The Weekly Screed (#701)

Christmas through a glass, darkly
(In memory of Paul Keeffe, LaFollette H.S., Class of ’67)
by David Benjamin

On a recent visit to New York, I got together with a lifelong friend, Pat Keeffe, who was in the first graduating class (‘65) at LaFollette High. Earlier this year, Pat and his family had mourned the too-soon loss of Pat’s brother, Paul — who graduated with me in ’67. Paul was handsome, funny, charming and spectacularly unpredictable.

Pat recalled reading — with Paul — one of my first Christmas stories. I’d written it when I was barely 16, and lost it until Patty (Brill) Hammes (also ’67) dug it up from her LaFollette Lance news archives. Pat Keeffe somehow remembered the story, by its title. I promised Pat I’d find it and send a copy. Since it holds up well after all these years — better than a lot of stuff I’ve written since then — I thought I might as well reprise it, as this year’s Christmas screed. It’s called… 

Next Year, Bring Guns

The clock was near to chiming 2 a.m. For the third time that night, I flashed the ready sign to Amos. Catching the signal, Saunders nudged Amos, who had dozed off. The waiting, clearly, had not gotten on his nerves. I ventured to breach the silence.

“Use your head, Amos.”

My exclamation roused several idlers, including Clow and Wesley, upon whose brute strength the operation depended.

Another ten minutes passed uneventfully. We began to worry if he would ever come. Had he smelled a rat and just passed us over?

Then, finally, Wiese stirred clumsily. His keen ears had picked up the distant sound of jingling bells. In a second, it came to Bedrich, then Eloiten. Then, the rest of us heard it. This was IT. We all took a tight grip on our bludgeons, truncheons and bodkins.

Moments later, clomping, trampling, prancing and pawing pounded on the roof above us. It was HIM. Hyland’s iridescent eyes glowed in the darkness. They were a dead giveaway. Obis made him put on his sunglasses. We all breathed easier.

A clattering and scraping echoed from the chimney. He was coming. We could hear him grunting and puffing, cursing obscenely under his labored breath. I clutched my icepick.

Suddenly, the coveted bag clunked into the hearth. Graves, losing control, lunged toward it. In the nick of time, Sidman, Parmelee and Ross seized him by the ankles and dragged him back. I made a quick check of our hiding places. Not one of us could be seen. The plan was set. Then, all eyes flashed to the fireplace as he kicked the sack aside and landed, coughing, in a cloud of fine ash. With a bend and a twist, he was free from the chimney.

And there he stood, red and sooty and sloppy, his yellow buck teeth protruding from his stringy gray beard, his hand — coated with grime — resting on his monstrous belly. He reeked of B.O. and reindeer manure. He lay his finger up side of his nose and then thrust it inside. He dug out a booger the size of a Swedish meatball and smeared it across his bodice. Then, scratching his crotch and lighting a cigarette, he straightened to his full height — a great big fat mountain of fuming pork grease.
Luveta turned her head in revulsion. Rahl whispered to me, “How does a tub of lard like that get down a chimney?

Dragging the bulging sack to his side, he looked casually around, smirking. His pig eyes settled on the milk and cookies. Food. An expression of greed crossed his brow. He reached, compulsively, for the goodies. He had taken the bait.

A scant second too early, Siert took the cue and leapt from cover. He threw himself onto the back of the beast. The red giant, like a grizzly flicking away a squirrel, shoved Siert off and — with a roar of Neanderthal fury — set himself.

Waving our bludgeons, flashing our stilettos and crying, “Ya-a-a-ah! Blood!”, we attacked the Crimson Creature.

Amos, Varney, Courtney, Graves, Obis, Festus, Campbell, Vilhjalmur, LaMont, Merten, Sidman, Ross, Corbin, Gerard, Traugott, Cathmor, Tayloe and Saunders hit him low.

Clow, Wesley, Wiese, Bedrich, Eliot, Eloiten, Hyland, Parmelee, Rahl, Asa, Grover, Clifton, Dowse, Townsend, Bagnall, Myers, Jim and I hit him high.

Gillman, Elijah, Madison, Gray, Nym and Adonis hit him in the middle..

Eyes blazing, nose flaring, snot flying, slaver foaming from his mouth, he swung left and right, smashing heads. Time and again, we pierced his immense overcoat with our daggers and bounced our clubs off his polyethylene skull.

His colossal strength, with the split second of warning that Siert had given him, was winning out. He tossed our slight bodies like matchsticks. I saw Wesley splat into the wall at the end of the room. Corbin was squashed beneath his gargantuan feet. He took a last drag on his Camel and put it out in Luveta’s eye, sending her screaming out the door and into the blizzard. He strangled Grover with a flick of his wrist.

Inch by inch, he retreated to the hearth. With the precious sack of toys before him, casting aside our futile efforts to halt him and destroy his evil reign of avarice and materialism, he disappeared — with a mighty shove — up the chimney.

We took the defeat hard, as hard as we had taken it the year before, and the year before that, and the whole twelve years before that. Maybe we were getting old.

An hour later, licking our wounds, we all went upstairs to nestle snug in our beds. As we filed out, stepping respectfully over the bodies of our dead, I turned to my comrades and said, “Next year, boys, bring guns.”