J Stanley - The Battered Body

“Yo!” Bennett waved his arms and hollered at one of the Parks Department’s employees. “Hit me with a teddy bear, man! The lady in the pink house has gotta have one!”

A brown Smoky the Bear was hurtled through space too far to Bennett’s right. James watched as Bennett dove for the bear, stretching out his arms as far as he could. Unfortunately, he landed with a thud on the cold asphalt and the bear fell onto the sidewalk several feet away. The crowd cheered at Bennett as he leapt to his feet and shoved the plush animal inside his parka.

“Woman!” Bennett growled, stomping onto the porch and presenting Gillian with her prize. “Gimme a little more notice next time you want me to beat my way through a crowd of women and kids and try to catch somethin’ that my grandma could have thrown with better aim.”

“You’re my hero !” Gillian hugged Bennett and then pointed at the bear. “Look! There’s a blue spruce sapling tied to this Smoky. I can plant it and we can all sit out here, spring after spring, sipping on a lovely cup of vanilla lavender tea, and watch it stretch its branches skyward.”

“Who is ‘all of us’?” Bennett scowled. “Does your boyfriend like vanilla lavender tea?” He made a big show of dusting off his coat sleeve, his pride clearly wounded as a result of making a dramatic but ineffective diving catch in front of his closest friends and about two hundred parade bystanders.

“As a matter of fact, Detective Harding does like tea,” Gillian replied smugly. “He’s very open to new experiences.” She refilled her cup. “And he’s not my boyfriend. We haven’t pigeonholed our relationship by trying to define it using conventional terms. We’re merely enjoying one another’s company by living in the now .”

“I’m surprised he has time to drink tea,” Bennett persisted. “ Sheriff Jones tells me that she’s keeping him pretty busy.”

Gillian frowned. “I don’t think the detective is kept occupied by your girlfriend’s insistence, but because he’s passionately devoted to protecting the good citizens of Abington County.”

Bennett poured himself another tumbler of hot buttered rum. “Ms. Jade Jones is not my girlfriend. She and I… we’re…” He pulled at his toothbrush mustache and intently searched his mind for the correct term.

Lindy held out her hands. “Enough! You two can tease one another about the romantic partners you collected at the Hudsonville barbecue festival this summer all you want after the cavalcade is over, okay? Besides, all this talk about boyfriends and girlfriends makes me miss Luis.”

“Where is the dashing Principal of Blue Ridge High again?” James inquired.

“He went to Mexico because his mama’s really sick,” Lindy answered sadly. “He’s her only son and he’s devoted to her. I hope she gets better soon, because I really miss him. He’s promised to bring our relationship out into the open at school. I can’t wait to see the looks on certain fellow teachers’ faces when they realize he’s now off the market.” She drained her glass and looked at the empty contents with a smirk. “Lucy, can you pour me another? These rum things are so delicious that I can almost forget about Luis bein’ gone and that my feet are too numb to be cold.” She smiled crookedly and touched the tip of her nose. “Shoot. I’m not cold anywhere. I’m feelin’ good all over! How much rum is in here, Lucy?”

Lucy laughed. “Enough to make me wanna run out to the street and see what the convicts are tossing from that bus!”

The white bus in question was crammed with jail inmates. The group of men, who wore orange jumpsuits and red Santa hats, waved and blew kisses to the crowd as they threw penguin finger puppets from the windows and into the hands of eager children.

“You’re probably responsible for several of those incarcerations,” James cautioned Lucy. “They might throw something at you besides a penguin.”

“They got themselves into those jumpsuits,” Lucy retorted firmly. “And only those who committed minor offenses get to ride in the parade bus. All the same, I think I’ll wait for the firemen. They’re a lot better looking than those jailbirds, and I hear they’ve made frosted gingerbread cookies shaped like dalmatians. One of those would go nicely with my hot buttered rum.” She grabbed Lindy’s hand. “Come on, Gillian. Let’s go ogle some of the men in yellow.”

The three women joined the crowd in order to whistle and coo at the burly, handsome men poised on top of their newly washed fire truck. On the roof were two wooden cutouts. One was of Santa. His rear end was on fire and his mouth formed a pink o of surprise and dismay. Standing alongside Santa’s burning bum was Rudolph the Reindeer, who held a bright red fire extinguisher between his two front hooves but seemed unable to use the device. The Quincy’s Gap Volunteer Fire & Rescue had used the same cutouts for years, yet they never failed to make the children laugh.

In addition to Santa and Rudolph, the fire truck was decorated with blinking chili pepper lights and was towing a small trailer bearing a burning Christmas tree and a pile of smoking presents. A lone fireman sat on the edge of the trailer and held up a sign reading Don’t Forget to Unplug Your Tree!

The fire truck was followed by the county’s only street cleaner. It moved at a snail’s pace while the driver tossed out small bags of coal (which were really black gumdrops) and cheerfully admonished the throng to clean up after themselves. “I’m goin’ on vacation!” He yelled over the roar of his machine. “And I don’t wanna be cleanin’ up after y’all at five in the mornin’!” He punctuated his message by stepping on the street cleaner’s accelerator, creating a puff of foul-smelling black smoke.

The children were delighted. They begged for a repeat performance while simultaneously stuffing their mouths with black gumdrops. When the voter registration vehicle came along, sending out voter application registrations in the form of paper airplanes, the children stuck out their black tongues until the woman in the passenger seat, who appeared harried by the entire experience, frantically flung out a large portion of her supply of candy canes in lieu of voting paraphernalia.

“Too much candy will rot your teeth!” she shouted as she hurled candy canes at a row of preteens.

“They’re too young to vote anyhow!” Bennett shouted in the children’s defense.

After three glasses of hot buttered rum, James found himself laughing at everything the cavalcade had to offer. He even managed to choke down one of the three cookies left on Gillian’s platter-a feat so impressive that Bennett offered to eat the remaining two. He had just swallowed the second when the snow began to fall. What began as a few flakes blown lazily around the porch by the wind quickly morphed into a genuine snowfall. Within minutes, the flakes seemed to grow smaller and multiply in a steady march toward the ground.

“Oh!” Lindy clapped her mittened hands. “It’s beautiful!”

Everyone agreed. The first snow of the season, illuminated by the twinkling colored lights entwined around Gillian’s railings, seemed magical. For the spectators gathered on the sidewalk, however, the precipitation became unpleasant in a hurry. The wind whipped cold snowflakes against their cheeks and noses, making them red and chapped. Moist bits of snow sneaked under scarves and wriggled down the front of jackets and planted wet kisses on exposed wrists.

“Good thing we’ve almost reached the finale,” Gillian said as she pointed at the crowd. “I believe those children by my front gate are turning blue.”