Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Crispy The Christmas Clown: One Year On

Hollyhocks and Boon, terrored through the twilight, was afire and aglow, blazing away from the delicate touch of burning peasant torches. The werewolf landlord, trapped inside with his old regulars the Mistletoe Twins and Half Barry, screamed the last of his lungs and vowed a certain type of Christmas vengeance to be visited upon said peasants in future years to come. At the same time, outside in the snow, Crispy the Christmas Clown caught those vows, juggled them with an abandon that suggested equal measures of skill and confidence, and threw them deep into the bowels of his reddest Christmas sack.

In the previous days, in the moments leading up to this pyromanic parade, Crispy had been engaged in the pre-preparation preparations indulged in by Santa and his eight mordant elves. After last year’s rescue mission, whereby Crispy saved the day through the last minute delivery of presents, glad tidings and unspeakable horror to boys and girls worldwide, Santa had judged it only fair that Crispy should, for a time, enjoy the spoils of being his number one helper. And boy, did he enjoy them. All the brandy curls and cokes he could drink, endless mince pies, the finest sprinkling of the finest sparkling glitter and the company of a certain gang of female elves who were small and big in all the right places. No wonder Crispy glowed so.

But with Crispy out of the festive picture, so to speak, our werewolf landlord, in full cahoots with his resident regulars (the likes of Sooty and Snow, Sid Sleigh and his gorgeous wife Giddyup, Sancho Hup, Dave and Ansel Collins and the aforementioned - and now burning - figures of the Mistletoe Twins and Half Barry) took it upon himself to more regularly change into his wolfish aspect in order to gain a tighter rule over the village through his unadulterated lycanthropic terror. That is, he tore through the village late at night, ripping at throats, laughing at authority and touching the ladies. What a life. And his plan may well have succeeded were it not for the unwitting, though timely, intervention of our real hero, a certain Crispy the Christmas Clown, who responded, unwillingly, to the desperate cries and calls of the mere citizens and chattel of the village. Why did Crispy do his duty? Because Santa told him to.

Now, with his adventures already the stuff of legend, it was but a small leap for Crispy to surround himself with his likely crew of elves, reindeer and other hardy bods from in and around Santa’s workshop and factory. These elves, equipped with specialist low stature skills, quickly took on board personal bodyguard status, willing and able to take a bullet, or a fang, should the occasion arise. The reindeer, minus Rudolph but consisting of Prancer, Dancer, Duncan and Heartache, told Crispy that they too would leap in the way of bullets and fangs but would also be better employed as navigators, sleighpullers and hoof stompers. And so, with all these folk and figures in tow, Crispy the Christmas Clown set off from Lapland with the sincere best wishes (and secret good riddances) of Santa and his jolly wife, Muscatel, ringing hard and fair in his snowy white ears. Goodbye yon Crispy! they cried, goodbye you grotesque clown!

Having heard of Crispy’s imminent departure and plans, the werewolf landlord of the Hollyhocks and Boon took himself out into the glassy black night and gazed up at the moon in order to affect the appropriate werewolf change. Which is to say that he stepped outside as a man and returned, minutes later, as a fully-fledged werewolf. Not great news for Crispy, and not great news for the regulars who, as often happened when he made this change, had to flee for what was left of their wretched and worthless lives. Get at you! shouted the werewolf landlord as he tore open the yellowing throats of Sooty and Snow, Sid Sleigh and his gorgeous wife Giddyup, Sancho Hup and Dave and Ansel Collins. Boo!

By the time Crispy and his merry band of elves, reindeer and spazzers alighted upon the roof of the Hollyhocks and Boon, only the werewolf landlord, the Mistletoe Twins and Half Barry were there to greet them. Ha! thought Crispy, I’ll soon have those rascals up in the air screaming from fear! But when he reached down to grab them he was surprised to discover that they had nailed themselves to the floor in order to avoid any likely grabbing scenario. Curses. Which was why, instead, Crispy emptied his diesel-filled bladder into the chimney and watched with glee as the encroaching peasant villagers put their flaming torches to the windows of the Hollyhocks and Boon. Boom, as they say, and Crispy, his elves, the reindeer and the spazzers were thrown from the roof to rain down like snow (or snow down like rain) on to the surrounding white carpet of the pub’s fair grounds. Curses, vows and screams from within. Crispy laughing and catching without, his bright red sack a net of fine distinction. Hurrah! cried those villagers, he has saved our worthless and wretched lives!

And so Christmas was saved once more. And once more Crispy the Christmas Clown had to deal with the peasant adulation and praise that was now grist to his manky, ungrateful mill.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

The Crunch Underfoot

Tools of far light, coils of burning pomade. Last Christmas I gave you my heart. And if I had to live it over again, I would live it over again.

Life flowered but the tree outside died, again, for the winter. The sky grey, the light white. Somewhere through the frost, I could, almost, I could, your face.

Shoes are the tread they crimp into the packed level of snow. They are the walk from this end here to that end there. Do your children climb on to your shoes?

Christmas losers. You can have your Christmas, losers, you can have it all. I am, I mean, the king of mince pies, the lord of stuffed pudding and crows.

Those are not the things I meant, not the things I mean. If I shift in my chair on cold winter nights I shift to stay warm. Despite appearances, I fear the cold.

I am the best wrestle between you and the burn of hot figgy pudding. Shiny sixpences fill my pockets. And there’s the rub: the weight of old Christmas.

Old Christmas was a sketch on the back of a candle maker’s photograph. In the foreground the delicate cherubim. Just behind, the howl of red reindeer.

Here comes Saint Nick. Jolly and wise, he is both a gift to the ancient ritual of Festimas and the stone cold killer of it. Look how his sleigh tips from the weight.

Most crackers come with a toy of some kind, a novelty, a joke, a hat. These crackers here, they come with love. Love is all they have to give.

The kiss beneath the mistletoe: curiously non-sexual. No shaking off of the snow, no re-igniting the embers. Nothing at all that could be taken like brandy.

Throughout the pages and running through five staves, the build up to Christmas eve. You knew well how it ended. The secret was in the telling.

Socks on our hands, coats in the driers. The black of the corners, two: a chip shop and a haberdashery. The warmth of the coats: one minute’s pleasure for 50p.

Groans pushed past and the elves fell. A shopping trolley here, in the heart of the grotto. To his credit, he said he wouldn’t fill it up, never.

The same thing every year, pressed and hung at the back of the cupboard. She’s been dead eight years now. She would have liked him like this, at this time of year.

At this time of year it is always worth remembering those less fortunate. The old soldiers, the orphans, the meek. A shiny sixpence and you can be on your way.

Innocence is still the cry as he flies. As he sprinkles stardust and snowflakes, circled by the moon. But if the house is on fire where will he land?

Noted, the lean towards magic, the fall into faith. The doors are open wider and longer at this time of year, it is true. We have to let them in, we have to let them out.

He kicked his mother and she kicked her husband and the whole room fell into a spin. Let the games commence! they cried. They already have! somebody replied.

Tinsel and Gretel behind breadcrumbs and pebbles, somewhere in the forest. Will Christmas ever reach them out there? Will Christmas ever find them?

Stay with me this year while I get through the season. Stay with me while I undress, while I redress. Stay with me until this time next year.

The open floodgates were no longer a barrier to the run of the snow. Liquid snow, liquid ice. That consumed our front door steps, lifted our locks.

No more whiteness it blinds my grey eyes. In the dark, through the back, I press my face into the warmth of the oven. Eyebrows for the new year.

On the sea they see visions of God, of Jesus, of Santa Claus. The more able-bodied among them ice the deck and slide. All the way into the season.

Lost Christmas and she’s still there, I reckon, somewhere on the mantelpiece. We imagine her as a long-lost gift. Just waiting to return home.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I Will Kiss Your Cool Bark

Dingle of Christmas, there was a spark by the fire and hot coals rolled in unison, in time, to the gentle throng of the carols whistling and rising from somewhere outside. By the fire’s glow this Christmas eve lay Gentle Rogue, the family dog and chief flea-catcher who, by morning, would, through no fault of Santa’s, not really, be stone cold dead with his eyes ripped out. Stone cold, that is, even though the fire will still be roaring and happy, unlike the kids who will be roaring over their dead dog, for sure, but not at all happy. But still, for a few hours at least, what we have here is a Christmas scene straight from a jolly Christmas postcard that gets you, so to speak, right here, and gets you, moreover, longing for the warmth, comfort and joy of the vagaries of what you seem to recall was some kind of halcyonic childhood. Snow can even be seen falling outside, great fat flakes of it puncturing the deep blue of a flawless Christmas sky. Look, there are angels swimming in it, stars dazzling through it. The perfect Christmas scene for you to cut out and keep.

But surrounding the house and so far yet invisible to your naked, watchful eye, the ghosts of Christmas past, those ruiners of everything. Held tight in their tiny fists, holly-cornered post-it notes from which they recount the highs, the lows, the fun-filled dramas of Christmases you hoped had long since been forgotten:

Christmas One.
How you have the nerve to look back on this Christmas without vomiting from shame is, actually, beyond us. You recall, I assume, your children beaten with huge striped candy walking sticks? Your wife bundled out into the snow, naked, while you gorged yourself on the hottest, tastiest mince pies in all Christendom?

Christmas Two.
The elves at the Co-Op grotto were treated for shock. As were the children. There was confusion, at first, as to whom you were referring when you ran through the grotto screaming Beware the little cunts! Beware the little cunts! In fact, now that we think of it, just who were you referring to? The elves or the children?

Christmas Three.
Pissing into the Christmas punch. Forgetting you’d pissed into it. Drinking most of it, later. Remembering you’d pissed into it. Throwing up into the Christmas punch. Watching your guests drink the Christmas punch.

Christmas Four.
It was Christmas Day at the Franklin Pangborne Hospice and the children there, like most children across the land, greeted the early day in excited anticipation of finding their stockings filled to the toes with all kinds of fantastic goodies and cracking stuff. Imagine their surprise then when they discovered that their stockings were, in fact, empty and that all of their fantastic goodies and fantastic stuff had been taken out and smashed into pieces in the car park. By you, of course.

Christmas Five.
Christmas cards filled with shit sent out to all the pensioners in your area.

Christmas Six.
You killed Santa and fucked his wife.

Christmas Seven.
Etc.

Friday, December 08, 2006

The Steamed Sixpence

The red basket was open and inside were the apple blobs of Christmas time. The basket was warm slightly and also slightly damp so that when you pressed your hand into it, it felt wet slightly, a little warm. The apples were not, of course, crisp. The apples were soft and warm and you’d have to be a bedwetter or somesuch to eat and, moreover, enjoy them.

Red baskets and apples are all that remain. The children have fled. Crisp air, cobbled stones, a stretch of cobbles that hold, just, the stout legs of the sturdy market tables. There’s a church steeple, a counting house, a gallery, a courtyard, a small pub, an ostler’s wrestle, a bank, an Ann Bonney whop, an abandoned keep. And now, at last, a policeman. Who goes there?

Yes, Christmas time. You could tell by the lights and the general glad tidings that filled the air and played about even the sternest of faces. Christmas shopping fatigue? asked the sign that also directed the shoppers upstairs to some traditional Christmas grub. From the window looking down on to the expanse of shopping centre approach, the lights just visible through the quickly descending dusk. Maybe also a catch of snowflake - you could tell by the breath cutting into the air. No wonder they stamped their feet in a kind of rouse, in a kind of cheer.

Red baskets and apples, mere dots in the background. Pixels, as they say. Background pixels to the foreground Christmas drama of full plum pudding, turkey, all the trimmings. A steaming platter of traditional Christmas grub. No wonder that Father Christmas, visible and cold from the back pantry window, was licking his cherry red lips. No wonder that the little cherubims, five in total, were leaping up and down in their Sunday best all hoping for a stir of the gravy. No wonder mum was so serene and collected, pissed probably. And no wonder dad looked so maniacally twisted, the carving knife raised above his head with the baby Jesus in a picture on the wall just behind him - his baby head at the point of the knife. If this father could calm himself for a moment, could see what we see, he would be fair ashamed. At Christmas time and all.

It’s Christmas time so look, Victorians. With their top hats, big coats, merry furs, parnell gloves, woolly boots and what, cravats, scarves? Victorians are on the march and it’s just delightful that there’s snow on the ground, we need a bit of crisp and crunch. The brazier blazing away with roast chestnuts, jacket potatoes and red-faced kids is just the thing for this authentic Victorian Christmas. Mince pies and sherry, Mr Fezziwig and a whole afternoon of laughter and dancing. A tear, a song, the smallest bird and the biggest appreciation. Plum pudding and a sprig of holly pressed deep into your heart.

Deep into your heart.

And by the hearth, an old clock ticking, the mantelpiece groaning beneath the weight of plate, filled, as it is, with a merry feast of mince pies, brandy shavings, a glass of milk, twelve carrots, a corcupine rose, eight needles of grass, a small bottle of whiskey, two clams of chicken, a selection of the finest cheeses, a note. A handwritten note addressed to Santa himself and written in mother’s dear, slow hand:

Dear Santa

Oh what we wish for this year is somehow a relief from the misery that has dogged us throughout this year in the form of death rays and special bullets that can, in a moment, pierce our previously impenetrable skin and explode our already broken hearts. Who designed these fiendish splatters of death? We would love to know. And that, I suppose, is our first Christmas request. Our second Christmas request, while I’m on the subject, is a selection box each. Cadbury’s. Our third is, well, forgive me, slightly more risqué. That is, I would like some sexy new underwear or lingerie or whatever. Red in colour, perhaps. Maybe blue. I’ll leave it up to you. For the kids I direct your attention to the letters you must have received sometime during the earlier part of this month. Oh what lovely kids who want so little and give so much (in truth, they make me sick – but don’t tell them nor my husband). Talking of whom: for my husband I would like – or, rather, he would like – one of those new Ronco flapper things that selects, as if by magic, the record you want. Also, while I’m in that kind of area, I wouldn’t say no (hint, hint) to one of those button popping things that presses buttons on to your clothes without the need for needle and thread. I tell you Santa, even with my super speed I find the sewing on of buttons one of life’s more tedious tasks. Goodness knows how the rest of the women of Britain cope. I take my hat off to them all. And to you, Santa Baby, I remain, in pieces or as a whole, your abiding life-long servant and fan. PS: Please give the carrots to your beautiful and hardworking reindeer – the rest, of course, is for you. Eat up Santa, you fat buffoon!

In the corner the tree and from the tree, you know, the usual dangle of the usual baubles, lights and thingies. It is a forlorn tree, one might say, and a tree that has seen much better days. Its needles, rising up in a pile from the floor, are now high enough to swallow the tree whole. If only, the tree thinks, that slovenly bint would get the fucking Hoover out and give it a bash. Then, thinks the tree once more, my Christmas might be bearable. Unlikely, says a bauble who, somehow, has the power to read the minds of trees. The black hearted villain. And at Christmas time too.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Tear Open The Velvet Curtain

She had, er, just returned home from the summer ball. Simply returned home from the summer ball. Her father, eyeing out from behind his newspaper, noticed, but didn’t mention, her skirt crazily tucked into her knickers, her blouse held tight in her hands, her lipstick all over her face and her shoes somewhere, God knows where, maybe somewhere on the steps of the Old Ballhouse or wherever it was that the summer ball had taken place.

The summer ball was, if you were that way inclined, the absolute event of the year. There was no way, man, no way at all, that you could even think about missing it. Why? Dancing, drinking, kissing, fighting, maybe a bit of fucking. You’d have to be a bedwetter to miss it. A jabbernow. A mooncalf.

She lay in dreams and wet her bed slightly as she drifted back to the earlier night’s proceedings. Oh, how could he, how could she? But she liked it really, didn’t she, liked him? Martha said that she had never seen her looking so, oh I don’t know, so daringly dramatic, so starkly beautiful, like a bewildered vampiress forced down the stairs by an unseen touch, perhaps the deadly hand of her master.

But it’s a mid-August night and the window, open, breathes in the enveloping closeness, the joy of a summer night to this summer night’s girl. She’s on the bed still, mere wisps over her, thinking that she’s finally asleep. The music of the night plays deep within her and her slow, imperceptible movements at last carry her into dreams. And he’s there. Of course he’s there.

Downstairs, her father is shuffling with an empty cup, towards the kitchen. A standard lamp throws, but misses, its empty light somewhere into the room which also, somehow, shuffles. He stops in the middle of the room, at the edge of the light, and aches, a little, for what is left of the summer.