Here’s a holiday tall tale from Jubal Blue, straight out of the piney woods of North Louisiana. I hope this gives you a little chuckle for your Christmas Eve. Enjoy!
| Guest post by Jubal Blue |
This story took place a few years back, but it started out normal enough…well, normal enough for these parts. Grammaw and I were hosting that year. She had the ham going by 8 a.m., and the smell was drifting through every crack in the trailer. Old Ray was asleep on his rug by the gas fireplace, and I was out on the porch trying to fix the string of lights that only worked if you held your mouth right and tapped the third bulb from the left.
That’s when I saw the squirrel.
All Creatures Great and Small…Well, Mostly.
This wasn’t just any squirrel. He’d decided our Sterilite bin full of mud boots was the perfect spot to stash half a pecan tree’s worth of nuts. Problem was, a possum had homesteaded under the porch and didn’t appreciate the company. Neither one of ’em had checked with the raccoon who’d been treating our trash can like his personal buffet for the better part of a month.
Then the squirrel made his big mistake: he dropped a pecan that bounced down the steps and bonked the possum square on the nose.
The possum came out hissing like a busted radiator hose. The squirrel froze for half a second, then lit into him chittering like a broke chainsaw. The possum ducked and bobbed, showing every tooth God gave him. The raccoon, who’d been watching the whole thing from his perch on the trash can lid, waited a few seconds for a good opening, then jumped in like he’d been invited all along.
The three of ’em went round and round. A hairball of teeth, claws, fur, and ornery. Knocking over porch chairs, sending potted plants sideways, and generally making a mess. The squirrel caught a claw in my Christmas lights and brought down half the strand I’d just spent an hour fixing.
That’s when things got Old Testament.
Grammaw came out with a family-size box of Great Value cheez-its like Moses with the stone tablets.
Her solution? A peace offering.
“Here, y’all, have some cheese crackers and quit actin’ the fool!” she hollered, tossing a handful into the fray. She dang near drew back a nub before they bowled right over her.
All I saw was Grammaw’s skirt fly over her head and a hail of cheese crackers. When the dust settled, the critters were gone and there she lay, covered in orange dust.
“That’s it,” Grammaw sputtered, spitting out a cracker crumb. “Next time I’m throwin’ rocks. ‘Great Value’ my hind foot.”
Through all of it, Old Ray never missed a beat. I heard it rip. Like clockwork. I reckon if the world ever ends, Old Ray’ll still be right there on that rug, keeping perfect time.
Tofurkey, and Other Cultural Accommodations
I helped Grammaw up, brushed off the worst of the cracker dust, and pointed her toward the walk-in shower still steaming from Aunt Glendora’s turn. Then I stepped back into the kitchen and found Glendora herself tending to the tofurkey, mouth running a mile a minute about things I never woulda asked.
She’s a sweetheart in her own way. She’d rolled in from Bossier City the night before, toting that tofurkey and Brown n’ Serve rolls, declaring it the “Other Other white meat.” She was wearing a neon-green tube top that was more suggestion than fabric, a painted-on Pepto-pink skirt riding up in ways the good Lord never intended, purple fishnet stockings with three runs and a prayer holding them together, and clear jelly heels she’d scored on Etsy. Glitter mascara caked on thick enough to scrape off with a putty knife. The whole ensemble mighta worked back in the disco days on a twenty-year-old, but Aunt Glendora’s pushing seventy if she’s a day. But Jesus loves her so we do, too.
Grammaw came out of the shower, hair wrapped in a towel, took one look at the platter and said, “Glendora, who’d you invite, the rabbits from the back field?”
“It’s healthy,” Glendora huffed.
“Lord save us,” Grammaw muttered. “You’re like a Jehovah’s Witness with that stuff.”
The Cousins Arrive
First came Big Rancel and Little Rancel, then Rancelene and her brother Rancelton. Uncle Terry and Aunt Donna-Jeane’s crew.
Aunt Donna-Jeane was right behind ’em, waving from the truck window and hollering, “Wancel! Wancelene! Wancelton! Big Wancel! Y’all help cawwy these pwesents in hewe!”
She ain’t been quite right since a Black Friday incident in 2000. Ever since, words with an “R” come out wrong.
The kids always had that look that says they’d been up to something and weren’t done yet.
“Where’d y’all get the money for all this?” I asked, eyeing the pile.
“Found it,” Big Rancel said, grinning like a fox in a henhouse.
“Found it where?”
“Around.”
That was all I was gonna get, so I quit asking.
Since I knew who I was dealing with, I told ’em to line the rockets up along the driveway, nice and safe, away from the house. But the minute I turned my back to check on the ham, they hauled them right up onto the porch instead. Dumped them into the old family boombox, a beat-up shoebox I’d set out for them the night before. We’d been adding fireworks to that thing every year since the kids were little. It was supposed to go to the end of the driveway. It did not. That cardboard was soaked through with years of punk residue and gunpowder dust. All it needed was a spark.
Rancelton laid his lit punk down on the box lid while he reached for a rocket to shoot off the railing into the yard. The rest of ’em were crouched around, giggling and lighting punks. Looking back, I should’ve stopped ’em.
The Fireworks Disaster
I got to the door just in time to watch it unfold.
The squirrel, possum, and raccoon had picked that exact moment to settle their grudge match. The kids had scattered to the yard as those furry varmints came tumbling right into the boombox, knocking Rancelton’s glowing punk clean off the lid.
It flipped in the air once.
Twice.
Tumbled end over end like it had all the time in the world.
Then nosedived, sweet as a perfect ten from the Russian judge, straight down into that old silvery box.
For about half a second, nothing happened. Just a little wisp of smoke curling up innocent-like.
Then the box inhaled.
I think I got halfway through “Fire in the—” when the whole thing erupted like Revelations had showed up three days early.
Every bottle rocket launched at once, not in any particular direction, mind you, just away. Some went sideways into the porch posts. Some corkscrewed straight up and came back down like kamikaze hummingbirds.
The Roman candles started next, fooshing out fireballs in every color God ever made and a few He probably didn’t approve of.
Then came the Moon Travelers, half a dozen of ’em, whistle-spinning and rising up through the smoke like Ezekiel’s vision on the Fourth of July. They screamed past the roof, over the pine trees, and shot off toward the back forty like they had somewhere important to be.
The firecrackers provided covering fire. Pop-pop-pop-pop-POP. Like the world’s angriest string of Christmas lights. Each one sent up a fresh puff of sulfur smoke until you couldn’t see three feet in any direction.
The whole symphony couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds, but time does funny things when you’re watching your porch turn into a war zone. Felt like I lived a whole extra life in there. Had time to reconsider every choice I’d ever made. Saw my future flash before my eyes, and let me tell you, it looked a lot like explaining this to the fire department.
When the last whistle faded and the smoke started to drift, the porch looked like Sherman had come back through. Burn marks on the railing. Scorch patterns on the concrete. My Christmas lights, what the critters hadn’t already destroyed, were now melted into the porch boards like some kinda modern art.
The porch ironwork was singing like somebody’d struck a tuning fork the size of a Buick. That sound didn’t quit for two solid hours.
Through the haze I saw Little Rancel, eyes wide as saucers, backing full speed away from the porch and straight into the old holly bush, hollering something that sounded like a mix between “holy ham biscuits” and “sweet mess of molasses.”
“Who did it?” Big Rancel yelled through the haze, his face soot-streaked enough to make the raccoon green-eyed.
“Rancelton did it!” Rancelene shouted, pointing a smoky finger. Her eyebrows were gone.
“I did not! It was them animals!”
“Was not! You had the punk, dummy!”
Which was true, but nobody was listening.
Meanwhile, the squirrel, possum, and raccoon had called a truce and were watching from the pine tree, looking innocent as sin.
Dinner
About a half hour later, Old Ray let one go that made the windows rattle and set the silverware to dancing. And like some kinda crazy cuckoo clock, Donna-Jeane hollered from the kitchen window: “Big Wancel! Little Wancel! Wancelene and Wancelton! Come wash up for dinnew!”
The cousins didn’t even flinch. They just headed inside like they’d heard that a thousand times before. Which, Lord help us, they had.
Dinner was good once we got sorted. The ham was perfect.
“This tofuwkey ain’t half bad,” Aunt Donna-Jeane said, trying to be polite.
“That’s ham, Mama,” Rancelton told her.
“Oh. Sowwy. The ham ain’t half bad then.”
I noticed the tofurkey platter was empty by dessert. Nobody said a word, but I’m pretty sure I saw that raccoon waddle past the window looking satisfied.
Old Ray stayed on his rug, doing his part to keep the room ventilated. He was the only one at that table who never ran out of ammunition.
The Quiet After
Somewhere around dark, after dishes were done and folks were settled in front of the TV, I stepped back out on the porch.
And that got me thinking: Some things ought to stay what they are. Turkey’s turkey, gravy’s gravy, Old Ray’s Old Ray, and Christmas is chaos you choose to keep coming back to.
Little Rancel came out, still picking at his shirt.
“You alright?” I asked.
“Got holly in places holly shouldn’t be. But yeah.”
“Good.”
“Jubal?”
“Yeah?”
“Ever since backin’ into that holly bush, I don’t feel right.”
“It’s been a day.”
He nodded, and we stood quiet a minute.
“Mewwy Kwristmas, Jubal.”
“Merry Christmas, Little Rancel.”
Christmas around here ain’t fancy nor quiet, but it’s ours.
Well, folks, there you have it. Another story of Christmas-past, courtesy of Jubal Blue.
Merry Christmas to all of you, and thanks for reading.
Veni, Vidi, Scripsi 