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They’re having breakfast, on the house. Biscuits and gravy. No fancy name for it. Plenty of black coffee served Cuban style, sweet and thick—just like Uncle Joe would have done.
    Free breakfast on Christmas is a tradition at The Dream Café that goes back to the Black and Tan days.
    â€œMerry Christmas,” Dagmar says as she serves each man personally. Some say “Merry Christmas” back. Some just nod. Some don’t say anything, just seem embarrassed. That’s understandable. In her white apron, with her apricot hair pulled high on top of her head, Dagmar looks a lot like someone’s mother. And behind her, onstage, there’s a nearly naked woman writhing.
    It is a little unsettling.
    But Dagmar doesn’t notice. She’s just trying to get this over with, serve some damn Christmas cheer, and get out as quickly as she can. Uncle Joe made her promise that she would keep up the tradition and she hates it with a passion. “These guys should be home with their wives and kids on Christmas,” she told him.
    â€œThat’s not for us to judge,” he said. “They put food on our table. To return the favor one day a year is the least we can do. To give back is a gift unto itself.”
    And even though she wanted to tell him that giving food away to moochers who spend their money paying women to get naked and say nasty things to them is perhaps not as blessed an act as Mother Teresa washing the feet of lepers in Africa, she just nodded. Said nothing. And so now she’s stuck. It was, after all, a promise. A deal’s a deal.
    So she tries to concentrate on what Jimmy Ray always tells her. “Look at everyone as Buddha would,” he says. “Look with an open heart. Find the goodness within them.”
    Jimmy Ray is a Buddhist. It’s a recent turn of events. The day after he had open-heart surgery he announced it. Just like that. Baptist now Buddhist. Claimed that while he was under anesthetic, he had a vision. Phil Jackson, then coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, and a Buddhist himself, appeared to Jimmy Ray and imparted two revelations that he still holds dear.
    The first: “Heaven is a place within your heart.”
    The second: “Michael Jordan is shorter than you think.”
    Then Jackson drove off on his Harley-Davidson.
    The vision had a profound effect on Jimmy Ray. Now, he tries his best to convert others to the Noble Eightfold Path, the teachings of Siddhartha, The Enlightened One.
    â€œYou must approach these men with the Right Understanding, honey,” he told Dagmar. “See who they really are without imposing your preconceived notions.
    â€œIn other words,” he said, “it’s all good.”
    So, when Dagmar serves each man his breakfast, she looks into his eyes and tries to see who’s really inside there. She looks for the spark of a divine spirit and prays that there won’t be a repeat of last Christmas, when some drunk grabbed a dancer’s breast and Dagmar suddenly began to rail on him with a plastic Santa. Then she pushed him into the eight tiny reindeer and they all fell like bowling pins onto the Christmas tree sending glass bulbs skidding across the floor. The bubble lights popped and snapped. The power flickered. Icicles were everywhere. The man began to cry.
    The dancers refer to it as “The Christmas Day Massacre.”
    Luckily, this year, Santa is still standing and her shift is almost over.
    â€œMerry Christmas,” she says to the last man at the table. The man, burly, with a head shaved clean as an egg, takes the food hesitantly.
    â€œI don’t believe in Christmas, Mrs. I’m sorry.” His voice is coarse.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” Dagmar says. “Enjoy. There’s more if you need it.”
    She turns to walk away, but he catches her arm. His eyes are steady and cold. “Don’t seem right, Mrs. You giving me something in the spirit of something I