A WAMPUS CAT CHRISTMAS

A WAMPUS CAT CHRISTMAS

The lucky cat waved from behind the glass, paw ticking up and down in an empty room nobody could get into.

The Pratts had walked to Wong's like this every Christmas morning. Three blocks from their house to the corner where the red lanterns hung year-round and the smell of ginger, grease, and star anise usually reached the sidewalk before they did.

This year the door was locked.

A handwritten sign had been taped to the glass.

CLOSED.

No date. No note. No "Merry Christmas." Just the word.

"Shit," Dad said.

Mom looked at the kids.

"Language."

"It's Christmas," the boy said, like that explained the size of the damage.

The girl pressed her face to the glass and cupped her hands around her eyes. Inside, the tables were still there. The chairs were tucked in. The little gold paw kept ticking, same as it always did.

"Maybe he's sick," she said.

Nobody answered.

They all knew enough not to answer.

For weeks, people had been saying Wong had no right. Mountain food was not his to fry with ginger and sesame oil. Heritage was not something he could put on a plate and sell back to the town. Then the inspector came. Then the notices. Then the newspaper picture of Ingrid in front of her store, arms crossed under her apron, talking about what belonged.

Now Wong's was dark on Christmas morning.

Dad looked down the street.

Mom already knew.

"No," she said.

"It's the only place open."

The kids looked from one parent to the other.

"Ingrid's?" the boy asked.

Dad put his hands in his coat pockets.

"Unless you want gas station hot dogs for Christmas."

They walked six blocks the other way.

Ingrid's country store sat where the road bent toward the old bridge. Half the building was on a dirt floor. The back half leaned over a creek bed that had not carried water in five years. Rusted Coca-Cola signs covered the outside wall. Gingham curtains hung in windows clouded with grease and time.

Inside, the heat was too high.

The smell hit them first: bacon grease, burnt coffee, wet wool, and something frying hard enough to surrender.

A waitress looked up from behind the counter. Her thumbs were flattened wide at the tips. She said it came from carrying hot plates all those years.

Everyone called her Spoon Thumbs.

"Four?" she asked.

"Four," Dad said.

She led them to a table by the window. The chairs did not match. The tabletop had cigarette burns from when smoking indoors was still legal. One vinyl seat had been patched with silver duct tape, then black, then a strip of red.

Above the counter, a chalkboard listed the specials.

THE HUBCAP — 17 OZ. WITH GRANNY MAGIC SAUCE

SHUT UP JUICE ON HOG JOWLS

SLUG BURGERS

HOLIDAY DEPRESSION SPECIAL BRAINS & EGGS

TODAY'S WAMPUS CAT — TRUE BLUE APPALACHIAN STIR-FRY OVER CAT HEAD BISCUITS

Mom read the last line twice.

Dad stopped taking off his gloves.

"What's a slug burger?" the boy asked.

"Depression food," Dad said.

"What's in it?"

"Despair and filler."

"What's Shut Up Juice?" the girl asked.

"Hot sauce," Mom said. "Apparently on jowls."

"What are jowls?"

Dad opened his menu.

"Ask your mother."

The girl kept looking at the board.

"What's Wampus Cat?"

Nobody answered that either.

Spoon Thumbs came back with her pencil ready.

"What'll it be?"

Dad cleared his throat.

"Livers and gizzards. Extra gizzards. Two orders of biscuits. Eggs for the kids."

"Toast or biscuits?"

"Biscuits."

"Grits?"

"No grits."

She wrote it down without looking at the chalkboard.

The door opened.

Cold air swept under the tables.

Mr. Wong stepped inside.

He looked smaller than he had at his own restaurant. Not older exactly. Reduced. As if the locked door down the street had taken some of his body with it.

He went to the counter and sat on a stool.

"Coffee," he said.

The girl saw him first.

"Mr. Wong!"

Mom turned.

"Oh, Mr. Wong. Come sit with us. Please."

Wong looked at them. Then at the specials board. Then at the kitchen door.

For a moment it seemed he might leave.

Then he picked up his coffee and walked to their table.

The girl scooted over to make room, even though there was already room.

"Merry Christmas," she said.

"Merry Christmas," Wong said.

"We went to your place," the boy said.

His mother put a hand on his sleeve.

Wong nodded.

"Yes," he said.

That was all.

The food came out on chipped white plates. Biscuits split open. Eggs yellow and wet at the edges. Livers and gizzards dark with butter, pepper, and brown gravy. On top of the pile sat one chicken heart, small and glossy, the prize the children fought over every year.

Before either child could call it, Ingrid came through the kitchen door.

She was bigger than Wong. Not just taller or wider, but louder in the room. She moved like the floor had been put there for her.

She carried one more plate.

Steam rose from two cat head biscuits buried under a heap of stir-fry: fatback, wilted greens, onions, mushrooms blackened at the edges, and something pale that might have been cabbage. The sauce had gone shiny and thick.

Ingrid set it down in front of Wong.

"On the house," she said. "Merry Christmas."

She didn't move away right away. She stood there wiping her hands on her apron like she was waiting for something — a thank you, maybe, or a verdict.

The table went still.

Wong looked at the plate.

Then Ingrid turned and went back through the kitchen door.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Then Wong picked up his fork.

He took a piece of fatback, a strip of greens, and one of the mushrooms. He put them in his mouth. He chewed carefully.

The Pratts watched his face.

He swallowed.

Then he smiled.

Not much. Just enough.

Dad made a sound first, somewhere between a cough and a laugh. Mom looked down at her lap. The boy covered his mouth with both hands. The girl giggled into her sleeve.

Wong set the fork down gently.

"Well," he said.

That was all he needed to say.

Then the children saw the chicken heart.

"Christmas gift!" they shouted together.

The girl was faster. Her fork was already in her hand.

"I got it," she said.

"Fair and square," Mom said.

The girl speared the heart. She lifted it halfway to her plate, smiling.

Then she looked at Wong.

He was not looking at her. He was looking at the Wampus Cat. At the wrong greens. The wrong mushrooms. The sauce cooked down until nothing in it could stand apart from anything else.

The girl lowered her fork.

"Here," she said.

Wong turned.

The chicken heart trembled on the tines.

"You can have it."

"Honey," Mom said softly, "that's yours."

"I know."

She pushed the fork closer.

"I think he needs it."

The laughter left the table.

Wong looked at the child, then at the heart.

He took the fork from her hand.

"Thank you," he said.

He did not eat it right away.

They ate the rest of the meal. The livers were good, iron-rich and bitter at the edges. The gizzards fought back. The biscuits were plain and hot and better than they had any right to be.

The Wampus Cat sat untouched except for the one missing bite.

When Spoon Thumbs came back, every plate was empty but that one.

"How was everything?" she asked.

Dad put cash on the table.

"Food was good," he said.

Spoon Thumbs looked at the Wampus Cat.

Wong folded the chicken heart into a paper napkin and slipped it into his coat pocket.

Mom stood and helped the girl with her scarf.

"You want to come over?" she asked Wong. "We've got coffee at the house."

"Real coffee," Dad said.

Wong smiled for the second time that morning.

"Okay," he said.

They left together.

Behind them, the bell over Ingrid's door gave one tired ring. The country store went on buzzing in its heat and grease and old music.

On the table, the Wampus Cat cooled into its sauce.

Three blocks away, behind a locked door, the lucky cat kept waving at no one.