No Good Deed

         The snow was still falling outside. It had been for three days. Crowds of schoolchildren were gathering along the steepest streets with their sleds and stolen lunch trays, celebrating their two week escape from teachers and classes and talking about what they would pick out with their parents at Gimbels the next day. The younger ones were chattering excitedly about seeing Santa there, and their older siblings did their best to hold their tongues and not ruin the secret just yet.

            Christopher opened the door to his twenty-third floor apartment. He stepped in, taking off his boots and feeling along the wall for the light switch. His bright red shirt read Gimbels on the right breast pocket and Christopher Creed, Sales Associate on the left. He took off his damp jacket and hung it on the wall before making his way to the kitchen. After rummaging through the freezer, he slumped into his chair at the table and poured a tall glass of chilled Ketel One. He took a long sip, relishing its bite and the subtle flavors unadulterated by ice. Fire ran through him, warming his body and sending chills down his spine.

            In another small apartment on the other side of town a little girl with red hair cried quietly in her room while her mother watched CNN with a box of tissues on the couch.

            Christopher finished his glass and poured it half-empty again. He looked around his cramped apartment, sighing at the dishes stacked in the sink and the many fist-sized holes in the walls. He stood up slowly with his glass and put on his slippers before stepping out onto the snowy balcony. The chill of the night cut through him as he leaned against the railing listening to the delighted shrieks of the neighborhood kids on their sleds. As a child he had ridden stolen trays down those same streets under the streetlights and the snow until his aunt called him home. He used to love this time of year.

            In an old dark warehouse a lost boy in a puffy jacket received his initiation orders from an older boy who had never learned to smile.

            The night was dark. The glass was empty again. Christopher glared at it disappointedly, his anger slowly rising. His eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened around the glass. With a fluid motion he launched the glass off the balcony and into the snowy street below. The glass shattered over the street. Christopher wiped the snow from the railing in front of him. He stepped onto the chair on the balcony and gingerly placed his left foot on the slippery railing. The street below called to him. As Christopher lifted his right foot to put it on the railing the harsh ring of his company cell phone jarred through the night and penetrated the cloud in his mind. He regained his balance and stepped down from the railing, opening the glass sliding door as he answered his manager’s call.

            “Chris, it’s Dan. Listen, something came up with Johnny and he’s not going to be able to come in tomorrow. He was scheduled for the last Santa shift tomorrow and I need you to come in and replace him for the day. The kids will love you. How’s that sound? Good, great, I’ll see you tomorrow, you go on at five.”

            Christopher put the phone back in his pocket without having said a word and walked into the kitchen again. He took a clean glass from the cabinet and poured it half-empty with vodka. He ran the hot water in the sink and rinsed the dishes before placing them in the dishwasher with a sigh.

            The little girl with red hair had fallen asleep on the other side of town, and the lost boy in the puffy jacket was curled up in a corner of the old warehouse preparing his mind for his initiation the next day and dreaming of the father he never knew. The streets were quiet, the schoolchildren in bed, the gangs seeking refuge from the cold dark night.

            Another dirty greasy child climbed up onto Christopher’s lap. Christopher looked at him with a fake smile through his fake Santa beard. “What’s your name kid?” His name was Sammy. He wanted a fire truck. A real fire truck. “Well, I’ll have my elves do their best, but your parents probably don’t want you to have a real fire truck until you’re at least sixteen. Good luck kid.”

            The pillow under Christopher’s shirt helped make him look fat and provided him with an extra layer of protection from the hordes of smelly children wanting to climb all over him. He had swapped his red Gimbels shirt for a red Santa jacket that was hot and itchy. He had almost brought his flask with him, but decided to settle for a little orange juice in his morning vodka. The next kid in line had reached him, his impatient mother waiting some feet away with an elf. “Ho ho ho. What’s your name?”

            “My name’s Timmy and I wann a horse and a race car and roller coaster and-”

            “Kid, Timmy, take it easy. How about a book? You want a book?”

            “NO! I don’t wann a book I wann a robot and a monster and a-”

            “Ok Timmy you monster, monster it is. See you on Christmas kid.” Timmy’s mom glared at Santa as her son stomped away.

            “Chris! Dude you gotta relax,” the elf whispered. “They’re kids dude, the parents are getting pissed.”

            “Try sitting here then tell me to relax,” Christopher mumbled under his breath.

            A lost boy in a puffy jacket stood thirty feet away next to a pillar, staring at Santa.

            Christopher struggled to scratch his chest through the pillow and red jacket. A little girl with red hair and slightly puffy eyes held her mother’s hand as she inched closer to Santa. Christopher looked down at her. She slowly raised her eyes to his as her mother brought her in front of him. “Ho ho ho, what’s your name little girl?”

            “Amanda,” she almost whispered.

            “Speak up honey, Santa won’t hurt you,” her mother said gently into her daughter’s ear as she lifted her into Santa’s lap.

             “And what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas, Amanda?” Santa asked with what he hoped was a welcoming smile. The girl’s shyness struck him.
            The little red haired girl lifted her light blue eyes to Christopher’s but didn’t say anything. “It’s okay baby, tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” her mother said. She had a soft voice.

            “Santa?” Amanda said with eyes full of a child’s hope. “Can I have my daddy’s ring back? He died and all I have is his ring but I lost it and I don’t know where it is and I just, I just really want it back. Can you do that Santa?” Her mother’s eyes watered, but she waited to let Santa respond.

            Christopher’s face tensed for a moment and he shot a terrified glance at the mother before looking back into Amanda’s wide eyes. “Amanda, I’ll have my elves look for your daddy’s ring, and when we find it I’ll make sure we bring it to you, ok?”

            “Thank you Santa,” Amanda said, her shy smile betraying the hope she had that Santa would find her ring.

The elf walked Amanda back to the line, but her mother lingered next to Santa until her daughter was out of earshot. “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry about that. Her father was just killed in Iraq and I thought it would be best if I took his Marines ring from her room so she wouldn’t lose it. I had no idea she was going to ask if you could get it back for her. I’m so sorry to involve you in this more, but would you be willing to give it back to her? I have it in my purse now. I think it would really help her cope if Santa got Daddy’s ring back for her.”

“Ma’am,” Christopher started, choking slightly on his words. “I’d be honored to give her the ring. I finish up here in fifteen minutes. Leave me the ring and come back with Amanda then and I’ll be able to give it to her.”

Amanda’s mother left with Amanda to get lunch at the McDonald’s in the food court, though she knew she would only be able to watch her daughter eat and couldn’t order anything herself. She left the ring with Christopher, who held it in his hand while the elf brought another kid to Santa’s chair. He refused to lose it but didn’t dare to put it on. It was a simple ring, a thick gold band with a dull stone in the middle and the words USMC and Semper Fidelis inscribed on the sides. “What do you want for Christmas kid?” he mumbled. The next fifteen minutes were the some of the slowest of Christopher’s life.

Amanda and her mother returned. For the first time all day Christopher was glad to see a child coming towards him. Amanda walked up to Christopher slowly.

Behind her Amanda’s mother said “Santa says he has something for you honey.” Amanda’s eyes widened, but her expression remained skeptical.

“Ho ho ho, hello again Amanda. My elves found something that I think might belong to you,” Christopher said as he crouched down to Amanda’s eye level. “Close your eyes and give me your hands.”

The girl’s eyes shot open when she felt the ring drop into her outstretched palms. She looked at the ring in her hands, up at Santa’s smile, back at the ring. Her blue eyes filled with tears as she threw her arms around a surprised Santa, whispering “Thank you Santa, thank you Santa” through her sobs. Santa closed his arms around the girl and fought back tears of his own. After a moment her mother picked her up and held her tightly to her chest as they both cried. Her mother looked into Santa’s glassy eyes, thanking him with hers. With a final hug for Santa Amanda and her mother turned and went home to their small apartment.

In the staff locker room Christopher Creed felt his way to his locker like a blind man. He sat on the bench in front of his locker, pulled the pillow out of his shirt, tugged the fake beard off his face. The air was the unnatural warm all locker rooms share, but under his fake Santa jacket Christopher was shivering. He took off the jacket and the pants and folded them on the bench next to him. He took his towel from his locker and made his way to the showers. The hot water from the showerhead rinsed away the hot tears springing from his eyes. He leaned against the slick wall of the shower until the water lost its warmth, then wrapped himself in his towel and got dressed at his locker. He put his necklace back on and tucked it inside his shirt and pea coat before leaving the locker room. On his way out of the store he walked by a lonely looking teenage boy in a puffy jacket. He smiled at the boy as one smiles at a stranger during the fourth week of December. The boy stared at him with bloodshot eyes. He didn’t smile back.

Christopher stepped out into the cold. The snow was falling harder now. He could see the flakes illuminated in the light of the streetlamps. He sloshed through the dirty slush from the road as he made his way back to his apartment several blocks away. Christopher thought the city looked beautiful in the falling snow. The lights became dimmer and spread farther apart as he walked farther from Gimbels. The streets weren’t plowed as well and he had to struggle to fight through the snow that covered the sidewalks. He was not a hundred feet from his apartment building when a dark figure in a puffy jacket stepped out from an alley behind him, the gun in his hand shaking with uncertainty. “Hey. Santa.”

In a small apartment on the other side of town, a little girl with red hair looked at her daddy’s ring while her mother held her tightly on the couch. In an old warehouse a group of lost boys welcomed a boy in a puffy jacket into their family.

Early the next morning the police found a cold body lying with a faint smile in the snow. The dog tags hanging from his neck read Creed, Christopher K., USMC.

Life on the Willowemoc

David pulled the black Toyota Land Cruiser off the road and into the gravel parking lot at the edge of the field. Killing the engine, he grabbed the vest and the box from the seat behind him. He locked the car and put the keys in the gas tank. He looked around to see if anyone had seen his hiding spot, but only the cows across the road looked back. David removed the fly rod from the front windshield, lifting the wipers first so the reel didn’t scratch the glass. He started down the path through the woods.

“The most fun time to fish Anvil Rock is between dusk and midnight,” Scott told David during David’s first drive to the river. “That’s when the monster browns come out, thirty inches long and as wide as your bicep. The older members like Grandpa Rick think your dad and I are crazy, and they’re probably right David, but you haven’t lived until you’ve stood in the middle of the river in the pitch black of night with the bats flying around your rod and the rises sounding like your dad’s cannonballs.

            After walking for a few minutes “Keep the rod pointed behind you so it doesn’t catch on the ground or trees” David came to a clearing in the woods where the river curved and slowed into a large pool before continuing its course downstream. The smooth water shone like glass, reflecting the dense trees and the steep hill on the far side of the pool. David looked for insects flying just above the water’s surface “Trout like to eat hatching flies trying to take off from the surface,” but the afternoon June air was free of bugs.

In the middle of the pool a gigantic flat rock covered the bottom. Waiting just above the rock were the trout. “See the white stripes on some of their fins? Those are the brook trout. The browns have black and red spots outlined in white, and the rainbows have a pink stripe on their side.” The trout were facing upstream “They sit there in the cold water and wait for the river to bring their food to them,” resting in the slow current of the pool. Above and below the pool the water moved faster, the submerged rocks creating white riffles.

            David set the rod and the box on the picnic table that sat a ways up the bank. He took his time walking to the top of the pool and carefully flipped over some rocks in the water “See the larvae running away? That’s what the fish are eating now,” sending several nymphs scurrying for cover. He pictured the fly he would use to imitate what he saw. Before going back to the table, he removed an envelope from the right breast pocket of the vest and emptied its dusty gray contents into the water.

“I’m telling you Scottie, David and your boy are just as crazy as you and Jeff,” Grandpa Rick said to David’s godfather over dinner at the clubhouse. “They fished Anvil Rock for a few hours after lunch while I went downstream, and when I came back to get them they were half naked and swimming all around the pool. Of course there were no fish to be seen and when the boys got out they were shaking and freezing, but they had themselves a grand old time in there ruining my pool for the day. Something’s wrong with the kids these days.”

            David held the rod on the table and pulled ten feet of line out of the reel. He doubled the end of the line over itself and fed it through the eyelets of the full flex rod. When he had put the line through each eyelet he reached into the lower right pocket of the vest and took out the green nymph box “These foam Orvis boxes are the best-they float, the flies don’t fall out, and they’re impossible to crush.” Looking through the Wooly Buggers and Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ears, he saw the three remaining flies that Mary Dette “She’s a good friend of Grandpa Rick and happens to tie the best flies I’ve ever used” had tied for him on his first trip to the river. He pulled the smaller of the yellow and black stonefly patterns out of the white foam. He took the needle nose pliers “Always crimp down the barbs of your hooks. You don’t want to hurt the fish any more than you have to” from the lower left pocket of the vest.

David put the line through the eye of the hook “Make sure you make a good knot, don’t rush it and throw four Grannies on there unless you want to lose all your flies and look like your dads,” spun it around itself five times, and fed it through the loop he had made in the line before pulling it tight. His eyes were still good. He finished his knot by putting it in his mouth, his saliva securing the line. He took the clippers from his vest and trimmed the tag end of the line. When the knot was done he opened the box and took out his hip waders. He took off his worn boots and put them in the box. He stepped into each of the single leg waders and used the cinches to attach them to his leather belt.

He made his way back upstream to where he had found the nymphs. He took measured, deliberate steps along the bank “Take your time boys. Rushing to your spot just spooks the fish and ruins the pool. I’d rather take five extra minutes making sure not to spook them than hurry in and catch nothing,” then stepped into the shallow water. He waded over the moss covered rocks “Make sure your wading boots have felt bottoms, the felt grips the wet moss better than rubber boots do,” until he was in the middle of the stream. The waterproof fabric of his waders pressed tightly against his ankles, and he could feel the cold of the water on his legs. The stream stayed shallow until halfway between the two banks, where it dropped off into deeper fast moving water. Along the far bank there was a pocket of still water “Look for boulders underwater, the trout sit behind them and wait for the bugs the current brings to them.” The afternoon sun reflected off the water, but David’s polarized glasses allowed him to cut through the glare and see each step before he took it. He took a deep breath and steadied his footing in the cold current.

            David unhooked his fly from the cork handle of the rod. He lifted the rod high above his head with his right hand “Lock your wrist,” while pulling line out of the reel with his left. He swung the rod behind him, stopping just past his head as the line formed an arc in the air “Ten o’clock, two o’clock. Ten o’clock, two o’clock,” then swung it ahead of him and stopped just in front of his head. He repeated this motion four times until he had enough line in the air to reach the far bank. On the last forward swing he continued his motion to send the line and fly shooting towards the bank. The fly landed five feet upstream from the pocket “Always aim a bit ahead of where you think the fish is and let the fly drift down naturally to it.” David let his fly sink in the current and gave the line three quick pulls to make it look like a live animal struggling in the current. As the fly passed the pocket David felt a light tug on the line. He jerked the tip of the rod back “Rip into him!” to set the hook in the fish’s mouth.

            Jeff and Scott had just come back from a trip to the river a few weeks after the funeral. “Scott and I had gone to Anvil Rock earlier in the day to spread Grandpa Rick’s ashes and went back at dusk to finish paying our respects. I told Scott to fish the main pool so that he could be closer to his dad’s memory and that I would fish the Chute just above the pool. I had a mouse pattern on like we always use at night was casting across the stream to the deeper pocket of water along the far bank. I made five or ten casts and decided I would move a little closer to the pool. As I was stripping in my last cast I heard a horrible splash some ten feet in front of me, and felt the line come zipping out of my reel at a hundred miles an hour. Scott always got real jumpy in the dark, so when he heard the splash he came roaring upriver ready to dive in and save me from the river monster he thought had grabbed me. I fought this thing for what felt like three hours, the whole time expecting it to break my line and disappear forever, but for some reason it stayed mostly in the same spot until I pulled him in and Scott netted him. It was by far the biggest brown I had ever caught, and I was already picturing it mounted on my wall when Scott told me that he wouldn’t let me keep this fish. I knew he was right, that Grandpa Rick had worked his magic one more time, so with a final look at our fish we let it back into the water and out of our lives.”

            David cleared his mind and let his memories and instincts guide him. With the controlled frenzy that comes with experience, he tried to get control of the slack line floating around his feet before the fish could use it to throw the hook. The fish jumped out of the water “Bow to him, good. Now play him, don’t muscle him” and David lowered the rod to relieve the pressure on the line. By pulling the rod back and reeling in the line he gained “Bring the rod behind you and down to the water level” he managed to get the fish close enough to net. David set the rod on the rock beside him and crouched next to the net to look at his fish. He took off his glasses and folded them into the collar of his shirt.

The native brook trout was no more than six inches long “Anybody can catch a big fish in big water, but it takes a real fisherman to catch a little fish in little water.” It had brilliant red and blue spots along its side “You can tell it’s a native from its size-the club only stocks fish ten inches and bigger-and by those colors. A stocked trout will never be as pretty as a little native like this one.” David submerged his hands “Never touch a trout with dry hands if you don’t want to kill it” before gripping it in his left hand as he worked the hook out of the side of its mouth with his right. With the barb crimped down the hook came out without a problem. He was proud of how cleanly he had hooked it and how quickly he had been able to bring it in, keeping the fish from expending too much energy and increasing its chances of surviving the encounter.

He looked at his catch, drawing peace from its wild energy. It smacked its tail in his hands and splashed the cold water onto his face.

The trout’s mouth opened and closed as it sat in David’s hands. Its wet body was smooth, not covered in scales like the bass and sunfish he caught at home, and glistened in the sun. He could feel its natural power and strength as he admired it. Its eye stared through him, unblinking. A sad smile crept into David’s face.

He held it in the cold water, moving it slowly from side to side to help pass as much of the oxygen-rich water through its gills. When the trout had recovered its strength he opened his hands and watched it dart back across the river. David wiped the water from his face.

David stayed crouching in the water. He looked at the three dead birch tress across the water. He wiped his eyes. With a deep breath he stood. He picked up the rod and waded back to the bank.

Jeff, David, and Scott’s son stood silently around the picnic table. Jeff had folded the envelope and put it back in his pocket. The water was clear, and had a light coating of gray dust. Jeff opened his bag and handed a Budweiser and a cigar to the two teenage boys. “I know we’re all thinking about the same thing. Scott loved it here and I know he’s happy to be here with Grandpa Rick again.” The three of them sat at the table searching for peace from the river, each feeling their separate and shared pain. The boys would come to lean on Jeff in the months and years to come, and he gave them his strength until it finally ran out.

David walked back up the slope to the picnic table. He rested the rod against the table, keeping the reel out of the sand. With the clippers he cut the line from his fly and replaced it in the green box. After he had reeled in all the excess line he put Grandpa Rick’s reel in its case and placed it in the back pocket of Scott’s vest. He took his dad’s rod apart, separating the halves and slipping them into the protective sleeve before slipping the sleeve into the maroon rod case. He put the vest back on, picked up the rod case and the box, and walked back through the woods to the car. His aging knees forced him to move more slowly than he had on previous trips to the river.

 His heart was heavy but his head was quiet. The shadows of his three mentors had stayed on the river, waiting for him to join them. As he drove away he wiped his eyes again, thinking of all that they had taught him about fishing and living and dying.

Bruce Springsteen is incredible. I'd probably cry if I saw Jungleland live.

The rangers had a homecoming in harlem late last night
And the magic rat drove his sleek machine over the jersey state line
Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain
The rat pulls into town rolls up his pants
Together they take a stab at romance and disappear down flamingo lane

Well the maximum lawman run down flamingo chasing the rat and the barefoot
Girl
And the kids round here look just like shadows always quiet, holding hands
From the churches to the jails tonight all is silence in the world
As we take our stand down in jungleland

The midnight gangs assembled and picked a rendezvous for the night
They'll meet `neath that giant exxon sign that brings this fair city light
Man there's an opera out on the turnpike
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
Until the local cops, cherry tops, rips this holy night
The streets alive as secret debts are paid
Contacts made, they vanished unseen
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades hustling for the record machine
The hungry and the hunted explode into rocknroll bands
That face off against each other out in the street down in jungleland

In the parking lot the visionaries dress in the latest rage
Inside the backstreet girls are dancing to the records that the d.j. plays
Lonely-hearted lovers struggle in dark corners
Desperate as the night moves on, just a look and a whisper, and they're gone

Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines running through a night so tender in a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal and then surrender in the tunnels uptown
The rats own dream guns him down as shots echo down them hallways in the
Night
No one watches when the ambulance pulls away
Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light

Outside the streets on fire in a real death waltz
Between flesh and what's fantasy and the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded, not even dead
Tonight in jungleland

One soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts, tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house, getting wasted in the heat
And hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
With a love so hard and filled with defeat
Running for our lives at night on them backstreets

Slow dancing in the dark on the beach at Stockton's Wing
Where desperate lovers park, we sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings
Huddled in our cars, waiting for the bells that ring
In the deep heart of the night they set us loose of everything
To go running on the backstreets
Running on the backstreets
Terry, you swore we'd live forever
Taking it on them backstreets together

Endless juke joints and Valentino drag
Where famous dancers scraped the tears up off the street, dressed down in rags
Running into the darkness, some hurt bad, some really dying
At night sometimes it seemed you could hear the whole damn city crying
Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down
You can blame it all on me, Terry, it don't matter to me now
When the breakdown hit at midnight, there was nothing to say
But I hated him, and I hated you when you went away

Laying here in the dark, you're like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see
Trying to learn to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
And after all this time, to find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Where we swore forever friends
On the backstreets until the end

Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets