The Weekly Screed (#567): A Christmas Bonus!

The Ballad of Skagway Phil

Benjie’s Christmas Poem, 2011

(with apologies to Robert Service and all who cherish his memory)

To be read ALOUD, with gusto, between 
renditions of “Deck the Halls” and “O Holy Night”

Santa’s elves were whooping it up at the Eskimo Bar & Grill

When, in from the cold, brazen and bold, strode the dastardly Skagway Phil.

The arctic wastes had known few crooks as filled with venom and rancor:

Phil robbed a bank in Dawson, it’s said, and then he ate the banker.

Legend has it Davy Crockett killed a b’ar when he was three;

Well, Phil did, too. But first, he raped the bear repeatedly.

Seeing Phil, the elves grew still. They set aside their hooch and beer;

The party was nipped, the Eskimo gripped by the hairy hand of fear.

Here was a mob as hard as a spike — of trappers and roughnecks and Inuit whalers,

But none had the nerve to look Phil in the eye; their faces went pale, and then paler

The gamblers, the barkeep, the floozies in red all knew what Phil meant to do,

For he had it bad, he’d always been mad for the lady that’s known as Lou.

He’d seen her one night at the Eskimo, through the smoke and the roar and the stench,

And said, “I’d wrestle polar bears if only I could win that wench!”

Now, Phil could get most anything, by fist, or gun, or bludgeon,

But lovely Lou rejected Phil, and said she wasn’t budgin’.

So, brokenhearted, Phil departed, raging as he sallied forth,

Commencing a spree of butchery that terrified the Great White North…

… ‘Til, suddenly, he disappeared. The tundra seemed to swallow Phil.

Some thought his love for Lou had waned; some said he got too bored to kill.

Whatever the cause, Phil went unspotted, for many a frigid Yukon year,

Nor was there either chum or sweetheart, missing him, to shed a tear.

Now, here he was, as mad as hell, his eyes aflame and bloody red,

He bellowed, “If I can’t have Lou, I mean, by God, to shoot her dead!”

He aimed his Colt at Hans the Elf, who meekly, trembling, said,

“But she ain’t here no longer, sir. Lou found herself a man — and wed.”

From deep within his soul, Phil wailed and then he raised a mighty furor;

His gunfire winged the barkeep, scattered elves and smithereened the mirror.

He grabbed the helpless Hans’s neck and bounced him off a distant wall.

The Eskimo was froze with awe. You could’ve heard a feather fall.

“I want her here,” roared Phil, “or swear to God, I’ll kill you all!”

When, suddenly, a jolly elf, quite oversized (near six feet tall),

Burst through the doors, his tummy huge, his eyes aglow with life.

“I hear,” he grinned and said to Phil, “you used to know my wife.”

This stranger dressed in red, with snow-white beard, gave Phil a jolt.

He staggered back a step, then, scowling, poised to fire his deadly Colt.

But wait! The words sank in. Phil realized it must be true:

This geriatric tub of lard was doin’ the gal that’s known as Lou.

The fat man said, “Pleased t’meetcha, Phil,” and after the slightest pause,

“The North Pole’s glad to have you here. We hope you’ll stay, because

“We welcome everyone up here. We’d better! After all, I’m Santa Claus!”

The giant elf concluded then with a deafening series of guffaws.

It took a minute. Phil couldn’t believe the dazzler he had known as Lou,

Who used to party all night and stay abed ‘til two next day — with two,

Who dealt from the bottom and bartered her charms with a pair of Chinese bookies

Was sweeping floors, and darning socks, and baking ginger cookies.

She’d up and married a bourgeois myth, the middle-class’s Christmas fairy;

She’d given up the sportin’ life to make a lot of ingrates “merry.”

More sad than mad, Phil said to Santa, “Claus, I have to murder you.

“Lou broke my heart, that’s bad enough. But worse than that, you’ve broken Lou.”

For a moment of suspense, they all thought Phil would draw and shoot

Santa had no gun, he had no club, nor even a dagger hid in his boot.

But old Saint Nick, unarmed, was still a cunning cottonpicker.

As Phil took aim, his gun hand steady, well, Santa Claus began to snicker.

With quiet laughter, everyone saw, his rolls of flab commenced to flow

Until, from deep within, there rose that great, familiar “Ho ho ho!”
And, as that sound grew strong and rich, the merriment began to spread.

The youngest elves couldn’t help but giggle, sugarplums dancing in each head.

The dance-hall gals were next to crack. The barkeep loosed a tenor chuckle.

As Santa went on ho-de-hoing, the sternest scowls began to buckle.

Whalers grinned and roughnecks laughed, and slapped each other on the back.

Though Phil frowned grimly at the scene, his seething hate began to slack.

Maybe his love for Lou, he thought, had only been infatuation.

After years of jealousy and mayhem, Phil deserved, perhaps, vacation

The scene before him rocked with mirth; elves and whores rolled in the aisle;

Even the barroom cat, named Blackie, seemed to crack a Cheshire smile.

Skagway Phil relaxed his trigger-finger; then he holstered up his gun.

Blowing his sweetheart’s brains out now no longer seemed to him much fun.

The piano began, and Phil retreated, bellowing as he took flight,
“Merry Christmas to all, you lucky stiffs. You get to breathe another night!”