A Gift to the Meek

 

Yaphet Kotto, Messiah?

In the middle of the year I went through a serious depression. I'm not good at being stuck at home wondering if the country will fracture into pieces. At this point the Covid Death Clock ticks at 300 thousand people. I'm at the point where everything funneled to us is slanted with some sort of agenda and trust for anything told to us is frustratingly eroded. Since March a lot of my friends have lost their jobs, but most of them have found new ones. My hope for the next year is recovery, but I'm not optimistic. I have very little faith in humankind right now. This year watching the Twilight Zone episode, Night of the Meek, has a bit more punch to it. All boozing and tormented Art Carney wants is for those in poverty with very little to have a nice Christmas. Especially the older men at a shelter and the poor kids who beg him (while in his shabby Santa costume and beard) for jobs for their daddy and just one particular gift. He is drunk and in tears because he feels helpless to provide them with something special, something that would bring just a little joy to their unfortunate lives at Christmas. 

When he's not emasculated and dressed down by John Fiedler at the department store when stumbling up to his chair an hour late, told his serves are no longer required and his ranting about he'd like to actually be Santa Claus for those less fortunate, Carney dismisses himself to an alley where a sack of cans awaits. What he doesn't realize is that this sack has a magic that will afford him his dream...for those in his presence, the bag will give folks a special gift. And Carney seems to revive from his stupor, from his misery, and those in the shelter and kids around him are given clothes, items, and toys of different sorts. Whether a smoking jacket, sweater, pipe, baseball, dolly, or even a bottle of 1903 champagne, the bag amazingly provides and Carney is boosted by the experience from a sad sack to a jovial Santa Claus granted the chance to fulfill what he so desperately wanted...to make the hearts of others just a bit happier at Christmas. I needed this episode. I did. I know it is Twilight Zone and that Serling wrote this with folks suffering hardships in mind. His empathy for those suffering can be felt in this episode. If only CBS hadn't requested the show "save a few bucks" and shoot the episode on soap opera el cheapo video...that mistake robs Rod and his team of the chance to really make this episode shine. But Carney shines through and the magic of Rod's script rescues the episode from the doldrums the video look could have caused.

Serling's feelings for the poor didn't just remain in the Twilight Zone with Night of the Meek, he wrote a story for the Night Gallery in the second season called The Messiah on Mott Street. Edward G Robinson is a Jewish man fighting off the Angel of Death while close to pneumonia, refusing to give in even as his cough worsens and his heart hurts. He is awaiting help from the Messiah (and tragically a brother who writes him about having a million dollars from land sold, but is actually suffering delusions in a home for the mentally ill in California) so he isn't forced to lose his grandson (his parents are dead). Unable to stave off the ever-worsening cough, Robinson sweats while enduring further suffering from his bed in a poverty-stricken neighborhood full of withering buildings, homeless, soup kitchens, false doomsdaying prophets, and a kindly Yaphet Kotto who humors little Rickey Powell about being the Messiah he's been looking for. Tony Roberts is the son of Robinson's best friend, who was also a doctor. Roberts cares about Robinson, warning him that he must be hospitalized as his tenement building is too drafty with a particular winter cold just increasing the probably chance of pneumonia. But his grandson refuses to lose hope, pulling Kotto to just outside the room of Robinson while Roberts' faith weakens as Robinson's health does. Kotto, inside the tenement apartment, is enigmatic and particular with what he says, with Roberts sort of mocking the idea of his being the messiah Powell so wholeheartedly believes in. I really appreciated how Kotto plays Buckner, just mysterious enough and not dismissing the idea he is the messiah outright. He's not too talkative and when the wind kicks up occasionally and doors open seemingly on their own, Kotto is right there while Roberts, having collapsed on a couch, defeated, is startled (as anyone would be). I really thought the idea--when the door to Robinson's bedroom closes as he appeared near death, opening later to reveal him sitting up, healthy and revived, after the wind kicked up and doors opened in the living room--at the end was especially impactful. One of Robinson's final performances, getting him for this particular Night Gallery tale was inspired and fortunate casting. Whether Jewish or Christian or not even affiliated with any religion, I still think the episode has a power to it thanks to the cast. The touch at the end where Kotto returns as a postal worker, leaving us wondering if Buckner was in fact the messiah, bookends this tale with an uplifting close, instead of the grim conclusion I admittedly was expecting.