It’s Christmas time again, and again I’m freezing Old Man Stasheff’s blood with an irreverent attack on my favorite humbugs, the ACL U—those who would destroy the holiday of millions for a handful of Santa non-believers.  In the spirit of the Season, Santa’s going to offend as many people as possible.  In the finest Stasheff holiday tradition, I have borrowed, polished, and fully recycled jokes so old I doubt any reader hasn’t heard at least most of them at one time or another.  Repackaged, I think you’ll get a good groan and maybe a holiday chuckle or two out of them.

Our economy is in the outhouse; many family bread winners are either out of a job or cut to part time for reasons of insurance cost and inept leadership.  This Christmas is the closest thing our country has seen to the Christmases of the Depression in decades… which brings us to the inspiration for this story.  When the Depression rolled into Manhattan in 1931, construction workers who still had their jobs saw that many of their unemployed fellow Americans were so hard up they could not bring Christmas into their homes: no presents, no bright lights, not even a Christmas tree.  So these guys passed the hard hat and used the money to set up an unadorned Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center to share the Season with those who needed the cheer of the season the most.  Every year since, the tree in Rockefeller Center has lighted Christmas’s way into our country for all people of good will.

In that spirit, and with certain degree of seasonal depravity which is normal for me, this is:

 

 

At the uppermost line of New York State and all along the Trout river region, there are pinpoints of small towns like Chateauguay, Cannon Corners, Mooers… and little Podunksville, the town neither Canada nor the United States willingly claimed.  Happily nested amongst these little towns, secure in the knowledge they did not exist on a map, Podunksville existed these days mainly because Santa had a girlfriend stashed there and it was a real boost to the local industry.  A couple years back the town had been elevated in its own eyes by being the launch point for a Christmas delivery run by a fat old derelict in a red leather Santa biker suit and their police chief, Fast Eddie McKnight.  It prospered enough to survive Bamanomics, but it had not really grown.  Every time someone was born, someone else left town.  So the population remained a constant 187 people.  Actually, when little Noel Canpumper was born last September, there was some confusion as to who her daddy was, so the population dropped by two.  The numbers were righted when Pedro and Rosita Gonzales slipped over the Canadian border by cover of night and opened a hot dog, taco, and refried bean stand with a government grant for illegal aliens that didn’t require I.D.  They did a bang-up business with the bikers during the vacation season.  So they stayed, the populace was up to spec again, and twelve of the remaining 185 were the girls of Ms. Quims’ Christmas Cathouse Bar & Grill.  As they still produced 75% of the economy, it and the Moneysunk Inn, across the street (an actual Inn serving family style meals and producing about 15% of the town’s income) were the hot spots of the little hamlet.  During the Great Storm a couple years ago they had closed their doors to business for Thanksgiving and Christmas but opened them up to their struggling neighbors.  It had become a tradition almost out of necessity.

The rest of the economy was still comprised of two gas stations, Reverend Goodbanger’s Zen Baptist Non-Denominational church/medical & daycare center (although the medical center was on the QT, not being allowed to run it under Obamacare and the nearest hospital being over an hundred miles away in Glens Falls, the Reverend was willing to face jail time to save lives), a movie theatre still not set up for sound, the old pool hall (it was more than a century old), the “new” Laundromat (it was less than a century old), a general store with the Town Hall/Courthouse and Mayor’s Office in the back, and a brick building with two cells that served as a Police Department.  In front of the Town Hall/Courthouse and Mayor’s Office, the road bowed into a circle surrounding an island where a flag pole stood—the very same flagpole Fast Eddie had taken off on his historic record-breaking run to Jergyton of Christmas morning past.  For a long time when the population had dipped below two hundred, they had only raised the American flag on the Fourth of July and holidays.  Now it flew high and hard against the Adirondack sky on any day when it didn’t rain or snow—so about forty days out of the year!   

When the Thanksgiving holiday came, the low spirits of the economically challenged citizenry of Podunksville were lifting a bit.  Thanks to old Chris who had established a thriving motorcycle summer vacation sanctuary on the outskirts of town (who knew Santa was a crackerjack bike mechanic?), there had been enough loot coming in to almost make it through a mild winter in semi-comfort (the town collectively bought bulk heating oil at pennies on the dollar and surplus MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—from the military so nobody would freeze or starve).  The almost daily parade of classic Harley police bikes, an old Henderson-Excelsior, and a souped up Indian Flathead, all led by Chief McKnight’s weird-looking Holly-Davidson flyin’ sidecar, was the Christmas gift that kept on giving for the entire vacation season.  Folks came down from Canada and as far away as Pennsylvania and Jersey to see these magnificent old bikes.

Old Chris quietly reappeared about a week before the big night and revamped the bikes.  Then he’d spend the week conning Fast Eddie into making the Christmas run again.  While Eddie would put up a fight, mainly to annoy old Chris, the truth be told, even Eddie’s wife was tickled pink that her hubby was riding with Santa on Christmas Eve, and didn’t even mind Eddie having to spend the night at Ms. Quims’ Cathouse to do it.  The entire town was so thrilled of their special visitor, they all voted to keep old Chris’ secret from the world—yes, Mister Knievil, there is a Santa Claus, and he rides with Fast Eddie McKnight.

They would do all this at a town meeting the Saturday before the Podunksville Town Thanksgiving feast.  All the business owners would meet in a back room of the Moneysunk Inn.  They had tried at first to meet in the great living room of Ms. Quims’, but a dozen half-naked women bouncing around were found to be a bit distracting, surprisingly even for some of the women.  Before the Thanksgiving feast, Mildred Arelsix, who ran the Laundromat, would read the minutes of the meeting and all the citizens in the community would vote on what was presented.

This year’s meeting, though, was becoming a worry.  Most of the community was again worrying about the upcoming Christmas holiday; the incoming snows and freezing rain were driving fuel expenditures through the roof and, coupled with the insane federal policies forced on the small business community, were threatening their survival.  Things were bad and getting worse because of the federal government’s hand on the town all the way from the White House.

It was said that Reverend Goodbanger earned his wings that year when a flu epidemic broke out in late October.  Despite his clinic being officially closed by government mandates (what with Goodbanger not actually having a medical license and all), the good Rev begged an old Harley motorcycle from Chief McKnight’s surplus.  He sold it through eBay in a one-day auction for the benefit of sick children, took the money through a wire special delivery, and drove almost non-stop to a Canadian medical plant that specialized in vaccines and medicines for this particular strain of flu.  He bought four thousand dollars’ worth of drugs (that would increase in worth to nearly one hundred thousand dollars’ worth the second he crossed the boundary between the U.S. and Canada).  The Rev ran the Mounties all the way to the border, at which point the New York State Troopers, on a tip from the DNC, took up the chase.  Thankfully the Troopers nailed him about ten miles from Podunksville, saw that the drugs he was smuggling were medical supplies, and then escorted him the rest of the way home.  When questioned, the Troopers, who had seen the Rev’s add on eBay and were recently-converted Republicans, reported that all they had seen in Goodbanger’s trunk was old motorcycle parts he had gotten from the PVPD.

When Reverend Goodbanger rolled in to town after a non-stop thirty-six hours on the road, his wife and Chief McKnight took over.  Kitty Goodbanger, who had been a registered nurse in her younger days and knew her way around a hypodermic needle, ran the clinic ’round the clock dispensing the vaccines and meds.  Fast Eddie and Officer Smitty ran the phones, reaching all the citizens back in the woods, and then Officer Mac, using his own four-wheel-drive truck would, drive out through a raging ice storm to pick up those who were trapped but needed the meds.  When the storm took down the phone lines, Fast Eddie dragged the Rev out of bed after only four hours’ rest and threw him on the back of the police snowmobile.  They spent the day making house calls to the most remotely stuck folks.  It was still a hot topic when Podunksville gathered its business owners for the pre-Thanksgiving meeting.

Miranda Quims was very preoccupied on her short walk across the street from the Christmas Cathouse to the meeting.  She knew the fat bastard in the red suit would be showing up soon.  Miranda had been his unofficial “piece on the side” for three hundred years now, and it was wearing a bit thin!  The folk in town had been very kind and amazingly understanding of her position and, considering the nature of her business, that was saying something about the American rural communities.  For the first time in her elfish life, Miranda was dealing with her low elf-esteem.   In the last three years she had become—dare we say it?—a pillar of the community (at four foot nine inches tall, a short pillar, but a pillar none the less).  She was a regular at the ladies’ Sunday civic socials.  The women really respected a six-hundred-year-old elf who knew her way around men, and talking to Miranda about their male concerns had made Miranda confront her own.  This year, she’d put her foot down.  Either Santa got a divorce and married her, or she’d rip up his ticket to ride on the bang-bang wagon—no free rides on this elf, Santa, go hump your sleigh!

As she crossed the street, she was joined by little Lizzy Henderschot and her mom, Sarah.  Sarah ran the movie theatre and was a hell of a fruit preserver.  Miranda saw a strange look on Lizzie’s face, which wasn’t so strange in itself—Lizzie had never been the same since the Mayor’s son rammed his car into her reflectorless rear bicycle bumper one night and sent her flying head over the handle bars.

“Hello, Miranda.”

“Hi girls, Season’s Greetings.  Wad’ up?”  The small group stopped at the side walk.

“Miranda, I hope you don’t mind, but Lizzie’s growing up.  She has questions I really don’t know how to answer.  Can she ask you?”

The elf looked at Lizzie, smiled, and nodded.

The young woman lowered her face shyly.  “Ms. Quims… how many kinds of penises are there?”

The elf, surprised, thought for a moment.  “Well, Lizzie, a man goes through three phases in his life.  In a man’s twenties, his penis is like an oak, mighty and hard.  In his thirties and forties, it’s like a birch, flexible but reliable.  After his fifties, it’s like a Christmas tree.”

“A Christmas tree?” the young woman asked.

“Yep, dried up and the balls are there for decoration only.”

Sara, convinced she had found the right person for her unusual daughter’s question and a bit enlightened herself, patted her daughter on the head and sent her in advance to get a cup of hot chocolate.  Then she turned to Quims.  “Thanks, Miranda.  Let’s stop at the bar, I’ll buy you a beer.”

The two ladies bellied up to the Moneysunk’s bar.  Ollie the Bartender was staring at an outrageous picture of him and two half-drunk reindeer sitting at his bar.  “Hello Sara, Miranda.  I hear this year Prancer is running with the pack again.”

“Oh yeah,” Miranda mused, “all twelve coming.”

“Twelve?  There are twelve?”

“Didn’t you ever listen to the song, Ollie?  Sure, in the introduction it goes, ‘There are Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen...’  That makes eight reindeer, right?  Then there's Rudolph, of course, so that makes nine.  Then there's Olive.  You know, ‘Olive the other reindeer used to laugh...’  That makes ten.  The eleventh is Howe.  You know, ‘Then Howe the reindeer loved him...’  Eleven reindeer.  Oh, and number 12?  That's Andy! ‘Andy shouted out with glee.’  The proof is in the song, Ollie.”

Ollie blinked at the elf.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“Yes.  Yes, I am.”

Before Ollie could react, Rosita Gonzales appeared and waved Sara and Miranda into the meeting.  “Ees bad, girls.  Mayor Shorddeek, not in a good mood.”  The Shortdek family had been in the Mayor’s chair since 1750 when the town was founded.  The fact that they had been perpetual rulers ever since didn’t sit well with the townsfolk, but it had become tradition.

Ivor Shortdek, the town Mayor/Judge/Clerk/Attorney (for the prosecution and the defense) all running out of his general store, was one of the few people in town Miranda didn’t care for.  He was not a Christmas person, very often scheduling cases on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, forcing Officers Mac and Smitty and Gladys Humpindogs, the town’s Native American court secretary, to appear in court on the best two days of the year.  When it had been revealed that Miranda had been one of Santa’s helper and was, in fact, his girlfriend, Shortdek turned up the heat on her.  He couldn’t close the Cathouse down as it made way to much money for the town, so he tried to force Quims to remove “Christmas” from the name as a violation of the separation of church and state.  However, right before the trial, it was found out that a former Governor and former Senator of New York went there to “pray”… often.  Miranda had gotten off, but the conflict was far from ended.

On the other hand, Lukas McCanntikane, who had sunk all his money in the Moneysunk Inn, was a Christmas Person.  He had the Moneysunk dressed for Christmas a week before Thanksgiving and kept it merry and bright until a week after New Year’s.  He and Miranda working together to open up to their homes to friends and neighbors at the Holidays collectively made a formidable Mister Fezziwig.  They took Christmas to heart and tried to hold on to it all year long.  It humbugged the hell out of Shortdek.  The community of Podunksville was hurting economically, and Lucas and Miranda provided badly needed Christmas cheer by opening up these grand old Adirondack mansions of theirs to friends and neighbors.

There was a dark cloud over the table as the stragglers came in for the meeting.  Mayor Shortdek banged his gavel to start.  “Awright, listen up.”  The Mayor opened a small, official-looking folder he’d placed in front of him.  He lifted it, almost waving it in Miranda and Lucas’ face.  “This is a notice from the Environmental Protection Agency in response to a vacationer’s complaint of toxic fumes up by Washington’s Pine.”

Washington’s Pine was a sixty-foot-high pine tree that sat on top of Podunk’s mountain overlooking the town.  Through the years it had perched there, half its roots growing out on to a gigantic boulder that hung over the side of the mountain.  According to legend, the great man himself had planted it on a surveying expedition in his youth—although why he did it, or did it on the side of a mountain, was lost to the ages.  It was generally accepted as fact, true or not.  And as far as the toxic odor went… well, that was in the same general vicinity where the Ratshole brothers had a corrugated-sided, glass-and-plastic-roofed shed that housed their still.  The Ratsholes ran the other gas station in town and, outside of about twenty gallons of gas sold per week, they existed on running their homemade moonshine to all the local communities—in fact, Miranda and Lucas both had jugs of this high-octane liquor in their bars.  The Ratsholes did enough to survive, especially since Virgil Ratshole posted signs that said, “Regular gas, $3.95 a gallon.  Genuine Adirondack Stump Blaster Moonshine, $2.75 a gallon.  A gallon of gas will get you about twenty miles, but our Stump Blaster will get you to the moon.”

“There are armed EPA agents running all over the place now, looking for a toxic leak.  So no more shine and NO town Christmas tree—in fact, no cutting down trees at all.”  There was a collective gasp.

“Wad d’hell good ees a Franglin stove wi’hout wood?  No town Chreesmus tree?” Rosita moaned.

Here husband, who had been daydreaming, put his hand on her knee and said with a big grin, “Wee Wee Chu?  Now, Rosita?”

Rosita pushed his hand off her knee and shook her head.  “No, Pedro, we must wait!”  Pedro looked disappointed, but let it drop.

Plato Ratshole was turning dark red.  “How the hell are we gonna make it through the winter without our shine, Mayor?!  We got fifteen hundred gallons, maybe more, waitin’ to be sold and shipped off to Christmas parties all over New York State!  What are we gonna do with all that shine?  Dump it?”

The Mayor peered over his glasses at Plato, and it made him look like Ebenezer Scrooge.  “Well if you do, don’t dump it in the creek.  It’ll kill all the fish, and then we’ll really have the EPA up our butts!  There’s a damn agent out there right now looking for that still of yours!”

Miranda was the only citizen not to react to the Mayor.  She waited for the din to die down, then looked at Mayor Shortdek and asked, “Why no tree?”

A dank silence suddenly filled the room.  The Mayor snatched up another file on his desk and almost threw it her.

“Elf!  Here’s another EPA Christmas card for you.  Have you seen the Washington Pine lately?  More than half its roots are sticking out over the side of the mountainside because of erosion.  All those trees you took for Christmas—”

Miranda cut him off.  “Christmas?  Two trees a year for the cathouse, bub!  It was your idea to deforest almost an entire mountainside for a ski jump to infinity!  Well, the jump happened, but skiers were landing in the town square, so you let the whole thing just sit there rotting.”

“Nevertheless, Miranda, the EPA wants us to remove the pine before it falls on the town, and we are to desist from taking trees down without Government supervision and permission.  Face facts, the Federal government is taking over Christmas.  If you have a problem with that, go talk to the President, the man is green crazy and doesn’t believe Santa Claus is coming to town!”

 

* * * * *

 

“What the hell you doin’ cop?  Changing the oil on that bike or humpin’ it!”

Fast Eddie never looked up.  “You made the tailpipe too small, so I must be changin’ the oil!”  McKnight looked over his shoulder.  “Merry Christmas, big man.  You’re here about a week early, Chris, wad up?”

The old man brushed out his snow-white beard with his fingers, shaking the ice that had formed there onto the floor and his overalls, put his New York Mets cap on brim to the rear, and knelt down to inspect the engine.  “Missus Claus, she… well, she… uh…”

“Threw you out?”

“Yeah, ya could say that.  Hey, I’m gonna change out this line…”

“Chris, what happened?”

The old guy put down his wrench.  “Claustrophobia, pure and simple.  After nearly a thousand years of living at the North Pole with the same man, six dozen elves, twelve reindeer—”

“Twelve?  I thought there was eight; nine, counting Rudolph.”

“No, there’re twelve.  It’s all in the song.  Anyway, there ain’t much for a girl to do up there.  No shoppin’ centers, me and the elves make anything we need.  Remember, the winter’s twelve months long and there’s no TV.  And the old girl never got along real well with the elves.”  The old guy looked at the police chief and placed a finger on the side of his nose.  “But that could have been my fault.  Which reminds me, how’s Miranda these days?”  The old guy leaned back against the wall and pulled two crystal glasses of Irish Mist out of the pouch he wore.  He handed one to the chief.

The weather outside was frightful, but the fire of the Irish Mist made up for the low set heater.  “Shortdek and the Federal Government are putting the screws to Christmas, and Miranda is jumping up and down mad about.  I’d be careful what I said to her, if I was you.”  McKnight looked at the glass.  “Hey, you remember the Ratshole brothers?”

“Those guys that gave me the pint of turpentine for Christmas last year?”

“That wasn’t turpentine, it was moonshine.”

“Sez them!  We been usin’ that stuff to remove varnish that didn’t set right on wooden toys.  I had to suspend two elves for a week because I caught them gettin’ high sniffin’ it!  You know any kids that want three-headed duck pull toys for Christmas?”

“Well, the Ratshole brothers started adding a bottle of peppermint mouthwash to the recipe, and now the stuff is selling all over the state.  Christmas parties everywhere are planning to add it to bowls of fruit juice and ginger ale…”

“A Christmas punch!”

“More like a Christmas right hook by a fist with a roll of quarters in it!”

The old man just looked at McKnight.  “If we get past all the bullsh—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll drive—but no Allman Brothers this year!  I want Christmas music!”

 

* * * * *

 

          “Anyone who believes that men are the equal of women has
never seen a man trying to wrap a Christmas present.”  Miranda and Rosita sat at the bar in the Cathouse drowning their sorrows in 150-proof Stump Blaster tequila-flavored toddies and fuming at all the masculine stupidity that surrounded them.  Nothing can infuriate a woman more at the holidays than a Shortdek!  The Mayor had made it clear he would only allow Holiday Trees to be purchased from the government tree stand in the back of City Hall.  Imagine!  They were in a pine forest in New York, and the Mayor was selling them trees from Oregon!  The taxes on them were almost half the cost of the tree itself!  And the balls!  “Holiday trees his ass, Rosie!” Miranda said.  “They’ve been Christmas trees for the last 1700 years!  Who the hell do these idiots in Washington think they, are changing the name?!”

Just then Pedro came in and called for Rosita.  She turned in her seat.  “Pedro, who ees watching the taco…”

“Rosita, me amore, dee Reverend is.  We have five minutos.”  He walked between her legs as she swiveled on the bar stool to face him.  He put his hand on her knee.

“Rosita… five minutos!  We do Wee Wee Chu?”

“No Pedro, no Wee Wee Chu now.”

Pedro’s face dropped and he turned to leave, mumbling under his breath about the evils of a wife no longer willing to do Wee Wee Chu with him.

Miranda, who was already two sheets to the wind, was about to ask Rosita if Wee Wee Chu was some sort of weird Mexican S&M thing when from up on the roof there arose such a clatter, the two woman jumped up and ran towards the door.  As they reached the end of the bar, a chubby, red, round fur ball flashed past the big picture window that faced the trash cans and bounced on the ice-covered ground!

 

* * * * *

 

“They’re both broken, I’m afraid, Miranda.  He’s down for the next three months at least!”  Goodbanger rubbed the cast plaster from his hands.

“Chris, what the hell happened?  What were you doing climbing the drainpipe to the roof?”

Old Chris was illustrating what an Irish Mist was.  “Well… I knock at the front door but nobody came…”

“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning!  In a cathouse, that’s the middle of the night!  So everyone in the house is still sleeping!”

“Not every one!  I climbed in the third floor window, knocked over that old glass lamp—”

“You mean the 1889 Tiffany lamp that was custom-made for us and given as a Christmas present by my adopted Uncle, Teddy Roosevelt?”

“Yeah, an’ that big black guy, your bouncer…”

“Barrack?”

“Yeah.  I look up and there he is in a nightshirt and cap with sleep in his eyes and a three-foot-long Mickey Mantle autographed baseball bat.  I knew he didn’t recognize me, so I said, ‘Yo, yo!  Big black guy!  I'm Santa Claus; where the FUCK the milk and cookies be?’  Obviously, that didn’t tickle his funny bone or ring a bell.  He tossed me out the window.”

“Good goin’, Santa.  So far you destroyed a great work of Tiffany art, pissed off my help in the worst way possible, and helped the Federal Government ruin Christmas for millions of little kids all over the world.”

 

* * * * *

 

Santa wasn’t the only one having Christmastime miseries.  Out on the highway Officer Smitty, now back on a bike, pulled over a Ford Taurus on the edge of town.  “Your eyes are awfully red.  Have you been drinking?” he asked the driver, a well-dressed man heading home for the holidays who had obviously driven all night.

“Gee, officer,” the man said rather sarcastically, “Your eyes are awfully glazed—have you been eating doughnuts?”

So Smitty dragged the man down to the jail and locked him up.  When Mac booked him, the man turned out to be a former DOJ attorney who had retired into private practice when he realized that the Department of Justice was selectively dispensing its own brand of justice.  Officer Mac immediately started looking for Chief Eddie when Mayor/Clerk/Judge Shortdek, a staunch Democrat, walked in and began talking about a three years’ hard labor sentence for the “traitor” in lock up.  He gave Smitty a three-dollar-an-hour raise—which would have given him thirty bucks more per week than Chief McKnight.

 

* * * * *

 

Up on Podunk’s Mountain, Virgil, Aristotle, and Plato Ratshole were watching their pet possum Sigmund with great sadness.  Old Siggy had crawled into their still’s mash pot as a pup and become the official quality taster of Ratshole Liquors.  The Ratshole Brothers figured if what they had brewed up didn’t cripple, kill, or blind the possum, the quality was good enough for human consumption.  Sigmund had done such a great job, he was a stone alcoholic now.  As the brothers were law-abiding U.S. citizens (moonshining not withstanding—that was a family business), they had shut the still down, and twenty-four hours later poor Siggy was doing the Pink Elephant Mambo, scratching and gnawing at the dew catching vat, and it was heart-breaking.

It was also heartbreaking thinking about a way to get rid of thirty-five fifty-gallon barrels of 150-proof corn Stump Blaster.  They’d dug down fifteen or twenty feet against the far wall, put in a false floor that tilted with the slope of the mountain, and stacked the barrels straight across and five rows high to hide them from the “revenuers.”  They’d run out of corrugated tin, so they put up a roof of different colored strips of plastic windows that fitted the slanting building nicely and let just enough light in, with the help of a small kerosene lamp that also served as a heater, to see what they were doing at the still.  It was all hidden from discovery in the shade of the Washington Pine.  An agent could walk right by it and never spot it.  How the world had changed.  Now their greatest fear was the EPA!

Since daybreak, the Jones-ing critter had been alternating between tunneling up to the mountain dew in the catch vat and tunneling down to the bonanza under the floor.  Without the sedation of the shine, Siggy was a violent mass of claws and teeth.  The Ratshole brothers thought it best to lower the kerosene lamp and leave lest a leg be removed by accident.

 

* * * * *

 

“Damn, Chris.  I can’t do that!  I don’t know how!  Can’t the reindeer—”

“Nah, I tried once.  Their antlers get stuck in the chimneys.  Fast Eddie, ya gotta do it, ya gotta make the run by yourself this year!”

Fast Eddie looked at Miranda, who was still highly pissed off about the Christmas trees.  She sighed and said, “Well, I suppose I could ride shotgun and scurry down the chimneys for you… but that’s gonna leave Pecker Claus alone at the cathouse.  Remember the havoc fat boy here raised last year?”

“Hey, I’ll authorize overtime for Mac.  He’ll Santa-sit the old red devil.  We’ll carry him down to the jail and he can spend Christmas Eve in the drunk tank!  Please Miranda, I can’t do this alone!”

The elf seemed to mull over Eddie’s proposal for a moment, nodded her approval with some disdain.  Then she stood up and left to go open the cathouse up for the afternoon “Truckers’ Tea” hour, mumbling, “Men!  Go wrap your own presents!” under her breath.

Chris and Fast Eddie watched her wiggle out of sight.

“Why do I like that woman, Cop?”

“Because she has a dozen hoes and they stop you at three?”

“Could be!”

A door slammed, and there was suddenly the heavy slapping of shoe leather coming towards them as Big Mac scrambled down the hallway.  “Chief, ya better come quick.  We’re in a world of hurt!”

 

* * * * *

 

History records the deeds of the great individuals in a society, but usually dismisses the society as peripheral to the event and a bit of an annoyance to the telling of the story.  In as much as Podunksville is short on great individuals, we must therefore contend with the common folk of Podunksville.  Things were not sitting well with them lately as the mercury fell and the snow piled over, causing a hard ice crown over the region.

There had been a general consensus that careful management of town money could help them through the rough Adirondack winter, but fuel costs had begun to rise again, MREs were running low because unemployment was high, and God forbid someone got sick!  There was no getting by with a government that seemed hell-bent on making their lives impossible.  By Thanksgiving, the Cathouse and the Moneysunk had begun setting up the Franklin stoves for use to supply heat for all the neighbors invited to visit.  In the spirit of the season, both Miranda and Lucas opened areas of the old mansions.  Normally neighbors would pile wood for burning, but that came to an abrupt halt when the EPA and the Federal Government ordered them to stop cutting down trees.  Most Podunkians were willing to muddle their way through and chop on the sly, but the EPA running around waiting to levy fines for taking trees was a chokehold on the community.

With Christmas now only a week away, a Blue Christmas funk was hovering over the town’s children.  There wasn’t a tree decorated in any home, school, or shop in Podunksville.  Word was getting out that Santa had two broken legs and was laid up at Ms. Quims’ Christmas Cathouse Bar & Grill.  Between Santa and the Federal Government, it looked to them that Christmas was going to take a bullet this year.  When the ACLU sent the Mayor a certificate of merit as the head of a model community, a lonely moan went up from the kids of Podunksville.

To make it worse, Mayor Shortdek hung the certificate in a black frame and suspended it right in front of the old stone well in exactly the same spot the town Christmas tree would have gone.  In truth, the well hadn’t had water in it since Washington’s day.  It was the first community project, and was meant to supply water to the town.  It had begun to fill with water, so the town built a stone circle around it.  The mortar hadn’t even set before it ran dry.  It was pointless now, but it looked good, so they left it standing.

It wasn’t looking good for Christmas this year, though.  EPA agents were now sitting down with the Mayor’s office and plans were being made to remove the Washington Pine from Podunk’s mountain.  The Mayor was beside himself.  This year HE would be Santa, bringing prosperity to the town; although who was going to pay for all the bulldozers, dump trucks, lumberjacks, and the crane was undetermined as of yet.  The EPA’s head agent was at a loss until he heard that Pedro and Rosita Gonzales were illegals.  If one of them would sign, he could make them a five million dollar interest-free loan that didn’t really require a payback.  Of course, them being illegal, the Mayor would be in charge of dispensing the loot—er, money—for their civic contributions on their shovel-ready path to citizenship!  So Rosita was hastily sent for, in as much as Pedro spoke no English worth speaking of.

Back at the Cathouse, old Chris was getting more and more frustrated.  The weather outside was frightful, the clientele was nowhere to be found, so a dozen bored and half-naked women wandered around like a herd of reindeer grazing on the tundra and driving Chris crazy.  This reindeer thing was another problem.  The elves back at the pole had loaded the toys on the sleigh, smacked Rudolph on the butt, and sent the whole show off towards Podunksville.  There was no place to land unless Chris was out there directing traffic, so they just circled around in the air high enough not to be seen.  Of course, Comet and Blitzen left to visit Ollie the Bartender.  They dragged Prancer, who had broken up with his hairdresser friend, with them.

 

* * * * *

 

By the time the Chief got back to the jailhouse, the former DOJ attorney, one Philip Abuster, Esq., was using his one phone call to reach the only Republican Congressman left in New York State.  The Chief snatched the phone right out of the lawyer’s hand and began speaking.

“Bill, yeah, it’s me, Fast Eddie.  It’s all a mistake.  I’ll take care of it.  Miranda and the girls send their love… twice!”  The cop put down the phone, grabbed the summons, and ripped it up.  “Mister Abuster—”

“Call me Phil.”

“Phil!  It gets a little crazy around here this time a year.  See, Christmas is kind of special in our little community, and now with the Mayor and the ACLU running loose—”

“What the hell are those Christmas-killing anti-Americans doing here?”

“They stopped the harvesting of Christmas Trees and are demanding the town remove a pine tree that was planted by George Washington—”

“Washington was here?”

“Yeah.  He surveyed us!  He was the first historical figure to spend Christmas night in Ms. Quims’ Christmas Cathouse Bar & Grill.  That’s why folk call it the Christmas Cathouse.”

“Quims’, huh?  I heard about that place when I was with the DOJ.  They may not know the law, but Cathouses—”

“Look, Phil, there ain’t a smiling kid within twenty miles of Podunksville!  Our Christmas is goin’ down the shitter because of the ACLU, EPA, and SOB.” 

“SOB?”

“The Mayor.”

“Oh.  Right.”  Lawyer Abuster’s face turned hard.  “Well, let’s just see if we can’t change that Christmas conundrum!  May I use your phone?”

Faster than Santa could drop down a chimney, all three policemen slid their desk phones at the lawyer.

 

* * * * *

Meanwhile, up on Podunk’s Mountain, the Ratshole Brothers were wandering about looking for EPA agents and places to dump their shine.  There was a certain urgency to the latter as Sigmund was rapidly drying out and starting to hate them, what with being within inches of having himself a very Merry Christmas but unable to reach it.  For most of Siggy’s life, the Ratsholes could wring a pint of shine from his tail.  Now the little critter was bone-dry and getting desperate.  They could hear him trying to dig his way through the vats from a hundred yards away

The Brothers, being seasoned mountain men, knew it was not wise to enter a shed with a detoxing possum—but in true Adirondack fashion, the weather was going from bad to worse.  The wind was picking up and the mercury had fallen to twenty below.  There was no choice; they had to go into the shed or freeze.  The Brothers met at the door… then looked at each other to see who would have the courage to go in first.

 

* * * * *

 

 “Ms. Gonzales, all you have to do is sign…. there’s three thousand dollars in it for you,” the Mayor whispered at Rosita, who after two hours of defiantly stating “NO!” was starting to get angry.

“But Ms. Gonzales,” the EPA agent added, “it’s for the good of the community!”

“Community, your frijoles, Gringo!  Chreesmus ees for the good of the community, not deese stuff!  Why you guys gotta ruin Chreesmus for all a us?”

Before she could give the Mayor and the agent a piece of her mind, Pedro appeared in the doorway, dragging a small white lamb behind him.  When he saw Rosita, a big grin crossed his face.

“Wee Wee Chu?  Now, Rosita?”

“No, Pedro, ees not the time.  I cannot leave.”

The smile left his face.  He reached down and pet the lamb.  “Lez go, Chico.  Rosita no Wee Wee Chu now.”  And poor Pedro, pulling the lamb behind him, dejectedly left the room.

There was a cold silence for a moment.  The Mayor had a confused looked.  “Rosita… what’s with Pedro and the lamb?”

“Een our leedle village in May-he-co, every Chreesmus a young lamb ees gotten the week before the Big Day.  It ees treated like one a dee family, cared for, loved.  On Chreesmus Eve, Pedro will cut eets throat and remove its fleece to make a sweater… then wheel roast it for Chreesmus dinner.”

“I’ve never heard of that!  Does that tradition have a name?”

“Fleece Navidad!”

Before anything else could be said, a tremendous explosion filled the air followed by another enormous explosion that rocked the building, shattering glass and knocking pictures and plaster off the wall.  The ground shook for a full minute.

 

* * * * *

 

“I’m sorry, Misser Kringle, I never believed in Santa Claus.  I knew no white dude in his right mind would come into my neighborhood after dark.”

Before Chris could answer, Miranda came in and slapped the back of the bouncer’s balding head.  “Go back to the door, Barrack, there’s no need for an apology to this old vagrant.  For all you knew, fatso here was a burglar.”  The big bouncer nodded respectfully and left.  Miranda stared at the incapacitated Claus.

“Hey lady, interested in seeing my ‘North Pole’?  Well, that's what the Mrs. calls it.”

“Yes, well, we’ll talk about exactly what the Mrs. calls you these days right after Christmas.  One of my girls is up at Coulterville getting her nails done.  She’s bringing back Italian for us.  You want her to bring you back a pizza?”

“Hmm.  Get me a Good King Wenceslas pie with sausage and mushrooms.”

“A what kind of pie?”

“A Wenceslas…  A Wenceslas!  You know.  Deep pan, crisp and even?”

Before Miranda could respond, there was an awesome bang and the building shook like it wanted to get up and run.  It picked Miranda right up and tossed her on top of Chris, then shook them both like they were salad dressing until they skated off the bed and onto a rug made from a dead bear from a Christmas season past.

 

* * * * *

 

“You want a little more, Phil?  We make the coffee strong ’round here, and this here stuff,” the Chief held up the bottle, “is good for the cold air.”  Fast Eddie had learned from Chris: nothing resolves a crisis better than a little Irish Mist in coffee.

“Yeah, Ed, gimme another splash.  Back where I come from in the Colorado Rockies—”

“You’re a mountain boy?”

“Yes I am, and damn proud of it.  I get kinda nasty when I hear of EPA and ACLU dickheads who have never seen the inside of a forest getting involved with small rural towns.  Out in California, the environmental crusaders are letting an entire community die of thirst because of some half-assed minnows in the only water…”

“Hey, they ain’t doing too bad here.  For three hundred years we’ve been chopppin’ wood to get through the winter months.  Now if someone gets caught cutting down any tree, the EPA fines them five hundred bucks, confiscates the tree, and the ACLU sends the Mayor another commendation.”

“Fast Eddie, my friend, what you need is a good lawyer who knows federal law, comes from the mountains too… and is into Christmas!”

“You’d do that for us?”  Before the attorney could reply, a tremendous roar shattered all the windows in the jail.  It was followed by a spectacular quake that threw all the cops and the lawyer around like they were rag dolls.  When it subsided, all the men were on the floor.  They scrambled like rodents for the door and ran outside.  What they saw froze them in their tracks.

 

* * * * *

 

The Ratshole boys stood at the door of their corrugated shed.  An arctic wind was chilling them to the bone.  The scratching and clawing inside had stopped, but it had been replaced by a strange gurgling sound under the frozen steely ice they stood on.  “Well!  We go in and face that crazy possum, or we freeze to death right here,” Plato mumbled.  His brothers grunted in agreement.  Plato reached out for the door latch.  Only with great effort did it lift.  Plato pushed forward, but the door refused to move.  “Frozen shut tighter than a virgin’s knees!” he grumbled.  He threw his shoulder at it—nothing.  His brothers joined in, slamming their bodies against the frozen door, over and over and over again, rattling and shaking the whole shed.

What happened next, while all accounts of the event are speculation and assumption, became part of Adirondack Christmas lore.  Men would speak of it in reverent tones, as they would the name of Pants Lawrence and other great men of the Adirondack Mountains.  It elevated the Ratshole Brothers to heroes.  Sigmund became the Christmas Possum, and many of the local folk and churches began putting possums with the other animals in their Nativity Scenes: The Christmas Miracle of Podunk’s Mountain they called it.

What Chief McKnight found after investigating the “Miracle” ran somewhat to the contrary.  He thought it better to keep it to himself!

The desperately alcoholic critter had chewed right through the wooden trapdoor, weakening the floor—and then the whole slanted floor caved in under the weight of the still and the half full catch vat, crushing all the barrels of moonshine and releasing 1500 gallons of not-so-high-grade corn liquor into the frozen soil.  Following the natural slant of the mountainside, the alcohol defrosted its way downhill until it hit the boulder the Washington Pine rested upon, where it pooled and began to seep upward.

Floundering in an incredible sea of moonshine back at the shed, Sigmund wallowed merrily about.  He would have drowned there if he hadn’t decided to climb out and raid the Ratsholes’ rat hole where the salted pretzels were kept.  He had barely made it to what was left of the floor when the banging on the door began.  Even though Siggy the possum was drunk as a skunk, he stopped where he was to try and determine just what was going on, being a bit disoriented.  With every bang, the entire tin-framed shed shook.  When the kerosene lamp came down, spewing burning fluid all over the floor, as drunk as Siggy was he knew it was time to leave.  And leave he did!  Through a crack in the wall, at a speed Fast Eddie would have been proud of.

The Ratsholes weren’t so lucky.

In a flash (pardon the pun) the burning kerosene leaked onto the moonshine.  While there was only about a hundred gallons left in the sub-basement, it was enough to blow the shed floor, the shed, the roof, and the Ratsholes sky high… and then things got exciting.

It looked like a NASA space launch.  The 150-proof fire found its way along the path to the tree.  There was a short rumble, and the Washington Pine took off, roots and all, like an Atlas rocket.  People walking around the town described it as a volcanic explosion followed by a majestic soaring bird that was caught by a wind that oriented it towards the town.  And while it had the height, it didn’t quite have the distance.  It dropped roots-first onto the side of the mountain and slid.  It hit the deserted ski jump at about sixty miles an hour, slid along it, and relaunched.  It was a perfect arc, high and straight.  It looked like it would fall right on the Christmas Cathouse, but a sudden breeze kicked up and lifted it.  With an ear-shattering boom, it fell roots-first right down the dry well and stood there, straight as if set by the hand of man.

The Ratshole shed shattered into a million pieces and went flying into the air, where the debris was caught by the prevailing westerlys, carried to the town, showered down on the Pine, and the pieces got tangled in the branches.  It had all happened in less than a minute.

 

* * * * *

 

“There’s water down there!”  Officer Smitty had pushed over the side of the well wall and was shinning his belt light down into the depths.

“The force of the drop must have sunk its roots five feet into the ground and hit the waterline.”  The EPA agent chuckled.  “Hell, you’ve transplanted a fully grown pine.”

“A fully grown National Monument, you mean!”  Lawyer Abuster put his hand down hard on the agent's shoulder.  “And because you forced these people to!  That’s illegal.  If the Washington Pine dies, it’ll be your job!”

The entire town had gathered around the little miracle at the well.  Pedro brought hot tacos over for everyone, and asked Rosita again if she’d Wee Wee Chu with him.  Needless to say, this was not the time again.  There was now a sixty-foot tall, semi-decorated tree in the Podunksville town square.  Surrounding it were twenty or thirty eight-to-ten-foot pine trees that had been ripped up by the blast, enough for all the homes in the community.  About twenty yards away were several very large trees just ready for chopping into firewood.

Lawyer Abuster leered at the federal agents.  “If you want to make an issue of this, I’ll ride your butts right to Supreme Court!”  One of the agents was going to say something, but thought better of it; he gathered his crew, went to his car, and just left, taking the Mayor’s commendations with him.

Fast Eddie stood there in awe.  Here were the town’s Christmas trees and enough firewood to get them through the cold months.  He felt a hand drop on his shoulder from behind.

“Ah, it’s just another Christmas miracle.  You’ll get use to’em.”

He turned to see Chris behind him, with a girl under each arm helping him hop, and wearing a pair of woman’s lace panties on his head.

“I thought you were supposed to symbolize Christmas?  What are you doing with those on your head?”

“Don’t worry.  They do symbolize Christmas—they’re Carol’s!”

 

* * * * *

 

When the Eve of the great ride came, the town had assembled in the square.  The cops had strung lights on the newly-located Washington Pine, and with the bits and pieces of the Ratshole shed dancing in the light, it served as a Christmas beacon.  A Christmas spirit that had left had returned to the little hamlet… even with Santa laid up and resting in the drunk tank of the local Police Department.

Phil Abuster, Esq., in payment for the services he’d performed, had been invited to ride in Fast Eddie’s sidecar wearing Santa’s riding leather.  Oh, what a sight!  The town had never seen Miranda Quims in her elf clothes.  She was proud of the fact that, after almost three centuries, they still fit.  There was a superb hustle and bustle as the Sleigh, which was to be driven by a most shapely elf, and McKnight’s sidecar were being prepped for the skies.

It was a romantic full Christmas moon when Pedro stepped out onto the little balcony over the Gonzales’s little stand.  “Hey, mamacita, we do Wee Wee Chu now?  Please, corazoncito, do Wee Wee Chu with me.”

Rosita stepped out to the balcony above the busy courtyard and looked at Pedro.  “Yes, we do Wee Wee Chu now.  It’s time.”

Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang...