Up On a Rooftop
by Bob Batz Jr.
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"NAW, YOU KNOW who's the loneliest person in the world tonight?" Donnie is saying, sitting at the bar at Pete and Jean's in Etna on Christmas Eve, when who walks in but Santa Claus.

A fairly good one, too, with the shiny black boots and the red pants and coat and the big bag over one shoulder. But the beard's fake, you can tell, because it's the same white material as the trim on the suit, and it's hanging down on Santa's chest by elastic around his neck. I know it's Fred Stankowski because instead of a Santa hat, he's wearing his Spider-Man do-rag.

"Spider!" a guy or two greets him, but others yell stuff like "I've been good, Santa!" and "Steve wants to sit on your lap!" as he walks along the bar and sits on the stool on one side of me. Donnie, on my other side, leans back and says, "Season's greetings, Spider Claus!"

Spider doesn't smile.

I graduated a year ahead of Spider, as everybody calls him now. He's a roofer, too, and a good guy to have on your crew because he isn't scared of heights. Scares old guys by the way he scoots to the highest peak and the steepest edge. Says he can't fall because he has "spider power," and I've seen new guys believe him. Ever since he found Spider-Man bandannas at Trader Jack's flea market, I've never seen his head without one.

"Spider," Donnie says, and asks again who's the loneliest guy in the world tonight. Guys look at each other but nobody bites, not even with Donnie jerking his head at Spider, so Donnie throws up his hands and says, "It's Santa Claus!"

He leans in. "Santa Claus goes to everybody's house in the whole wide world, BUT" -- he pauses -- "he's not supposed to see or talk to anybody, right? He's all by himself."

"He's got the reindeer," somebody says, and somebody else makes a crack about deer in Bethel Park, which sets off a bad version of "Rudolph" by this red-nosed choir, and I'm thinking, "It's Christmas Eve at Pete and Jean's."

It's tradition to come in for at least one drink on the night of Christmas Eve. Some guys with families can't, so they'll sneak in for a quick one in the afternoon. Some guys without families stay late. I don't know how many years I've been here. There were four straight Christmases -- 1993 to 1996 -- when I had some place else to be.

The fire department guys say they started this tradition, and the steamfitters say they did. But the truth is in the newspaper story that Jean cut out, encased in plastic sandwich wrap and taped to the wall beside the cash register. And by the door to the men's room. And inside the ladies', or so I hear.

A college intern at the weekly paper, the Sharpsburg-Etna-Cetera, wandered in two years ago for lunch and got an earful from Jean about how Pete had built the place in 1950 and she'd always helped him run it.

The story turned out great, and describes how on Christmas Eves back in the '50s and '60s, Jean and her sisters would cook up the traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes. I can't remember them all, much less pronounce them, but it was more than seven seafoods -- wild stuff like squid and octopus and eel. Whatever it is sounds delicious the way Jean says "baccala."

Pete would serve the wine he made in the cellar every fall. At midnight, he'd play "I'll Be Home for Christmas" on the jukebox and ask Jean if he could have this dance before they closed and went upstairs.

Jean never minded that the intern wrote that Pete was her husband. Actually, as Jean jotted on the clippings she tacked up, Pietro V. Mancini was her dad.

When he left the mill and built the bar, in a buff brick so it'd stand out from all the red, he named it the Starlight Inn, but nobody called it that. Even by the time I started coming in, years after he'd passed, everybody knew the place as "Pete and Jean's."

Here comes Jean from the kitchen, holding a china platter that she sets hard on the bar because it's heavy and hot.

"Here you go, men," she says with a wave of her hands. "The feast of the seven fish sandwiches!"

I grab one and chomp on the soft white bun, past the crispy toasted part, through the crunchy breading and into the softer white fish so hot I can feel the steam puff in my mouth. Jean knows I'm watching my drinking, but she slides me another draft like it's tartar sauce, and the cold beer saves my mouth for another bite. I'm chewing and nodding and thinking, This is Christmas Eve.

"Why so dressed up?" Jean asks Spider, who doesn't take a sandwich or touch the beer she slides to him. Spider shrugs.

"Damn, Jean!" Donnie says, blowing a hot chunk of fish into his hand. He picks up his beer, walks behind me and sits down on the other side of Spider.

Donnie is a bricklayer who's got mouth power, and it isn't long before he gets Spider talking.

Spider hasn't been around all fall because he's been working out West (Columbus). He's been trying to save money (not much). He came back this week (Greyhound, driver's license still suspended) to surprise his son, Will, with presents (an Xbox video game system and the new "Spider-Man" game to play on it).

Spider got his cousin to drop him off where his ex, Leslie, is living now. That was about an hour ago. Only Leslie told Spider to beat it. Wouldn't even let him in the door.

"How 'bout that?" Donnie says. "And on Christmas Eve, for chrissake."

"This cost almost $300," Spider says, pulling from a pillow case a big red-wrapped box, a small one, then his missing hat. "And it ain't easy finding a Santa costume this time of year, either."

Donnie looks at me and I roll my eyes. I've heard it all before.

Guys like Spider, they'll say that no matter how hard they try, something always fails them. All they want is a chance, a break, or something. All they want is to see their kids on Christmas, and for some reason their exes won't let them. Some figure it out. But for most of these Einsteins, ex-wives are about the only thing worse than wives, and they're almost always bad.

"Heartless," Donnie is saying, shaking his head and trying to draw me into the conversation. I make like I'm looking at my watch.

It's my good watch that I almost forgot I put on this morning. One of those Indiglos, you know, that lights up so you can tell time in the dark? When they first came out, they were so cool, and I really, really wanted one. My wife then, Karen, bought it for Katie to give to me on Katie's first Christmas. Karen didn't understand why I hardly ever wore it. But I was just saving it. Here it is after seven years and it still lights.

I touch the button once to make sure, and it glows blue. It's 9:43:41 p.m.

"She sounds like a black widow," Donnie is saying and patting Spider on the back. Spider drops his face into his white-gloved hands and says something. It sounds like, "She's awright."

GOING TO THE ex-wife's house is Donnie's bright idea. "How can she turn away Santa Claus?"

When I point out that she just did, Donnie shushes me.

"What if we don't go to the door?" he says. He proceeds to tell Spider how he'll never forget waking up on Christmas morning when he was 7 and looking out the window to see the roof covered with snow and the snow covered with footprints. "And hoofprints," he adds with a big grin. "Whattaya think?"

Spider sits up, then starts again to droop.

"We'll drive you there," Donnie says, with a nod to me. "Bob's got the van."