The Christmas Surprise

by R. R. Banks

  "What did you choose?" I asked him.

  "One of my favorite Christmas movies," he said.

  I groaned slightly.

  "Does it really have to be a Christmas movie?"

  "Yes. What do you have against Christmas movies?"

  I shrugged.

  "I'm just not the biggest Christmas person." I held up a finger to stop him before he even said anything. "And you already used up your one-time making a comment about my name, so don't try it again."

  Graham chuckled as he walked back towards me with a remote that looked as though it would be able to control several UFOs if Graham just pointed it up toward the sky.

  "That doesn't sound like a very fun way to be."

  "No?"

  "No. I love Christmas. I always have, but even more so after Charlie was born. That's actually one of the reasons why I was upset to have to travel all the way to my ex-wife's house to see them this Christmas."

  "Why?"

  "I usually volunteer at the Children's Hospital around Christmas."

  "You do?"

  Graham nodded, pointing the remote towards the TV and starting the movie. The grainy warning that appeared on the screen told me that he had selected one of the VHS tapes.

  "I endowed a building a few years back," he said. "We threw a Christmas party to celebrate when it opened, and I played Santa Claus. The parents, nurses, and doctors had gotten all the children to write letters to Santa in the weeks before the party and I used them to buy some gifts for the children and to create a toy room for them, so they could play in between treatments and things. It was great. They liked it so much that we started doing it every year. I had to find a last-minute replacement this year. I hope that he does a good job."

  Graham's voice sounded distant suddenly, like somewhere in his mind he was back at the hospital with those children.

  Wait. Did he say that he endowed a building? Holy shit. Who was this man?

  The movie started, and I looked over at Graham incredulously.

  "Ghostbusters? Seriously?"

  "Well, you mentioned it earlier and it made me want to watch it."

  "I thought you said that you were going to pick a Christmas movie," I said.

  "I did. Ghostbusters."

  "Ghostbusters is not a Christmas movie," I protested.

  "Of course, it is. Haven't you ever paid attention? Or is this another one of those movies that you haven't seen enough to be able to reference it?"

  "Actually," I said, "it's one of my favorites. I've seen it so many times that I could probably quote every line in it. And that means that I know for a fact that there is nothing in it that makes it a Christmas movie."

  "Obviously you haven't paid as much attention as you thought you had," he said. "If you watch, you'll see the team running wearing Santa hats during one of the montages."

  "I shook my head."

  "That's in Ghostbusters 2," I said.

  "I think you're wrong."

  "Well that's something new and different."

  Graham reached over and grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl in my lap.

  "Just watch the movie. I'll point the scene out to you so that you can fully embrace how wrong you are. "

  "I still contend that it's a Christmas movie," Graham said.

  I walked down the three steps from the porch and turned around to look at him.

  "Seriously? We just watched the movie. There is no Christmas. No Santa hats. No Christmas trees. The closest thing to Christmas is when the giant marshmallow man gets toasted and even then since none of him falls into a giant mug of hot cocoa, I can't consider it a Christmas movie."

  "But the weather changes throughout the movie," Graham said. "There's a point where they're wearing lighter clothes and then there's a point where they're wearing winter coats. So obviously at some point Christmas did happen."

  "So, let me get this straight," I said. "Your argument is that because there was a passage of time in the movie and that in some abstract way they must have observed Christmas in some off-stage scene, that we as an audience are supposed to assume that the action took place during the Christmas season, and therefore it is a Christmas movie?"

  "Yes."

  I laughed.

  "The fancy footwork of your logic knows no bounds."

  The snow had stopped, making it easier for us to walk along the unpaved road that meandered through the village. Though the snow was still deep, there were tire tracks that made it easier to follow. We had been roaming along for a few minutes, not really having a destination in mind, when Graham looked up and stopped.

  "Look at that," he said pointing across the street.

  "What?"

  "It's a post office," he said. "Maybe I can have some money wired there."

  It seems that he always had money on his mind, but now that I had heard him casually mention that he had paid for an entire building at a children's hospital, it made more sense. Someone who can just toss out a declaration like that without a second thought wasn't accustomed to not having money at their disposal.

  We jogged across the street toward the post office and rushed up the steps onto the wooden platform in front of it. I grabbed at the banister as my feet hit a patch of ice on the wood and I started to slip. I caught myself and continued on, but Graham spun around and looked at me.

  "You really shouldn't be wearing shoes like that if you're walking on ice," he said.

  "Well I wasn't really planning on doing any ice tracking while I was on my tropical vacation," I told him.

  I took a few more steps and hit another patch of ice. This time I wasn't able to catch myself and I slid forward, swinging my arms as much as I could to try to stay on my feet. Graham reached out and caught me before I could hit the ground. He pulled me back up to my feet, keeping his arms around me until I was securely standing. I looked into his eyes for a brief moment, then glanced away, suddenly slightly breathless.

  "Are you OK?" he asked.

  I stepped away from him and brushed myself off.

  "I'm fine," I said. "Thank you."

  We stepped into the tiny post office. It looked empty and I started to wonder if this is one of those places where no one locked their doors, including businesses. Before I could ponder what type of person that made me that I was still trying to remember if I had actually locked my motel room door, an ancient man rose up from behind the counter in front of us. If it happened any faster it would have been startling, but as it was it was more eerie than scary. He rose up slowly, decked out like a newspaper man from the turn of the century; a white button-up shirt with black bands around his upper arms, black slacks, and a canvas apron. If it hadn't been for the shimmering pom-poms and jingle bells that adorned his green visor, I might have thought that we had encountered the ghost of Whiskey Hollow.

  "Hi," I said, more an impulse than a greeting.

  "Hello," the elderly man said with a dryness that belied his outfits glittering embellishments. "You two aren't from around here."

  It was hard to tell whether this was an accusation or more just an observation, but I felt stuck in place even as Graham took a few steps toward the counter.

  "No, we aren't. We were on a train that got stuck and ended up here."

  "Welcome," he said, still no emotion or enthusiasm slipping into the words.

  "Thank you," I said.

  Graham glanced over his shoulder at me and then back at the man.

  "My name is Graham Castle, and this is Holly Abbott." He leaned over the counter and dropped his voice into a slightly chuckling conspiratorial whisper. "But don't ask her if that means that she loves Christmas, cuz she hates that."

  "I would think so," the man said.

  I muffled my laughter but still stayed where I was standing.

  "It looks like we might be spending the next couple of days here," Graham continued. "And I was hoping that you might be able to help me out."

  "My name is Coy," the man said. "I'm Whiskey Hollow’s official news
paper man and postmaster. What can I do for you?"

  "It seems that somewhere between the train and the motel I managed to lose my wallet," Graham said.

  "That doesn't seem like a very smart thing to do," Coy said.

  At this point I took a few steps forward. It seems that Graham might have met his match and I didn't want to miss any of it.

  "No, no it wasn't," Graham said. "But that's the position I find myself in and I wanted to know if I could have money wired to me here."

  As he contemplated this request like he was contemplating the mysteries of the universe, my eyes wandered, then fell on what looked like a red velvet bag drooped on the corner of the counter.

  "No, I don't think I can help you out with that. I'm sorry, but I never did get a hang of those newfangled machines. Besides, most people around here in the hollow only know people in the hollow, there doesn't seem much need to wire money from the hollow to the hollow."

  "I guess not," Graham said.

  "What's that?" I asked, gesturing towards the bag.

  Coy followed my point and then looked back at me.

  "Those are letters to Santa Claus," he said. "I start gathering them up on towards Halloween time."

  "What do you do with them?"

  Coy sighed and stared back at the letters.

  "Used to be that I would try to get the letters to the parents of the children, so they could use them to buy Christmas presents. But too often the parents couldn't afford what the children wanted, and it just made them sad. A couple years back I started writing back to the children, letting them know that I thought they were all very good children, that I appreciated all they were doing, minding their parents and being as good as they could, but that I, pretending to be Santa Claus of course, was just training up a new set of elves and they just weren't quite ready to be making all the toys that all the children of the world wanted, so I hope they understood and would be able to love and appreciate whatever gifts they did get."

  I felt a squeeze in my heart and then unexpected sting of tears in my eyes.

  "Why do you keep them in the red bag?"

  "They're letters to Santa Claus see," he said. "It just seems appropriate."

  I saw Graham nod, his eyes locked on the bag of letters. Suddenly he seemed to snap out of whatever thought he had become lost in and looked back at Coy.

  "Thank you for your help anyway," he said.

  Graham stalked toward the door and I followed him.

  "Merry Christmas Holly."

  I looked back at Coy, who met my eyes, and I had the inexplicable feeling that he was seeing something that I didn't see when I looked in a mirror. I managed the hint of a smile and a slight nod.

  "Have a good afternoon, Coy."

  I walked out of the post office and didn't see Graham. I carefully made my way to the end of the wooden platform and felt my heart jump into my throat as a hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged me around the corner of the building. I looked beside me and saw Graham crouched down, appearing around the corner.

  "You are seriously going to have to stop doing things like that," I said.

  Graham made a hushing sound and held up a finger.

  "Quiet," he said.

  "What are you doing?"

  "You need to go back in and distract Coy."

  "I need to do what?"

  My voice had crept higher and Graham hushed me again.

  "Just go in and distract him," he said.

  "And how do you suggest I do that?"

  "Ask him some questions. Get him talking. The man looks like it would do him some good to sit in his laundry basket and get ironed right along with his shirts. I'm sure that he has some stories that he wouldn't mind telling. Just get him over on the far side of the counter and distract him."

  "What exactly is it that you're planning? I have a cruise to get to and I'm not interested in spending Christmas in jail because I was an inadvertent party to some sort of weird Holiday Heist."

  "It's not a heist," Graham said. "Just do it."

  "And exactly how long is it that you want me to distract him?"

  "I'll let you know."

  "You'll what?"

  "Just go."

  "You are really fucking demanding," I said, standing up. "Has anyone ever told you that."

  "All the time."

  "Good. As long as you're aware."

  Not knowing why I was going along with what he told me to do, I made my way back up the wooden platform hoping that I manage to stay on my feet. I opened the door to the post office and found it apparently empty again. I waited for Coy to make his grand ascent from behind the counter, but he didn't. I waited a few more seconds then opened the door again leaning out and looking to the corner where Graham had been hiding.

  "He's not even in the room."

  "Who isn't?"

  I gasped and turned around with a wide fake smile to see Coy back behind the counter.

  Did I somehow miss him? Is he so skinny that he turned sideways and blended into the stripes on the wallpaper?

  I stepped the rest of the way into the post office, still grinning madly, and slowly approached the counter. Coy was eyeing me suspiciously, which I probably would have been doing too if I was in his position.

  "Is there something that I can do for you, Holly?"

  "I, um, I was just wondering if you maybe had any Christmas cards for sale."

  "Christmas cards?" Coy asked.

  "Yeah," I said. "I figured if I might be here for a few days I might as well get ahead with my Christmas correspondence."

  "I wouldn't exactly call this getting ahead" Coy said. "Unless you're getting started on next year's cards."

  "I just might do that," I said.

  "Well, there's a display of them right up there in that front corner."

  I turned around and started to walk towards the spinning rack of cards when I saw Graham through the window creeping up the wooden platform. I whirled around and rushed up to the counter again.

  "Actually, I'd love to know more about Whiskey Hollow. You said that you are the newspaper man?"

  "That's right. I've been running a newspaper here in Whiskey Hollow since before you were born."

  "Wow. That's amazing. Would you happen to have any archived volumes that I would be able to read?"

  His eyes lit up about as much as I imagine his eyes ever could and he nodded.

  "It just so happens that I've been keeping a copy of every issue of the newspaper since my first day. Of course, there's a couple of gaps since all of the copies of some of the issues were destroyed in the fire of the first and a half Church of Whiskey Hollow, the brief Second Whiskey Rebellion, and the first illumination of the Christmas Bell... Well, come to think of it really wasn't so much an illumination as it was a raging fire that just so happened to have a positive outcome."

  "Oh, well, silver linings," I said.

  "I keep the archives in the back," he said. "I'll go grab you a few of the highlights."

  He walked through a door behind the counter and I heard the door to the post office open, sending the bells hanging overhead jangling loudly.

  "You still there?" he asked from the back.

  "I'm here," I called back. "I just thought that it had started snowing again and I was going to run outside and... catch a snowflake."

  I grimaced and covered my face with my hands.

  It's a damn good thing that I have no real criminal aspirations. I would land in jail before I even started.

  Graham was still crouched close to the ground and I watched him scramble toward the counter. He reached up and snatched the red velvet bag, then carefully eased the door open, slipping out through it and gradually closing it so that the bells wouldn't ring. I sighed and let my shoulders relax, only to straighten and stiffen again, my face pulled back into another wide grin as Coy came back out of the room. He was holding a stack of newspapers and held them out to me.

  "This should tide you over for a bit. I included the most recen
t couple of issues for you. I thought you might like to brush up on the goings on around the hollow for while you're here."

  "Thank you," I said and looked down at the papers in my hand. "Wow. This looks...great. Well, looks like I've got a lot of reading ahead of me, so I should probably go ahead and get started." I lifted my eyes to him again. "Have a good afternoon. Again. Still."

  "Uh-huh."

  I backed up for a few feet, then turned and did my best not to run out of the post office and down the wooden platform.

  What in fresh hell was happening?

  I went back around the corner of the building and found Graham standing there with the bag of letters over his shoulder.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "I wanted to read them."

  "So, you stole a bunch of letters to Santa Claus?"

  "I prefer to think that I borrowed them. I'll sneak them back in before I leave. I doubt he's even going to notice."

  "I don't know about that."

  "What are those?" Graham asked, eyeing the newspapers in my hand.

  "All I could think of was to ask for archived issues of the newspaper."

  He glanced at the top issue.

  "The Holler Holler?"

  "Yep, the local paper and gossip rag all in one.”

  "Sounds interesting.”

  I shook my head.

  "I have no idea." I looked around. "So, what do we do now? I don't see Boom Boom."

  "I guess we start looking."

  He swung himself over the side of the platform and hopped down into the snow. I was rapidly tiring of the winter wonderland and my joints were aching with the cold, but I didn't have any choice but to climb over and follow him. We walked further into the village and soon started noticing more signs of life. People were bundled up to their noses as they scurried around, but they seemed to be determined not to let the snow keep them from going about their daily lives. They shouted greetings to us and I felt a warm sense of welcome settling into my chest, taking some of the edge off of the misery of being wet and cold. Finally, I heard a familiar voice call out.

  "Holly!"

  I turned toward the voice and saw Rue waving at me from a pickup truck.

  "Hi, Rue," I said.

  "You two aren't chasing each other around again, are you?" she asked, looking at Graham.