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in a to-go cup, and I tried to get her attention to call out an order for pie, but there were three people in line ahead of me and she simply set the coffee beside the cashier’s stand and rushed off.  I was behind a big guy in camouflage who kept shuffling his feet back and forth, so it was possible she didn’t see me.  Disappointed, I dug a dollar bill out of my pocket to pay for the coffee and waited my turn.
    I saw Ruth Holloway and her husband, Jack, a couple of tables over and waved to them. 
“Ready for your big night?” I called.
    “Mary and Joseph at your service,” she called back, toasting me with a French fry, and Jack, not to be outdone, added, “Hope they’ve got room for us at the inn.”
    Ruth elbowed him in the ribs for the bad joke, and I was about to make an equally bad one back when I was distracted by a slight disturbance in the line in front of me.  The guy in camouflage had reached the cashier and I was aware that this was the second time she had given him his total.  He patted his pockets, looking for his wallet, and finally dug a bill out, frowning at it for a moment, before he turned it over to her.  That was when I noticed he was wearing a buck knife in a leather sheath strapped to his belt, not something you see every day, even around here.  He smelled of wild dead things and a couple of days without a shower, and I figured he must have been returning from an overnight hunting trip.  
    “Ten twenty- five,” Lucy, the cashier, repeated.  A note of impatience was just starting to creep into her voice.
    He muttered something to her I didn’t hear.
    “A quarter,” she repeated.  “I need a quarter.”
    He dug into his pants pocket again and took out a couple of lint-covered antacids, a pocketknife, some washers, a crumpled receipt, and a gold wedding ring.  He spread them out on the counter.  He said, almost in disbelief, “That's it.”
    Lucy looked over her shoulder for her supervisor, and I could feel the line behind me growing restless.  I reached into my pocket one more time, scraped out a quarter, and reached around to hand it to Lucy.  “Merry Christmas,” I said to the hunter.
    He had greasy black hair and a full dark beard, and he looked at me with a stunned, uncomprehending expression. Abruptly, he muttered something I did not hear, swept the items on the counter back into his pocket, and shouldered past me and out the door.
    I made a face of exaggerated question to Lucy, and she shrugged.  “Weirdo,” she said, ringing up my order.  “Did you see the blood on his jacket?  Jeez, I wish these guys would clean up a little before they come in here.  That’ll be a dollar three for the coffee.”
    I managed to scrape another nickel out of my pocket.  “Keep the change.  Who was that guy anyway?”  
    She shrugged and dropped my two cents change into the Need a Penny,Take a Penny jar.  “We get all kinds on Parade night.”
    “Well, have a good Christmas.  I hope you get a chance to see the parade.”
    I turned to go and stepped on something hard.  “Oh-oh.”  I picked it up and held it out between thumb and forefinger to Lucy. “That guy dropped his wedding ring.”  I held it up to the light and saw there was writing inside.  Forever, Amy .  “His wife is going to kill him.”
    “I’ll keep it in the cash register.”  Lucy took the ring and waved the next customer forward.  “I hope he remembers where he lost it.”
    But apparently he didn’t, or maybe he didn't think it was worth coming back for.  Lucy tucked the ring under the cash tray and forgot about it, and neither one of us ever saw Camo Man again.
    ______________

 
     
     
    FIVE
     
    D olly Amstead, parade master extraordinaire, made certain that the first drum sounded and the first baton twirled at precisely 6:00.  Sonny arrived with Mystery at 6:10 and the sheep were marching down the ramp like little soldiers at 6:15.  It really was something to see.
    Maude and I had