| John K. Trammell
(c) 1999-2004
[email protected]
The Christmas Convict
By Jack Trammell
Snowflakes, flying about as casually as pigeons, filled the air around Purchase Street
with invisible music. It was not out of the ordinary for snow to fall this far south the
day before Christmas; nor was it so commonplace that no one took notice. On the contrary,
most of the shops filled with glittering holiday merchandise were closing early, traffic
was light, and the occasional pedestrian hurried about with an energetic gait that could
only mean anticipation of hearth and home. Even the policeman who normally walked this
beat in the early evening hours was nowhere to be found.
It was, Joe Jasper thought, the perfect night for a petty cat burglar to ply his devious
trade. He had a metal pry bar in his large coat pocket, which felt colder than the actual
weather outside, despite the constant grip he held on it with his warm hand. In other
parts of his over-sized, red-checkered wool coat resided various tools of his trade,
ranging from a home-made set of lock picks to a monogrammed set of horse racing gloves
(which had someone else's initials engraved on them).
For the moment, at least, he was enjoying the quiet serenity and inactivity around him,
resting on a bench at a bus stop, very casually surveying the selection of possible
establishments like a fickle chocolate-megalomaniac deciding which piece of candy to eat.
A fur shop? No, too many alarms and complications. A jewelry store? No, more of the same,
with direct electronic links to the nearest police precinct. The shoe store? Where was the
profit in that venture!?
Then his eyes came to rest on an unpresupposing business in a small corner flat one block
away. There were no electric lights or neon signs in the windows, not even any Christmas
decorations. The interior was dark, and Joe could not make out the words on the wooden
sign that was gently flapping above the door in the breeze.
He started humming "God rest ye merry gentlemen," and hopped up to take a closer
look. As he approached, he noticed a little sticker with an evil-looking blue eye in the
corner of the main display window. "Ha!" he exclaimed with satisfaction. Any
store that put the neighborhood patrol sticker in its window was guaranteed to be
completely free of elaborate alarm systems. That was a good omen.
He stopped to read the sign above the door and was at first disappointed; then, a second
later, triumphant. The sign said: "Uncle Bob's Antiques, Junk and Jewelry." The
last word caught his fancy and held it.
"This is the place!" he said to himself. It would be easy to break into, full of
potentially valuable items that would be easy to get rid of and impossible to trace.
"Merry Christmas!" Joe said, smiling broadly at an old woman who passed him and
watched him staring inside the shop.
"Same to you," she said in a gruff voice, clutching her bag close to her. She
glanced over her shoulder several times doubtfully, probably expecting to see Joe
preparing to jump her, but he was too intent on the job at hand to notice.
"Lovely," he whispered to himself. "An old wooden side door, barely hanging
on its hinges!"
The job was looking better and better. He glanced up through the snow at the bleak gray
sky and nodded his head in thanks. Christmas was coming one day early for Joe Jasper, and
he was careful to show his appreciation of divine good fortune.
"God rest ye merry gentlemen..."
After looking in every possible direction for potential trouble and spotting none, he
removed the bar from his pocket and quickly went to work on the sadly dilapidated door. As
if to reinforce the aura of inevitability surrounding his mission, the snow now came down
in handfuls, making audible thumps as it tapped on his back. No one would be able to spot
him in these conditions even if they were to walk right by in the alley.
There was no evidence of any alarm system around the door, and when he pried the lock
loose the structure creaked out an inch or two, as if begging to be opened. He paused and
cocked an agile ear to make certain he was undetected, but there was no hint of any bells,
lights, or whistles. The only sound was the mechanical Santa Claus two stores down who
would be ringing his bell forever, it seemed. He thought it funny the things a man could
hear on Christmas eve, perhaps the quietest night in the city out of the entire year.
He swung the door open and slid inside, moving with the grace of one with much practice,
closing the door with one hand and simultaneously aiming a penlight with the other. He
found himself in a small storage area crammed with old boxes full of broken junk--cuckoo
clocks, engraved metal tins, pieces of unknown farm tools, and popular magazines from
thirty years past. The shelves stretched from the floor to ceiling, and it reminded Joe of
a library he had once been in, only this was a library of odds and ends; a rare collection
of junk.
He quickly stepped through the jungle of nick-knack and peered into the public portion of
the shop. More junk, he thought, his eyes roaming around the room and experiencing a
number of different reactions to the various unexpected items he discovered. It might have
been fun to poke around the store when he wasn't on the job--maybe to buy an odd gift for
his crazy aunt, whom Joe lived with for various unimportant reasons. But as far as his
work was concerned, the museum of the commonplace from twenty-five years past amounted to
a skinny Christmas take.
Then he spotted the glass counter near the back and he clucked his tongue. This was what
he had known was in the old place! Coins, earrings, old brass belt buckles, rings with
jade and turquoise, necklaces of thin gold, old wedding bands, faded paper money from
centuries past, even a pair of diamond bracelets. This was what he wanted--an easy pick,
and an easy fence.
"Joy to the world..."
He moved toward the counter and found to his delight that it was completely without a lock
of any type. He reached to slide the glass-back door open and--
"Hey!"
It was not easy to scare Joe Jasper, as he was an old hand at this type of game, but on
this occasion he almost jumped out of his dirty, perforated black socks, sucking his
breath in a kind of reverse scream that goes in instead of coming out. He almost fell to
floor, and did in fact drop his pry bar with a loud clank.
Standing behind the counter in a ragged flannel shirt and ill-fitting work pants was a
boy, probably no more than ten years old. "Hey, what are you doing in my
grandfather's shop?" he said, pointing a dirty finger accusingly at Joe.
Joe recovered himself quickly, retrieving the pry bar and shining his light right in the
boy's filthy face. "Now you listen here, youngster, or you'll find yourself a little
too sore in the morning to open your presents." He took a step forward and the boy's
eyes grew big.
"If you wake my grandfather up, he'll shoot you, mister. You better stay right there.
He's deaf, and can't hear a thing either, but he can feel my feet running across the
floor."
Joe paused. "Your grandpappy's back there?"
"Yeah, mister, he sleeps back there. I do too, but I thought I heard something out
here. You'd better leave before he wakes up."
Joe scowled. "You better just stand back, kid, so I can get on with this. If your
granddaddy's back there, and he can't hear a thing, then no one will be the worse for
it." He moved to the display case and slid the back door open.
"Don't do it!" the boy pleaded, tears welling in his eyes. "It's Christmas
eve, mister. You can't take this stuff on Christmas eve! Don't you have a Christian heart,
mister?"
"What do you know of religion?" Joe snarled. "Consider it your Christmas
present that I don't wring your neck. Now be quiet!"
He began scooping items into a greasy oilcloth bag, choosing only the smallest and most
valuable among those available.
"Please, mister! My grandfather's been robbed twice this past month already--he's an
old man, and he can't, I mean, he won't--you can't do this, mister!"
The boy started to cry, and Joe almost reached out to slap him, like his father always had
done to him, but then he hesitated. Maybe it had something to do with Christmas eve, or
maybe the snow was making him flaky, or maybe it was that he wasn't so old that he
couldn't remember being a boy himself, but something began to nag at the corners of the
dark place his mother had called his conscience. When he felt guilty about anything,
however, it quickly turned into anger.
"Now you look here, you little filthy-faced mongrel..." The boy's sobbing
increased in intensity, and Joe looked nervously to the rear of the shop, expecting a
half-crazy, half-asleep old man toting a shotgun to appear. "Quit your crying, hear?
I say, quit crying!" He held the pry bar up in the air and waved it menacingly.
"Go ahead and take the stuff!" the boy squealed, "But don't hurt me!"
The boy turned away and sat down in a wicker rocking chair, cradling his face in his hands
as he cried.
Still angry, Joe slammed the last few items into the bag, inadvertently breaking one or
two of the more delicate pieces. "I should have known there was something to go wrong
with this one. It was too easy from the beginning. It's just like my old partner Muncee
used to say: 'If it's that easy, start looking over your shoulder.'"
The boy was still sniffling, his chest heaving up and down every other moment or two, and
Joe noticed for the first time that there were holes in the youth's muddy, worn boots.
"Doesn't your grandpappy see fit to put some decent clothes on you?"
"He doesn't have the money."
Joe stared hard at the kid for a long moment. That little black corner of his heart (or
was it black?) that his mother called his better angel was stirring ever so faintly again.
Outside, the snow was pouring down, and now that the kid had finally stopped crying, Joe
could hear the robot Santa Claus again, ringing his bell until the second coming of
Christ. It was, after all, Christmas eve; the night before Christmas. It was almost a
holiday, even for the likes of Joe.
Joe sat down on a high-back kitchen chair near the boy and tried to smile. "Now
listen, junior, it's not like I'm cleaning out the place. If you knew my station, you'd be
looking around at things a little differently. What do you say we make a little deal,
then. Okay?"
The boy nodded slowly. "What kind of deal?"
"Well, seeing as old Jasper is such a kind-hearted soul, and religious," (Joe
raised his eyebrows loftily,) "and I daresay my mother would agree, a man of sound
reason to boot, I will make you the following deal. I'll put half the loot back as a
Christmas present to you."
"But, the--"
"Ahh, ahh! Tut, it's nothing! Don't thank me, because I may change my mind. Don't
argue; don't equivocate." Joe stood up and started to dump roughly half the contents
of the bag back into the display case. When he looked back at the boy again, the edge of
his lower lip quivered just a little bit.
The boy was sobbing again, but this time in silence. His eyes were closed; streams of
tears running down his dirty cheeks.
"Oh come on now," Joe said, "I know what you're getting at, and it won't
work! I can see right through this little game, kid. I've been around the block a time or
two!"
But the boy didn't respond to Joe's badgering anymore. He just sat there in the antique
wicker chair, with his little brown boots with holes in the toes, and his unkempt blond
hair, and his old flannel shirt, and he cried.
It was almost more than Joe Jasper could stand. With a grimace and a grumble, and then a
bear-like snarl, he emptied the rest of the contents of the oilcloth bag back into the
case where it made a loud clatter.
"Well," he said with a sigh, "dear Aunt Lucy won't be getting a present
this year after all. Serves her right, I guess, since she never gets me a thing either. I
hope you're satisfied, kid."
Before the youth could respond, Joe suddenly heard another sound, a sound he recognized
all too well--police sirens.
The little corner of Joe's heart that had turned a little bit pink in the spirit of the
holiday season abruptly darkened. "You didn't see nothing, you understand kid?
Nothing!"
Without so much as a wink or a laugh, or even a simple good-bye, Santa's bad elf, Joe
Jasper, ran into the side storage room and out the door into the alley like a cat chased
by a dog. He didn't stop to pick up his pry bar, which caught on the side of the door and
fell to the floor. He didn't see the boy smile behind him, or hear him whisper,
"Merry Christmas, Santa Claus."
As Joe slid into the alley on the slick pavement, he practically ran into a pair of burly
police officers, who collared him by his tattered coat lapels and held him up straight so
that the snow was pelting him in the face.
"Joe Jasper! Spreading a little holiday cheer, I'll wager?"
"I didn't do nothing, officer, so you'd be best not to tear my coat. It's the only
one I've got."
The second officer disappeared into the shop and reappeared a moment later with the pry
bar. "Didn't do anything, huh? I see you're up to your old tricks again."
"I didn't take anything, officer! Ask the scrawny kid in there. You'll find
everything in order, or the ghost of Christmas past come and take me away! Go ask the kid,
I tell you."
While the snow began to melt in Joe's beard stubble, the first officer cuffed his hands
behind his back. The second officer went back in. When he reappeared, there was another
hunched person with him, but it wasn't the boy. It was a sleepy old man with a baseball
bat in his trembling hands. He was dressed in a pair of thin-striped pajamas and wore a
nightcap with a little red ball on the end.
"Ask the grandfather," Joe said. "He'll tell you. I didn't take nothing,
and I didn't hurt the kid."
The officers traded a dubious glance, and the old man waved the baseball bat dangerously.
"I don't have no kid!" the old man said, so angry that he spit the words out.
"And half my best wares are gone from the glass! Where's my merchandise, thief? Where
is it?"
"The game's up, Jasper. What'd you do with the loot?"
"I didn't take it," Joe stammered. "I put it all back. The kid made me do
it. Go get the kid and ask him."
"There's no boy in there," the second officer said, frisking Joe from top to
bottom, twice, just to make sure. "And you can bet we'll find the loot. It's probably
right around the door somewhere."
"But I'm telling you the truth, officer! There was a little boy, and he told me all
about the old man, and he--"
"Save it, Joe. Just get in the car." The first officer nodded at the second.
"I'll take him down to the station and book him. You stay and help the old man find
his junk."
"It's merchandise!" the old man snarled. "Call it merchandise, and I want
this man prosecuted! And somebody's got to fix this door! Who's going pay for this
door?"
In the back of the police sedan, Joe stared into the street lamps as they slowly passed
overhead. The roads were now totally deserted. Everyone was at home with fires blazing,
warm food, and presents under the tree. In the front of the car, the policeman had the
radio on low, playing Christmas songs.
"When I get out, I'm going to find that rotten little kid and--"
"Save it, Joe. It'll go hard on you if you don't tell the truth. Tell me the truth,
and we'll get things done quickly. Then I can go home like the rest of the ordinary,
law-abiding citizens and enjoy what's left of the evening."
Joe finished his conversation in private with himself. "When I catch that kid, I'll,
I'll..." He looked out the window at a small figure walking along the sidewalk with a
shopping bag. "Hey. That's him! Officer, stop the car! He's got the loot--I mean, the
kid, that's the kid I was telling you about!"
"Yeah right, Jasper."
The young boy waved at the police car as it passed.
"You've got to believe me!"
"Want me to be believe in Santa Claus, too? Just shut up." The officer turned
the radio louder and ignored him.
As the car drove further down the lonely street, Joe said one last time: "When I
catch that kid, I'll... …I’d better make him my partner."
"What's that, Jasper?"
"Nothing, Officer. Merry Christmas to you, I guess."
### |
John K. Trammell
2200 words
1999-2002
[email protected]
A Glimpse of Heaven
By Jack Trammell
The sky was a pale pink arc, slowly sinking beneath a growing blackness. Kimble stared
at it and thought it a rarity; much more aesthetically pleasing than most sunsets; more
vivid, and intense; much more detailed than usual, with an amazing clarity. It made him
think of heaven, which he had been taught was somewhere up in the sky, and that made him
think about all of the people who had preceded him to that place, many of them under
tragic circumstances, or very unexpectedly.
Then, a bizarre image popped into his head, uninvited. There were tombstones in the
pinkish sky, dotting it like gross birds clipped of their wings.
"Kimble," a voice called out beside him. "Are you okay?"
Kimble turned around and could barely see the silhouette of a young man beside him. It was
Ashton, another private who had somehow survived as long as Kimble had. Ashton always
camped with him or near him, but the sunset had taken Kimble away, and for a moment Ashton
had appeared as an utter stranger.
"Yes, I’m fine. I was simply admiring that fine view to the west, and thinking
about things."
"What kind of things?"
He looked at Ashton more closely. He was still innocent, despite the carnage and gore he
had lived through. His eyes still had a sparkle in them that the war hadn’t dulled
yet. His face, babyish and pale, almost feminine, betrayed no secret carnal knowledge of
the world. Perhaps, Kimble thought, Ashton wasn’t smart enough to comprehend what was
really happening in the war.
"Not things, Ashton—more like people. I suppose I was thinking about the
dead."
Nary a twitch crossed Ashton’s face. Kimble couldn’t tell if he had even heard
at first. Then the young man sighed deeply and nodded his head.
"Many good men have died," Ashton agreed. "I suppose it must be God’s
will."
Kimble’s eyes narrowed. That comment annoyed him—he hated simplifications. They
were the cheapest way he knew of to ignore a problem. The conversation was probably a
waste of time, but he continued it anyway.
"That’s not what I meant. I’m not talking about this puny war, or the
immediate future. I’m referring to all people, of all nations. What about people who
died thousands of years ago? What about Julius Caesar, or Napoleon--where are people like
that now?"
"Heaven or hell, I suppose," Ashton said slowly.
"And where is that?"
Ashton looked up at the sky, where the bright pink was quickly bleeding into dying orange
embers. Finally, he confessed, "I don’t know."
"You see, Ashton, that sunset made me wonder if all of those people are somewhere,
all together, all of them waiting for the rest of us to join them. That color in the sky a
few minutes ago—I’ve never seen a color like that before. That color must be
something from heaven, because you don’t see that color naturally occurring down here
on earth. All of those people must be where that color comes from."
This seemed to be more than young Ashton could take. He shook his head, then shrugged and
closed his eyes, as if meditating.
Kimble took this as free license to continue.
"All the men of this war, I agree, they’ve got to be somewhere, too. But I
wonder if they leave right away, or linger somewhere in-between, or if they watch
themselves for a while before they quit this place. Do they still feel pain? I don’t
mean physical pain… I mean do they despise the war, and the killing and suffering,
and the senseless fighting? Do they follow us into battle?"
"Stop it!" Ashton jumped up, panting, his eyes squinting with tiny tears.
"Just stop it! They’re all gone, and we will be, too, tomorrow! They’re not
up in the sky—they are gone! Forever!" Ashton stumbled away into the night.
Kimble’s eyes did not follow him.
To hell with him, anyway, he thought. The young man would be okay after sleeping on it.
Kimble couldn’t help it if Ashton couldn’t face reality. Ashton was still too
young. He would fight in the morning and be fine. Maybe they would even find the shoes
they were looking for in the nearby village of Gettysburg.
That night Kimble dreamed and saw the faces in the sky instead of the tombstones. He
saw his mother, who had died of tuberculosis the spring past. He hadn’t been granted
leave from his unit, even for such a sad occasion, and he supposed that he should resent
the Colonel for that. But he didn’t. He saw Lieutenant Bowles, the twenty-one year
old cavalier from Fluvanna County who had ridden into camp standing on his horse. At
Antietam, he had been shot off the same horse, torn in half by a screaming Yankee shell.
He saw Carter Williams, his original messmate, a fellow philosopher and student of books.
Kimble could see his mustached smile as he quoted the lines of Shakespeare that would make
young ladies turn red. Williams had died beside him instantly, shot between the eyes at a
long forgotten place called Green Hollow. He was the only man in the company hurt there.
Most of all, he saw his young wife, who had passed away two years before the war even
began. He couldn’t even say her name anymore. But he saw her face, and he knew that
somewhere she was still alive; somewhere she still smiled with lips that had blood flowing
through them; somewhere her warm breath still clouded the air with perfume; somewhere her
voice still filled someone’s ears with melodious tones of joy.
That place was a mystery, though. He had been unable to locate it. He had traveled in the
Confederate army from Georgia, now all the way into Pennsylvania, and he had seen no sign
of it anywhere. Certainly, the hundreds and thousands of dead corpses hadn’t pointed
any definite direction. He had read the Bible, along with every other important spiritual
work, and found no clear directions. The place did exist, though, and the sunset made him
feel close to it. He thought of his wife again. He wondered if the grimy, disfigured
soldiers were there with her—or Napoleon, or Caesar.
He woke up to the bugle call and the scattered sound of muskets and rifles. The promised
battle was beginning.
He found Ashton in a much better mood. The young man smiled at him, as he lovingly
wiped the stock of his captured Enfield rifle clean with a grease cloth. Nearby, the
company was forming up; the Colonel barking at loafers.
"I think I know where that place you’re looking for is," Ashton said,
smiling devilishly. "It’s a few steps beyond that ridge where the cemetery
is."
Kimble nodded. He was referring to the hill where the Yankees where entrenched, waiting
for them.
"That’s hell, not heaven," Kimble said.
"I’ve been thinking about what you said," Ashton continued. "I think
all soldiers must go to heaven, because they all are following orders. It doesn’t
matter which side you’re on, or which side is right. And heaven must be somewhere out
of reach, or else people would go there when they weren’t supposed to. So heaven must
be up there somewhere, in the sky." Ashton pointed his bayonet upward.
Kimble saw a barn swallow swoop down near them, dashing after an invisible insect, then
pull back toward the clouds. "It’s got to be further than that. Heaven
can’t be so close that birds can get there."
"Why not?" Ashton asked.
The Colonel moved closer to them, and shouted in Kimble’s face. "Assemble,
gentlemen. I shouldn’t have to say it twice! You, Kimble, you chose to be a private,
so act like one!"
The Colonel referred to the fact that Kimble was forty, wealthy, and had turned down a
commission to lead this same regiment (in which case the Colonel would have taken his
orders). Instead, he had enlisted as a lowly private, with the lukewarm intention of
committing a gallant form of suicide. So far, however, the gods of war had not cooperated.
They had tried to decorate him twice for bravery, and both times his ungrateful, apathetic
reaction had slowed down and eventually killed the paperwork.
As they joined dozens of others in formation beyond a row of apple trees, the bullets
whizzing overhead momentarily distracted Kimble. Perhaps today would be the day. That was
depressing, but also somewhat appealing.
Ashton was growing nervous, as he always did right before the moment of truth. He could
not stand still, and the Colonel cursed at him.
"Do they have apples in heaven?" Ashton asked.
Kimble ignored him. He stared at the rotting apples on the ground, and thought about how
much they were like soldiers who walked into battle attached to their own living tree,
only to fall to the ground to slowly decay and shrivel up. But apples were not living,
breathing, sentient beings.
The charge began before he was ready, and Kimble stumbled. He immediately recovered, and
the sounds of battle suddenly rushed over him like an angry storm. He heard the boom of
artillery; smelled gunpowder; saw smoke, and watched men already lying on the ground
bleeding, moaning, swearing, crying. There was a horse with an empty saddle running around
on three legs, it’s fourth leg shot off near the hock. It was screaming like a human.
Kimble wondered if horses went to heaven.
Then he began to see the enemy in front of them. They were lined up behind a stone wall. A
cannon flashed behind the wall and an entire wave of men to Kimble’s left fell. Some
of the blue men ran out from the main line and began fighting by hand with the rebel
attackers.
Kimble attacked fiercely. For the first time since the charge began, he coolly raised his
weapon and leveled it at the closest target. A slap to his shoulder, and the blue soldier
snapped, falling. He found another blue blur and smashed it viciously with the butt of his
rifle. Another ran toward him, tripped and fell, and Kimble ran his bayonet through his
arm, and then his stomach. He crouched down and carefully loaded his gun, making sure he
placed only one charge in it. Then he chose another target, and watched again as another
blue blur fell.
Somehow, in the utter chaos of battle, he heard an officer ordering them to fall back.
Kimble reluctantly followed a much smaller mass of men back toward friendly lines, pausing
every hundred feet or so to load and fire.
When they reached the comparative safety of the apple trees, he began to look for the rest
of his company.
The wounded were everywhere. Their pitiful pleas for water sounded like some sick
droning swarm of gigantic insects. He found Ashton among them. Kimble and three others
standing nearby were the only members of the company unscathed. Ashton was lying on the
grass, a bloody bandage wrapped around his head.
"How far did you get?" Ashton asked.
"I got right up to them," Kimble said. "We fought hell out of them."
He gently pulled the bandage back and examined the wound. It was not bleeding any more,
but a glossy clear fluid was oozing from the hole above Ashton’s ear.
"Doc says I’m lucky," Ashton said. "I could have bled to death."
He suddenly winced. "But I do feel right dizzy, and my whole head aches."
"You rest," Kimble said, pushing the bandage back into place.
Ashton would die, he knew, and the doctor was merely being kind not to inform him so.
Kimble had seen such brain injuries before, and when blood came, they lived. When the
clear fluid came forth, they died.
"Guess we won’t find heaven today, will we?" Ashton whispered.
Kimble left him.
That night he buried Ashton. He didn’t want to leave him in enemy soil, but there
was no choice. He formed a crude cross of sticks above the place, then sat and waited for
the sunset.
The sunset never arrived. Instead, the evening was overcast, and night came on so subtly
that Kimble wondered if he had been sleeping when he saw the moon glimmering behind the
clouds.
He tried to be scientific and logical. The moon was obviously in the sky above the earth,
probably hundreds of miles away. The stars were probably further than that. If Ashton had
been right, and heaven was out of reach for the living, then it had to be beyond even the
stars.
Kimble was an avowed atheist since the death of his wife, but he muttered a prayer out of
respect for Ashton.
"Merciful God, who takes and gives life with no regard, I implore you to look on this
creation you have bequeathed us, and grant us the wisdom to accept it as it is. Take this
simple young man, Jeremiah Ashton, and show him the way to heaven, Lord. And if there be
any answers for me, Lord, grant them to me, or strike me down and reunite me with those I
mourn for…"
Kimble’s hands trembled for a moment, and he stilled them by folding them together
tightly. Then he stood and wandered back to the clearing where the regiment was attempting
to regroup. He joined the three other healthy survivors around a small fire where they
were boiling apples for dinner.
The smell was good, but it was far from perfection. He had never smelled an aroma as
perfect as the color of the sunset the night before.
###
|
