Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  And so it went: each winner bettered the winner of the year before, until no entrant had a prayer of winning without the help of an electrical engineer, and the Power and Light Company had every bit of its equipment dangerously overloaded on the night of the judging, Christmas Eve.

  As I said, Hackleman wanted nothing to do with it. But, unfortunately for Hackleman, the publisher of the paper had just been elected president of the Chamber of Commerce, and he was annoyed to learn that one of his employees was squirming out of a civic duty.

  The publisher rarely appeared in the city room, but his visits were always memorable—particularly the visit he made two weeks before Christmas to educate Hackleman on his twofold role in the community.

  “Hackleman,” he said, “every man on this staff is not only a newspaper man, he’s an active citizen.”

  “I vote,” said Hackleman. “I pay my taxes.”

  “And there it stops,” said the publisher reproachfully. “For ten years you’ve been city editor, and for ten years you’ve been ducking the civic duties that come to a man in such a position—foisting them off on the nearest reporter.” He pointed at me. “It’s a slap in the face of the community, sending out kids like this to do work that most citizens would consider a great honor.”

  “I haven’t got time,” said Hackleman sullenly.

  “Make the time. Nobody asks you to spend eighteen hours a day in the office. That’s your idea. It isn’t necessary. Get out with your fellow men once in a while, Hackleman, especially now. It’s the Christmas season, man. Get behind this contest and—”

  “What’s Christmas to me?” said Hackleman. “I’m not a religious man and I’m not a family man, and eggnog gives me gastritis, so the hell with Christmas.”

  The publisher was stunned. “The hell with Christmas?” he said, hollowly, hoarsely.

  “Certainly,” said Hackleman.

  “Hackleman,” said the publisher evenly, “I order you to take part in running the contest—to get into the swing of Christmas. It’ll do you good.”

  “I quit,” said Hackleman, “and I don’t think that will do you much good.”

  And Hackleman was right. His quitting did the paper no good. It was a disaster, for in many ways he was the paper. However, there was no wailing or gnashing of teeth in the paper’s executive offices—only a calm, patient wistfulness. Hackleman had quit before, but had never managed to stay away from the paper for more than twenty-four hours. His whole life was the paper, and his talking of quitting it was like a trout’s talking of quitting a mountain stream to get a job clerking in a five-and-ten.

  Setting a new record for an absence from the paper, Hackleman returned to his desk twenty-seven hours after quitting. He was slightly drunk and surly, and looked no one in the eye.

  As I passed his desk, quietly and respectfully, he mumbled something to me.

  “Beg your pardon?” I said.

  “I said Merry Christmas,” said Hackleman.

  “And a Merry Christmas to you.”

  “Well, sir,” he said, “it won’t be long now, will it, until old soup-for-brains with the long white beard will come a-jingling over our housetops with goodies for us all.”

  “No—guess not.”

  “A man who whips little reindeer is capable of anything,” said Hackleman. “Yes—I suppose.”

  “Bring me up to date, will you, kid? What’s this goddamn contest all about?”

  The committee that was supposed to be running the contest was top-heavy with local celebrities who were too busy and important to do a lick of work on the contest—the mayor, the president of a big manufacturing company, and the chairman of the Real Estate Board. Hackleman kept me on as his assistant, and it was up to us and some small fry from the Chamber of Commerce to do the spadework.

  Every night we went out to look at entries, and there were thousands of them. We were trying to make a list of the twenty best displays from which the committee would choose a winner on Christmas Eve. The Chamber of Commerce underlings scouted the south side of town, while Hackleman and I scouted the north.

  It should have been pleasant. The weather was crisp, not bitter; the stars were out every night, bright, hard, and cold against a black velvet sky. Snow, while cleared from the streets, lay on yards and rooftops, making all the world seem soft and clean; and our car radio sang Christmas carols.

  But it wasn’t pleasant, because Hackleman talked most of the time, making a bitter indictment against Christmas.

  One time, I was listening to a broadcast of a children’s choir singing “Silent Night,” and was as close to heaven as I could get without being pure and dead. Hackleman suddenly changed stations to fill the car with the clangor of a jazz band.

  “Wha’d you do that for?” I said.

  “They’re running it into the ground,” said Hackleman peevishly. “We’ve heard it eight times already tonight. They sell Christmas the way they sell cigarettes—just keep hammering away at the same old line over and over again. I’ve got Christmas coming out of my ears.”

  “They’re not selling it,” I said. “They’re just happy about it.”

  “Just another form of department store advertising.”

  I twisted the dial back to the station carrying the children’s choir. “If you don’t mind, I’d enjoy hearing this to the end,” I said. “Then you can change it again.”

  “Sleee-eeep in heav-en-ly peace,” piped the small, sweet voices. And then the announcer broke in. “This fifteen-minute interlude of Christmas favorites,” he said, “has been brought to you by Bullard Brothers Department Store, which is open until ten o’clock every evening except Sunday. Don’t wait until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping. Avoid the rush.”

  “There!” said Hackleman triumphantly.

  “That’s a side issue,” I said. “The main thing is that the Savior was born on Christmas.”

  “Wrong again,” said Hackleman. “Nobody knows when he was born. There’s nothing in the Bible to tell you. Not a word.”

  “You’re the last man I’d come to for an expert opinion on the Bible,” I said heatedly.

  “I memorized it when I was a kid,” said Hackleman. “Every night I had to learn a new verse. If I missed a word, by God, the old man knocked my block off.”

  “Oh?” This was an unexpected turn of events—unexpected because part of Hackleman’s impressiveness lay in his keeping to himself, in his never talking about his past or about what he did or thought when he wasn’t at work. Now he was talking about his childhood, and showing me for the first time an emotion more profound than impatience and cynicism.

  “I didn’t miss a single Sunday School session for ten years,” said Hackleman. “Rain or shine, sick or well, I was there.”

  “Devout, eh?”

  “Scared stiff of my old man’s belt.”

  “Is he still alive—your father?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hackleman without interest. “I ran away when I was fifteen, and never went back.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Died when I was a year old.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Who the hell asked you to be sorry?”

  We were pulling up before the last house we planned to look at that night. It was a salmon-pink mansion with a spike fence, iron flamingos, and five television aerials—combining in one monster the worst features of Spanish architecture, electronics, and sudden wealth. There was no Christmas lighting display that we could see—only ordinary lights inside the house.

  We knocked on the door, to make sure we’d found the right place, and were told by a butler that there was indeed a lighting display, on the other side of the house, and that he would have to ask the master for permission to turn it on.

  A moment later, the master appeared, fat and hairy, and with two prominent upper front teeth—looking like a groundhog in a crimson dressing gown.

  “Mr. Fleetwood, sir,” said the butler to his master, “these gentlemen here—”


  The master waved his man to silence. “How have you been, Hackleman?” he said. “It’s rather late to be calling, but my door is always open to old friends.”

  “Gribbon,” said Hackleman incredulously, “Leu Gribbon. How long have you been living here?”

  “The name is Fleetwood now, Hackleman—J. Sprague Fleetwood, and I’m strictly legitimate. There was a story the last time we met, but there isn’t one tonight. I’ve been out for a year, living quietly and decently.”

  “Mad Dog Gribbon has been out for a year, and I didn’t know it?” said Hackleman.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I cover the School Board and the Fire Department.”

  “I’ve paid my debt to society,” said Gribbon.

  Hackleman toyed with the visor of a suit of armor guarding the entrance into the baronial living room. “Looks to me like you paid your debt to society two cents on the dollar,” he said.

  “Investments,” said Gribbon, “legitimate investments in the stock market.”

  “How’d your broker get the bloodstains out of your money to find out what the denominations were?” said Hackleman.

  “If you’re going to abuse my hospitality with rudeness, Hackleman, I’ll have you thrown out,” said Gribbon. “Now, what do you want?”

  “They wish to see the lighting display, sir,” said the butler.

  Hackleman looked very sheepish when this mission was announced. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “we’re on a damn fool committee.”

  “I thought the judging was to take place Christmas Eve,” said Gribbon. “I didn’t plan to turn it on until then—as a pleasant surprise for the community.”

  “A mustard gas generator?” said Hackleman.

  “All right, wise guy,” said Gribbon haughtily, “tonight you’re going to see what kind of a citizen J. Sprague Fleetwood is.”

  It was a world of vague forms and shades of blue in the snowy yard of J. Sprague Fleetwood, alias Mad Dog Gribbon. It was midnight and Hackleman and I stamped our feet and blew on our hands to keep warm, while Gribbon and three servants hurried about the yard, tightening electrical connections and working over what seemed to be statues with screwdrivers and oil cans.

  Gribbon insisted that we stand far away from the display in order to get the impact of the whole, whenever it was ready to be turned on. We couldn’t tell what it was we were about to see, and were particularly tantalized by what the butler was doing—filling an enormous weather balloon from a tank of gas. The balloon arose majestically, captive at the end of a cable, as the butler turned the crank of a winch.

  “What’s that for?” I whispered to Hackleman.

  “Sending for final instructions from God,” said Hackleman.

  “What’d he get sent to prison for?”

  “Ran the numbers in town for a while, and had about twenty people killed so he could keep his franchise. So they put him away for five years for not paying his income taxes.”

  “Lights ready?” bawled Gribbon, standing on a porch, his arms upraised, commanding a miracle.

  “Lights ready,” said a voice in the shrubbery.

  “Sound ready?”

  “Sound ready, sir.”

  “Balloon ready?”

  “Balloon aloft, sir.”

  “Let ’er go!” cried Gribbon.

  Demons shrieked from the treetops.

  Suns exploded.

  Hackleman and I cowered, instinctively threw our arms across our faces.

  We uncovered our eyes slowly, fearfully, and saw stretching before us, in blinding, garish light, a life-sized nativity scene. Loudspeakers on every side blared earsplitting carols. Plaster cattle and sheep were everywhere, wagging their heads, while shepherds raised and lowered their right arms like railroad-crossing gates, jerkily pointing into the sky.

  The Virgin Mary and Joseph looked down sweetly on the child in the manger, while mechanical angels flapped their wings and mechanical wise men bobbed up and down like pistons.

  “Look!” cried Hackleman above the din, pointing where the shepherds pointed, where the balloon had disappeared into the sky.

  There, over the salmon-pink palace of Mad Dog Gribbon, hung in the Christmas heavens from a bag of gas, shone an imitation of the star of Bethlehem.

  Suddenly, all was black and still again. My mind was numb. Hackleman stared blankly at the place where the star had been, speechless.

  Gribbon trotted toward us. “Anything else in town that can touch it?” he panted proudly.

  “Nope,” said Hackleman bleakly.

  “Think it’ll win?”

  “Yup,” murmured Hackleman. “Unless somebody’s got an atomic explosion in the form of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.”

  “People will come from miles around to see it,” said Gribbon. “Just tell ’em in the newspaper story to follow the star.”

  “Listen, Gribbon,” said Hackleman, “you know there isn’t any money that goes with the first prize, don’t you? Nothing but a lousy little scroll worth maybe a buck.”

  Gribbon looked offended. “Of course,” he said. “This is a public service, Hackleman.”

  Hackleman grunted. “Come on, kid, let’s call it a night, eh?”

  It was a real break, our finding the certain winner of the contest a week before the judging was to take place. It meant that the judges and assistants like myself could spend most of Christmas Eve with our families, instead of riding around town for hours, trying to decide which was the best of twenty or so equally good entries. All we had to do now was to drive to Gribbon’s mansion, be blinded and deafened, shake his hand and give him his scroll, and return home in time to trim the tree, fill the stocking, and put away several rounds of eggnog.

  As thoughts of Christmas made Hackleman’s neurotic staff gentle and sentimental, and the preposterous rumor that he had a heart of gold gained wide circulation, Hackleman behaved in typical holiday fashion, declaring that heads were going to roll because Mad Dog Gribbon had been out of prison and back in town for a year without a single reporter’s finding out about it.

  “By God,” he said, “I’m going to have to go out on the street again, or the paper’ll fold up for want of news.” And, during the next two days, the paper would have done just that, if it hadn’t been for news from the wire services, because Hackleman sent out almost everybody to find out what Gribbon was up to.

  Desperate as Hackleman made us, we couldn’t find a hint of skulduggery in Gribbon’s life since he’d left prison. The only conclusion to draw was that crime paid so well that Gribbon could retire in his early forties, and live luxuriously and lawfully for the rest of his days.

  “His money really does come from stocks and bonds,” I told Hackleman wearily at the end of the second day. “And he pays his taxes like a good boy, and never sees his old friends anymore.”

  “All right, all right, all right,” said Hackleman irritably. “Forget it. Never mind.” He was more nervous than I’d ever seen him be before. He drummed on his desk with his fingers, and jumped at unexpected sounds.

  “You have something special against him?” I asked. It wasn’t like Hackleman to go after anyone with such zeal. Ordinarily, he never seemed to care whether justice or crime won out. What interested him were the good news stories that came out of the conflict. “After all, the guy really is going straight.”

  “Forget it,” said Hackleman. Suddenly, he broke his pencil in two, stood up, and strode out, hours before his usual departure time.

  The next day was my day off. I would have slept till noon, but a paper boy was selling extras under my bedroom window. The headline was huge and black, and spelled one terrible word: KIDNAPPED! The story below said that plaster images of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had been stolen from Mr. J. Sprague Fleetwood, and that he had offered a reward of one thousand dollars for information leading to their return before the judging of the Annual Christmas Outdoor Lighting Contest on Christmas Eve.

  Hackleman called a few minutes later. I was to come t
o the office at once to help trace down the clues that were pouring in.

  The police complained that, if there were any clues, hordes of amateur detectives had spoiled them. But there was no pressure at all on the police to solve the robbery. By evening the search had become a joyful craze that no one escaped—that no one wanted to escape. And the search was for the people to make, not for the police.

  Throngs went from door to door, asking if anyone had seen the infant Jesus.

  Movie theaters played to empty houses, and a local radio giveaway program said mournfully that nobody seemed to be home in the evenings to answer the telephone.

  Thousands insisted on searching the only stable in the city, and the owner made a small fortune selling them hot chocolate and doughnuts. An enterprising hotel bought a full-page ad, declaring that if anyone found Jesus and Mary and Joseph, here was an inn that would make room for them.

  The lead story in every edition of the paper dealt with the search and every edition was a sellout.

  Hackleman remained as sarcastic and cynical and efficient as ever.

  “It’s a miracle,” I told him. “By taking this little story and blowing it up big, you’ve made Christmas live.”

  Hackleman shrugged apathetically. “Just happened to come along when news was slow. If something better comes along, and I hope it will, I’ll drop this one right out of sight. It’s about time somebody was running berserk with an automatic shotgun in a kindergarten isn’t it?”

  “Sorry I opened my mouth.”

  “Have I remembered to wish you a merry Saturnalia?”

  “Saturnalia?”

  “Yeah—a nasty old pagan holiday near the end of December. The Romans used to close the schools, eat and drink themselves silly, say they loved everybody, and give each other gifts.” He answered the phone. “No, ma’am, we haven’t found Him yet. Yes, ma’am, there’ll be an extra if He turns up. Yes, ma’am, the stable’s already been checked pretty carefully. Thank you. Goodbye.”