Christmasness by C.B. Bernard

December 26

TIRED, HUNGRY SANTA AND AN EIGHT-CYLINDER REINDEER hurtle the Jersey Turnpike well into morning. Still it snows. Snow piled along the gutters looks like mashed potatoes scraped with a butter knife to the side of the plate. It reminds him of home. Home is a funny word, he thinks, lighting another cigarette and punching the radio of his tan El Camino. Bottles rattle in the bed.
    He taps his hands on the steering wheel with the music, but smoke waters his eyes. He bites down a little on the cigarette and steers it with his tongue to the corner of his mouth.
    Fuzzy dice hang from the rearview mirror. He knows it's a cliché and doesn't care. In the rearview mirror he sees red nose, red cheeks, beard hung like spider webs from a slack jaw. Beneath the white ruff of hat—the ridiculous hat, he thinks—he tries on a handful of facial expressions. Nonchalant, he says aloud, and tries to look unaffected. Aloof, he says, and wrinkles his lips. For Sultry he gives himself what he understands to be a come-hither glance in the mirror. Then the steering wheel jerks right, hard, his right front tire catching the margin of snow, and he overcompensates left, darting his eyes back to the road. An explosion of mashed potatoes piles onto the hood and windshield. He steers into his skid before finding traction again.
    Eyes on the road, he frees a shaking hand from the wheel and throws his cigarette out the window, quickly rolling it up and gripping the wheel. His heart races. He drives a quiet stretch of road in straight-ahead silence until his breathing returns to normal.
    Rocketing past a rapid succession of exits, he takes stock of his life as he sees it, talking aloud to keep his focus.
    It's Christmas Eve. My feet itch in these plastic boots. The Leaky Roof is closed for the holiday and there's only two cans left in this twelve. There's a bottle in the nightstand by my bed at home. But home is a long time ago, he understands, passing a snow plow painted in New Jersey Highway Maintenance Department colors, a desperate orange on a desperate night. He tries to keep a ruler line as he passes, honking and saluting the plow driver who laughs visibly at the 3 a.m. vision of Santa, face pale in the dashboard light.
    Keep it between the ditches, he says, and wonders immediately where he's heard that expression. His dad, probably. His father spoke in sayings, in fact made a decent post-retirement living selling the bumper stickers he silk-screened in the basement. I BRAKE FOR PRETTY WOMEN was one of his. So were SCREW THE WHALES, SAVE YOURSELF, and HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS.
    Where's Jesus now? he wonders, aiming for a corduroy stretch of freshly plowed road. This is his birthday, isn't it? Is He out celebrating somewhere, a martini in hand, Mary Magdalene hanging off his arm? No. Jesus wasn't a martini guy. He was scotch, rocks. Bourbon. Two-thousand years later, where is He? What's His legacy to the world? What did His sacrifice get us? A red-nosed reindeer, a bunch of trees, and fa-la-la-la-la. Could be worse, he thinks, patting around his felt-clad torso for his pack of smokes. He could be dressed like Jesus, freezing his ass off in some bloody robe. At least the hat's warm. Warmer than a crown of thorns. He can't find his cigarettes.
    He reaches across the seat and opens the glove box where he thinks he might have a spare pack. Digs under the car registration, under the small flashlight and the condom he keeps there, the foil wrapper brittle with age. Matches, too, and an old rosary someone has left him. And then, the corner just poking out so he almost misses it, a wallet-sized photo of his son. Richard couldn't have been much more than three, a smiling towhead sitting on dad's lap. What a beauty. He holds the picture close to the glove box bulb. And a fine-looking Santa I made then, he thinks wistfully, noticing the crisp red his suit had then, even in a faded Kodachrome. He tries to imagine Richard's face twenty-some-odd-years older, maybe a wispy moustache or day-old stubble, age lines or texture to his brow, but comes up blank. Pictures only a baby-faced three-year-old body talking to him in adult tones, reproachfully. An angry elf.
    In late-night New Jersey the snow falls harder. Traffic is light. Exits line up ahead of him like days on a calendar, days to be counted, and he passes them like time. His chin itches beneath the beard. He keeps his eyes on the road and wonders where his cigarettes are.

About the author:
C.B. Bernard's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Gray's Sporting Journal, Ducts.org, The Hub Occasional, the Boston Fiction Annual Review and elsewhere, and in numerous newspapers and magazines. A featured writer at the 2007 Boston Fiction Festival and a 1993 Glascock poetry participant, he's also won awards for his nonfiction writing and photography. He's lived in eight states, including Alaska, and recently moved from Oregon to Maine.