Here is second part of this year's Christmas Story.
If you haven't read part I yet, Part II will not make much sense Go here to catch up, we'll wait: A Christmas Janice Part I
A Christmas Janice
By Joel T Johnson
Part II
Charlie's old Jeep Wagoneer pawed the snow with little effort, but Charlie had to look sharp to find the road, centering himself between the fur trees off either side of the road.
“Where are we?” said the stranger?
“We're headed down old 66 to the Freeway. “said Charlie Eagle Claw. “You said there was a train that went under the Interstate. There's only one place in these parts like that, so that's where we're goin' the old Observatory Road.”
“I mean, is this Arizona?”
“Yeah man, Flagstaff.”
“I think I'm from somewhere else.”
“Yeah brother, that wouldn't surprise me.”
They passed a sign for Interstate 40 East to the left. It was barely visible. The Jeep's tires were the only tracks on the road. An opening in the furs showed a road to the right.
“That's it! That's it!” the stranger cried, pointing at the meager opening in the trees.
“Yeah, I was about to say that.”
The Wagoneer burst through the snow bank left by the plows and left a white cloud behind them.
“Hang onto that bar on the dash there friend. It’s going to get a little dicey here.” Charlie said slapping the dash.
The engine strained and raced as the wheels made and broke their traction. The headlights blazed against the airborne snow. Charlie wiped the inside of the windshield to better see into the blowing snow. It was no good. He rolled down his window and stuck his head out. The truck lurched to the side.
“Shit.”
Charlie sun the wheel to the left and gunned the engine. The Jeep straightened out.
“Damn! Sorry Buddy, it's hard to tell where that ditch is when I can barely see the trees. You remember how far down this road?”
“There's a bridge, I'm not sure how far.”
“I know the one. Bout a mile maybe less. I'm not sure how much further we're going to get on this road. That snow’s getting' real deep.”
Like a jinx, the truck began to slow. Snow rubbed on the undercarriage. The wheels began to spin more and move less till the whine of spinning tires replaced all forward momentum.
“C'mon mule!” Charlie said as he patted the gearshift affectionately, “You can do it, baby.”
The stranger rolled his window down and looked at the trees through the snow. He opened his door and jumped out.
“No time to loose,” he yelled over the racing engine. “This way.”
“Wait!” yelled Charlie, but the stranger ran off into the dark beyond the headlights.
Charlie grabbed the flashlight from under the seat and jumped out of the truck. He felt himself falling and falling like he’d fallen of a rather high roof.
He'd had some experience with that.
WHAM!
Charlie picked himself up from his face-plant in the deep snow. He leaned over to steady himself against the Jeep and fell into the snow again. There was nothing there. He spun around to look for the Jeep or the beams of it's headlights. There was snow, wind and plenty of it.
---
Janice turned the TV off. She was beginning to find it really annoying. She went back to the window then returned to the bar and back and forth several times before she settled on the window. She stared into the snow and wind swirling in the bar's lone street light.
She hated that she was wringing her hands like some God-damned widow.
Her phone rang. She ran behind the bar and fished it from her purse on the fifth ring. There were still no bars.
She was about to say hello but she heard something completely unexpected.
Singing.
“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas...”
“Hello, hello?” Janice said into her mobile phone.
The singing continued. It was a whole group of people singing loudly and poorly. The worse the singer, the louder they were wailing.
Janice checked the phone for an ID. It was her sister Margaret.
“Maggie! Hey Maggie!”
More singing.
“Okay, okay... I get it. I was kinda rude before and this is my punishment because you know I hate Christmas carols, and especially that one. Yeah okay, you can all stop your horrible singing now. Hey, y'all can't even hear me over all that caterwauling can you...”
Janice had her answer as the song continued. When they finished, cheers broke out. Janice pulled the phone from her ear and grimaced.
When the cheering died down Janice heard laughter give way to more conversation.
“Let's sing another.”
“No, no... it's getting really bad.”
“Yeah, let's play a game.”
“HEY! HELLO! You called me ya know.” Janice yelled into her phone.
It was as if she were a fly on the wall.
Wait a minute, Janice thought, Maggie must have ass-dialed me. She has no idea I am on the phone.
This ought to be good.
She made sure the volume on her phone was all the way up and settled in for a good laugh.
“What game should we play?” a man's voice said.
“How about twenty questions.”
It was the voice of Maggie's husband, Ed.
“You have one.” Margaret's voice said.
“As a matter of a fact I do.”
“Okay... animal vegetable or mineral.”
“Animal,” Ed said.
“Dangerous?” said a woman.
“Oh yes, I would say so.”
“Venomous?” said a man.
“No man dares get close.”
“A Dragon?” guessed a woman.
“Well, she does smoke like a chimney.”
“Oh my God, you're talking about Janice!” said Margaret.
“You got it!”
The room erupted in laughter.
“Oh, you are all terrible!” Margaret said, “That's my sister.”
“You were the one who guessed it Margaret.”
“She actually invited her here,” said Ed.
“Oh Margaret, when are you going to give up on that girl.”
“Well never of course... I'm just not sure what I'll do if she ever accepts one of my invitations.”
“Dragon proof the house,” someone said.
The laughter burned in Janice's ears.
Janice clicked off her phone and dropped it to the floor where she stood. Silent tears ran down her face. She mopped them away with the back of her hand and quickly made her way behind the bar. She grabbed a tumbler and filled it with vodka. She took a hard swig and fumbled in her purse for a cigarette then her lighter. She cursed bitterly as she dug in amongst tampon packages, travel tissues and rarely used compacts for her pink Bic. Her hand was shaking when she finally put the flame to the end of her cigarette.
The cigarette crackled like a campfire when she inhaled.
“God dammit.” She said. “Why the hell am I even crying. Fucking people, fucking Charlie, and fucking… whatever the hell your name is.”
Janice finished her drink and poured another. If Harv walked in right now, she'd be fired, right there on the spot. She wished he had.
----
“Carl!” Meg yelled between grunts, It’s starting to hurt real bad.”
Carl reached over and offered his hand. Meg took it and squeezed hard. The burning knot inside her pulled itself so tight that it was near impossible to do the one thing she knew she was supposed to do: breath.
Before the pain, her mind had been racing with flashes of her boyfriend's rage, the snowstorm around them, an uncertain future for her and her baby in a place she'd never been before, and then the mysterious men in the car, chasing them. Now, as the cramps tore at her, those things were far from her mind.
She also got over her embarrassment of being in this state in front of a man who had been a mere acquaintance only a week ago.
Carl looked at Megan wishing he could take some of her pain. She was so pretty. He would have called her a hippie before he knew her, but as their tidbits of conversation grew whenever he had business Sebastian at the mansion. Megan had a light that was like no one he'd ever known and before long she confessed the peril she was in. He never would have guessed in a million years that their first date would be stealing away to Los Angeles to help her start a new life.
What he was going to do now that he was out of an accounting job and on a mobster’s hit list was of little importance in the scheme of things.
Meg released Carl's hand with a tender squeeze of thanks. It made his heart jump. She was breathing easier for now.
“Those are your contractions?” Carl said.
“Yeah, must be.”
“Is this the first you've felt this pain?”
“No, There were a couple since we stopped at the bridge.”
“I thought all that yelling because I'm doing seventy miles an hour in a white-out blizzard.”
“It was sorta both,” Meg said. Her voice crackled with an audible smile.” Do you think we lost em?”
“No, I doubt it. I think I put em back a ways but they're back there all the same. I guess they didn't learn how to drive in Cleveland Winters, like we did.”
“I guess not. Can't we exit somewhere and try to hide?”
“They'll see our tire tracks or foot prints in the snow anywhere we go. I think we'd best hold our advantage as long as we can,” Carl said. “Unless... Hey, I think I have an idea! It's a bit risky but I think it's our best chance if you’re game.”
---
Janice was drunk.
She stayed away from the juice herself for the most part. Since made her living babysitting drunk people; calming blubbering heartbroken idiots, diffusing petty juvenile fights, alcohol had pretty much lost it’s charm. Now, she had become one of them, but the irony was lost on her.
She was too drunk.
It wasn't even midnight, but she turned the outside bar sign off and pulled the strings on all the neon in the windows. She left the door unlocked in case Charlie Eagle Claw happened to make it back alive.
Janice poured herself a Coke and sat on a stool. She put her head down on the bar. It was nice and cool against her face. She decided to stay there just for a minute.
The next thing she knew the room was flooded with light. The front door was wide open. A figure stood in the doorway. A blinding light shone behind them. Janice shaded her eyes and squinted.
“Wha? shit. Is it morning already? Charlie? Is hat you?”
Charlie would have filled the entire door frame. It was someone of normal size.
“Oh. Closed, we're closed. There's a bll... there's a snow storm.” Janice slurred. “Go on home... go to yer family.”
The figure didn't move either in or out. Janice slid off her stool, nearly falling. She staggered towards the the door.
“I said we're closed... You don't have to go home,” Janice giggled, “but ya can't come in here.”
The figure was motionless.
As Janice stepped towards the door she felt more aware and sure footed; less drunk. The light was unbelievably intense. When she got to the door she realized there was no wind or snow, just a warm breeze flowing through the door.
The figure turned and walked away out into the light. As he turned she recognized the brown coat.
It’s you! Hey stranger!” she said.
The stranger just beckoned her to follow with his arm. He didn't turn around.
“Hey, what happened to Charlie? The big Indian; is he okay? Where is he?”
The stranger kept walking. Janice looked outside. There was only light. Even the pavement of the parking lot was a featureless sea of white. She stepped carefully out. The figure beckoned again.
“Are you showing me where Charlie is? Does he need help? Or did I drown in my vodka and you're leading me... into the light?” she said dramatically.
Janice looked back into the dark bar.
“Well, I don't seem my body back there so I guess I'm not dead. I guess we're gunna go find Charlie,” she said. “Hey wait up!”
Janice had taken only a few steps when she realized she was walking on a winding sidewalk. There was green grass and palm trees. The light had become the sun shining down. Near the sidewalk was bluff, below a beach and beyond that the ocean. Wind gentle whispered through the palms.
“Oh shit, maybe I did die.”
When Janice saw a deeply tanned old man wearing rags and sleeping under a piece of cardboard she knew this wasn't heaven.
The stranger was still walking ahead of her. It was some sort of park. She hurried ahead and walked beside him.
“This is pretty fucked-up. You wanna let me in on the joke?”
The stranger's face was expressionless.
He said nothing. He looked straight ahead and pointed. Janice's eyes followed to see a woman bent over a trash can.
“Who is that? Why are you showing her to me? Oh my God.” She squinted. “Is that my Mom?”
Janice approached the woman who was wearing a filthy coat over untold layers of equally unlaundered clothes. The woman slowly emerged from the trash can. She drank the remaining contents of a bottle of iced tea and placed the bottle in her shopping cart.
“Mom?” The woman didn't respond. “Hey Mom,” Janice looked around. “I guess we finally made it to California,” she said with a nervous laugh. “...just like you always s...”
Janice was struck dumb. The woman's face was so weathered and aged she might not have recognized it had it not been her own, but there she was. The woman ignored Janice and went back to her shopping cart. Janice caught a glimpse of a newspaper in the cart. She got closer.
“2025?” She turned to the stranger. “It's the year twenty-twenty-five? And this is me at... nineteen seventy five, twenty-five plus... twenty-five. Fifty!? This is what I look like at fifty? ...and homeless?”
The stranger turned and walked away.
“Wait, you can't just show me this and not explain. What the hell is going on?”
Janice ran to catch up with the stranger. She turned to look back at herself limping behind the shopping cart. When she turned forward again, everything was different.
They were standing in the desert in front of a shabby-looking trailer. Wind tousled Janice's hair and dust swirled around them. A woman was yelling inside. Janice looked at the stranger. He looked at the trailer.
Janice cautiously stepped forward. She knew the gig by now; whatever it was going on in that trailer, she wasn't going to like it.
She stepped closer to an small open window. Faded yellow curtains blew in and out of the window with the wind’s fickle breaths, offering an occasional view inside. An obese native American woman was sitting in a lounger. A man was in the kitchen. She couldn't see him.
“You're worthless, can't you remember nothin', I need my lottery tickets Golízhi Shikee'. I wanna live rich like them Casino Indians, not rot in this lousy trailer with you.”
“There's no money for your damn lottery. And my name is 'Itsá Shikee' not 'Golízhi'.” The man said. “I ain't no Skunk, I'm Eagle, 'Eagle Claw' not Skunk Foot' ”.
“Charlie! That's Charlie.” Janice said to the stranger.
The stranger’s eye’s didn’t move..
“Yeah, yeah Mr talkative, I know.”
Janice looked back inside.
“You're right, not a skunk, you're too big. Big and dumb like tsét'soyé, and they smell bad too.”
“Woman, I oughtta leave you,” said the man.
“You tell her Charlie,” Janice said.
“Where you gunna go? How many years wasted years on that skinny white woman. You coulda had me when I was young and sexy, but you missed out, you made me wait and I'm not gunna let you forget it.”
“Don't ever mention her.” Charlie yelled.
“What was that skinny girl's name... Julie, June, Jan?”
“I'm warning you woman.”
“Janice?”
“DON'T NEVER SAY THAT NAME!” Charlie bellowed.
He walked out of the trailer and slammed the door.
“Janice. I thought that was it.” The woman said smuggly.
Charlie stood outside the trailer, fuming. Janice was shocked at his appearance. He was an old man, hunched and broken, not the tall happy guy she knew.
Charlie wiped away a tear. “I am weak ancestors. Forgive me for shedding tears like a young girl.”
“Charlie,” Janice said, “what did I do to you? Where are your jokes. No matter what I said to you, you always brushed it off with a joke. I can't blame you for finally giving up on me.”
Charlie stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground.
“I always thought you could do better,” Janice continued, “find some woman who wasn't so much of a downer. I never imagined you'd wind up with a woman like that. Why did you waste so much time on me?”
Charlie just kicked the dirt and walked off into the wind. Janice followed him but the dust quickly swirled around her, she shielded her eyes from the dirt and sand.
Suddenly it was quiet. She opened her eyes. She was in some sort of clinical room. Light green tiles covered the walls where there weren't shelves and equipment. Around the room were tables and stretchers, bare metal, no padding. Large examination lights and a small black microphones hung from the ceiling at each table. One whole wall was covered with oversized file drawers.
“Where are we stranger? What the hell is this?”
The stranger pointed to a certificate on the wall. She walked over to it.
'Dr. Norman Peuchum. For fifteen years of exemplary service, December, 16th, 2031, Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.'
“I don't want to be here God dammit. Let me the hell outta here you bastard.”
Janice ran. She tried to each door but they would not work for her.
The stranger stood unmoving. He faced the wall of drawers, his arms at his sides.
“Have a heart man, I looked at all that other shit, I didn't complain, but this place; I can't take it. Please let me leave. Please mister.. whoever you are. Wasn't I sorta nice to you, huh. I gave you a bag of chips for Christ sake. Didn't we try and help you? Maybe everything went to hell but at least we tried.”
Janice looked at the wall the stranger was facing. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“No, no... I won't. I can't.” Janice sobbed.
The stranger looked forward.
“No... No!” Janice cried.
With a motion barely perceptible, he nodded.
---
“HEY!” Charlie hollered. “Where'd you go man?” The wind seemed to have died down a bit, but he got no response. He shone his flashlight on the stranger's footsteps and started running, placing his feet in the same spots. The stranger's gate was much smaller than Charlie's. It awkward, but faster than blazing his own path through the knee deep snow. Charlie stopped to catch his breath. The footprints were already fill in with snow.
“Great ancestors,” Charlie called out to the wind between his gasps for air. “I am sorry I have shamed you by becoming such a lazy out-of-shape bastard. This man needs help. If you help me, I will start exercising regular.”
He plodded on. The stranger's footsteps were fading faster than it seemed possible. Soon they were gone altogether. Charlie continued on.
He stopped again. His heart was pounding and his lungs were raw from panting the frigid air. He grabbed a hand full of snow and stuffed it in his mouth. He shined his flashlight ahead and saw the faint outline of something large , long and looming overhead in the distance. The bridge!
Charlie spit into the snow, coughed and carried on towards the bridge. Once under it he stopped.
“HELLO?... HEY STRANGER, WHERE'D YOU GET TO?”
Only the wind swishing through the furs made any sound. He shone the flashlight around. A glint of metal caught the beam. He ran towards it. It was a car; a old car nearly buried in snow. He wiped off the passenger side window and shone his light inside. The front seat was empty but there was something in the back seat.
Charlie Eagle Claw quickly cleared the snow away from the back door and opened it. Laying across the seat, leaning against the opposite door, was a young woman sweating and panting. A wool blanket was barely covering her bare knees. Her hands had a death grip on the front and back seats.
“Oh uh... Hey lady, uh, your man sent me.”
She was breathing too hard to speak.
Her right hand fumbled with something on the rear dash. Her arm extended towards him holding a gun.
“Which man?” she said.
End of Part II
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