Christmas arrived. It was a cold and gray morning. Bethany slept in and then hit the machine. She passed out two motel vouchers and served several hot chocolates. The rest of the day she bicycled around Sellwood and noticed three new RVs marooned down by the wildlife refuge. She’d knock on their doors tomorrow.

Ethan told her they were barbecuing at 2 p.m. and to arrive earlier so they could play some holiday music around the fire.

Bethany walked to the encampment carrying a Costco casserole in a bag and the fiddle in a case like Robin Hood carried a quiver of arrows. She was surprised how giddy she felt. Giddy is good!

A dozen residents yukked it up around the fire, passing a pint bottle of Fireball. Ethan was adding wood to the grill. Bethany set the casserole down on a table and unslung the fiddle. Everyone said hello to one another.

Bethany went up to Ethan, reached into her coat pocket, and produced a small package wrapped in red tissue paper. She handed it to him.

“I got you a Christmas present,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said. “Should I open it now?”

“Yes.”

Ethan unwrapped the present. It was a Magic 8-Ball.”

“I thought it might be good around the fire,” said Bethany.

“It’s perfect. I got you something, too.”

“You did?”

Ethan reached into his pants pocket and pulled out something wadded in his fist. He handed it to Bethany. It was a blueberry beret.

Bethany was speechless, on the verge of tears. She pulled off the raspberry beret and tried on the new one.

“One of the residents crocheted it,” said Ethan.

“It’s beautiful,” said Bethany.

She moved closer to him and whispered in his ear, “You want to come over to my house after the barbecue?”

Ethan hesitated.

“Or I could stay with you in the van?”

“Yes, you could. And please make sure your parents know you slept overnight in a van with a homeless man on Christmas.”

Bethany laughed. “Oh, they’ll love that.”

One of the men around the fire bellowed, “Hey, what about some music, you lovebirds?”

Ethan picked up his guitar. Bethany took the fiddle out of its case. They tuned up. They were ready.

He started strumming slowly, she picked up the key and fiddled along, and he sang

You better watch out

you better not cry

You better not pout

I’m telling you why

“Boooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!”

They stopped playing and laughed.

“How about this one?” said Ethan, and he started strumming and singing:

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party hop
Mistletoe hung where you can see
Every couple tries to stop

“Booooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!”

Ethan stopped playing.

The residents were booing Christmas music! Bethany couldn’t stop laughing. Ethan was smiling.

Ethan decided to take it a different direction. Go real English old school. Take it to the Dickens!

He began to sing without guitar accompaniment. After the first line, Bethany joined in with a soaring harmony:

God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

“Boooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The residents began chanting, “We want rock! We want rock! We want rock!”

“Okay, all right,” said Ethan. I’ve got a new one I’ve been working on.” He leaved over and whispered to Bethany. She nodded. She knew the song. She kissed him on the cheek. Then they kissed gently on the lips. It was their first kiss.

“This one is by the Doobie Brothers,” he said.

Cheers went up.

Ethan started strumming. Bethany jumped in with a soft lead line. Then he sang:

You don’t know me but I’m your brother
I was raised here in this living hell
You don’t know my kind in your world
Fairly soon, the time will tell

You

Ethan was rocking it now. A few residents began clapping to the beat. One dude broke out a cowbell and joined the rhythm section.

Telling me the things you’re gonna do for me
I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see

Takin’ it to the streets
(Takin’ it to the streets)
No more need for running
(Takin’ it to the streets)

By the time they reached he course, everyone was signing along.

Bethany started gliding among the residents around the fire. She sang the second verse and performed a wicked solo.

They sang the chorus louder than before. The cowbell man delivered more cowbell. One man stood up and danced a Grateful Dead jig.

It started snowing big fat flakes.

The next few days were a frenzy for Bethany on the job and in her personal life. She moved a decorated Iraqi War veteran into VA housing. She tried transitioning an older woman with schizophrenia into a shelter but at the last minute, the woman freaked out, cursed Bethany and a fire hydrant, then ran away with everything she owned stuffed inside a backpack dangling off her shoulder. Bethany let it go and resolved to find her the next day.

As for Bethany’s personal life. All holy hell broke loose when she:

1. Broke up with Alex, returned the engagement ring and left him a blubbering mess.
2. Told her parents about the breakup and then informed them she was not coming to Christmas dinner because she was attending a Christmas dinner in a homeless encampment, and no, it wasn’t part of her job.

Bethany’s parents flew into a rage and threatened to disinherit her. She said go ahead, just leave everything to a good cause.

Christmas was three days away and Ethan had been incredibly busy in the run-up to the celebration. The encampment twinkled with lights in the evenings. He set up towering fake tree and the residents decorated it with old ornaments left out on the sidewalks by local homeowners. He scrounged up phone cards for some of the residents to call their families. He supplied Christmas cards with stamped envelopes and mailed them. He helped dig the barbecue pit for the Butterball. He laid in more firewood. He rigged a canopy over the grill in case it rained. He broke up a domestic squabble and talked the cops into giving a miscreant yet another chance. He told the miscreant that if screwed up again and brought the cops to the encampment, he was towing his wrecked teardrop trailer out and dumping it in front of the police station. He administered a dose of naloxone and saved a man from overdosing on fentanyl. He took a sick dog to the vet. He also wrapped up about a hundred tins of pipe tobacco, a gift from one of his lawn mowing clients who had to give up the habit after a heart attack. He planned giving away the tins to the smokers in the encampment.

Bethany and Ethan met for coffee again and she got straight to the point: how can I help you get into housing? Isn’t it time you move on from the encampment? You don’t belong there. You have a lot to offer.

Ethan let Bethany opine. Then he said, “I have nowhere else to go. I’m already offering help and helping people.”

Intensity flared across the table. Intensity on multiple Hallmark levels.

She wanted to kiss him—bad. He wanted to kiss her—worse. They both knew it but held back. Let the fire kindle a bit longer before dousing it with gasoline.

The kiss was coming soon enough. So was Christmas. Bethany imagined tacking up some secret mistletoe in the encampment and steering Ethan toward it. Then he’d have to kiss her! Characters always did that sort of sly traditional thing in Hallmark Christmas movies.

“Look,” said Bethany. “I can get you a job where I work. They have plenty positions to fill, for cleanup, errands, all sorts of things. A little over minimum wage.”

She was on a roll. She kept rolling. “You can park your van in my driveway until you find housing.”

“Is that your way of asking me to move in?” said Ethan, grinning.

Bethany laughed. “Sort of. Just roommates.” The garage has its own separate bathroom and shower.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, I’m bringing pizza to the camp later today. You can tell me then.”

“That’s pretty quick. I may need a few days.”

“Tell me on Christmas and say ‘yes’ like in one of those Hallmark movies.”

Ethan didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen one.

Several hours later, Bethany brought five large cheese pizzas to the encampment, She hollered, “Pizza for the campers! Come and get it!”

They came and got it.

Ethan sauntered over. Bethany gave him a slice, took one herself and they ate standing up.

“I wanna see your van,” said Bethany.

“You do?” said Ethan. “It’s not much, but it’s home.”

Bethany was struck by his use of the word ‘home.’ Maybe it was one in a way most can’t understand, including her.

They walked to the van. Ethan slid open the side door and Bethany poked her head inside.

It looked like a disheveled college dorm room! She loved her disheveled college dorm room! How much space did you really need to live in?

“It’s pretty cramped in there,” said Ethan.

“I was thinking cozy,” said Bethany.

She was on the verge of yanking him inside and slamming the door, but, well, she was on the clock and trying to act like a caseworker.

As for him, he was on the verge of pushing her inside and slamming the door, but well, he reeked like a pigsty and had to mow a lawn in half an hour.

They said their goodbyes and Bethany drove away. Ethan watched the whole way.

The next day she met a young couple and their mutt at the machine. They were living out of a rusted and duct-taped sedan missing two rear windows. They were exhausted, semi high and broke. Six hours later, Bethany had them lined up in the new city-operated RV Park that offered a six month free stay until affordable permanent housing opened up. They thanked her and she told them Safeway was hiring as was every restaurant within a half mile of the RV park. They said they’d look into the next day. Bethany said she’d be back tomorrow…and what kind of treats did the mutt like?

Two for two!

That evening, she celebrated solo in her home with a tall glass of Chianti in front of a crackling Hallmark movie fire. She put on an old Patsy Cline record, dug out her fiddle, and played along. Yes, Bethany knew how to fiddle! She’d taken private violin lessons as a kid and could play Mozart’s concertos, but preferred to play hootenanny style, which her family loathed.

Crazy, I’m crazy for feeling so lonely
I’m crazy, crazy for feeling so blue
I knew you’d love me as long as you wanted
And then someday you’d leave me for somebody new

Bethany couldn’t get Ethan out of her mind.

Back in his van, Ethan practiced an Elvis Christmas song on guitar:

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me

Ethan couldn’t get Bethany out of his mind.

The next morning Bethany hit the machine line again but it was out of service and deserted. She walked to Ethan’s encampment hoping she’d see him and sure enough, there he was picking up trash around some of the RVs. He had a fire going in the grill and a couple of people gathered around it, talking quietly.

Ethan saw her approaching and waved. Bethany waved back. They started heading toward one another.

They met and said hello. They shook hands again and the electricity ratcheted up, if that was possible.

Bethany didn’t waste any time. “You wanna get a coffee?” she said. “My treat.”

“Are you asking me out?” said Ethan, smiling.

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“Is that allowed in your work?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“If I agree, are you going to ask me why I live here?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“About how much Christmas sucks.”

“I actually love Christmas.”

That threw Bethany. Homeless people liked Christmas? Homeless people celebrate Christmas? She had a lot to learn on this job.

Ethan said, “I can’t this morning because I have to drive one of the guys to a meeting with his probation officer. How about tomorrow?”

“That sounds great,” said Bethany. She named a time and place and he agreed.

They met at a dog-themed coffee shop all bedecked for the holidays. A Rosemary Clooney classic drifted through the air and customers sipped their $11 holiday lattes and hot chocolates.

They took a table near a window. Outside, Bethany noticed a women sleeping on the sidewalk in front of a real estate office. She made a mental note to visit her later today.

Bethany got right to he point and Ethan told her everything. She was silent as he recounted the story. She could see crime and punishment etched into his face. He was vulnerable and needed to be held.

Ethan asked about her life and she blasted out the narrative with a candor and vitriol that surprised her, especially when it came to the drip fiance and how much her parents disapproved of her career choice. She was wounded and needed to be held.

She asked him if had a girlfriend.

Ethan chuckled. No, he said it was probably impossible to carry on a relationship in a van.

Bethany countered that a lot of homeless people do it. She saw it all the time.

“You’re right,” he said.

“I could,” she said.

“Oh come on. You probably live in a huge house.”

“I do and I don’t need the space. It’s a complete waste of housing.”

She sipped her coffee and then added, “I’d live anywhere with someone I loved.”

“Sounds like a country song,” said Ethan.

Bethany laughed. “Well, let’s write it up. I play the fiddle.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. And I’m pretty good at it.”

“You should come down and jam with me.”

Bethany cracked a huge smile. “You mean jam down in a homeless encampment?”

“Sure, why not?” said Ethan.

“Are you asking me out?” said Bethany.

They both laughed.

“Yes,” said Ethan.

“I’ll do it.”

They chatted for 15 minutes about music and then it was time to part. Bethany produced a shopping bag of solar-powered twinkle lights and placed it on the table.

“Decorate the camp with these,” she said. “It might bring some cheer and make Christmas suck a little less.”

“Okay,” he said, “thanks. It might be fun to get some of the residents to help me string them up.”

They were about to ready to stand up and leave, but something held them in their chairs.

Bethany drilled Ethan with her eyes and said, “I want to pitch something bold. It just came to me and I want to follow my intuition and heart.”

“Go ahead and pitch,” said Ethan. “More people should follow their hearts.”

“I’m going to break up with my fiance and I want you to come with me to Christmas dinner at my parents.”

“Are you kidding. Some kind of social science project?”

She laughed. “No. Nothing fishy. Just taking a new friend to dinner.”

“I might have said yes, but I’m pretty grungy.”

“You can clean up at the office. They have a shower set up.”

“Again, I might have agreed but I’m playing guitar and tending fire at the encampment on Christmas Day. Some guy is barbecuing a Butterball turkey in a small garbage can in a fire pit.”

“That I have to see. Can I come?”

Ethan hesitated a second. What was going on here? With her?

Then he saw a bit of elvish magic dance in Bethany’s hazel eyes (this is a Hallmark Christmas movie after all!).

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. And bring along a green bean casserole as a side dish. And your fiddle.”

“Green bean casserole?” she said. “Are you kidding? Who eats that anymore?”

“I do. My grandmother used to make it. It was my favorite dish.”

“I’ll try to find something.”

“Great. And crumble some Ritz crackers on top.”

“Ha! That I can do.”

It was now late morning and punk rock, pewter skies threatened sleet. (You never see sleet in Hallmark Christmas movies, only fat flakes of snow.)

Bethany approached wearing a raspberry beret and (reader, imagine her hot non-Hallmark movie outfit here…cut-offs, crocheted top, Chuck Taylor hightops and sheepskin jacket?). She noticed a gathering of people sitting in lawn chairs holding plates around a huge Traeger grill that had been modified to burn wood and was belching smoke that very second. She smelled that and something else…pancakes!

What the hell? She came in closer and saw a young man alternating between playing a guitar strapped around his shoulder and flipping flapjacks on the grill!

Double what the hell?

He was wearing a red Tillamook cheese stocking cap and (describe his hot Hallmark movie outfit here).

Then she heard him singing!

She wore a
Raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more
Raspberry beret
I think I love her

Triple what the hell? He was singing Prince’s “Raspberry Beret!” I’m wearing a raspberry beret!

A few seconds later she stood around the fire and Bethany beheld Ethan and Ethan beheld Bethany while the motley crew watched them watch each other as they ate their pancakes and chased their breakfast with coffee or malt liquor.

She couldn’t believe how handsome he was. He couldn’t believe how gorgeous she was. It was Hallmark love at first sight!

Ethan stopped singing.

“You want some pancakes?” he said.

“Sure, I need some breakfast. I’m Bethany.”

“I’m Ethan.”

They shook hands. The electricity jolted every living creature within a square block, including the beavers beavering in the creek. They slapped their tales in alarm.

After eating a couple of pancakes and drinking two cups of coffee, Bethany told the gathering about her new job in Sellwood. They listened and no one interrupted. All the while, Bethany knew Ethan was watching her as she tried to make eye contact with everyone but found her gaze always returning to Ethan.

“Does anyone need any help this morning?” said Bethany.

Silence.

“We can started right now. I’m ready to move fast. Make it happen right now.”

“Charlie?” said Ethan, and a young man slumped in a chair wearing a filthy hoodie with the cowl pulled over his head, roused.

“Yeah?” he said.

“We talked about this.”

“I know.”

Bethany was about ready to interject when she held off. Don’t get impatient. You’ve already got an ally in Ethan.

“I want out,” said Charlie, “I really want out. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Get your stuff,” said Bethany, “and walk with me to the office. It’s not far.” She suspected if she asked him to wait for her to return in her car, he’d be long gone. The time for action was right now and she didn’t need to know the reasons an able bodied young man was living in an encampment. That inquiry might come later. Or never.

Three hours later, Bethany had Charlie checked into a motel for a two-week stay that could be extended. She got him a meal, new clothes, toiletries, and he showered up as she waited in her car. She drove him to a Safeway that she knew was hiring on the spot for the Christmas rush and sat with him as he interviewed. He scored the job and started that evening. He’d have to walk a half mile to work. She handed him some meal vouchers from a nearby fast food joint.

“I’m nervous,” said Charlie. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You can try,” said Bethany.

“Thank you,” he said.

“I’ll be in tonight to see you on your shift.”

One day. One person. One new chance.

Bethany knew some of it would never stick. If she batted .400 in a Major League baseball career she’d end up in the Hall of Fame. She’d take that average working with the homeless.

And since this is a treatment for a Hallmark Christmas movie, Charlie did show up for work, Bethany saw him hustling trees out to vehicles, she waved, he waved back, and she noticed he was wearing a Santa hat and holding a candy cane in his mouth like it was a cigarette.

Thus began Bethany’s career as a caseworker for Sellwood’s homeless population.

Not far from the encampment, Bethany was excited to begin her career as a social worker for a tiny non profit organization tasked with helping the homeless of southeast Portland into affordable housing. She was excited for the $42,500-a-year job of tackling the homeless crisis and moved into the tony neighborhood of Sellwood she’d be serving. Tony neighborhoods have homeless people? Sure, they are everywhere. Just walk out your door in any small town, suburbia or big city in America and you will encounter them.

Bethany’s parents were decidedly not excited about her new job, her first real one after graduating with a MSW from the University of Washington and bumming around South America surfing and learning Spanish with some girlfriends. Bethany’s party was now over and she felt an urgency to start her career and assume a serious role in society.

She was the only child of a Portland power couple rich to the gills from timber and real estate holdings, including a couple of downtown mini-skyscrapers. Bethany’s parents wanted her to study business or law and take over the operation but she wanted nothing to do with a corporate life that ripped apart watersheds and human beings with brutal transactions. She wanted to help people and her parents didn’t know where her passion originated.

Bethany cut quite the atypical and arresting figure as a social worker.

Just how arresting? Ohhhhhhh, so beyond the Hallmark movie cliché! (Reader, let your imagination run wild!)

Bethany’s parents expected she’d come around after a few years of do-gooding and they had an ace in the hole in their game plan with her—she was engaged to a promising young doctor who specialized in lucrative gender reassignment surgery and was making a name for himself as a Rose City mover and shaker. He was a cipher of a man named Alex and Bethany didn’t really care anything about him, even his chiseled Ken-doll appearance, which other women seemed to drool over.

They were supposed to get married during the summer in some lavish affair that would cost over 300 grand. Bethany was pretty much bored by the whole prospect of the marriage but didn’t bother doing anything about it. She wanted to concentrate on her job and move people off the streets.

It was a cold Monday morning when Bethany’s began her first day on the job! Christmas was two weeks away and you could feel it in the air, but Bethany didn’t care about the holidays. She just wanted to work and work on Christmas if necessary and thus avoid hanging out with Alex and her parents.

Bethany walked to the non profit’s sleek office. Her parents had bought her a $750,000 century-old three-storey home in Sellwood so she wouldn’t have to commute. Bethany thought it was an absurd extravagance for a single person to live alone in a five-bedroom home, but she didn’t have the gumption to turn it down and tell her parents to donate the sum to the non profit. She might get around to that later.

She met briefly with her supervisor, arranged her windowless office, checked e-mail, fired off responses, and then geared up to go outside. Her goal: help one homeless person get off the streets that very day. No scheduling future appointments for the person, No data gathering. No forms to fill out. No more web sites! No passing the buck. Action. Action. Action. Do it all in one day if possible.

And it was possible for many homeless people. Many were ready for direct and immediate action. Just ask them!

A week before starting the gig, Bethany had bicycled around Sellwood and gathered intel on the dozen or so encampments and roughly 40 solo campers. She also counted at least two dozen vehicles parked individually here and there that people were clearly using as domiciles.

Another interesting thing Bethany noticed on her ride was the long line of homeless people outside a grocery store waiting to redeem cans and bottles into a single machine. Men and women were there vaping, sleeping, drinking, reading, talking. It occurred to her that waiting in that line with the homeless might be the perfect way to initially interact with them, hear some stories, gain some trust, and perhaps offer instant help.

Bethany’s first stop was the machine. She walked right up with a small bag of cans, got in line, introduced herself, said she was a new caseworker in the neighborhood and was here to help. She did all of this without a shred of nervousness inside her. In fact, she was surprised at how easy it was.

The men, women and kooky dogs in line all greeted her warmly. Bethany marveled at the various ingenious, jury-rigged, rolling contraptions used to haul the cans and bottles to the machine. The three baby strollers harnessed to a husky was just incredible! Bethany redeemed her cans, went inside the store, and bought treats for the husky and to have around for the next dog she encountered among the homeless. She already knew that was another great way to interact with them. If they cared for their dogs, which they did, they might be able to care for themselves.

It was an exhilarating first moment on the job and Bethany walked away thinking: I’ve got to come to the machine at least once a day. Better yet, we should install one outside the office!

She didn’t know it yet, but Bethany had learned more about Sellwood’s homeless population from spending 30 minutes in the machine line than her predecessor had in year on the job!

Next stop was the encampment along a creek and across the street from a park. It was easily the weirdest and most squalid encampment of it it kind in the area. It was also the encampment where Ethan parked his van nearby.

As far as Bethany could tell from her predecessor’s records, no one from the organization had ever made any contact with any resident there.

Ethan lived in a van near a homeless encampment in Portland, but he wasn’t your typical resident of such places, although there is no such things as a typical resident of homeless communities in Oregon. Every person has a unique story. The one constant? They’ve been ravaged in some way by some cruel aspect of American life and were shattered as a result. Or they just had had enough of American bullshit and decided to check out.

Ethan was shattered but he wasn’t addicted to drugs or insane. He was also atypical as far as homeless people go in that he was super hot and hunky. He damn well could have walked off the set of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie about the homeless if Hallmark made such movies.

Just how hot and hunky? (Go for it reader, to your heart’s content.)

Ethan ended up living in the van after serving five years in the Oregon State Penitentiary for involuntary manslaughter. He’d drank a third hazy IPA at the brewery where he was the head brewer, picked up his girlfriend after her shift at the vegan strip club, a deer darted across the road, he swerved, his truck hit a power pole, and she died instantly. In addition to the sentence, the girlfriend’s parents won a civil judgment against Ethan and pretty much cleaned him out.

Toward the end of his sentence, Ethan’s parents died of cancer five months apart and didn’t leave him much because they didn’t own anything of value except his father’s cherished 1995 Chevy G20 conversion van. Somehow, Ethan had scraped up enough money to have the van put in storage until his sentence ended.

Upon his release, Ethan had nowhere to live, no money, no friends, and no job because of his felony conviction. So he took to living in the van near the encampment that bordered a salmon-bearing stream where beavers lurked.

The encampment consisted of 11 RVs, a pallet shanty, five sedans, two trucks and five tent/tarp domiciles. One resident was also living in an Igloo dog house. The encampment was riddled with miscreants and Ethan was initially puzzled and appalled by their behavior but refrained from judgment and started helping them in tiny ways such as giving rides, calming frayed nerves, fixing a foos ball table, and showing them how to navigate web sites to acquire services or benefits.

Ethan also frequently played his acoustic guitar outside his van in the evenings and that often attracted a small (frequently wasted) audience that were partial to Ethan’s preference for classic rock, particularly anything by Bob Seger. Seger was Ethan’s favorite because his dad loved the meat and potato rocker’s songs, especially “Beautiful Loser,” with its still cosmically relevant lyrics:

Beautiful loser, read it on the wall
And realize, you just can’t have it all
You can’t have it all, you can’t have it all
Oh, oh, can’t have it all

Ethan was officially unemployed, but he worked hard nonetheless. He earned spending and gas money by busking around the neighborhood, redeeming cans and bottles, and mowing lawns for some of the elderly impoverished homeowners who couldn’t afford mechanized landscape crews.

Christmas approached. Ethan figured Christmas in a homeless encampment couldn’t be nearly as bad as Christmas in prison, but then again, he didn’t know. He decided to learn a few holiday songs in case they came in handy when it snowed or one of the residents verged on committing suicide.

Ethan was going on one year in the van. He was waiting for something to unfold that might move him in a different, better direction. But he had no idea where anything better might emerge. Certainly not from a homeless encampment. Not even a Hallmark Christmas movie about the homeless would dream up that cockeyed fantasy!