I have good news! Santa will be making rounds as scheduled on Christmas Eve. Things have been looking bleak for this Christmas around the North Pole until recently. Only once, during the sixteenth century, did Santa and the elves fail to harness the reindeer and deliver gifts to one and all on Christmas Eve. Even during the big war, when materials and goods were in short supply, enough gifts and goodies were available to make Christmas successful in a tumultuous world. The problem this year has been with the aging equipment and personnel. The ovens are old. Santa’s lumbago acts up. The elves get more and more temperamental as the millenniums move on. Even thought we have a land of plenty, the stock market is down and the delivery system seems a little outmoded. Additionally, Santa wiped out the number one sleigh last Christmas Eve when the retro rockets failed to fire and slow his re-entry at his home landing zone. Mrs. Clause, aided by Rudolph’s nose light, was able to pull Santa, the elves, and reindeer our of a twisted mass of metal, leather, wood, and returned gifts in the North Pole’s largest snow drift. That shouldn’t be a problem since the number two sleigh stayed fueled and ready for the reindeer to launch on a moment’s notice.
The walk up the Ramblas to the train station in Barcelona was a
short one as Logan and I prepared for our trip back to our army post in
southern France. We stopped for a breakfast of eggs and refried beans.
The eggs were just right, broken into a vat of grease used to fry
french fries. The egg white was crispy and fluffy with a hard yellow.
We were young; Our cholestrol was fine; It was good.
We stopped for cokes to carry on the train and boarded just as the
train whistled and lumbered out of the station. This train went from
Barcelona, through Marseille, Monoco, and on to Paris with stops at all
the towns between.
The train was crowded with vacationing Spaniards and Frenchmen and
their families. All the families had large bags of food and bottles of
thick red wine. All times are meal times with travelers. As we toured
the train looking for a vacant compartment, travelers ate, talked,
drank, and watched the beautiful Spanish country side pass by. Some
vacancies were evident; however we were looking for certain types of
traveling companions, female, 20 to 30, and beauty similar to that of a
Playboy Bunny.
We finally settled in the dining car with two travelers that fell only
slightly short of our expectations on 40 or 50 points. We talked. We
drank our cokes. We laughed. The relationships were going great. The
conductor announced that we were approaching the frontier where we’d
dismount from the train in Spain, pass through customs, and board the
train again in France.
Logan and Nicole were whispering back and fourth. Suddenly, she began
to cry, almost hysterically. Logan was supporting Nicole, almost
carrying her as we exited the train, searching for passports, and
papers of identification.
Logan and I were cool. Nicole and her friend were nervous. I was
relegated to carry Nicole’s bags along with my own duffel.
When the customs officials saw our U.S. Military orders, a large chalk
check was placed on our bags along with those of Nicole and her friend.
Customs saw we were together and ushered us on down the track toward
the train while the Frenchmen and Spaniards had their socks and
underwear fondled and answered questions concerning their destinations
and purposes.
We sat in the train club car having a cafe’ con leche, talking and
waiting, until all the travelers loaded and the train restarted. Nicole
had a complete recovery. She laughed and talked with us until Logan and
I changed trains in Narbonne. The ladies continued on toward Marseille
and Paris.
Logan didn’t know why Nicole started crying. “She just turned it on.”
We didn’t exchange addresses with them. We didn’t know what passport
they held. We didn’t know where they’d been or where they were
going.
I’ve been wondering for 45 years: “What did I smuggle into France?’
Another Short Story
I’m certain that Earle’s mother pictured nobility when she viewed the small bundle of blue in the Iowa hospital and not a bum on the south side streets of Jacksonville, 53 years later. “Heck, things aren’t really bad,” Earle thought as he ambled toward a fast food restaurant where Erma worked. The joints passed out food that had been in the warmer too long and always offered odd jobs for a plate of food for a job well done.
As Earle sauntered, he thought of Emma as she served the larger than usual crowd that seemed everywhere. Some talk had been going on that the Georgia-Florida football game and a Daytona race were both happening this weekend. Both the events would be certain to dump thousands of revelers in the city. The football and race fanatics weren’t lots different. The footballers drank liquor. The race fans drank beer. The ball fans drove $40,000 Cadillacs while the race fans were in $40,000 pick-up trucks. The crowd would overload the diner where Erma toiled; however, he’d go by anyway and see if she’d pass him a cup of coffee out the back door.
Earle didn’t have to be a bum. He was wounded in the Viet Nam war and received a disability stipend, send to the bank once a month. It was a hassle to get money from the bank for someone with Earle’s disheveled look. He was often asked to leave when he walked in to withdraw money. If he did persist, they required two picture bearing ID’s and a major credit card. Occasionally, Earl’s sister, who was on his account, would withdraw a few dollars for him. Things hadn’t been the same after his wife left with circus promoter that came through town ten years back. (Boy was he a salesman?)
Erma knew Earle like her. Why else would he go by daily, speak and check on her? She worked hard for tips to pay her trailer rent, car payment and other expenses. She had little left after spreading her tips around.
When Earle walked in the diner, all the tables and stools were filled with a noisy crowd. Erma was by herself and harried as she tried to cook, waitress, and cashier simultaneously. “Earle, the cook just walked out. Go to the back, wash up, put on the chef’s apron and hat and help me.”
Looking in the mirror, Earle realized he was still handsome, even if he’d lost some teeth and hair along the way. Erma looked longingly as Earle walked in and presented himself for inspection. Erma let out a low whistle as he took up the spatula and began to cook eggs, bacon, and hash browns on the grill. The diner was a good cholesterol source with everything fried. Erma showed Earle the 40 pound box of frozen potatoes which were cooked in a steel ring until brown on both sides. The three cases of eggs would last a while as Erma whisked by brushing lightly against Earle as he cooked omelets, pancakes, and waffles while keeping a cup of coffee and banter with the patrons going. By three in the morning, lots of substitutions were taking place. All the bread had been consumed as had the bacon and sausage. “Just cook what we have Earle. I’ll sell it to them,” Erma informed Earle. Hot cakes or waffles served as bread while small pieces of steak served to fill the meat desire and cravings.
“Earle, if there’s no customers, we’ll close,” an exhausted Erma told him.
Around four, with the food almost depleted, Erma pulled the shades and locked the door. The tip jar had almost $400 in it. She offered half to Earle who refused. Instead he took a single twenty dollar bill, and told her, “I’m just helping you out Erma.”
Many of the race attendees check out of their rooms early and leave to party and get good parking spots in Daytona. Janie, who was sometimes homeless, worked at the Breeze Motel and allowed Earle to sneak into a vacated room for a hot shower and nap. Earle had finished his shower and was napping, when a loud knock was heard at the door before Erma burst in talking loudly like someone on an adrenalin high. “Earle, I’ve been thinking. I don’t have anyone and you don’t have anyone. I know you like me Earle. I didn’t brush against you by accident in the diner. Come home with me. I’ll talk to the boss and tell him what a good job you did tonight at the diner. I know he’ll let you work there!”
Earle lay silently with Erma in the crook of his arm in the purloined motel room thinking. “I didn’t have anyone. Now I do. I didn’t have a purpose in life. Now, after ten years, I do. I haven’t spent any of that veteran’s pension. That’s $2400 a month for ten years. That totals a quarter of a million dollars, which is a good nest egg. I knew if I’d wait, I could have a life. Now I can.’
With a heart so full, feeling it would burst, as tears ran down his cheek, he whispered, Thanks Erma.”
His job was at the Esso station at the corner of County Line Road and State Route Thirty-Three, where he patched tires, changed oil and did a little mechanical work, if the pumps weren’t too busy. His job title was “handy man.”
He didn’t have a busy social calendar as he exhibited a policy of laizzez faire not bothering anyone and hoping they wouldn’t bother him. Some said he suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome while others descirbed him as eccentric or “shell shocked.” His only apparent reason for hanging around the station was a helicopter which management bought at an army surplus sale and parked beside the station to draw attention.
If business were truly slack, Harvey could be seen painting and polishing the helicopter, applying coat after coat of olive drab paint and touching up the numbers. Grease was liberally applied to all the operating gears. The chopper’s condition looked good enough to fly and provided therapy for him. He beamed as kids looked it over while their parents had gasoline pumped.
Every Friday afternoon, Billy, the station manager paid Harvey forty dollars which he held in his hand and delivered to The Colonnade Bank for deposit, less the small amount held out for beer and food. On this particular Friday afternoon, two bandits shoved Harvey aside, took his forty dollars, and an undisclosed amount of money from the bank tellers who were nervously standing at the ends of AK-47s. The toughs backed out the bank’s doors and careened out of town in a Cooper Mini with the town’s constabulary in hot pursuit!
The police lost track of the thieves and were in a quandary. The locals, state police and FBI brought in tracking dogs and combed the countryside to no avail.
As darkness crept across town, a shadowy figure crawled aboard the helicopter, and fired it up, amid a cloud of acrid smoke thrown out by a long dormant engine. The law enforcement officials were thrilled thinking state help had arrived to assist in the search. No one realized that Harvey was the pilot.
Only fifteen minutes had lapsed when the chopper flew back across town with an object dangling from its skids. It was the Cooper Mini with the two bandits still inside. Harvey found them hiding in a field very close to the road, waiting for total darkness to cover their escape to Mexico. Harvey fired a rocket at the car which missed before he ran the skids through the windows, trapping the occupants who were then air lifted to the jail impound yard.
The police were glad to catch the crooks. The bank was joyous to recover their loot, and Harvey was once again hailed as a conquering hero. His comment: “Heck, I just wanted to get my beer money and those good folk’s food money back where it belonged.”
tomvancel