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WINTER Stories
Stories of Winter Time Designed to Boost Your Spirits throughout the Year
By R. T. TRACY Abbott Press
Copyright © 2013 Richard T. Tracy
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4582-1286-3
CHAPTER 1
SANTA'S MAGIC HAT
It all began after I decided to put on Santa's hat.
Why I put it on I don't know. I do know that my life was never the same after that night drive home during a snow storm on Christmas Eve.
Of course I wasn't going to write any of this down—until people started saying I should tell the story even if it makes me sound crazy. I'm really sane, y'know. This actually happened. I won't say when; a few years ago at the New Jersey Garden State Parkway service area in Cheesequake.
That is where I met him—for the first and only time. Funniest thing that ever happened to me, really. Changed my life and plenty more. That, my friends say, was when I started to get religion. I don't know about that. Perhaps.
Mostly though I was not thinking love and forgiveness.
Fact is, I was talking myself into a frenzy of bitterness and hatred and gradually getting very angry at Meredith and at the kids. I dwelt on my perceptions of slights and grievances that were annoying me. I focused on what I thought was my family's lack of interest in, and care for, their father.
The principal bread winner for our family, I was merely a utility to them: the appliance that brought home the salary each week to keep the other appliances running smoothly. I was the Daddy machine, and I was starting to feel that my own children were strangers to me. Was I really the father of those loud, bratty kids? Could they really have been mine? Maybe it was time to cut the connection. I thought I ought to just walk away.
Yet, despite my anger, such thoughts made me feel ashamed of myself.
You see, it was Christmas Eve; and it was shaping up to be the first white Christmas we'd had for years. In fact it was just beginning to snow when I turned into the packed parking lot of the Cheesequake service area on the Garden State Parkway.
I remember that clearly because I had made up my mind to walk away from my wife and kids at about the same time the snow started. No sooner did I decide than snowflakes began bursting upon my windshield, big wet flakes that dissolved into tiny puddles of water wherever they hit the warm glass.
When I didn't see any good parking places close to the restaurant I drove on past the construction that seemed endless at that place, probably some public official's favorite pork barrel, and parked about as far away from the coffee shop as I cared to be. Then I joined the tired commuters trudging along in the steadily increasing snowfall, like defeated soldiers retreating from the scene of some disastrous winter battle, to the well-lighted shop where hot food and a clean bathroom awaited.
I called Meredith from a public phone as soon as I entered the restaurant. She was surprised to hear from me and asked whether I would soon be home. I told her that I was on my way, and that I had something to talk with her about, something serious.
"Serious?" She tried to laugh, though her voice cracked. I sensed that she was feeling an increasing level of anxiety. Good, I thought to myself.
"We're all waiting for you. Your present is the biggest of all. I think you'll like it," she said. "You're not at a bar, are you?"
"Stone cold sober," I answered. "I haven't had any alcoholic spirits in more than a week."
"That's good, Harry," she said. "We should talk. It's Christmas Eve."
"We will talk," I answered. "I'll be there as soon as possible. The weather is getting worse. See ya."
"Harry," she said quickly.
"Yeah?"
"Take care of yourself Harry. Drive carefully. Get here when you get here, ok?"
"Yeah" I said, hanging up the phone; "by."
Each previous Christmas for a couple of years we had talked together at length about our marriage. That was Meredith's idea. She wanted us to see a counselor. I figured we'd be wasting our time. This year I was going to do the talking. I'd reached a decision. I smiled, trying to look happy as I got on line to buy burgers.
Inside though my stomach felt dull as lead. My mood was joyless. Should I abandon my objective? Should I suppress my bitter feelings to pretend that we were all living happily ever after? These thoughts tormented me all through dinner. I didn't really hate Meredith, nor the kids.
After supper I was sitting alone at my table when he appeared, as though out of the thin air, from nowhere. At least I didn't see him coming. Y'see I was still thinking about Meredith, and about the kids. I was staring down at the piles of paper, plastic and cardboard left over from my meal, the debris that always follows a fast food meal, when I heard an odd voice in an unfamiliar accent.
"Howdy pardner," it said, "have I got a deal for you."
I looked up into a grinning face of indeterminate age. With dark, glowing eyes, bone white teeth and ruddy red cheeks, the face seemed to unhinge itself from the mundane reality around it and to beam steadily down upon me. It was as though the sun had left the sky to stand above my table, offering a deal I couldn't refuse.
This apparition continued to grin, winked at me and slowly began drawing something out from behind its back.
I froze. Twenty years of employment with the police and the district attorney's office as a prosecutor had made me a certain number of enemies. I knew the risks. I was aware that someday, when I least expected it, retribution might appear at my doorstep. But I hadn't anticipated being blown away into eternity at a parkway rest area following a big mac, medium fries and a cherry Coke. I began to sweat, despite the cold.
"Voila!" chortled the apparition, pointing at my head, right between the eyes, with a—a—a floppy Santa Claus hat.
"Pretty neat, huh?" asked my visitor with considerable enthusiasm. "It's the most recent model, too: genuine fur blended with synthetic materials and wool that strengthens the fabric; and it's just your size. You'll look magnificent with this on. Here, try it."
I shooed him away. "Go on to someone else, sonny boy. I'm not interested in Santa Claus hats tonight."
"But tonight is Christmas Eve. This is the night of Santa Claus. When else would you be interested in a Santa Claus hat?"
"Never," I said. "Go away; try selling your fuzzy hat to someone else." He looked at me as though I were in his trap.
"No one else in this place needs this hat as much as you do," said the grinning, big-toothed, dark-eyed apparition. "You're at a crisis in your married life," he said. Then he added, responding to my startled expression with a touch of jeering contempt, "Sonny Boy."
"Say, who are you anyway?" I asked. "Why are you at my table? How do you know what I'm thinking? Can you read my mind?"
"Still not interested in Santa hats," he asked with an indecipherable smirk, thrusting his Santa hat to within inches of my face.
"Yeah, sure. Santa Claus, huh? Where are your whiskers? Where is your red suit? Say, aren't you supposed to be working tonight? It's Christmas Eve."
I laughed as I said this, and steadily raised my voice. People at the surrounding tables looked up from their meals. A hot shop employee came over to wipe clear the table next to us.
"I'm not the old man, I'm one of his helpers," said my visitor.
"Oh," said I. "You're an elf, huh? And how much are you soaking people for that ridiculous hat?"
"An elf is such an old fashioned word; your word, not mine. Today we prefer the phrase Santa Facilitator. And the hat is free, no charge; only—"
"Oh, boy; here it comes," I said. "The big hook; only what?"
"You can't keep it. You have to give it away to another person in need, sometime between now and next Christmas Eve."
At this I laughed; loud and long.
"What zoo did you escape from, Mr. Santa Facilitator? You sound like a hack character from a third rate movie. Give away Santa's magic hat!
I grinned like an idiot. "Ha! Suppose I want to keep it? What then?"
"You can't keep it," he said, startled. "You have to give it away to someone in need—"
"Oh yeah?" I exclaimed, reaching for the hat. "We'll see about that. Give it to me."
He jumped back quickly, crunching the hat into his chest. A look of horror, mingled with utter disgust and stunned awe crossed his features. He no longer seemed to be the sun in the sky. He was merely a pathetic, disillusioned little man.
"You must agree to give the hat away to someone in need. You must. This is Santa's hat. He wore it last Christmas Eve. You can't keep it. You must agree."
I stood up, all six feet two inches of me. He cringed into a heap roughly four feet in height. His eyes glared up at me in intense anger and with abject fear. He tightened his grip on Santa's hat.
"Is there a problem here?"
The voice was calm, unhurried, inquiring and authoritative. It belonged to a Jersey state trooper. It belonged to a New Jersey state trooper who had been sipping a cup of coffee nearby after responding to a call inside the service area. He'd been watching us at least since I laughed loudly at my visitor. With his troopers' hat he was a quarter foot taller than I, and twice as broad. There was no flab on his bones, obviously all muscle.
"Officer," I said, "thank goodness you're here. This man is bothering me."
"Did he make any lewd remarks, ma'am?" he asked derisively.
"OK, bud," I said, "I work in the state prosecutor's office. "Curb your attitude or I'll take down your badge number."
"Fine," he said. He removed his badge from his jacket and held it in front of my eyes. "Did you get the number?" he asked.
I could tell I was dealing with an attitude. I rapidly recalculated my strategy.
"Look officer, this guy is some sort of a con man. He wants to give me that Santa hat for free. I think he's sort of a nut."
"Sort of a nut?" the trooper repeated. "I'd say so, if he wants to give you a gift."
"Do I have to swear out a complaint? He approached me."
"Look Mack, I heard the whole thing. I was only two tables away. It's Christmas Eve. This guy is harmless. Why don't you humor him? Christmas Eve fellah. Have a heart."
"Have a heart," I repeated. "That's what my wife tells me all the time; my wife whom I'm about to divorce."
"Humph! Figures," said the trooper.
I pretended that I hadn't heard him. "What did you say?" I asked.
"Nothing," he answered. "Where did that strange little guy go?"
I looked around. My visitor was nowhere to be found. The people were paying attention only to their meals. The trooper and I were being ignored.
"He seems to have faded into the woodwork," I said.
"Still want to fill out a complaint?" asked the trooper.
I glared at him. "All I can think about is the divorce," I said. "I didn't want to be bothered by some little cuckoo clock."
The trooper's eyebrows lifted. "Maybe you wouldn't be getting divorced if you paid more attention to the cuckoo clocks of this life," he said. "Perhaps that's your problem." He turned on his heel and walked quickly away from me.
I stared after him as he left the warmly lighted coffee shop and entered into the storm. Lifting the broad fur collar on his jacket up around his ears, he seemed to disappear into the swirling, drifting snowfall.
"Humph" I said to no one in particular, "People come and go awfully quick around here. Where am I anyway, the Land of Oz?
"You got it buddy," said a large, hairy, tattooed and bearded man sitting at the table next to mine.
I shrugged my shoulders and figured I ought to get out of that place before I had more run-ins with who knows what. Gathering all of my fast food debris onto the plastic tray, I emptied it into the rubbish container; I buttoned up my parka and reentered into the storm myself.
It was definitely growing worse. The snow was thicker and heavier; the wind had picked up steadily, and was gusting into blizzard proportions. The temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun went down. By the time I reached my car I was coated with a thick film of white and frosty snow, as was my car. The lock froze on the driver side, and I went around to the passenger side. That door was frozen too.
I was about to mutter some very nasty words when the window rolled down on the car parked next to mine.
"Here, try this," said a woman from the inner darkness of the car. If I hadn't known that she was at home awaiting my arrival, I would have sworn the voice belonged to Meredith. I glanced into the front seat. It was Meredith, I thought to myself; or at least an incredible look alike.
I stared open-mouthed at her, as though I were deaf and dumb, ignoring the small aluminum cylinder she held out to me in her leather-gloved hand. "It's for deicing locks," she said, obviously puzzled at my intense and silent stare. I began to grin widely, sensing her anxiety.
I nodded my head and, in my confusion could only manage to say: "Yeah, me knows that." Then, realizing I must have seemed odd, if not alarming, I grinned like an idiot again.
Trying hard to appear friendly and reassuring, I reached over and snatched the deicing tube from her hand, muttered my thanks, and stood outside of her car, swaying back and forth. I wanted to see if anyone else was inside. Suddenly the delicate thin hand, gloved in leather, shot back into the darkened car and the window zipped up quickly.
"I've got another can" she said in some haste as the tinted window obliterated her face from my view. "You keep that one."
I briefly saw an obviously alarmed woman looking back over her shoulder at me with widened eyes, anxious to get away.
She stepped on the gas, sped out of the parking space and out of the row, spinning her wheels and making them screech on the fresh and silent snow, skidding from one side to the other in the ice-slicked parking lot.
"Humph," I thought to myself, I seem to be a persona non grata tonight.
I wondered if that was Meredith. Nah; couldn't be. Where would she get such a car as that? A brand new Lincoln Navigator was more car than she would want. It did look a great deal like her, though. At first I was sure it was her. I was speechless; even sounded like her, sort of.
I sprayed the lock deicer into my passenger side door lock and fiddled around with the key until the lock finally clicked and I opened the car. And there, upon the seat, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a shiny new Santa Claus hat. That's right: Santa's hat was sitting prim and proper on my front passenger seat. I noticed a piece of paper attached to the tassel. I picked up the note, carefully detaching the tape from the fabric.
"Dear Mr. Fairbanks," began the hand-scrawled note, "Please forgive me for running away as I did. I've never before met anybody who insisted on keeping Santa's hat, and I've been assigned to this job for the better part of two centuries. You're the first aggressively mean person I've met in two hundred years, and I hope the last.
Of course you'll change your mind about the hat once you've put it on your head. Temporarily, my faith wavered. I'm sorry. If we meet again, I promise I won't let you down. I'll be right there for you as you struggle against your hostile feelings and brutish nature."
The note was signed, "Your loyal servant, Charles E. Puck, Esq., S.F."
I crumpled the insulting paper up and tossed it onto the floor of my car's front seat, along with Santa's hat. I almost threw both of them out into the rapidly accumulating snow. But I hesitated. I don't know why, really. I suppose it was the power of the hat; or the magic, or spell, or whatever it is. That's the part of my story I'm getting to. That's why I'm afraid people will think me nuts. I'm really sane, y'know. This really did happen.
Didn't it?
Enough of this; no time for self-doubt. Of course it happened. My whole life changed because of these events. It had to have happened, right? It wasn't just a dream. I distinctly remember that guy's glowing teeth. Thy positively sparkled! And the trooper, and the Meredith look-alike. These were real people, not dream figures. I remember them.
And especially I remember what happened next, after I finally started for home in the driving snowstorm. Yet even though the memory is strong, the actual event was—well sort of vague, not particularly well focused. If you know what I mean.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from WINTER Stories by R. T. TRACY. Copyright © 2013 Richard T. Tracy. Excerpted by permission of Abbott Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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