The Hoffman’s central employee at the candy store was their son, Gene. Post-collegiate in age and with a number of partially completed degrees, Gene had sampled a wide range of occupations without finalizing a commitment to any: hotel groundskeeper, stand-up comic, phlebotomist, dog groomer, volunteer police officer. To Gene, life was a series of masks—we were all impostors in a way—but choosing which mask to stick with? Gene hadn’t decided. Currently, he wore long facial hair. Gene also wore long head hair, and together his long hairs framed a countenance that bore an unusual resemblance to the Jesus of Nazareth postcards you sometimes see on counters at The Salvation Army.

As an employee of a confectionery, Gene wore a name tag and followed proper sanitation guidelines, wearing his hair in nets—one for his head and one for his beard. Curiously, the nets did not disrupt the image of Gene as a savior. Gene Christ snickered kids from the nearby middle school as they paid for gummy worms. A smaller faction called him Soup Kitchen Gene, which didn’t make as much sense.

Gene was not unaware of the image he projected and the effect he had on people. He smirked approvingly when he caught senior citizens in the middle of lingering stares—they had to hustle and purchase bridge mix or marshmallow peanuts to cover up their gawking. Teenaged patrons came in for an altogether different purpose: ironic selfies, or un-ironic selfies with the ersatz Redeemer.

One day, Gene’s father John had a stroke and could no longer perform his duties as candy store manager. Donna, defeated by her husband’s frail constitution, relinquished her interest in the business to her son. Gene now ran a store where you could see Jesus in hair nets if you wanted a jawbreaker.

But what Gene really fancied was to become an actor. You just pretended you were someone else. Gene wasn’t always sure who he was to begin with, so the project appeared relatively straightforward. There were auditions in two weeks for a Nativity musical at the Methodist Church. Gene would audition for Singing Baby Jesus.

The role went to an out-of-towner. While Vasily Krennikov didn’t have long hair or a beard, he could sing. The vote was unanimous: Vasily, despite performing the nominal role of an infant, would wear a costume beard and use his stunning voice to rouse holiday spirits within the hearts of both music lovers and the faithful. Gene was crushed.

How could somebody who looked like Jesus not be Jesus in a musical? The logic didn’t follow. But it was true that Gene had difficulty carrying a melody. A new idea presented itself: singer. Gene would purchase vocal lessons. He’d train his voice and re-audition next year. In the meantime, he could practice among the rows of glass jars and plastic dispensers at work.

Gene’s parents didn’t move in with him because he’d already moved in with them. The three pooled their money and used it to hire a personal care assistant for John during the hours Donna was grocery shopping or needed a break.

Rita drove a 1976 Ford Pinto, the kind that exploded upon impact. As a caregiver, she was accustomed to terminal scenarios, unperturbed in teal scrubs as she toileted patients or laundered their garments. She was perhaps also an atheist, as Gene’s presence in a white bathrobe appeared to make no impression on her. Gene sang in front of the bathroom mirror. He sang to his father over breakfast. John’s response was always the same. A smile or a wince.

At Goodwill, Gene found a compact disc titled Tenors of the Bolshoi. The singing was all in Russian, but Gene found the music inescapable. He canceled the store’s satellite radio subscription, connected John’s dormant stereo gear, and put the disc on repeat. Here was the person he was meant to be: Russian tenor. Vasily would have some competition next Christmas.

Locking up on a Sunday afternoon, Gene decided not to take the city bus. With a bag of lemon drops in his coat pocket, he walked the seven miles home. The air felt different. It was visibly December, the windows of Chen’s Dumpling House and the adult bookstore each frosted with holiday themes, but Gene sensed the new year already underway. “Cердце тяжело, но ум чист,” he intoned against his upturned collar. The heart is heavy, but the mind is clear.

Snow and ice crunched under his boots. Gene pulled the earflaps of his hat further down, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. No matter how many traffic lights and road signs there were, the world was still a guideless place. Did anyone learn anything playing roles? It was easy to equivocate: maybe, maybe not. A role wasn’t real, but life was supposed to be. It occurred to Gene that the actual challenge was to answer the pressures of living by saying yes. Just like that scrap of paper he’d once read about, the one Yoko Ono pinned to the ceiling in a gallery. An art goer climbed a ladder, peered through a magnifying glass, and read the paper’s solitary word: YES. By itself, it didn’t mean much, but by the time you descended back to the floor, YES meant seeing the possibility in all things.

Gene’s fingertips and toes were numb. He’d sucked away all but one of the lemon drops. Frost had formed on his beard just below his bottom lip. Standing outside his parents’ house, his breath visible in the cold, Gene fumbled for his keys. Before he could stick the right one in the slot, the door opened. It was Rita. She gazed at Gene with eyes that communicated a mixture of confusion and pity. “The doctor’s office called,” she informed. Gene studied Rita’s face. He tried out his new slogan: “Yes.”

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Laton Carter’s fiction appears or is forthcoming in A-Minor Magazine, Atticus Review, The Boiler, Invisible City, New Flash Fiction Review, and The Wigleaf Top 50. Carter works in a middle school in Western Oregon.