Seven empty weeks had passed, and I couldn’t turn off that big fat L blinking like a neon sign in the front of my brain. It gave me vertigo. It told me the improbable happens, sure winners can lose by a nose or, in this case, .4 percent. Blinkety blink, you lousy loser. Blinkety blink.
My wife said forget it, but then her face wore the smile she reserved only for happy occasions, and that told me she didn’t have an expression for this occasion. The staff said a million things, all of them containing the words “next time.” The only one who had the good sense not to talk couldn’t. It was a college kid I saw a lot of in the last weeks, a believer. He couldn’t talk because he was sobbing. First campaign — they never believe losing is one of the possibilities.
I didn’t cry. In America only winners get to cry. Losers stiffen the upper lip and concede. Every politician’s favorite word: concede. Our system doesn’t leave us any other choice. We replaced monarchy with majority. They are king; they wield the scepter. And when they whack you in the rear end with it, you feel it. And when it hurts the most, you freeze your upper lip and concede. To them.
Just before midnight put the knife in election day, I made a solemn promise. I wouldn’t read a single news site, blog, opinionator, or pundit about my defeat. I awoke next day at six AM, turned on my laptop and read every word I could find. At least it wasn’t a campaign promise.
Every writer knew exactly what I did wrong to snatch defeat from the yawning jaws of victory. Courted the press too little. Or too much. Aligned myself too closely to the party. Or was too independent of the party. Compromised my vaunted principles. Or was too inflexible. When you and 49.6% of the voters end up on the short side of the equation, you were wrong and the 50.4% were right. It’s the unassailable logic of democracy.
This day, seven weeks later, I took a walk. “It’s Christmas Eve,” my wife reminded me. “Your sisters are coming by at 8.”
“Fine, see you then.” It came out hollow, not angry, though I was as angry as George Bailey. All I lacked was a cute kid trying to play a carol on the old piano and driving me nuts. No one even cared if I embezzled campaign funds. Losers rarely get investigated. What would be the point?
It was dusk when I left the condo but freezer-chest dark and cold when I reached the outskirts of a neighborhood I knew better than to enter alone. Or not alone. But what did it matter? What if I got mugged and beaten up? Why should I care? What near death experience could be worse than losing that election?
Less than a half hour later, I was mugged and beaten up. Turns out I cared a lot. For one thing, I realized almost instantly that a close electoral loss was not a near death experience now that I was having one.
The two gentlemen who approached me quite justifiably determined that I was a Christmas bonanza beyond anything they deserved, and they lost no time rushing home with their treasures.
First, of course, they brandished a hand gun, pushed the barrel into my skull, and suggested I do nothing that could be categorized as stupid. Frozen with fear, I did nothing but tremble. I wasn’t this scared during combat.
I awoke, sort of, aware that I was no longer frozen with fear — just frozen — lying on cement, bent double and looking at a shadowy version of old combat boots near my nose.
“Stay still.” A woman, and she spoke with authority. Not that moving was something I was actually contemplating. “You’ve been messed with. I think your nose is broke. Did they kick you in the ribs?”
“Yes.” That was me. I could talk. And I knew they had kicked me in the ribs, though to this day I don’t remember it. I’d find out later two of those ribs were bruised not broken. The wimps.
My vision was blurry. I was dizzy.
“I know a place,” she said. Uncommonly strong, she lifted me to my feet, placed my hand around her shoulder and avoided the bruised ribs as she helped me stagger about two blocks. A street light told me she had dark hair cropped close to her head. She wore fatigues, military issue, the name patch torn off. I took note of the way her left sleeve was rolled. She was a Marine.
It was a noisy Christmas Eve in the shelter where she gently deposited me onto a small but sturdy cot. A couple of itchy woolen blankets helped thaw me out. The room was not so much spinning as lurching up and down as if I were viewing it from a pogo stick.
It began settling soon enough, and I matched the noises with dozens of down-and-outers milling and chatting, many eating a plate of steaming something they held in one hand as they walked about.
The young woman who had brought me here reappeared and began bandaging whatever was cut, bashed or bruised about my head and face. I would end up with a full turban and a covering over my right eye.
“What’s you name, Marine?” I asked the Jarhead.
“Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett, sir,” she said smartly as she expertly wrapped me up.
“I’m Major Villner, Sergeant. Seen action?”
“Nineteen months in Iraq, sir.”
“I served two tours there.”
I noticed another space on her uniform where a medal once hung. “You were decorated.”
“Bronze Star for Valor, sir.” She shifted her weight to let me know this was not a topic she was comfortable with.
“What are you doing around here, Gunnery Sergeant?”
“I live here, sir. You are in my cot.”
“Sorry, Gunnery Sergeant.” It seemed important to show her due respect for her former rank.
“Thank you for your help.”
She walked out of my line of vision, and inside 30 seconds two elderly men stopped by and spoke with sufficient incoherence to alert me that they were not entirely in their right mind. I wished them a Merry Christmas, and both seemed confused as they departed.
I looked past them and saw a long table where the food was being doled out vigorously by smiling men and women. Above them, on the wall was a sign that read, “Live frugally; love wastefully.”
I turned my head to one side and gasped loudly.
An old woman’s face was positioned not two inches from me; we were precisely nose to nose, as she had bent down and cocked her head until it was parallel to mine.
She beamed a smile that revealed a full set of even, white teeth, real ones. I gathered what wits I possessed, and I readied myself for her addition to this unique holiday experience. She backed away a bit, and I saw that she wore a dark blue overcoat and carried a multi-colored carpetbag on her arm.
“You’re lost,” she said.
I was still a little off. I must have thought she said “you lost,” because I answered, “Yeah, by less than half a percent.”
She made sense of it. “You’re more lost than that. Here.”
She reached deep into her carpetbag, withdrew a well-creased card and gave it to me. I looked at it, a Christmas card.
“From my son.”
I held it up. “He’s away?”
“In Afghanistan. Helping people find their way.” A chaplain, I guessed.
The front of the card bore a drawing of a manger with the infant in it. Lying in the straw at its side was Mary, her eyes closed, her face betraying exhaustion and pain. Joseph was on his feet, his back to the scene, his face in his hand, as if he was embarrassed.
Below the disturbing picture, in a lovely font, were these words: A stable is not really a good idea.
Inside the card, in a lovely font, was inscribed: Love the poor; hate the poverty.
A handwritten note appeared at the bottom. “Much to hate. Still more to love. Ozzie.”
I handed the odd card back to her. “Looks like I’m coming away from this with a whole new set of Holiday clichés. How long has Ozzie been over?”
“His whole life.”
Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett returned with bowl of hot broth. She sat and began spooning it into my mouth. She was careful not to singe the swollen upper lip. Or the swollen lower lip. She squinted like a seamstress threading a needle, then grinned as she emptied the spoonful onto my tongue.
“You have a nice smile, Gunnery Sergeant. You should let people see more of it.”
A second splash of the surprisingly delicious broth found its mark.
“Nobody sees it.”
“I did.”
“I’m glad. Damn.” She spilled a drop onto my lip, and I winced. She suddenly looked about to cry.
“Hey, Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett. You are not perfect. None of us is perfect. You are performing at or above expectations.”
She calmed. “Yes, Major. My hand shakes sometimes, sir.”
“How long have you been down here, Gunnery Sergeant?”
“I don’t know, sir. I get blackouts and lose myself. I live here, take care of the guys.” She nodded toward a gaggle of cots where four or five men in disheveled military garb sat, apparently playing cards.
“You take care of them?”
“Like you, sir.” Another grin. For a moment, she displayed a wisp of the childlike features she once boasted.
“No way they’re as dumb as I was strolling into that neighborhood.”
“No, sir.” Now the grin took on an aspect that told me no one could be as dumb as I was. She gave me a last dose of the hot liquid, looked toward the door and said, “Oh, man, here come the ten minute do gooders.”
There was a bustle at the entrance.
A cadre of photogs, cameras clicking backed into the shelter, followed by one man with a communications backpack and a video camera and another with a mike pointed to the object of all the attention, who made an impressive entry.
It was her, the Victor over me in the election. She was doing what victors do when they want to show their constituency what caring human beings they are — at least one day a year. Doing, let’s face it, exactly what I would have done.
Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett had slipped away in disgust, but I was not left alone. The old woman with the blue overcoat and colorful carpetbag stood beside me and looked over at the Victor. “She’s lost.”
I looked at the old woman. “She’s right where she wants to be.”
She placed a wrinkled finger upon my cheek, the unbandaged one. “You are where you ought to be.”
“So, I’m not lost after all.”
“No,” she said, looking me in the eye. “You once were lost, but now. Not now.” She left before the debate could be concluded. I never saw her again.
At that moment the Victor and her entourage approached the Gunnery Sergeant’s cot. She split eye contact between the camera and my well-disguised face. She was uncannily adroit at showing deep concern without actually coming close to touching me. She spoke as if we were in mid-discussion. “Please get well and have a blessed Christmas.”
“Oh,” I said. “I am much better.” Then I called her by name. Her first name.
It was about the meanest thing I could have done. She looked at me like Norma Desmond in the final scene of Sunset Boulevard and hustled on. The whole motley crew was gone in five minutes, and things settled down.
Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett appeared beside a thirty-something white man with thick black hair and wearing a spotted butcher’s apron. “Sir, this is Rabbi Gold. He runs this place.”
“Rabbi Gold? Where’s the frankincense and myrrh?” I guess it was a good day to be dumb.
The Rabbi smiled indulgently. “Merry Christmas. Feeling better?”
“I guess I feel about how I look. Thanks for the help.”
“Thank Miss Dunsett here. She’s found folks in worse shape than you and brought them here. See those soldiers over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Miss Dunsett found those lost souls, too. Every one of them. They are all vets. All homeless, out of luck and out of options. ”
“So,” I said looking at her lowered eyes. “Still serving her country.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Of course, sir.”
Rabbi Gold put a hand on her shoulder. “Long after her country abandoned her. Miss Dunsett has a number of medical issues stemming from combat, including a pretty severe head injury that causes some problems. But she does what she can.”
She blushed just a little and flashed that beautiful grin for a split second. A brain aneurism took her from us on New Year’s Day, but not before she had found two more lost souls in tattered fatigues and coaxed them to the shelter.
The Rabbi and I made sure she was given full military honors. Gunnery Sergeant Dunsett was buried in uniform with her Bronze Star, found among her meager effects.
We have become good friends, Rabbi Gold and I. He still heads up a synagogue in the suburbs but spends all the time he can at the shelter. So do I, now. After two years, the Dunsett Foundation for Lost Veterans is building an impressive endowment. My wife works as hard as I do at it. Our motto, “Live frugally; Love wastefully,” now adorns the two additional shelters we’ve opened in the city.
Funny thing about losing, being lost. You get a chance to come up with a whole new definition of winning. And if you’re really lost and really lucky, you might get to be found by a Gunnery Sergeant who knows the way and is strong enough to get you there.
