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+--- Thread: You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry... [CS22] (/showthread.php?tid=151)
You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry... [CS22] - BIAD - 12-05-2022
Maybe I should prime the pump?!
The chime of midnight was fast approaching and just as KNUZ's Burt Masters had said on the radio, the blizzard had arrived
in Benbrook on Christmas Eve. The eleven year-old boy gazed out of the bedroom window at the swinging blinking lights
strung out across Main Street and marvelled at the single flakes of snow battling against the gusts of wind on their way to
form a drift beside Mister Hidell's store's doorway across the way.
Harvey shivered inwardly and wondered if the old man who repaired shoes would be clearing his residence of business on
the morning when everyone else would be gaily ripping open wrapping-paper and under a pine-smelling decorated tree.
Of course, Harvey was thinking about the rich kids on the other side of the tracks, the ones with a real father... children
that didn't include himself.
Another blast of air hurled a flurry of snow at Harvey's window as if to warn him about his wool-gathering, his vigil was
for the bringer of those gifts and the lad nibbled his bottom lip as he wondered if this year he'd be on a certain list the
crimson-robed fat man carried on his person.
Santa Clause was supposedly on his way to Texas and in a snowstorm that promised to rival any television setting Bing
Crosby could conjure up and meanwhile, decisions of a future were being constructed in an sparsely-furnished bedroom
and in a head of a boy who wanted more.
The small world of the boy at the window had become absent of colour and in that kingdom of buffeting winds and icy
shards, Harvey's attention turned away from scanning the starless night sky and frolicked in the strange story the
shoemaker had told him. Mister Hidell had spoken of many things during Harvey's time working in the cobbler's ramshackle
premises, a strange woman called Aura Rhanes, puzzling ramblings of a clandestine takeover within the Government by
shady people and flying saucers avoiding something called radar.
A fleeting sparkle in the maelstrom outside caused the boy to abandon his musings and peer upwards for further verification
of tonight's parcel-laden visitor. Harvey's unblinking eyes surveyed the cyclone's chaos and glimpsed seemingly composed
patterns, odd runes of arrangement and mizmazes of rebus cipher within the randomness of the squall. To one of the
wealthy male-scion dreaming of red bicycles and Ichiko Space Patrols, the riddle in the snow would go unnoticed.
But Harvey saw the symbols easily.
The twinkle came again and without taking his contemplation from the moving glint of light, the boy from an impoverished
upbringing reached for the only true gift that he'd really appreciated. The rifle given to him from Mister Hidell for his supposed
protection from the shady-ones. "When they come for you, they'll know what you're thinking..." the old man had warned as
he'd passed the wax-paper-wrapped package over the counter of his store. "...A friend I know is over at Landers and reckons
Rhanes' people will try another arrival", this statement was accompanied with a wink of the canny.
The rotund man on the flying sleigh swooped down through the blizzard and with a wave of his hand, the reindeer executed
a landing that any pilot of the craft Mister Hidell had described would be proud of. Harvey quickly clasped the cold barrel of
the weapon and dashed to his bed, the turmoil of his thoughts equivalent to the anarchy of nature outside.
Santa Clause was coming to town.
..............................................................
The freezing breath of the Texas snowstorm dragged the temperature of Harvey's bedroom down to parallel that of the algific
kingdom of the man now slumped in the deep snow. The boy squinted to avoid the icy flakes streaming into the open window
as he peered out to see Santa's tunic coloured with a different style of red. Noticing a dim illumination in the shadows of
Mister Hidell's establishment, faint half-baked theories bustled for room as to what his own role may be in Hidell's weird
suspicions that the USA was being invaded.
But he was just an eleven year-old boy at the beginning of nineteen fifty, a son of a dead man and a struggling mother. If it
hadn't been for the dusty lightbulb in the Cobbler's shop, Harvey would've pulled the paint-peeling window closed and get to
the spilt sack of presents near his bed.
But the youngster's attention went back to the well-fed altruist who'd feebly attempted a snow-angel during his dying and
the herd of harnessed engines sniffing and snorting impatiently. He might remember the names of the reindeer if he was
urged, but the uninterested caribou emulated the boy's sympathy for the porcine Kriss Kringle laid in the snow.
Once more, Harvey was more interested in the dull light across the street. What was the old cordwainer doing up at this
hour...? the shivering kid pondered as he determined his goal had been met and glancing back at the bag of goodies,
Mister Hidell's worries of spaceships and sensual off-worlders would have to be placed on the back-burner for now.
"You've been a good boy this year" Harvey Oswald whispered to himself as he plucked a Christmas present from the sack
and excitedly began to peel the wrapping open. He was on the right side of the tracks -he thought, just as the Benbrook
town-clock struck twelve.
The End.
RE: You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry... [CS22] - ABNARTY - 12-06-2022
I love your writing. Thanks for posting
