By Ed Staskus

   “Are you OK mister?” Oliver asked, standing in the middle of his backyard, looking at a small man at his feet. It was early in the morning. The rising sun was behind him. A slight rain was falling in front of him. He was between the sunshine and the rain.

   After a minute went by and there was no answer, he asked the small man again. There was no answer again. Oliver took a closer look at him. He was wearing a top hat, breeches, and buckled shoes. The hat was green and the shoes were black. His breeches were caked with dirt and his sideburns were orangish. The man was flat on his back. He was out cold. A shillelagh was on the ground beside him. He was pint-sized, about Oliver’s size. Oliver got down on his haunches and put his ear near the man’s open mouth. When he heard and felt breathing he felt better. The man was alive, although his breath was foul to the nose. 

   “Mister, are you all right?”

   The small man gurgled in his sleep and shooed away an imaginary fly. Oliver shook the man by his shoulder. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing happened again. The third time was the charm, but what happened wasn’t charming. The small man sat bolt upright, hopped to his feet in a flash, and had Oliver in a headlock the next instant.

   Oliver was the Unofficial Monster Hunter of Lake County, and even though he was only nine years old, he knew a thing or two about self-defense. He reached for the small man’s free arm and trapped it between their bodies. He put one foot behind the man and pushed. They both started to fall.  He quickly ducked underneath the head-locking arm and in two seconds flat was behind his assailant. He locked the man’s arm behind his back. They both tumbled to the  ground. When that happened, the small man started snorting and laughing.

   He laughed so much Oliver thought he might choke. He released his arm-lock. Eventually the laughing went its merry way.

   “I will tell you, boyo, nobody has never done that to me. I tip my hat to you.” He reached up and tipped his hat.

   “Who are you?”

   “I’m a leprechaun today, hungover tomorrow, don’t you know?”

   “How did you get here?”

   “Where is here?

   “Perry.”

   “Perry?”

   “Near Painesville.”

   “Painesville?”

   “Near Cleveland.”

   “Now that’s something I do remember, the big parade. It’s all a blur after that.”

   “You don’t remember?”

   “I don’t remember anything after the parade except drinking beer in one local after another.”

   “Local?”

   “Where you go to drink beer.”

   “Oh.”

   “All right then, I better be on me way, although I am a wee bit famished.”

   Oliver went into the kitchen and returned with buttered toast, hard boiled eggs, and a bottle of water. The leprechaun chomped on the toast and devoured the eggs. He gave the water a scornful glance.

   “I’ve never met a leprechaun before,” Oliver said. “Do you know Lucky the Leprechaun?”

   “Who’s he?’

   “He’s on every box of Lucky Charms cereal.”

   “Never heard of him.”

   “I was at the St. Patrick’s Day parade yesterday. I didn’t see you.”

   “I didn’t see you either.”

   Oliver and his sister Emma, who was his right-hand man, had been at the parade with their parents and their friend Tommy One-Shoe. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cleveland was in 1842. Since then, all the other big parades in town had come and gone. There wasn’t a Fourth of July or Thanksgiving or Christmas parade anymore, although there was a Turkey Trot. The only one left was the parade in mid-March.

   “Why do you have a little hammer in your back pocket?”

   “That be my pattern hammer. I’m a shoemaker the same like all leprechauns. We repair shoes for the fairies, who are dancing fools. When they wear their shoes out we make new ones for them. It keeps us busy, believe you me. That’s how we fill our treasure crocks.”

   “What are those?”

   “Our pots of gold.”

   “What do you do with all your gold?”

   “There’s no place for us to spend it so we don’t do anything with it, except avoid big ‘uns who want to get it. They think greed is good. We teach them it’s not good, although they never stop trying to outsmart us. One time a townsman had me dead to rights and would only let me go if I told him where my gold was buried. I pointed to a tree in a field behind him. He took his red suspenders off and tied them around the tree. When he left to get a shovel I disappeared, although I left some of my magic behind. When he got back there was a surprise waiting for him. There were red suspenders tied to every tree in sight.”

   “Where do you come from?”

   “I be from the 8^th century.”

   Back in the day leprechauns were water spirits called “luchorpán,” which means small body. The spirits befriended household fairies a few centuries later so they could get into cellars where drink was stored. After they tasted the drink they never went back to water. That was when they turned into leprechauns. 

   “Where do you live?”

   “I don’t live anywhere, but where I lay my head is far away.” They didn’t like living in houses, sleeping in caves and hollow tree trunks instead.   

   “Do your friends and family miss you?”

   “No, we be solitary creatures. No friends and no family. I don’t even know if there are or ever were girly leprechauns. There aren’t many of us left, maybe three hundred or so in all of Ireland. It’s gotten so the European Union put us on their protected species list, like we are butterflies or some such thing.”

   “Do you want to stay at our house?” Oliver asked. “We could find a hollow tree trunk for you and we have plenty more toast and eggs.”

   “Thanks laddie, but I needs to be getting back.”

   “How are you going to find the way?”

   “That be easy as raisin pie,” the leprechaun said, pointing skyward. “I look for a rainbow and follow it. My treasure crock lays at the end of the rainbow.”

   It was raining lightly in the direction they were looking.

   “If you want a rainbow, you have to put up with the rain,” the leprechaun said. A rainbow needs water droplets to be floating in the air. That’s why we see them right after it rains. The sun must be behind you for it to appear in front of you.

   The rainbow was coming out of the ground on the far side of the Church of Jesus Christ which stood on the near side of Oliver’s backyard. They walked past the house of worship. Oliver didn’t see the small man spit when they passed the Protestant church. When they found the fountainhead of the rainbow they stopped and the leprechaun stood on the spot. The spot was glowing a golden color. The leprechaun started to spin where he stood until like a drill he drilled into the firmament and soon enough was lost to sight.

   Oliver crept to the edge of the hole and cautiously looked down into it. It seemed like he could see to the center of the planet. The leprechaun had disappeared off the face of the earth.

   When Emma came out of the house to see what was going on, Oliver said, “ I better ask dad to fill up this hole with some dirt before somebody falls in and is gone without a trace.”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Atlantic Canada http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. 

“Cross Walk” by Ed Staskus

A Mid-Century Crime Thriller

“A once upon a crime whodunit.” Barron Cannon, Adventure Books

“Captures the vibe of 1950s NYC.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRPSFPKP

Late summer and early autumn. New York City. A Hell’s Kitchen private eye. The 1956 World Series. President Eisenhower at the opening game. A killer in the Brooklyn Dodger dugout.