“Maybe we should go ahead and open our presents,” Grams says. It’s almost ten o’clock and no Roland. Grams doesn’t seem surprised, Clay looks pissed, and I’m feeling a lot like Max the dog, forced to do all the real work while the Grinch has his fun.
“Good idea,” Clay says. He hands Grams a small red box with a silver bow and she tears into it like a raccoon at the city dump.
Grams pulls out a cheap, beaded necklace and gasps like it’s the crown jewels. “Oh, my stars! How did you think of this?”
“I saw that picture you have of Jim Morrison in the bathroom and thought that necklace looked like it meant something,” he says.
“It does!” She fingers the beads, pointing out the colors. “The black beads mean he was mysterious, the green and brown mean he was down-to-earth, and the white is his spirituality.” Grams is a bit of a Doors fan and has pictures of the lead singer all over her house. She’s also into people’s auras and colors and things like that, so it isn’t surprising that she knows what all the beads mean.
She goes to the bathroom and returns with the picture of the bare chested-dude off the wall, so she can compare the necklaces. I shake my head.
I give her my present, a new deck of tarot cards to replace the ones I accidentally spilled Kool-Aid on a few weeks ago. Even though I know she has at least five other decks, again, she acts like it’s the greatest thing since cracked pepper. It doesn’t take much to please Grams.
I give Clay a T-shirt that says “I’ve Got Worms” because I know he has a bunch of little huts in his backyard full of worms that he sells for bait. Grams gives him a burlap sack of something that smells like old hay and cherries that he’s supposed to put in his bedroom to help his love life. Clay is another one that’s easy to please.
As they hand me their gifts, I hear a car door slam and jump up. “It’s about time,” I say. I open the door and right in front of the big tree that Clay decorated with lights, I see Benny Cloud, the Deacon Chief of Police. He’s standing over Roland, who is barfing his guts out.
“What the hell did you do to him, Benny?” I say.
“I saved him from a DWI, is what I did. The truck is at the station. Have him pick it up in the morning when he’s sober,” he says.
Clay passes me on the porch, hauls Roland up, and drags him toward the house. I focus on Benny. “If you’d of been doing your job and taking care of the trouble out at Fat Tina’s, he wouldn’t have had to drive at all!” I say. I pick up one of the empty beer cans in the yard and throw it at Benny’s truck, then plant my feet and put my hands on my hips, daring him to say something about it.
He grunts like an old bear. “Tina’s is closed today. It’s Christmas Eve,” he says. He nods to Grams and Clay, shakes his head at me, then crawls back in his Tahoe.
“Merry Christmas!” Roland slurs as Clay drops him on the couch. He digs in his pocket and pulls out a black votive candle and hands it to Grams. “Here’s another candle. I’m sure you think it means something,” he says.
She takes it and stares at it. “Yes, black is to fight off negative energy.”
“You might want to light that one,” Clay says.
“Oh, you’re a funny guy,” Roland says. He digs in another pocket and throws a handful of pink condoms at Clay, all branded with Fat Tina’s logo. “Merry Christmas, brother, maybe you can get laid now.”
I’m standing there, waiting, but Roland doesn’t even look at me. You’d think after all these years, I’d realize that he isn’t ever going to change. He used to be such a great guy; always thought about me first, always wanted to make sure I was happy. But as the years have gone by, he’s become a real ass.
I sit down in front of the large box Clay had given me and finger the large gold bow on top. “Open it,” Clay says.
Slowly, I release the pieces of tape, one by one, and unfold the paper: a pair of black Laredo boots with green roses embroidered on the sides. “They aren’t ostrich, but I thought they were pretty,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”
They aren’t the boots I wanted, but Clay’s right, they are pretty, and I haven’t had a new pair of boots in a long time. I put them on and feel like Cinderella, walking around the living room in my green and black Laredo slippers. Roland is passed out, or just not paying any attention, and I don’t even care. The doorbell rings, which wakes up Roland, and he staggers to the door saying, “I’ll get rid of them.”
It’s Benny Cloud. Again. He hands Roland a long package wrapped in brown paper. “You left this in the Tahoe.”
Roland immediately hands it to me. “Here. Now you can help me with some of the yard work instead of sittin’ on the couch all day watching Jerry Springer.”
I unwrap the package and hold up a long-handled spade. “What the hell do I need a shovel for?”
He stumbles through the living room, headed for the bathroom, and mumbles, “You’ll think of something.”
Grams lights her new black candle and sits it on the coffee table. I hear Roland throwing up in the bathroom, and hope to hell he made it to the commode. I hold the shovel up and nod my head. Yeah, I’ll think of something.
Grams’ Butterscotch Bread Pudding
Ingredients:
6 day-old hamburger buns, torn into small pieces- For protection, peace, and love
1 Tablespoon of cinnamon- For prosperity
1 teaspoon of ginger- For good health
1 teaspoon of nutmeg- For good luck
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract- For love
1 cup of butterscotch chips- For happiness
1/2 cup of finely chopped pecans- For money
2 cups of brown sugar-For a little magic
4 cups of milk
1/2 cup of butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.
In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients, making sure you stir in a clockwise motion to bring about health, success, and a harmonious life. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven 1 hour, until nearly set (It should wiggle). Serve warm or cold.
Books By Kelly
They Call Me Crazy
Call Me Daddy
Call Me Cass
About Kelly
Kelly Stone Gamble is the author of USA TODAY bestseller They Call Me Crazy, Call Me Daddy, and Call Me Cass. Since 2000, she has had over fifty articles, essays and short stories published in anthologies, magazines and journals including:
Red Earth Review
Tower Journal
Family Fun
Family Digest
Message Magazine
Chicken Soup for the Soul
Her fiction has won awards from Writers Weekly, Writers Courtyard, Women on Writing and the Ground Zero Literary Project.
She is an Instructor for Southeastern Oklahoma State University and lives in Henderson, Nevada and Idabel, Oklahoma.
Get In Touch
www.kstonegamble.com
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9230926.Kelly_Stone_Gamble
https://redadeptpublishing.com/team/kelly-stone-gamble/
https://www.facebook.com/KStoneGamble/
Rowen’s Gift
by Michael Meyerhofer
I know you won’t believe a word of this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Not that I blame you for thinking I’m a liar, you understand. These days, everyone from the Lotus Isles to Dhargoth seems to have a story about how they knew Rowen Locke. Some claim they fought beside him in the war, that they were so close when he battled Fadarah that they could actually feel the heat wafting off that burning sword of his.
Others like to keep their lies more believable. They say they met him back i
n the early days, long before he was a hero, when he was just another grubby sellsword sleeping in ditches. Oh, you should have seen him, they say. Even then, he spoke in poetry. Even then, men would have followed him into a dragon’s maw, if he’d asked! Usually, they throw in a bit about how they saved his life, just for good measure. But men lie as easily as the stars shine, and I guess I’m no different.
This time, though, I’m going to give the truth a try. See, I know what’s waiting for me when the dawn splashes red through these iron bars, and I don’t expect anything I say to change that. But I already paid what few coins I had left to the priest who’s writing this down, so here goes.
I knew Rowen Locke from when we were children in Lyos. Did I say Lyos? The Dark Quarter, more like it. That’s what they call the slums where we grew up… though nowadays, thanks to the storytellers, you probably already knew that. Strange to hear the Dark Quarter talked about like it’s some kind of romantic place where thieves get together and talk philosophy. Personally, when I think about that place, I mostly just remember the smell of burnt dog.
Anyway, I was an orphan there, same as Locke. That’s not to say we were friends. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember me. See, we barely ever spoke. In a place like the Dark Quarter, if you want to live long, best you join up with one of the gangs—the Bloody Asps, the Crazy Knifemen, maybe even the Skull-Breakers, if blunt force is more your thing. Only Locke was different. His older brother, Kayden—gods, there was a mean one!—he scrapped alongside the gangs, same as me, same as everyone. But Rowen Locke kept out of it as much as he could.
It’s not that he was soft-hearted. Sweet goddess, I once saw him walk into a tavern—calm as falling snow—pluck a knife from a man’s belt, and use it to open that same man’s stomach. Repayment for a crime inflicted on some of the local children, the kind of crime even the gangs won’t stand for. They say he got permission from them before he did the deed, though they might have just said that after, to save face.
Anyway, when it was done, nobody said a word. I don’t think anybody could believe it. All you heard was that bastard howling. Everybody thought Locke would leave him like that, leave him to die slow and painful. Instead, Locke bent in and finished him off—still placid as the Wintersea—then dropped the knife and walked out. Oh, and in case I wasn’t clear, Locke wasn’t no grown man when he did it. The man he killed was big as a tree, sure, but I doubt Locke had more than twelve years on his bones at the time. I wasn’t much older.
Thing I want to add, though, is that after it was done and they hauled out the dead man to rot—I don’t even remember his name—everybody took to laughing and cheering, like it was some grand joke. I laughed, too. Only I saw Locke later, in an alley overgrown with weeds and sprinkled with dog-bones, crying like a kid who’d had his toy stolen. That brother of his was looming over him. When Kayden saw me, he chased me off. But I could tell I’d interrupted him yelling at little Rowen, hitting him, telling him to toughen up. I can’t blame him. In the Dark Quarter, tears are a waste of water.
I said before that Locke and I weren’t friends. Truth is, I hated him. Oh, he was tough, and that ain’t nothing, but I was still living in the Dark Quarter a stack of years later when he came back and joined the Red Watch. Maybe you think the Red Watch is just the city guard, pretty much the same as any other city big enough to host soldiers. But for a slum-dweller, joining the Red Watch is like turning traitor. When I saw him come back after all those years, dressed in that damn scarlet uniform, part of me wanted to sneak up and do to him what he’d done to that child-raper all those years before.
It wasn’t just that he’d turned traitor, though. See, for years, we’d all been hearing how Rowen Locke sailed off to the Lotus Isles to become a Knight, same as his brother. That he actually had a chance for a life outside of gangs and graverobbing. Only here he was, face blushing the same color as his tabard, and what happened was obvious: he’d failed.
That’s the part the storytellers forget. Before Rowen Locke became a hero, he tried to become a Knight, and they turned him away. His brother made it, sure, but Kayden got himself killed, and when it came Rowen’s turn to earn his armor, he didn’t meet the measure. So here he was, right back in the slums he’d tried so hard to escape. Only now, he was on the wrong side.
Sweet goddess, I despised him for that. If I’d had a chance like he did, I told myself, ain’t no man or demon that would stop me. Night after night, I thought about killing him, as a kind of revenge for letting us down. Maybe given more time and enough ale, I might have actually tried something. Only if you already know Locke’s story, you know what happened next: the witch he saved, the battles he fought, how he actually united the Red Watch with the gangs from the Dark Quarter and did things you’d have to see to believe.
Only I wasn’t there to see it. I had sense enough to get out of Lyos as soon as I sensed trouble brewing. I had friends in the Skull-Breakers who wanted me to stay, but I wouldn’t have it. Now, some of those friends are rich heroes living up in the city proper, while others are living in the ground. So I guess you could say I missed my chance to be a hero. But I kept my organs in the right places, and that ain’t nothing, either.
For years after that, I wandered, taking work where I could—and not the kind of work that good men brag about. I tried to forget all about Locke and what might have been, if I’d stayed. Only I kept hearing his name mentioned in taverns, in songs that made my skin crawl and my knuckles turn white. I knew those minstrels would never sing about me. I’d grown up in the same swill as Locke, done most of the same sins, only he was the hero. I was no one. And I’d never be anything else.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. One night, in some nameless little pig-town on the Simurgh Plains, I grabbed one of those minstrels—a young man with a face like a woman’s—and beat him within an inch of his life. Only that didn’t make me feel much better. And anyway, after that, I had to run. Turns out that minstrel’s family had a mind for revenge, his pretty face ruined and all, plus enough coins to hire a couple throat-slitters to come after me.
Ah, but I can see by the priest’s grimace, the priest who’s been writing all this down like a good little vessel for the goddess’s boundless love, that he doesn’t care much for my story. Don’t worry, Father. There isn’t much left. I can already see a little orange on the horizon and I’m sure they’ll be coming for me before long. So I’ll just wrap this up and let you be on your way.
By and by, I got away from the throat-slitters. It was winter so maybe the blizzards changed their minds. Or maybe they got caught up in the war, all those armies surging back and forth. But it doesn’t matter because I still ended up in a jail in Phaegos. Don’t ask me why. I woke up in chains, with a headache that said there was no point trying to remember how I’d gotten there. All I knew was what the jailor told me: that they were going to hang me as soon as the blizzard let up, along with a dozen or so other lads and ladies who’d offended whoever was in charge.
Believe it or not, it was the Feast of Tier’Gothma. I only knew that because the jailor told us. Gods, I wish he hadn’t. I’ve never had much use for holy days, leastwise ones that call upon you to give your loved ones presents and tell them you can’t live without them. I don’t know. Maybe I’d feel different, if I actually had loved ones. But it’s an awful thing, to face your death on a day when you’re supposed to be celebrating life.
Only that didn’t happen—the hanging, I mean. Because the gods have a brutish sense of humor, there I was—scared out of my mind, praying the snows wouldn’t let up, praying for another day, another hour—when word came that Locke’s army was heading this way. Locke’s army! Turns out he was a gods-damned general now. And like you’d expect, he was busy hunting somebody who needed to be robbed of life even more than I did. What’s more, every city that wanted to earn themselves a verse in future songs was already donating soldiers to his cause. But the governor of P
haegos didn’t want to risk his own men, so he gathered us condemned and gave us a choice: swing from the gallows like rotten apples, or put on uniforms and go fight demons or some such nonsense.
Your Feastday gift, he called it. The bastard.
Well, I said I’d go. I would have said anything. I planned to run as soon as I got the chance. Only once we were free, the great Rowen Locke himself came to talk to us. Gods, I hardly recognized him—all that silk and armor, plus a few fresh scars. But it was still the same face under all that kingsteel and polish. He gave us a fine speech, right there in the snow: told us that despite what we’d agreed to, he wouldn’t keep us against our will. He said that mercy was a choice, not a gift. He said we could go if we wanted. He wouldn’t stop us.
Only nobody left. His pretty words convinced everybody to stay and fight, to rise above their lot, to become heroes. Everybody but me.
Like I said, I don’t think he even recognized me. And he never saw me again. Come morning, I was already miles away. After a while, my anger cooled, but by then it was too late. The war was over. The gods had given me a second chance, the only gift I’ve ever been given, and I wasted it. Do you have any idea what that kind of knowledge does to a man? Is it any wonder I did what I did?
No, Father, don’t answer. I already know what you’re going to say. You can keep your sermons and incantations to yourself. And don’t think for a second that I don’t get the irony here. A year since I ran from Locke. A year, almost to the day. Only this time, I doubt the great general will come flying out of the winter sun to save me. But I’m going to face this without begging, without crying. I can do that, at least. And I won’t say I’m sorry, either. When you grow up like I did, you armor yourself however you can.
Tangled Lights and Silent Nights Page 4