BY STEVE BAILEY
Copyright is held by the author.
GHOSTS ARE supposed to scare, not be scared. But, of course, I am not a real ghost. I am a yard decoration placed on a leaf-strewn front lawn during Halloween. I am not even that scary with my silly orange hat and bow tie. But on one unforgettable night, I mysteriously became possessed by a delinquent specter. Left as a shapeless clump of white plastic while neighbours around me had changed their yard decor from Halloween to Christmas, I sadly thought how Christmas had no use for ghosts.
No sooner had that thought come out than a disturbing change from within me occurred, and I became upright, filled not with air, but something more spirited. I could faintly smell cigarettes and beer as I reached my full height. Then I heard someone inside me say:
“Wow, this is bitchin, man!”
My voice trembled as I inquired.
“Who are you?”
“I am Richie. I became a ghost at age 17 when I ran my 1957 Chevy into a tree. A word to the wise, don’t drink beer and try to light a cigarette while driving.”
Laughter followed, full of reckless adolescent mirth.
“Christmas is dragsville, man,” the teenage ghost continued. “Halloween is hip. So, we’re gonna celebrate Halloween by attacking Christmas.”
The phantom disconnected my air hose, and I felt liberated and uneasy at the same time. I floated in the air, a few feet off the pavement, gliding slowly down the street by houses where lights twinkled through windows from Christmas trees in living rooms. The air felt much colder than any I had experienced previously. Under normal circumstances, I would have been in a cardboard box in the attic before this transition into winter. Suddenly, Richie lifted me above the rooftops with an incredible surge of energy.
That rush of strength unnerved me. I realized how little control I had over myself. What if the ghost suddenly decided to leave? After all, teenagers are nothing if not fickle. I could fall into some stranger’s yard who would throw me in a trash can the next day.
“Put me down, Richie,” I pleaded.
He said nothing, but I descended into a yard; not my yard but one with mannequins in nineteenth-century apparel; an elder with a grey beard in a top hat handing something to a little boy with a wooden crutch: a younger man, the boy’s father, looked on.
Richie spoke.
“There are ghosts in this Christmas story. Three of them, in fact. But do you see any represented here? No! That’s bogus, man!”
Encouraged by the juvenile poltergeist within me, I pushed the mannequins over one by one, and when Tiny Tim toppled to the ground, excitement replaced my fear and anxiety. I liked being naughty.
The dummies lay on the grass.
“You need the set us upright, mate,” Bob Cratchit said. “We will be soaked in dew if we lay like this all night.”
“Bah Humbug,” I replied as the ground, and the scene of my vandalism fell away below me. After traversing several rooftops, I arrived at a yard with a nativity scene.
When he saw me hovering over his manger, the baby Jesus screamed.
“I guess we scared the bejesus out of Jesus,” said Ricky happily.
“There is a ghost in this story, but do you see him anywhere?”
“What ghost?” I inquired.
“The holy ghost,” Again, the sound of teenage laughter reverberated inside me.
At that moment, a shepherd in a beige tunic tried to chase me off by swinging at me with his shepherd’s hook. I managed to snatch it away, and to everyone’s horror except my own, I clobbered one of the wise men on the head with it, causing his crowned cranium to separate from the body and roll over to Mary’s feet. She looked up at me in shock.
“Look what thou hast done! Thou art a vile sinner,” she said and scooped up the baby Jesus to protect and comfort the screaming child.
“Ah, don’t spaz out there, doll face. You don’t want to lose your head too, do ya?”
I ascended again, wondering if Richie had taken me over entirely. I barely understood what I had said. And what do “spaz out” and “Humbug” even mean? If Richie does take complete control of me, am I fated to wander about in the air all the time?
“Ok,” I told my spirit friend. “You have made your point. There are underrepresented Christmas ghosts.”
“One more stop, just for fun,” Richie responded.
I settled on a rooftop with Santa and his reindeer. Richie had me hooked on sabotage, and our collective impishness took on a vulgar tone. I arranged the reindeer in various sexual positions turning the roof into a scene of orgy and animal lust. As Richie giggled uncontrollably, Santa, from his sleigh, shook his fist at me and cut loose with a string of expletives. I could hear the other yard decorations reacting as I rose into the darkness.
“Thou art a profane child of the devil,” yelled one of the wise men.
“What are the reindeer doing?” asked Tiny Tim.
“Don’t look, son,” Bob Cratchit replied helplessly from the damp ground.
I resumed flying over the neighbourhood, concerned about becoming more Richie and less me, when I landed in front of a dark house that I could not recognize at first. As I deflated, I heard,
“Gotta go, Daddy-O. I hadda blast, man.”
Richie left, and I realized the puckish specter had returned me to my yard before departing. He did not want to take me over. He just wanted to use me to have a bit of fun. I’ll admit that although the experience at times did scare me, I had a wonderful time being impish.
The next day I lay on the ground, like a chunk of snow that refused to melt, and listened to police question neighbours searching for what they called “a seriously deranged vandal.”
This year a green-faced witch and a large black cat joined me on the front lawn for Halloween. On a night when we stood upright and full of air, I told them about my adventure with Richie.
“It is an amazing story,” the witch said as she swayed back and forth in the chilly autumn breeze.
The black cat purred in agreement.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That Christmas was my best Halloween ever.”
***
Steve Bailey grew up in the Panama Canal Zone, went to school in Minnesota, and taught history for 32 years in Virginia. For the last three years, he has been a freelance writer. He lists his published works, fiction, and nonfiction, on his website vamarcopolo.com. Steve lives in Richmond, Virginia. Find him on Twitter: @vamarcopolo
