By Ed Staskus

   Oliver was on the back patio eating a hot dog on a windy and darksome evening when he heard hooves. He glanced into the kitchen behind him where there was a floating corner television shelf. He thought his father might be watching a horse opera while he ate dinner. The kitchen was empty. He looked all around, across the field behind their housing development all the way to the trees where Ralph the Honey Badger lived. The cattail patch in the field was a rolling wave of green. Yellow pollen streamed off the sausage-shaped flower spikes being whipped by the wind. He didn’t see anything galloping anywhere.

   Then he heard a man singing.

   “If you wanna save your soul, from Hell a-riding on our range, then, cowboy, change your ways today, or with us you will ride, trying to catch the Devil’s herd, across these endless skies, yippie-yi-o, yippie-yi-yay, ghost riders in the sky.”

   He heard a horse neigh. A cowboy on a horse was at the far end of the field. He slowly rode towards Oliver. He looked the worse for wear. He wasn’t singing. The singing was coming from the sky.

   “That’s right son,” the cowboy said, hitching his horse to the LED light pole on the patio. “It’s one of them ghost riders up there singin’ that song.”

   “Ghost riders?”

   “Up there, look.”

   “All at once a mighty herd, of red eyed cows he saw, plowin’ through the ragged skies, and up the cloudy draw, their brands were still on fire, and their hooves were made of steel, their horns were black and shiny, and their hot breath he could feel.”

   “I see them, but I don’t know how they can be real way up there, although I can feel their hot breath when they huff,” Oliver said, putting his hot dog down.

   “Be glad you ain’t in the middle of that Devil’s herd.”

   “Where they did they come from”

   “They come from forever, although others say they come from Hell’s pit.”

   “What is your name””

   “My name be Wyatt, Liver-Eating Wyatt, on account of I like eating liver.”

   He was wearing a surplus Civil War frock coat and canvas pants with leather leggings to protect his legs from thorny bushes. His hat was slouchy and wide-brimmed and his boots had raised pointy heels. He wore a mangy checked bandana around his neck. There was a Winchester 1873 rifle in his saddle scabbard. He was dusty all over.

   “Do you know Wyatt Earp?”

   “I can’t say I do, partner.”

   “Where did you come from?”

   “I come from the Red River down Texas way where we was driving a herd, three thousand head of them. I was one of the swing riders, keeping the line straight. I was singing to the herd one night trying to keep them calm when there was the whir of a rattlesnake and a thunderclap. They got spooked by the snake and when the thunderclap happened they stampeded. Me and the others been chasing that herd through the sky ever since.”

   “Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred, their shirts all soaked with sweat, he’s riding hard to catch that herd, but he ain’t caught ’em yet, cause they’ve got to ride forever
on that range up in the sky, on horses snorting fire, as they ride on, hear their cry, yippie-yi-o, yippie-yi-yay, ghost riders in the sky.”

   “Who are the other cowboys?”

   “I don’t rightly know, ghost riders, I guess. One of those boys told me I got to change my ways and repent and that would save my soul. He declared that if I don’t I’ll be doomed to chase that Devil’s herd across the sky from now until the twelfth of never.”

   “That’s a long time,” Oliver said, even though he had no idea how long the twelfth of never was.

   “My branding iron will rust away before then.”

   “Why do you have to change your life?”

   “I don’t want to be riding herd when I’m a hundred years old, if I live that long, which don’t seem likely.”

   Cowboying was a dirty and lonely job. It was dangerous work. There were stampedes that trampled them when they tried to turn the herd. Their horses kicked, bucked, and threw them. If one of their boots got caught in a stirrup the horse might drag them to death. There were dust storms and bone-numbing blizzards. There was scurvy and smallpox. Bugs and snakes bit them. They had to sleep on the ground on the cattle trail, rain or shine. It left many cowboys broken old men before they got old..

   “No, I mean, did you do something bad that you have to say you’re sorry about and that you promise to never do again?”

   “Maybe, maybe not.”

   “What kind of maybe?”

   “Maybe we was in Abilene one time, at the end of a trail drive that took more than two months, and we was drinking a bit, letting off steam, firing our guns into the air, when the town marshal and his deputies showed up, and we might have fired a shot or two at them. Another time we was in Boot Hill drinking some cheap whiskey and playing some poker when we caught a card sharp using marked cards. We might have fired a revolver in his direction and there might have been a brawl and the card sharp might have ended up seeing a sawbones. I ain’t saying it was right to shoot him, but it was his own  fault. He was lucky to not end up in the bone yard. Another time outside of Dodge City we might have come across some unmarked open range cattle and made them our own, but everybody does that, so I’m not going to say sorry about riding off with them.”

   “Oh, I see.”

   Oliver didn’t know very much about cowboys. Everything he knew came from the movies. He thought they all wore Stetsons. He didn’t know most of them wore sombreros or bowler hats. He thought they were quick draws who dueled in the middle of streets in broad daylight. He didn’t know that more often than not they didn’t carry handguns, most towns had struct gun control laws, and when gunplay did erupt it came from sunless alleys and from behind water barrels. He didn’t know that when cowboys did carry a handgun they usually loaded it with five, not six bullets. They didn’t carry it chambered so that if they bumped into something and the gun went off, which the guns were likely to do, they wouldn’t shoot themselves in the leg. He thought Indians were always attacking them. He didn’t know that hardly ever happened. Disease and bad weather were much deadlier than the Indians.

   “What are you going to do about that herd in the sky?”

   “I’m the nighthawk tonight. I bedded them down when we stopped here, but I think it’s time we get going. The weather don’t look none too good.” There was a flash of lightning. The ghost riders in the sky were rounding up strays and getting the herd ready to move. There was another flash of lightning.

   “As they thundered through the sky, he saw the riders coming hard, and he heard their mournful cry, yippie-yi-o, yippie-yi-yay, ghost riders in the sky.”

   The cowboy got back on his quarter horse, which had natural cow sense and explosive speed. “I got to get us back on the Chisholm Trail. This trail we’re on don’t lead nowhere. If I leave it to those ghost riders that’s where we will end up. See you later, it’s time for me to cut a path.”

   “Catch you on the flip,” Oliver said.

   Watching the cowboy on his quarter horse ride away he heard, “As the riders loped on by he heard one call his name, if you wanna save your soul from Hell a-ridin’ on our range, then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride, tryin’ to catch the Devil’s herd across these endless skies.”

   The next morning it was raining hard when Oliver woke up. He lay in bed listening to it hit the roof until he got up and went downstairs. His mother and sister Emma were having breakfast. His father was on his treadmill working out before going to work. He was streaming a rerun of an old TV series called “Rawhide.” Clint Eastwood was the ramrod Rowdy Yates. Oliver couldn’t believe how young he looked, even though he knew everything was once new. Rowdy Yates was mixing it up with a drover called Toothless. It looked like trouble was brewing. 

   He liked the theme song and hummed it going into the kitchen, wondering if Emma, who had a hollow leg, had left any ham and eggs for him or if it was going to be a piece of old toast.

   “Don’t try to understand ’em,  just rope and throw and brand ’em, keep movin’, movin’, movin’, though they’re disapprovin’, keep them doggies movin’, Rawhide!”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland”  

Coming of age in the rough and tumble of the 1960s and 1970s. A collection of street level stories set in Cleveland, Ohio.

Available on Amazon and Apple Books

A Crying of Lot 49 Production

By Ed Staskus

   Even though he didn’t have much of a voice, Tommy Rawhead liked to sing. He liked to sing the one song everybody sang about him. “Rawhead and Bloody Bones, steals naughty children from their homes, takes them to his dirty den, and they are never seen again.” He loved that song. No child loved that song. Oliver didn’t like the song, especially since he was hearing it in a bad dream.

   He had gone to bed after dinner, after finishing his homework, working on a new ray gun, wrestling with his sister Emma, washing his face and brushing his teeth, and getting under the covers. It was early March. It was cold and windy. The electric wires attached to their house hummed in the air vortexes like the trilling of hummingbird wings.

   He had never heard of Tommy Rawhead, at least not until the middle of the night when the wind died down. The full moon drifted out from behind a cloud. He felt hot in his sleep and poked a leg out from under the bed cover to cool off. He started to dream. The song went round and round in his head.

   Tommy Rawhead and Bloody Bones came to fame in 1548 when he wrote the Last Will and Testament of the Devil. Tommy was the Devil’s secretary then. It was him to whom the devil dictated his will. “Written by my faithful secretary Rawhead and Bloody Bones in the spiteful audience of all the Court of Hell” is what the Devil said. He didn’t explain why Tommy had two names. 

   After he was downsized during one of Hell’s economic downturns  Tommy went on to become second-in-command to Thomas Lunford, a British Army Officer “of a very small and decayed fortune, with no good education, of a lawless disposition and a violent temper” in his Bishop’s Wars against the Scots.

   When the wars were over he began to haunt wells. After that he hooked up with Jenny Greenteeth and became the phantom of stagnant ponds. “Stay away from gravel pits or Rawhead and Bloody Bones will have you.” He was called Rawhead because all the skin from his skull had long ago been stripped away. He was called Bloody Bones because his favorite place to sit down was on a pile of bones.

   Oliver tossed and turned watching a bone man taking his ease on a seat of bones. He felt more hot than before. He pushed his bed cover aside. It fell to the floor. The wind rattled his window.

   Tommy Rawhead sailed across the Atlantic Ocean disguised as a deckhand and settled in Missouri. He went to live with Old Betty after he brought her beloved razorback, who had been gunned down by Old Dan, back to life. When the hog came to back to life it was a walking skeleton with a skinless head. Old Betty loved the beast, no matter what.

   Tommy Rawhead became a bogeyman in the 19^th century. His No. 1 job was scaring children into obedience. That was how he made a living. His business card said “I awe children and keep them in subjection.” It was said he “lived in a dark cupboard, usually under the stairs. If you were heroic enough to peep through a crack you would get a glimpse of the dreadful, crouching creature, with blood running down his face, seated waiting on a pile of raw bones that had belonged to children who told lies or said bad words. If you peeped through the keyhole he got you anyway.”

   Oliver saw himself peeping through a keyhole. He saw Tommy Rawhead clicking and clacking down S. Ridge Rd. past Carst Monuments. Tommy stopped at Mr. Lee’s Bar and Grill and got a pint of ale to slake his thirst, but the ale poured out of him as fast as he poured it down his throat. Oliver watched him trudge past the Heritage Bible Church, spitting into the roadside channel as he passed.

   He woke up with a start. He knew in a flash where Tommy Rawhead was going. He was coming to their neighborhood. He was going to the house up the street and around the corner where the Lawson’s lived. Mrs. Lawson went to work somewhere every morning and didn’t come back until after six o’clock. Mr. Lawson worked at home, although nobody knew what he did. Whenever anybody asked he told them to mind their own business.

   The Lawson’s had twin boys. Oliver thought they were around six years old. They didn’t go to school. Mr. Lawson was home schooling them. He didn’t seem to like being a teacher, since he was always complaining about his boys acting up. “They’re always misbehaving,” he said. He was a strict master. Oliver often heard him yelling at his sons, reprimanding them, and telling them if they didn’t shape up the bogeyman would get them.

   They hadn’t gotten any vaccinations because Mr. Lawson didn’t believe in them. Oliver’s father told him and Emma, his sister, to be careful and not spend too much time around the boys.

   “We have all our vaccines, don’t we?” Oliver asked.

   “Yes, but that’s no reason to ask for trouble.”

   “Why does Mr. Lawson not believe in vaccines?”

   “He’s a vaccine skeptic.”

   “What’s that.”

   “That’s somebody who doesn’t believe in vaccines, maybe because he thinks there are bad ingredients and side effects or they have religious objections because they believe the body is sacred and shouldn’t be violated by foreign substances. They have faith in divine healing. Sometimes they don’t want anybody, like the government, telling them what to do.”

   “I hope he stops at red lights, even though the government is telling him to do that.”

   “I’m sure he doesn’t want to get a ticket every time he’s out driving somewhere.”

   “What if his kids get sick because they’re not vaccinated? Isn’t that the same as going through a red light and getting a ticket? Is somebody going to give him a ticket if they do?”

   “Shouldn’t you be working on your ray gun?”

   “OK, dad.”

   Oliver jumped out of bed and crept into his sister’s room. He poked her until Emma woke up.

   “What’s up?’ she asked.

   “Tommy Rawhead is coming to get the Lawson boys. We have to stop him.”

   “What should we do?”

   “We have to make him fall down.”

   “Wait a minute, who is Tommy Rawhead and why do we want to make him fall down?”

   “I’ll explain later. Do you still have that bag of marbles from Christmas?”

   “They’re downstairs.”

   “Good, let’s get our coats, the marbles, and go outside.”

   It was dark as pitch on S. Ridge Rd. Where they lived in Lake County didn’t believe in too many streetlights.

   “Where is this Rawhead, anyway?” Emma asked.

   “He’s coming from over there,” Oliver said, pointing to his left. “Let’s hide behind this tree until he gets here. When he turns the corner is when we’ll trip him up.”

   It wasn’t long before Tommy Rawhead came down S. Ridge Rd. clicking and clacking in the wind. He turned into their neighborhood.  Oliver told Emma to wait.

   “I’m going to jump out when he gets near us. When he starts chasing me I’m going to run. When we’re running past you throw all the marbles at his feet. Make sure at his feet and not my feet.”

   “All right.”

   “Hey Mr. Bogeyman, come and get me, you old bag of bones.”

   Tommy Rawhead didn’t like that. He whirled, fixed his empty eye sockets on Oliver, and ran straight at him. Oliver tossed him a chin flick and ran the other way. As they ran past Emma she threw the marbles at Tommy Rawhead’s feet. He saw the danger right away, but it was too late. His arms windmilled wildly. He kicked a leg out looking for firm ground but there wasn’t any. His legs splayed. He yelped as he hit the ground hard landing flat on his back. When he did he fell apart, his bones scattering every which way. When they did, Mrs. Lawson, who was  going to work early, ran over them and splintered them into little pieces.

   “Did you know that was going to happen?” Emma asked.

    “I didn’t know Mrs.  Lawson was going to run over him, but I thought if we could make him take a hard fall he might fall apart. Skeletons are just a  collection of bones held together by ligaments, which eventually decay. He was plenty old enough. I didn’t think through what we would have done with the bones, but Mrs. Lawson took care of that.”

   “All’s well that ends well,” Emma said.

   They went home, snuck up to their bedrooms, got under their covers, and fell into dreamless sleep. A tree branch in the wind clapped itself against the side of the house. It might as well have been one hand clapping.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the rough and tumble of the 1960s and 1970s. A collection of street level short stories set in Cleveland, Ohio.

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Production

By Ed Staskus

   Emma started baking when she was six  years old, although it wasn’t exactly real baking. She baked small cakes in an Easy-Bake oven, which was a working toy oven. At first, when it was introduced in 1963, the heat source was two light bulbs. Hers had been the newer Ultimate Oven model, which used a real heating element. The baking was easy. There were Easy-Bake cake mixes and small round pans. She poured the cake mix into a pan, added water, blended it, and then pushed the pan through a slot into the oven. After the baking was done she pushed the pan out through a slot at the back end of the oven.

   Now that she was thirteen years old she baked for real. Her mother was a good cook, but her father was a better baker. He was an electrical engineer and knew all about energy getting the job done. “Baking is a science,” he said when he began teaching her everything he knew. “It’s all about precise measurements and proper techniques.  It’s about the chemical reactions that happen when ingredients are combined and exposed to heat, like the leavening agents in baking powder that create bubbles in batter. Do you follow me?”

   “I guess so.” 

    “All right, let’s start at the beginning by cracking eggs.”

   She wasn’t a beginner anymore. She knew the four pillars of baking, which were flour, eggs, sugar, and fat. Flour and eggs were structure builders while sugar and fat were tenderizers. She wasn’t good enough to make yeasted breads and laminated pastries, yet, but she was a hotshot with cookies, brownies, and cakes.

   Her brother Oliver was going to be eleven years old in exactly one day. She was planning on baking a cake for him. It was going to be a black cake made from a recipe by Emily Dickinson. Black cake is a kind of Caribbean Christmas cake, a close relative of British fruit cake. 

   Emma was a big fan of reading. She had started reading Emily Dickinson’s poems when her aunt gave her “Poetry for Kids: Emily Dickinson” two years ago for her birthday. Since then she had read “A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson,” which was a biography, and read every one of her poems, all one thousand eight hundred of them, in one library book after another. Only ten of the poems were ever published during Emily Dickinson’s lifetime.

   “A bird came down the walk, he did not know I saw, he bit an angleworm in halves and ate the fellow, raw, and then he drank a dew from a convenient grass, and then hopped sideways to the wall to let a beetle pass.”

   What most people didn’t know about Emily Dickinson was that she  was a very good baker. She was better known for her desserts than her poems. She was especially skillful with bread. She won second prize at the 1856 Amherst Cattle Show for her rye and Indian round bread. Emma knew all about  her baking prowess because she had discovered “The Emily Dickinson Cookbook” which was full of recipes for gingerbread and chocolate caramels. It was where she found the recipe for black cake.

   There was a copy of the hand-written recipe, written in Emily Dickinson’s hand, in the book. She had a funny way of forming her letters. It took some getting used to. Emma had the book propped open on the kitchen counter.

   She had her work cut out for her. The recipe called for two pounds of flour, two pounds of butter, five pounds of raisins, and nineteen eggs, among other ingredients. It made a twenty pound cake. She didn’t have a cake pan that could contain any such thing. She wasn’t sure if such a thing would even fit in their oven.

   She got to work, cutting the recipe down to size, leaving the brandy it called for out of the batter, and by the end of the afternoon the cake was in the oven, baking away. That is when she heard a voice speaking from the oven.

   “You do know that’s a Christmas cake, don’t you?” the voice, which sounded like Foghorn Leghorn, said.

   “I know, but it’s February, which is close enough,” Emma said.

   “Do you know the roots of that cake go back to slavery?”

   “I didn’t know that.”

   “And Emily Dickinson couldn’t have ever baked it if it wasn’t for the slaves in America.”

   “What do you mean? Her family never had slaves. They didn’t like slavery. Her father was a lawyer and he stood up for three black men who rescued a girl who was about to be sold into slavery. Their gardener, Jeremiah, was black. He got paid for his work. He wasn’t a slave.”

   “Emily Dickinson hated black people,” Foghorn Leghorn said. 

   “How do you know that?”

   “Everybody knows that.”

   Emma didn’t know that. If everybody knew it, how come she didn’t know it? None of the poems had anything about black people or slavery in them. She should know, since she had read all of them.

   “Have you read her poems?” she asked the voice.

    No, but it’s like the Bible. You don’t have to read the Good Book to know what its message is.”

   “That doesn’t sound right.”

   “You’re too young to understand.”

   Emma didn’t like being told she was too young to understand.

   “I understand full well that you can’t know what’s in a book unless you read it. Talking about Emily Dickinson without reading what she wrote would be like giving a fish a bath.”

   “You do know why the cake is black, don’t you, little girl?”

   Emma did not like being called a little girl, either. “No, I don’t know, but I don’t see why it matters.” She was getting tired of Foghorn Leghorn.

   “It’s called black cake because the color comes from molasses and spices, which were sourced from slave plantations in the Caribbean.”

   “I didn’t use molasses, smarty pants, I used sugar.”

   “Burnt sugar?” 

   “Yes, otherwise the cake wouldn’t be black.”

   “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

   “I’m the one baking it and whether it comes our black, or not, I say it’s a black cake,” Emma said, digging in her heels. Why was Foghorn Leghorn in her oven? She looked inside of  it but didn’t see anything except for the cake. Where was he? Did he get burned up? She didn’t see any ashes.

   “Emily Dickinson’s poems  should be burned on the bonfire of bad history. She was an elitist.”

   “What does  elitist mean?”

   “Elitists think wealth, intellect, and social status make them superior and those who have those qualities should have more power and influence.”

   “She lived on a farm, not in a mansion,” Emma said. “They had pigs, cows, horses, a fruit orchard, and a hay meadow. They grew most of their own food. She had a big garden and was always working in it. Everybody said she had a green thumb. She baked twenty pound cakes. She sometimes complained about all the work she had to do. Lots of her poems are about fields and farm life.”

    “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee. One clover, and a bee, and reverie. The reverie alone will do, If bees are few.”

   “If she wasn’t an elitist, why was she always wearing white?” Foghorn Leghorn crowed.

   “Who says she always wore white?” 

   “Everybody says so.”

   “Everybody is wrong, just like you. There’s only one photograph of her and she’s wearing a dark dress. She wore clothes made from unbleached linen and hemp and wool. Most of her clothes were brown-hued. Most of the time she probably wore simple linen skirts as an underlayer topped by a dark woolen overskirt.”

   “How do you know that?”

   “I read it in a book.”

   “I don’t like reading, too much work. I like watching TV. I like movies that are based on comic books and cell phone apps. I like the internet. There are lots of pictures.”

   “Why are you picking on Emily Dickinson?”

   “She thinks she’s all that with her fancy poems.”

   “I’m sorry Mr. Leghorn, but you’ve got to go. My cake is almost done and I’m done listening to you.”

   The next morning  was a cold February morning, but sunny. 

   “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door,” is what Emily Dickinson said about mornings.

   Oliver had black cake for breakfast on his birthday.

   “This cake is boss, sis, thanks so much,” he said.

   “My pleasure,” Emma said.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical timesl, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Production

By Ed Staskus

   It was getting close to midnight and Father Time was still trying to throw Baby New Year out the window. It was proving to be harder than he thought it would be. Who knew a newborn, even though he looked more like  toddler, could be so hefty? Who knew a newborn had any idea about how to throw a left jab? Or throw a left jab that knew where to land where it hurt the most?

   Father Time hadn’t started the fight, although he had declared he wasn’t ready to leave, new year or no new year. Baby New Year had started it when he had tried to kick Father Time out the back door. “Your time is over and done with,” he said. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” Father Time didn’t see the kick coming. It got him just below the back of the knee and buckled his leg. When it did he stumbled and hit his head on the door jamb. He was already angry, but that got his dander way up.

   He wasn’t just anybody to mess with. Way back when, when the Greeks were in charge, he had been Chronos. When the Romans took over he became Saturn. During the Renaissance he started carrying an hourglass and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Grim Reaper. By the 20^th century he was carrying a scythe, representing the cyclical nature of time.

   He kept his scythe in good working order. He cleaned the blade after every use. He sharpened it with a whetstone. He peened it to restore the edge after it had been overworked. He could swing it with the best of them.

   Father Time got up from where he had stumbled. He whirled around. Baby New Year had a fork in his hand. Father Time grabbed his scythe.

   “What’s gotten into those two?” Oliver asked his sister.

   “Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good,” Emma said. 

   They were at a New Year’s Eve party with their parents at their aunt’s swank house in Bratenahl. It was the first time they had ever been there. It was the first time they had ever been invited. The house was a waterfront mansion. It had a great view of Lake Erie. The ceilings were sky high and all the sofas and armchairs were white. There were four bedrooms and five bathrooms.

   “She must go to the toilet a lot,” Emma said.

   Their aunt’s grown-up children and their spouses and some of their children were there. Oliver and Emma’s parents and everybody else were in the great room testing their paper tube noisemakers and pouring champagne into tulip-shaped glasses. The glasses were so clean they glistened like Vin Diesel’s bald head.

   Oliver and Emma were in the kitchen, although they were keeping their distance from the combatants, who were circling each other.

   “You’re the old year, you codger, and I’m the new year,” Baby New Year said. “It’s always been that way. You’ve got to hand the new year over to me. It’s time to pass the baton.” He had his 2026 sash at the ready. He waved his fork for emphasis.

   Baby New Year went back to when the Greeks were in charge, just like Father Time. He went back to the Great Dionysia, which celebrated the springtime resurrection of Dionysius, who was the god of wine and fertility. After the parade and during the buffet, Dionysius’s birth was celebrated by putting the baby in a winnowing fan, which was a kind of bread basket, and showing him off. Everybody made sure not to eat him by mistake.

   “Pass the baton?” Father Time said. “What do you know? You don’t know anything. You’ll just screw things up worse than they already are. Your kind always does, starry-eyed and incompetent. I’ve got plenty of experience. I’ll keep the ship on course.”

   “On course?” Baby New Year exclaimed. “The train is running off the rails. The future needs new blood. That means me. Now give me that hourglass you’ve got hidden inside your robe.” By all rights Father Time was supposed to hand the hourglass over and pass on his wisdom and duties.

    “What I say is what Percy Shelly wrote in his poem,” Baby New Year said. “My Father Time is weak and gray, with waiting for a better day, see how idiot-like he stands, fumbling with his palsied hands.”

   Baby New Year had gone through hell and high water to get to the handover on time. He had been stuck on the Archipelago of Last Years, which were islands where all the old years retired. He had gone there to prep for the new year, hoping to gain insights and absorb wisdom about what were going to be his new duties. 

   When he got there, however, he was taken prisoner by Eon the Terrible, who was a supersized vulture. From birth the big evil bird had been destined to live a half a million years. His problem was the half a million years were coming to an end at the end of the year. When that happened he was going to suddenly turn into dust and be blown away by the wind. Keeping Baby New Year prisoner would stop time and keep the year from ending. It would keep him alive, too.

   When Santa Claus found out what was happening he was appalled. Stopping time would stop Christmas. He sent Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer to rescue Baby New Year. It was easier said than done. Eon the Terrible took the reindeer prisoner, too, and locked him up on his Island of No-Name, located north of the North Pole. When Rudolph escaped Eon the Terrible unleashed an avalanche that trapped the reindeer inside a gigantic snowball. Rudolph melted the snow with his bright shiny nose, climbed up to Eon the Terrible’s nest, and set Baby New Year free.

   “After all I’ve gone through, give me that hourglass.” Baby New Year said. Time was running short. It was ten minutes to midnight. That’s when the rumble in the kitchen got serous. Father Time swung his scythe at Baby New Year’s head. But since he had a bad back and couldn’t bend even an inch, he missed by a mile. Baby New Year stuck his fork into Father Time’s foot.

   “Ouch!” Father Time yelped, limping this way and that, using his scythe as a cane. The cook, who had been washing dishes, had backed herself into a corner, using a chopping board as a shield. She had a spatula she was prepared to use for protection, if it came to that.

   Father Time groaned and lowered himself onto a stool.

   “He looks all worn out,’ Oliver said. ‘He should give it up.”

   “Maybe he thinks Baby New Year just isn’t ready,” Emma said.

   “Babies are never ready. They just have to jump in with both feet.”

   “I was the most happening man at the party all this past year, but now I think it’s time to leave,” Father Time said. He stood up and went towards the back door. He put his hourglass on the floor and leaned his scythe against the wall. 

   “You’ll need these things,” he said while looking down at the half-pint who was going to take his place. “Good luck, you’ll need it.” He left his shadow behind, but even that soon disappeared. It was like he had never been there.

   Oliver lifted Baby New Year onto his shoulders, and with Emma beside him, carried him into the great room where everybody was waiting. A cheer went up. Champagne went down throats.

   Out with the old and in with the new.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

By Ed Staskus

   It was twilight on Christmas Eve when Santa Claus landed his sled in Oliver and Emma’s backyard in Perry, Ohio. He skidded to a stop and was right away followed by nine larger supply sleds manned by elves. When they landed they formed a kind of wagon train circle. Two more sleds landed in the middle. They were stealth sleds. The elves in them were Santa Claus’s bodyguards. They were dressed all in black and wore AI-powered smart glasses.

   The stealth sleds were invisible to radar, infrared, and acoustic sensors. They were built with special radar-absorbent materials. They weren’t pulled by reindeers. They were powered by a jet engine designed to mask its heat signature. The elf bodyguards unloaded the ray guns they carried inside internal bays and distributed them to all the other elves. Three of them huddled with Santa Claus. They scanned the sky anxiously.

   “It’s all hands on deck tonight,” Santa Claus said, “although not in the way we expected.”

   “We’ve been watching Draco, but we didn’t anticipate him attacking us on this of all days,” one of the elf bodyguards said.

   “He tried to surprise us,” Santa Claus said. “It’s a good thing Rudolph sniffed out the danger.”

   The youngest of Santa’s reindeer team, Rudolph was the lead reindeer. He was brown with some white on his muzzle. He had a glowing red nose. It was what he used to guide Santa Claus’s sleigh through darkness and snow storms. He could sniff out trouble in thick fog and around the corner. He didn’t say much but he was reliable and brave.

   “That is more elves than I’ve ever seen in my life,” Emma said, looking out the window. “Although, to be honest I’ve never even seen one before today.”

   “I wasn’t sure Santa Claus was real,” Oliver said, “but there he is.”

   “Why is he out there with all those sleds?”

   “Let’s go find out.”

   They went through the sliding doors leading to their patio and out to the field behind their house. The Assembly of God was at the front end of the field and a cell phone tower was at the back end of the field. The church was small. The cell phone tower was large.

   One of the elf bodyguards tried to wave them back, but Oliver and Emma ran right up to Santa Claus. He was younger and taller than they thought he would be. He wasn’t roly-poly. He was fit as a fiddle. He was wearing a bright red coat and matching pants, trimmed with white fur. The fabric, however, wasn’t cloth. It was ripcord. “It resists wear and tear,” Santa Claus said. The rest of him was fitted with a black belt dressed up with  a gold buckle, a red hat with a white pom-pom, and black boots. He didn’t look jolly. He looked commanding.

   “What’s going on?” Oliver asked. “Why are you here and not delivering gifts?”

   “It’s the Mighty Draco,” Sanra Claus said. “He’s from far away, from outer space. He’s been circling our planet for years. He intends to take over the earth. He is starting by destabilizing our institutions. One of his body snatchers is in Washington,  D.C. spreading lies and shutting down the federal agencies that help people. Another one of his body snatchers is in Moscow, spreading death and destruction wherever he can. One is in North Korea. There are others, powerful body snatchers with a lust for riches and power.”

   “But what does that have to do with you?” Emma asked.

   “He wants to strip us of our holidays, starting with me. “The Easter Bunny will be next and after that the Thanksgiving Turkey. He doesn’t want us celebrating the things we hold dear. He’s a tyrant, the unhappiest of creatures. He wants everybody to be unhappy like him.”

   Just then an intergalactic flying saucer landed. The Mighty Draco floated down from his spacecraft, followed by his shock troops. He was green from tip to toe, naked except for a pair of red Speedo’s, with horns sticking out from his temples and webbed hands and feet. He and his shock troops were carrying ray guns. They looked fearsome. The Mighty Draco’s face was twisted with a sneer.

   “Earthmen,” he said in a voice that had the icy chill of deep space in it. “I have come to destroy Santa Claus and everything he stands for. When I am done with him and his kind I shall issue an ultimatum which will bring everyone to their knees, making them subject to the rule of the Mighty Draco.”

   Why is he talking about himself in the third person? Emma wondered. One of her pet peeves was blowhards talking about themselves in the third person.

   “Since you say you are starting with me,” Santa Claus sad, “I am taking it upon myself to stop you right here.”

   The Mighty Draco roared with laughter. “You and your midgets are going to stop me? That’ll be the day!” No sooner had he said that than he and his shock troops began blasting the circle of sleds with their ray guns. Santa Claus and his elves began blasting back. There was the crackle of hundreds of electric energy beams. The air stank with acrid smoke. Beams clanged off the force field the bodyguard elves had thrown over their sleds. Their beams bounced off the shock troops, protected by their own force fields. When the shooting stopped, the ground was black and smoking, but no one had gained the upper hand. Both sides were reloading their ray guns when Oliver stuck his index fingers into his mouth, forming an “A” shape, He curled his tongue back and pressed it down with his fingers. He whistled, a piercing sound that brought everybody to a stop.

   “Are you calling Ralph?” Emmas asked.

   “Yes,” Oliver said.” He’ll put the clamps on that Mighty Draco.”

   Ralph was a honey badger who lived in the woods beyond the cell phone tower. He had helped Oliver and Emma a couple of times over the years. He was stocky with thick skin. He was black with a white stripe running from his head to the base of his tail. His front feet featured large claws. He was very strong and fearless. He was tougher than woodpecker beaks and saltwater crocodiles. He came trotting out of the woods. Oliver rubbed the top of his head and pointed at the Mighty Draco.

   “He needs to go back to where he came from,” he said. 

   “That thing is your champion?” the Mighty Draco hooted. “It’s no bigger than a dog. I’ll make hamburger meat out of him in two seconds.”

   He started blasting Ralph with his ray gun. Ralph steadied himself, growled, and made a beeline for the creature from beyond the stars.  His African relatives fought lions and Cape buffaloes day in and day out. A green knucklehead wearing red Speedo’s wasn’t going to get the better of him. 

   Ralph advanced, glowing, the ray gun lighting him up.  His eyes went shiny red and his coarse fur bristled with static. He broke into a trot and bull rushed the Mighty Draco, head butting him in the front of his red shorts. The creature went down like a shot. Ralph got behind him, sunk his teeth into his rear end, and dragged him back to his flying saucer. He lifted him overhead, swung him around in circles, and finally  heaved him into his spacecraft. The Mighty Draco lay groaning just inside the hatch. The swinging had made him dizzy. He threw up all over.

   All the air went out of the shock troops. They floated up to their master, mopped up the vomit, closed the hatch, and fired up the engines. The flying saucer sped away.

   Santa Claus walked up to Ralph and thanked him for a job well done. 

   “It was child’s play,” Ralph said, snorting. 

    “I wish I had something for you,” Santa Claus said. “Next year I will, and it will be something special.” 

   The honey badger grunted and sauntered back into the words. He needed a nap.

   “He’s a man of few words,” Santa Claus said to Oliver and Emma. “Do you happen to have any more like him that I can drop down chimneys in Washington, D.C., Moscow, and North Korea?”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street  http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Made in Cleveland” by Ed Staskus

Coming of age in the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

“A collection of street level short stories blended with the historical, set in Cleveland, Ohio. The storytelling is plugged in.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Books

Available on Amazon:

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication