang in a breathy alto. “‘I cooed him to sleep so he would not cry.’”

Her husband joined in for the last two lines. “‘We cooed him to sleep, my mate and I.’” Their eyes met over the bulb of the microphone. “‘I,’ said the dove from rafters high.”

As Martin played the interlude between verses, Paul gave the McSaltys a socially appropriate air-hug. “That was perfect.” He took back the mic and hurried toward Jackie, who waved it off.

“Don’t be shy,” Paul told the bartender. “You can do it.”

Jackie just smirked, then started to sing. “‘I’ said the camel, all yellow and black.”

Holy shit. Even without a microphone, Jackie’s voice filled the room, putting them all to shame. Paul slowly backed up to rejoin David.

Martin jazzed it up on the keys, playing off Jackie’s sublime vibrato. Clearly they had done this routine before with other songs. Paul was witnessing art.

After the third line, Martin went silent. Jackie lifted his arms, filling his lungs, then finishing the camel stanza with what was clearly a classically trained voice.

“You didn’t tell me he was an opera singer,” Paul whispered to David.

“Aspiring opera singer,” David whispered back. “Would it have changed anything if you’d known?”

Paul shook his head, then raised the mic in time to join the others for the final verse.

In the last two hours, what had started as the second-worst Christmas Eve of his life had transformed into one of the weirdest and therefore one of the best.

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