2. Christmas in the Drunk Tank
Christmas in the Drunk Tank
Jasper Hopkins was a man of solemn routine.
Every morning when he arrived for work at the county clerk’s office, his ritual was the same.
First, he’d locate an EV space to plug in his little Nissan Leaf.
He’d gather up the wool car coat he carried (even on summer’s hottest day), along with his insulated travel mug of super-hot Earl Grey (again, weather be damned) and his vintage leather attaché case.
The case had been gifted to him by his grandfather upon Jasper’s graduation from college and, like the coat and the tea, he never left home without it, despite the vast majority of the clerk’s office having gone digital.
Once his belongings were organized, Jasper would lock his car and proceed along the buckling sidewalk and through a garden of modest government buildings—the county courthouse, the tax assessor’s office, the parks and recreation department, and so on—before arriving at his destination.
There, every morning, Jasper would pause on the weathered granite steps and tilt his head back to admire the way the morning light caught the worn cornices of the clerk’s office.
The red-brick facade had darkened with age, its original color muted to a deep oxblood that spoke of nearly two hundred New England winters.
Four Ionic columns flanked the entrance, their fluting still crisp despite the peeling white paint.
The building needed care, yes, but it had bones.
Character. Not like the institutional nightmare of the interior.
The offices themselves were a fluorescent-lit purgatory of drop ceilings and mud-colored carpet installed by 1980s bureaucrats in the name of “modernization.” The building was forever stuck in a sort of design time loop: glorious early nineteenth century outside and nausea-inducing late twentieth century inside.
Alas, Jasper’s beloved workplace was currently marred by numerous unwelcome additions: oversized wreaths clung to the columns, and a pair of Christmas trees stood sentinel on either side of the entrance. A horrible tinsel garland had been draped with bureaucratic efficiency across the entryway.
Echhh, he thought. Goddamn Christmas.
After many years of practice, Jasper was mostly able to put the so-called holiday out of his mind... But not when the building he loved was so determined to remind him of it.
He sighed, clutching his Earl Grey. One more minute. One more minute to drink in the symmetry of the twelve-over-twelve windows, the delicate branching of the cast-iron railings. Then with a sigh, he’d venture inside. The scene of a great crime, where progress had murdered beauty.
From behind the lobby’s expansive reception desk, Deputy Clerk Toby Hearthstone observed Jasper’s entrance with a wry smile. He reached out with one hand to mischievously turn up the volume on Mariah Carey’s Christmas album, which he knew Jasper detested.
“G’morning, Jasper. You catch the game last night?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said testily. “You know I didn’t. Anyway, the Patriots weren’t the original Massachusetts football team. They were predated by the Boston Bulldogs, who were both founded and disbanded in 1929.”
Toby blinked several times. “Excuse me? Since when do you know football trivia?”
“I, uh...” Jasper honestly didn’t know. “I must’ve read it somewhere.”
“Huh. Funky shit, dude. Hey, don’t forget, we’re closing early for the office party. Anita made rum balls. Aaaand I hear she’s scheming to get you under the mistletoe.”
Jasper grimaced. “Death first.”
“Hoo boy.” Toby chuckled. “Well, you brought in your Secret Santa gift at least... right?”
“Again, Toby, you know very well that I did not.” Jasper marched by the front desk without pausing. “Eight years working here and I have never attended that ghastly event. I certainly won’t start now.”
“Aw, c’mon!” Toby called to Jasper’s back in a tone half pleading and half joking. “Anita made her famous rum balls! And I hear Maureen and Dylan are gonna take a whack at singing ‘Fairytale of New York’ this year.”
“Is that so?” Jasper spun around. “With the original lyrics? Or are they tidying up all the naughty words?”
“Well . . . it is an office party . . . and some of the language is pretty rough, so . . .”
“Listen, friend. Shane MacGowan wrote about particular types of characters who lived in a particular time and place. Do we agree with everything they say? No, we definitely don’t.
But he was a damn poet and that’s his work whether it’s comfortable to us or not.
One does not put trousers on Michelangelo’s David , and one does not fix Shane MacGowan. ”
“You’re getting a little intense over a Christmas song, Jasper.” The deputy’s words echoed off the cold stone floor. “And you’re pretty full of yourself for a charity case. Maybe as a New Year’s resolution you should work on your attitude?”
“Deal with it.” Jasper marched on toward the stairwell, rolling his eyes.
Toby’s remark about him being a charity case was a cheap shot about the fact that only part of Jasper’s salary was paid by the county.
The half of his job that involved fishing licenses and property deeds—the tedious, clerking part of the job— that was deemed worthy of taxpayer funding.
But the good half of his job—the archival research, the historical preservation— that had to be underwritten by an anonymous donor.
Every Christmas, a generous check arrived to fund Jasper’s study of county history.
Every Christmas, Jasper tried to discover out who his benefactor was.
.. and every Christmas he was forced to accept that he couldn’t figure it out and likely never would.
All he could do was hope that whoever it was didn’t die anytime soon.
He strode to the back of the building where the stairwell was flanked by twin elevators, yet another sacrilegious modernization.
Yes, of course he respected the need for accessibility.
Jasper took a back seat to no one in his love for local government or in his belief that it should belong to everyone.
He understood that the elevators were a key part of making the clerk’s office available to every citizen.
But personally? He detested any changes to the building he loved, even the good and necessary ones.
Fortunately he didn’t need to confront the elevator very often.
Jasper’s domain was archives and records, just a short jog down to the basement.
He was reaching for the stairwell door when he noticed a woman standing at the building directory, her finger trailing down the list of offices.
Even in his rush to escape the Christmas music floating down the corridor, he couldn’t help but notice her red-rimmed eyes and the way she kept dabbing at her nose with a crumpled tissue.
Jasper yanked open the door, took one step through... and stopped. With a quiet sigh, he turned back.
“Can I help you, miss?”
“What?” The woman startled, then tried to compose herself. “Oh, I... My mother passed last week, and I have all these papers, but... I’m not sure where to...” She gestured helplessly at the directory.
Jasper’s expression softened. He’d seen that lost look far too many times. Given that nothing is certain but death and taxes, Jasper could never understand why the bureaucracy of death had to be so damned complicated.
He gave the woman’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Fourth floor, probate,” he told her quietly. “When you exit the elevator, you’ll see a receptionist. Ask for Anita, she’s the chief probate clerk. She’ll need the death certificate. And did Mom have a will? Anita will also need that.”
“Ohh, okay. Thanks very much. Yeah, I’ve got all that stuff here, I’m pretty sure. To be honest I haven’t been able to understand what everybody wants from me at all. Everything is just so...” She sighed. “Anyway... you think Anita will be helpful?”
He chuckled. “Not one fiber of my being suspects Anita will be helpful, no. Especially if the rum balls have already come out. Still, though, she’s the probate clerk, so she’s your woman. I wish you the very best.” Jasper patted the mourner on the shoulder and headed for the basement stairs.
“Thank you, sir,” she called. “And Merry Christmas.”
“ Ugh .” The door slammed behind him.
Jasper descended the stairs, each step taking him deeper into history.
The stairwell walls displayed a gallery of his archivist ancestors—his spiritual family.
And, in a real sense, his chosen family, given that he made the effort to salvage the portraits from a dumpster during yet another “modernization redesign” in 2018.
He remembered that day with perfect clarity: standing in the parking lot, watching maintenance workers cart out the “outdated decor” and toss it in piles.
The second he spotted that gilt frame poking out from beneath a stack of broken venetian blinds, Jasper was in motion: stripping off his wool coat, rolling up his sleeves, and climbing into the trash container.
The maintenance crew had watched in bewilderment as he’d excavated each portrait, carefully wiping away all the coffee grounds and plaster dust.
Now the portraits formed a perfect timeline on the basement stairs.
More recent photos showed archivists from the 1980s, their faces illuminated by the sickly glow of the first IBM computers to infiltrate the archives division.
Jasper touched one of these frames lightly whenever he passed it—a silent acknowledgment of the moment when efficiency had first trumped personality, when typed ledgers had given way to databases.
The technology was useful, he had to admit, but something had been lost when they’d started reducing human lives to ones and zeros.