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The Guardian
by Darragh Metzger
First Place
“Please, Grandpa? You gotta take me to the mall.” The whining tone had always worked on Kevin’s mom and dad. He probably expected Lew to cave just as easily. “Come on, it’s almost Christmas, and we can shop and everything.”
“It’s a madhouse out there, Christmas is a week away, and my shopping’s all done.” Grandpa Lew rattled his newspaper and turned a page without so much as a glance in Kevin’s direction. Or at the growing pile of brightly wrapped packages under the Christmas tree almost next to his easy chair. “Yours should be, too.”
“But I’m not done yet. There’s still stuff...”
“What stuff?”
Kevin made an exaggerated shrug meant to express the desperate importance of his entreaty, his freckled face as earnest as he could make it. “All kinds! And Santa’s there.” He moderated his tone to something more wheedling but equally annoying. “I’d get to see Santa and tell him what I want. And you could have a picture of it. He lets people take his picture and everything, and if you get your picture taken you get free ice cream.”
Grandpa Lew finally peered over the edge of his paper, directly at the boy. How Kevin could want an undoubtedly fake pseudo-ice cream-like substance when the smell of something baking that involved lots of butter, sugar, and cinnamon was wafting out of the kitchen in increasingly fragrant clouds was beyond him. It blended perfectly with the piney aroma of the tree. “Aha. Knew there had to be something more to all this.”
“That’s not why,” Kevin insisted. From the boy’s expression, that might even be true. Though Grandpa Lew strongly suspected free junk food had been the pièce de résistance. “Come on, Grandpa. You used to always want a photo of us with Santa when we were little. How’s he gonna know what I want if I can’t tell him?”
“You should have written a letter, like you used to.”
“It’s too late now – aw, c’mon Grandpa, pleeeeeese?”
Lew finally folded his paper to look fully at Kevin, noting the anticipatory glint in the eyes peering at him through a tangled nest of mouse-brown hair, and sighed. “Well, I see I’m not going to get any peace and quiet until we settle this.” He shook his head. “Boy, it’s time you knew the truth. That Santa’s a fake. They’re all fakes. There hasn’t been a real Santa Claus since 1961.” He gestured toward the slightly faded rag rug at his feet. “I guess it’s time I owned up. Sit down.” Not a request.
Kevin opened his mouth, closed it again. Momentarily de-railed, he slowly sank to the rug, staring up at his grandfather in round-eyed bewilderment.
The old man sighed again. “The snow came down pretty heavy that year. I loved snow back then. Sledding, ice skating down at the old pond, playing hooky-bob with passing cars on our street. And most of all, building snowmen. I must have made hundreds of ‘em, over the years. A good dozen that year alone.” He chuckled, then sobered again. “But the one I made on Christmas Eve was special. I just didn’t know it, at first....”
“Frosty the Snowman was a holly jolly soul, With a corn pop pipe and a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal...”
Lew wasn’t entirely sure of the lyrics, but it hardly mattered. The important part was singing it while his latest creation neared completion. His biggest, coolest, most supermurgitroid snowman ever. Night was seeping over the yard, dimming the snow to a sparkling grey, but he could see just fine by the bright, yellow light falling over him from the living room windows.
He stretched to place the newly-rolled head atop the rest of the sculpted mound already taller than he was, pleased with the way it compressed the neck roll to a burly lump and broadened the shoulders. This snowman wasn’t some wimpy old guy in a top hat. This snowman was going to be a soldier. Thanks to the trunk full of his dad’s WWII memorabilia he’d found in the attic, anyway.
He pulled a stained, musty army jacket out of the bag he’d stuffed everything into and arranged it carefully around the snowman’s brawny shoulders.
“Frosty the Snowman, was a mighty fighting man, With a khaki coat and his boots of goat and his bayonet in hand...”
The scuffed and worn boots were probably ordinary cow leather, not goat, but goat rhymed better. Lew had packed the base around them so they poked out, side-by-side, as if snowy cuffs were pulled down over the tops.
“Frosty the Snowman, had a big ol’ rifle too...”
The rifle was actually Lew’s broken BB gun, but it would have to do. The bayonet was real, at least, and it only wobbled a little on the barrel. As he sang, he planted the butt of the gun in the snow so it lined up correctly, then draped one of the jacket’s sleeves around it as if his soldier stood at attention, on guard.
“With his eagle eye he could always spy any Nazis and run them through...”
The sleeve looked limp by itself. He fed one of the naked tree branches he’d prepared through the sleeve, shoving it into the snowman’s torso about where the shoulder was supposed to be. Carefully snapping it at just the right angle made it easy to maneuver like a real arm. Now, that looked more like it! He did the other arm, fixing it so his soldier held a perpetual salute.
“There must have been some magic in those medals on his chest, ‘cause when he stood there with them on, he knew he was the best.”
Lew pulled out two of the medals he’d found in the trunk and examined them briefly. He wondered what they were for. His dad never talked about it. Well, the snowman had earned them for mighty deeds, for sure. He poked the round one with the red-striped ribbon into the middle of the chest area, where the jacket wouldn’t cover it. The star-shaped one on a red ribbon with the blue stripe went right below it.
Humming the tune while he made up new lyrics as he thought of them, Lew pushed a carrot and charcoal briquettes into the blank face for eyes and nose, then big, red beads from a broken necklace of his mother’s for the mouth. A stern mouth, he decided. Unsmiling.
His mother’s voice from the kitchen window cut through his concentration just as he was finishing. “Lew? Lewis! It’s getting late. Come in and get ready for bed. You musn’t be awake when Santa comes.”
“Okay, Mom, coming.”
Time for the finishing touch. Lew lifted the scratched, dull green helmet from the bag and placed it carefully on the snowman’s head. He stepped back to study his handywork, then straightened to attention and saluted his snow soldier. “Sgt. Frosty, you are hereby assigned to guard this base against any and all intruders. We’re counting on you, Sarge.”
He turned and skipped through the snow toward the house, still singing.
“Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump, go, Sarge Frosty, go. Thumpety thump, thump, thumpety thump, thump, beating up the foe...”
A muffled cry and a thud woke Lew from dreams of ripping into piles of brightly wrapped packages. He sat up, blinking, and heard another thud, like something heavy landing hard in the snow outside. And what sounded like a snarl.
Lew slid out of bed, rushed to the window, and pulled the drapes aside. More snow had fallen earlier, but now the moon shone, the sky around it awash with stars peeping from between drifting, dark clouds. The soft light turned the back yard into a pristine expanse of glittering silver beneath his gaze. Nothing moved. But he could still hear what sounded like trouble.
Grabbing his robe from the bedpost on his way to the door, Lew sped down the stairs to the living room, dashed to the front windows, and pulled open the heavy curtains.
There in the front yard, a whirling maelstrom of black, white, and grey-toned fury thrashed in the snow, kicking and grunting with strain. Before Lew could even grasp what he saw, the opponents rolled into the pool of porchlight, leaped apart, and crouched, face-to-face and ready to renew hostilities in the next breath.
Sgt. Frosty had discarded the useless BB gun, but clutched the bayonet in one wooden hand. The blank white face sported a fierce, red-beaded grimace; above it, briquette eyes held a deadly glare.
Opposite him, balancing on black-booted toes, a long, thick-bladed knife in one hand, crouched a small, stocky figure in a white-trimmed red suit....
“Santa Claus?” breathed Lew in disbelief. The jolly old elf didn’t look so jolly just now. In fact, he looked downright terrifying. A corona of wild, white hair surrounded a face twisted into a snarl from which oversized eyes gleamed with cunning malice. Short, sure, maybe three feet or less, but built like a tank. More like what Kevin had always imagined a dwarf looked like than an elf. A battle dwarf. Someone who wrestled reindeer, raced around the world in a single night, leaped tall buildings, raced across roofs and up and down chimneys hauling everything from model airplanes and dolls to full-blown go-carts, and rode herd on who-knew-how many magic-wielding elves. The guy had some serious mojo. And it showed.
With a growl like an angry bear, Santa launched himself at Frosty and the snowman somehow dodged the slashing blade, thrusting with the bayonet. Twig fingers on his free hand clawed at Santa’s eyes and the elf snarled in rage and pain, jerking back.
The little man broke free and leaped, curled like a red-clad bowling ball, and smashed into the snowman, scattering white chunks everywhere. Frosty went down, but rolled back and up in one smooth move. Santa scuttled after him, stabbing and slashing again and again in a blur of motion. The snow soldier lost the bayonet and the wooden fingers holding it, but Frosty didn’t seem to care. He threw himself on the red-suited invader as if to smother him in a snowy embrace.
They went down again, rolling toward the porch in a flurry of flailing limbs and flying snow. The big knife joined the bayonet somewhere in a snowdrift, but the savagery of the battle remained unimpaired.
Lew’s paralysis finally broke and he dashed to the door. He had no clear idea what to do, maybe shout new orders at Sgt. Frosty to cease and desist or stand down or whatever worked. But when he jerked open the door, the rolling mass of snow and muscled fury smashed into him, knocking him flat in an icy brume of pine and gingerbread-scented chaos. He tried to shout, choked on a mouthful of snow, and wasted precious moments coughing and spitting.
Santa sprang to his feet and grabbed Frosty around the torso, pinning the powerful wooden arms. “Stand back, son,” he growled. “I’ll handle this.” He scuttled backward into the kitchen, dragging a kicking, fighting Frosty.
Lew rose and staggered after them, still trying to recover his voice. He slipped on a puddle of melting snow and clutched the counter to save himself, staring in horror as Santa kicked open the oven – he was going to melt Sgt. Frosty! “No,” croaked Lew, reaching out one hand in protest, “wait—”
Frosty twisted, Santa slipped, and somehow the snowman got the upper hand. Rising to his rapidly diminishing height, he raised a struggling Santa overhead and hurled the elf straight into the deep fat fryer! A splash, a muffled scream, sizzling, and Lew keeled over in a dead faint.
“When I woke up, Frosty had melted away. I pulled Santa out. What was left of him. He looked like a Christmas ham.” Lew shook his head sadly. “My folks had slept through the whole thing. I cleaned up, got the bayonet and knife and packed them with the rest of my dad’s things back in the attic, dried the floor with a towel. Made everything like it was. Much as I could, anyway.”
Kevin’s voice came out a tiny squeak. “What… what did you do with Santa?”
Grandpa Lew raised an eyebrow at him. “Told you, he looked like a Christmas ham. Seemed the best way to get rid of the evidence. Mom was a little surprised to find a ham alongside the turkey in the pantry, but we had a lot of relatives coming over, so it all worked out. No one complained. I stuck with the turkey, though.”
Kevin’s eyes went even rounder. He jumped to his feet, clapped a hand over his mouth, and dashed from the room.
His mom appeared from the kitchen, crossing her arms as she leaned against the doorframe. “You’re going to Hell, Dad. You know that, right?”
Lew chuckled and opened his paper back up. “I overheard him tell one of his little friends he didn’t really believe in Santa anymore. No harm, no foul.”
She shook her head. “And when he learns that, for instance, home deep fryers weren’t around back then?”
“Well, by then you’ll have saved a bundle on seasonal trips to the mall, won’t you?” Grandpa Lew chuckled again, leaned back in his chair, and turned to the sports page. “Merry Christmas, kiddo.”
Winning pieces are published as received.
Fiction Potluck
October 2024
First Place Winner:
Darragh Metzger
Darragh makes her living in the world's two lowest-paying professions: acting and writing. Her acting credits include stage, screen, and jousting with The Seattle Knights. She has eleven novels, two short story collections, and one non-fiction work available through www.tfapress.com. She is married to artist Dameon Willich.