Another Christmas Story

                        ANOTHER CHRISTMAS STORY

                                  By Doc Walton

   I stopped in front of, then sat on, the park bench for really no reason at all.  I had passed it by dozens of times before on the walk from my place to Governor's Park Restaurant and it had never quite entered my conscious mind.  Park benches, I thought now, were for people with spare time.  This day was proving different, though, perhaps even predestined.

   Anyway, I sat there on this snow covered, winter day and I watched as a modestly clad, bearded younger man approached my bench from the winding park path.  He had very intense eyes and as he neared they locked on mine in such a way that I was unable to look elsewhere.  Despite his fierce eyes the man's manner was somehow reassuring and not at all threatening.  He walked up and found a place beside me on the bench.

   "Jesus!"  I said.

   "That's me."  He said

   "What are you doing here?" I asked with the accent heavily on the "you."

   "Nice to meet you too," he replied with just a hint of grin.

   "Sorry," I said, sticking out my hand, "I'm..."

   "I know who you are," he interrupted, which was okay with me, him being the son of God and all that.  "You're part of the reason I'm here."

   "Me?"  I blurted, "Me?  What did I do?"  Dumb question, I thought.  He could probably recite a long list.  But on second thought I knew the list couldn't be much worse than most people's and had to be a lot better than some.

   "I'll get right to the point," he said very sincerely, looking me straight in the eyes.  "I'm getting a little tired of your lack of Christmas spirit and your lame jokes about celebrating Santa Claus' birthday and the whole bah humbug routine.  I want you to get off it.  I want you to cut it out right now."

day Scrooge jokes.  It was probably time to stop.  But...there was something in his tone I didn't quite like; something a little too righteous and a wee bit pushy.

   "Okay," I said, my voice rising, "I'll knock it off if you quit ignoring all the bad stuff that is going on down here."

   I could tell by his change of expression that he didn't like the way this was playing out.  I imagined he was used to various degrees of awe when he spoke to mortals and I wasn't giving him any.  I could see he was getting a little miffed because he grabbed my lapels, leaned towards me, and whispered through clenched teeth, “What I do down here is none of your business.  What is your business is to do what I tell you or you could end up very badly, if you get my drift.”

   This was going too far.  I hate being threatened.  I could feel my adrenaline at all those fight or flight spots.  I knew he wasn’t bluffing and he could surely punch my ticket to hell, but I just couldn’t stop myself.  I brought up both forearms hard and fast, breaking his grip on my lapels, and then, don’t ask me why, let’s just say the Devil made me do it, I followed with a good, stiff slap to his cheek.  He fell back a little, his eyes wide with astonishment.  He measured me for what seemed like a long moment and then getting very still, very composed… he calmly turned the other cheek.

   Well what would you do?  What I did probably wasn’t the best thing, but you know, it was like he was teasing me, daring me.  I couldn’t help it.  I threw the left with everything I had, fully expecting to get zapped by a lightning bolt or something like that.  What I didn’t expect was his right arm coming up to block the punch and his own left landing squarely in the center of my forehead, knocking me off the bench and onto the snow.  I had barely enough wits when he leaped at me to get my knees up and flip him to the side where we both grabbed each other and began rolling over and over in the snow trying to gain an advantage.  We did this for awhile with neither of us getting anywhere and I was beginning to tire when through the grunts of effort I heard a sarcastic voice ask loudly, “Are you boys about finished?”

   I looked up and saw the familiar blue uniform of one of Denver’s finest.

   “Oh, sorry Officer,” I sputtered, spitting snow while letting go of my adversary who jumped to his feet along with me.  “My friend and I were just...” I was drawing a blank. “My friend and I were just…frolicking!” I said, happy that something popped into my head even if it was “frolicking.”  I was still a tad dizzy. 

   The officer looked at Jesus, looked at him a long time like someone trying to remember a face before asking him, “Is that your story too?”

   Jesus looked right back at the cop with that intense eyes thing he does while I stood there mentally weighing the difference between jail food and Dante’s Inferno and realizing that both seemed likely in my near future.  To my great surprise, JC’s face lit with a huge grin the likes of which you have never seen in Bible pics, and starting to laugh he said, “That’s absolutely right, Officer, we were just frolicking, you know frolicking.”  He seemed to like saying the word.

   The cop, however, was not amused.  He growled “I want the both of you out of this park five minutes ago.  You get what I’m saying?”

   I put my arm around JC’s shoulder and headed him down the path away from our blue suited pal who was left muttering something about all the weirdos being on his beat
   “You know,” I said, turning to look at the son of the Big Guy to make sure I wasn’t mistaken and I wasn’t, “Guv’s Park Tavern is just down the block a bit, can I buy you a beer?”

   “Sure,” he said with that shiny grin still all over his face, “but if you don’t mind, I prefer wine.”

   “No problem,” I said, and then added, “Say Jesus, I’m sorry about that thing back there.  I mean, I was way out of line.”

   “Nah,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder too, so that we walked along like a couple of navy buddies on shore leave, “I was coming on much too strong.”

   And that is really all there is to tell.  Some time and several beers later I left JC at the bar where he was amusing patrons and annoying the bartender with his never empty wine glass trick.  I still don’t know for sure if he is all he is cracked up to be, but I guess I’ll find out someday.  I do know that he means well, he’s over two thousand years old, and he throws a damn - I mean darn – fine left hand! 

   So Happy Birthday Big Guy’s kid and Merry Christmas to everyone else.

Doc Walton

December 1999