For me, Christmas isn't complete until I've visited the tree at Rockefeller Center and followed it up with a new holiday tradition. First, I go home and reread O. Henry's wonderful bit of fiction from 1905, "The Gift of the Magi. " Then, misty eyed, I sit back and fondly remember a more recent New York story, one that I think of as "The Theft of the Magi."
O. Henry's Christmas story, you may remember, is about an impoverished young wife who sells her beautiful knee-length hair to buy a platinum chain for her husband's cherished watch, only to discover that he has sold the watch to buy what she craved in a Broadway shop window -- a set of jeweled combs to wear in her hair. "The Theft of the Magi" may not immediately seem as touching, but it, too, is about a treasured possession -- and it happens to be true.
Several years ago, not long before Christmas, my apartment was robbed by what appeared to be considerate burglars. They had concentrated on the television and other electronic gear; the only thing missing that I couldn't replace was an old leather jacket for which I had a lot of affection (but no receipt to give to the insurance company). They also seemed to be well-connected burglars. They had tried to make it look like a break-in by leaving the window to the fire escape open, but I knew they must have had a key, because I could see that they'd gone out the door and locked it behind them.
There was an obvious suspect, a nice young woman living in the building who might have been able to steal the key from the superintendent. This woman, whom I'll call Jill, was supposed to be a recovering crack addict, but lately she'd been looking thin enough to be in serious debt to a dealer. My suspicions were confirmed a week after the burglary, when I was walking along Broadway in the 90's and happened to run into Jill. It was a little after midnight.
"What are you doing up here at this hour?" she asked.
"Seeing a friend," I said. "How about you?"
"Uh, that's what I'm doing too," Jill said nervously. I didn't understand her evasiveness until I noticed two other women as scrawny as Jill standing nearby. They were eyeing the men driving by, looking to earn the price of a few crack vials. I had interrupted Jill at work.
"I was sorry to hear your place got robbed," the pavement and took a drag on her cigarette. "Uh, Mr. Tierney, uh, I was wondering -- were you insured?"
"For some of it," I said, trying to make her feel guilty. This was as close to a confession as I was going to get, and I didn't want to let her off easy.
The following Saturday evening, while strolling along Broadway with my friend Nancy, I described that odd encounter to her, and she promptly topped it with another New York story. A guy she knew, after having his apartment stripped by burglars, was buying some clothes in a department store, when he spotted, on the counter, a credit card with his name on it. He saw that it was being used by a customer wearing one of his stolen sweaters. (The thief was arrested after a brief chase through the store.)
"In a city of seven million, what were the odds of your friend running into his burglar?" I asked Nancy. Fifteen seconds later, as we were contemplating coincidence and crossing 78th Street, Jill walked past us.
"Now what were the odds against that coincidence?" Nancy asked.
"I don't know," I said, "but I'd better not see her wearing my leather jacket." A few blocks later, after Nancy got into a cab to go home, I stopped at a newsstand to pick up the Sunday paper, and I had a new coincidence to contemplate. This one was so ridiculous that I walked up and down the block for a minute to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
The newsstand vendor was wearing my leather jacket.
"That's a nice jacket," I finally said to him. He beamed and said it came from his native Pakistan. I walked over to the 20th Precinct station house, where the police politely explained that they couldn't do anything unless my name was inside the jacket. I went back to the newsstand.
"That's my jacket you're wearing," I said.
"No, no," he said. "It is from Virginia."
"I thought you said it was from Pakistan."
"It was made in Pakistan, but I bought it in Virginia."
"No, you didn't," I said, and I offered to prove my point by naming the label inside. But he took off the jacket and showed that there was no label, just holes where the stitches had been cut. We argued fruitlessly for five minutes, and then I tried another approach.
"Look," I said, "how would you feel if I was standing here wearing your jacket?" He seemed to soften.
"I'll give you $50 for the jacket," I said.
"But that's what I paid for it," he said.
"Then I'll give you $60."
He agreed, and I handed him the money. As he removed the jacket and gave it to me, a man waiting to buy a newspaper looked on with an incredulous smile.
"You're buying back your own jacket?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm buying back my own jacket," I replied, and for a moment I felt ridiculous. But on the way home it occurred to me that O. Henry might have approved of this deal.
"The Gift of the Magi, " as he writes at the story's end, is ostensibly about "two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house," but it is really about two wise souls -- the true Magi -- who have become richer by exchanging worthless gifts. It is about people connecting to create something from nothing, which is the essence not only of love but of New York.
THE THEFT OF MY jacket didn't add anything tangible to the gross national product, and it didn't entail any noble sacrifice, but it provided everyone with something extra for the holiday season. It helped Jill pay off a debt, which provided her crack dealer with money; her burglar accomplices took their cut of the profits; the newsstand vendor netted $10. I was out $60, but I ended up with my jacket as well as something else. I had received that great gift of the city, a New York experience, and I knew that someday I would find a magazine willing to pay more than $60 for the story.
