The Orpheum Miracle

By Pat Henshaw

Christmas joy is a matter of perspective. For some, it’s the happiest time of the year. For others, not so much.

Twenty-nine-year-old Mick, the son of crack addicts, isn’t exactly a dyed-in-the-wool Scrooge. Mick’s been on his own from childhood. As a teen, he even lived in a shelter, where for a short time he had a boyfriend.

After the boyfriend left, Mick squatted in the historic Orpheum Theater. While living there as its self-appointed custodian, Mick has watched others celebrate the holidays from a distance, never able to share in their merriment.

Only his Technicolor dreams enliven his dull, clandestine life until one day the world around him begins to change.

Mick is surprised when a man named Jim buys the Orpheum and plans to restore it. Something about Jim rekindles Mick’s longing for a better life and a little holiday magic for himself.

Can Jim give Mick the hope he needs to accept his happily ever after?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646565351

Book preview

The Orpheum Miracle

By Pat Henshaw

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2020 Pat Henshaw

ISBN 9781646565351

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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To Becca, Jake, and Sarah without whose help and love I would have given up long ago. Thank you all so much. I love you.

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The Orpheum Miracle

By Pat Henshaw

In early November, a new banner across the Orpheum Theater went up saying: Welcome to Christmas, the happiest time of the year. Coming soon.

Far as I could tell, Christmas was when children danced around like clowns on crack. Besotted parents cavorted around them like ninnies in a stupid race. And the rest of us stood back waiting for the inevitable explosion.

Despite how it started, Christmas had been morphed by the rich into a season of greed. It had nothing to do with whether a kid was good or bad, but how much money his folks had.

Take the kids I knew down at the shelter. Shit, they could be as good as little angels, and the best they’d ever get was someone’s cast-off pity. That wasn’t going to do them a damned bit of good when the holiday parade of who-got-what started at school.

All Christmas did, as far as I was concerned, was make poor kids feel worse and rich kids feel more powerful and more ready to rub everyone else’s nose in their misfortune. We all knew, where you started was pretty much where you ended up in life.

The Christmas miracle was a lie that should have been shot in the head and buried eons ago.

Fortunately, here

Reviews for The Orpheum Miracle

[serenayates · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

‘Orpheum Miracle’ focuses on a special kind of ‘Bah Humbug’ in this year’s Advent Calendar – the kind where there was just never any reason to celebrate Christmas in the first place. My heart went out to Mick, who grew up without his drug-addicted parents, spent his teenage years in a shelter, and has managed to survive by working (and secretly living) in the Orpheum theater. He is now twenty-eight and has never had a happy Christmas, or anyone to care for him- except another boy at the shelter for a short year. As a consequence I thought that Mick really deserved a Christmas miracle!

Mick does not have it easy. He has managed to stay off the streets by working odd jobs at the Orpheum Theatre, his favorite place in the world. I can see how a place of movies and dreams might attract him and it made me sad to realize that is all he ever had. Mick’s determination to remain honest and somehow make something of his life impressed me, and his indomitable spirit was an inspiration. I so hoped my suspicions about how the happy ending might come about would be right – and they were!

If you like hurt/comfort stories about a deserving character who finally finds happiness, if you believe that movie theaters carry a special “magic” all their own, and if you’re looking for a read that will tear at your heartstrings and is as sweet as it is cute, then you will probably like this short story as much as I do. After all, it contains a real Christmas miracle of the best kind!


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

[schatzi_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mick doesn't really get into the holiday season. The children of drug addicts, Mick was abused before (apparently) running away and finding refuge in a shelter. His only good memories of his childhood are the times that he spent with Randy, another kid in the shelter, who disappeared without word long ago. Now, over ten years later, Mick is working for minimum wage in the Orpheum Theater and secretly sleeping in the building at night. When yet another new owner, Jim, takes over, Mick expects more of the same. But Jim wants to know Mick and seems vaguely familiar...So it's pretty obvious who Jim is right away - in fact, as soon as his name is mentioned, it's very clear who he is. But I'm okay with that. The story is very short - too short, really for my tastes, because the relationship that develops between Jim and Mick takes place almost entirely off page - but it does pack an emotional punch right into the feels. I just really wish that this story was longer, because I feel like it would have been a great full-length book, or at least a meatier novella. As it is, however, I did enjoy it - it just felt like it needed some more added to it to knock it out of the park for me.