Santa In No Man’s Land

3797…

My wife is a Philadelphian, born and raised . . . But just as much raised ‘down the shore’. That’s how she says it — That’s how you say it when you’re born and raised in Philadelphia. Long Beach Island, New Jersey. L.B.I.
Her father was a strapping man. Played football, semi professional, for the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets back in the day, his day. Before the war. His war.
I don’t know what brought this man to the island in 1962, or the hurricane that wrested a two story house from its foundation, and dumping it into the bay, but when Paul saw it languishing, up to its second story windows in the cold, indifferent salt water, he just knew what he had to do. Single handedly — Well, he wasn’t that strapping — But that’s the way I’ve always envisioned it — Paul, pulling the once proud hearth and home out of the drink and setting it up on brand new
cinderblocks — New, secure roots dug deep into the sandy ground — His ground. Like so many other men, after returning home to the country he loved so much and served so well, he bought a little piece of it. This was where my wife spent her summers as a child.

We’d often spend a weekend down there at the ‘Old Man’s’ invitation — ‘Fun in the sun!’ ‘Take the boat out!’ ‘Cruise around the island!’ Get some fishing in!’ But the enticing invite would inevitably devolve into scraping barnacles off said boat, painting the other boat, mowing the lawn and a host of never ending chores. We were just married, and young — Just kids really — And the ‘Old Man’ knew he could get away with bossing us around.
We’d sneak off, play hooky, every chance we got — Sure, a lot of that — In the garage behind those damned boats — But also just enjoying the truly wonderful place my wife would speak of with such nostalgic delight.

We’re riding our bikes down Ocean Avenue, every now and then veering off the main drag down and around and through the neatly measured and manicured side streets. Bungalows and duplexes and front ‘lawns’ of rocks and sand and driftwood. My bike starts acting kind of weird. The front wheel’s out of whack or something. Won’t stay straight. We turn down Chatsworth and only a house or two in I notice a sign in the front ‘lawn’ of one of the houses, a shingle hanging just below the mailbox.
Robert Sherbourne
Bicycle Repair
The serendipity was not lost on me. We walked our bikes up the drive to the breezeway and to the right, a garage, a curious cross between a workshop and a curiosity shop.
“Can I help you?” He was a short, round man. Squat. His hair was white. His beard was white — A cascade of flowing cornsilk threatening his very bellybutton. Hawaiian shirt. Bermuda shorts. Sandals, soles cut from an old car tire. Very big back then.
He looked like Santa Claus on vacation, in his South Jersey toy shop. Comical, if not for the scars and blisters — A pink and purplish pair of ‘knee socks’ straight down to his toenails. They looked so painful, but who can fathom another’s pain, or tolerance?
“Well . . . it’s out of . . . the ax . . .” He notices my wife and me staring, entranced at the large and strange collection of what could only be described as gothic artifacts hanging on the walls. “Weird stuff huh?” I could only stare back at him and offer a non comital shrug. “That was a long, long time ago”.
Turns out, back in the day — His day — Before his war, Robert, a young and gifted engineer was recruited by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The country was about to send thousands of young men across the sea and straight to the battle fields of Europe. The whole world was at war, for the first time, and it was the dawning of new and ever more unconscionable weapons. Thankfully he was never asked to design these horrific contraptions or mix the deadly concoctions they spew. Robert and his team’s assignment was to try to stuff the reeking genie back into his bottle. Of course it couldn’t be done. Prometheus couldn’t do it, and if we just peek over our shoulder, back to our first campfire, we’d catch that flame in our eyes — Mesmerizing . . . Irresistible . . . The temptation to touch it, stick our hand in it — The blistering heat, the impending danger, not a deterrent but an even greater temptation. He spent eternity chained to a mountainside, tortured and humiliated. The gods don’t take kindly to mere mortals who steal their cool shit.
The stuff on the walls were all things Robert had designed. Whole sets of gas masks. Prototypes for men, women, teenagers, toddlers — Infants. You could attach it to the baby’s carriage. Even one for the dog — Great Dane to Chihuahua. We subtly recoiled as he went through his grisly presentation. He was not the least bit embarrassed or apologetic. And not a word of the monsters that created the demand for these grisly gadgets. He was proud of his work. And why not? Who knows how many people he’d saved, or at the very least eased their pain and fears during those terrifying times.
I left my bike. He said I could pick it up on Thursday. We took my wife’s bike back to our barnacles and our paint brushes and that old frustrating, pull cord on that old frustrating lawn mower. She took the seat and I peddled, standing up. Kind of romantic.

Christmas Eve. Saint Nick somewhere over the trenches, desperately trying to carry out his yearly mission, spreading a little comfort and joy to a world of two faced cowards kidnapping Mathew and
Luke and hog tying them up with their own words — ‘peace on Earth and goodwill to men’ — while jockeying for the Holyland. And, as usual, the Holy Innocents sacrificed, sent to the front line to do their dirty work. Shhh . . . the little nipper in the manger’s trying to sleep.
Donner takes a stray round to the hind quarters, sending the sleigh and all eight pistons and its pilot into a tailspin. The old elf is trapped in no man’s land, slogging through the mud and slop. A weird colored cloud hugs the ground, knee high, a fog, or a mist, or something burning like a fire but without the flame. He’s surrounded by barbed wire and fear and despair and everything that’s ugly about us. But Santa’s a tough old bird. And if nothing at all — Inspirational.
“You got this, Donny! It’s just a flesh wound!” He rushes to the back of the sleigh and digs down into his big bag of — “Gotcha! Sorry Mrs. Hatfield, but this is an emergency! I’ll make up to you next year!” — Tears open the box of Egyptian Cotton bedsheets and starts ripping bandages. In no time at all ‘Right Jolly Old Elf’ has Donner’s reindeer butt wrapped up tighter than your Aunt Tillie’s Christmas Fruitcake. Sans the big red bow! No time for frills tonight! “What d’ y’ say, Donny? Let’s get this tired old Flexible Flyer up and . . . Flying again! We still have half a world to cover!”

Paul was reserved. But this wasn’t a sign of disapproval or some sort of passive aggressive scolding. He asked us where we went, and when we told him he only nodded, a kind of wistful nod. He was a young married man once upon a time. He and his young wife must’ve ridden their bikes down that main drag to Holgate and back a hundred times.
In that moment I saw him in a new, different light — AWOL — And on a crazy adventure with his pretty young wife. I was expecting an attitude, and I got one — Just not the one I’d expected.
“How about tomorrow we take the boat out? I haven’t seen this house from the water since I was in the water with it. We can dock down at Oscar’s for lunch”.

A strapping young soldier entrenched in the mud and slop and surrounded by barbed wire and everything that’s ugly about us manages to light his last, soggy smoke in the darkness of the new moon. He’s worn and weary and . . . Hot . . . Stinking hot in his stinking hot hole, on his stinking hot island, somewhere in the stinking hot Pacific.
The black hot sky is spattered with stuttering specks of light — The machine gunner gone mad in the madding heat and turning his every round to the heavens — Stars trying to escape the black hole of it all.
He doesn’t know why he’s here. All he knows is that somewhere . . . Something happened . . . And now he has a job to do, and everything he needs to do it is hanging from his belt and over his shoulder and itching to get into his hands.

Take a drop of suspicion, two drops of ambition, drop them into that genie’s bottle and step back . . . Into the shadow of a great and ghostly cloud with balls big enough to take on the very sun. War is a catalyst. But take the despair and desolation left in the wake of the holocaust, stand up to the ghostly cloud and something else is unleashed, something brighter and more powerful than Big Man and Fat Boy — Or even the sun. Something to heal our ravaged bodies. To feed our starving souls. Something approaching . . . Redemption? War is a catalyst. But so is hope.

The soldier notices one of the far off holes in the night sky moving. In his direction. Closer and
closer . . . A shooting star? . . . A meteor? . . . A comet? . . .

Cupid?
Donner?

Paul had no words of the monsters either.

O.B.