Mad Max And The Goose And Not The Goose: A Christmas Story Sort Of

With snow and everything! Photo by [Maris]

Mad Max was in no mood. His feet were soaked and nearly frozen. Much of the rest of him was likewise damp and/or painfully cold. His sidekicks were fussing and bickering, which was not helping matters at all. "I am in no mood, you two!" he spat. "I gotta find us some shelter from this freezing rain - I'd settle for an awning, about now. I can't handle another Christmas like this. I wish I'd taken your advice and headed south a couple of months ago, The Goose."

The Goose growled out a low sequence of throaty sounds that could be approximately translated to, "Told you so." Under his breath, he added, "I'm just happy to be waterproof, tonight."

Maxwell Small hadn't always been mad. In fact, he wasn't at all fond of the "Mad Max" moniker his hobo brethren had bestowed upon him in the early 1930s - mostly because he didn't see himself as even remotely crazy (or angry, if we're going to split hairs). He'd had a normal childhood in Bedford, Indiana. He graduated high school and started work as an apprentice mechanic, repairing everything from Model A's to the newest farm equipment. He buried both his parents (double-fatal yo-yo trick accident), joined hobo nation, acquired a clingy Canadian goose, and later a German shepherd-golden retriever-half-albino Labrador mutt who thought she was a goose, and like it or not he became Mad Max.

The Goose and the dog, who came to be called Not The Goose, were best friends from the moment they met. It was often hard to tell whether The Goose thought he was a dog - or Not The Goose thought she was a goose - or both. They chased each other. They mimicked each other's speech patterns and dialects. They slept together, curled up like a pair of kittens. They stole each other's food and fought and made up and vied for Max's affection. But one of them... was a goose.

Most of the time, this fact was not a problem. It was cute. "Oh, look at that crazy hobo," they would say, "with his odd-looking dog, and his goose that thinks he's a dog. So cute." But Halloween would come, and then everything from St. Louis to Atlantic City would turn brown and dead, and just like that it was open season on critters that looked like The Goose. Getting past Thanksgiving in one piece wasn't too hard, but soon after, he'd start hearing the words "Christmas" and "goose" together, and things would take a turn.

"This is ridiculous," Mad Max groused, "We're going south, next year - if we live that long."

"Honk honk, hisssss, honk," said The Goose.

"Aroo rowrowooo," Not The Goose Agreed. And they shared a good long laugh.

The Goose had put on a pound or two since the previous December, so apparently he looked more appetizing than ever. As Mad Max had led his anserine and canine charges east from Dayton to Zanesville to Wheeling to Morgantown, they were harassed by a dozen cleaver-wielding maniacs, bent on turning The Goose into the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. Max and Not The Goose had been extra vigilant since Thanksgiving, and had fought off every threat, but they were exhausted. 

"I love you, The Goose," Mad Max groaned, "but I think if we find a fella with a campsite - or just a proper fire - I might let him have you, just so that I might warm my toes before they die and fall off. I'm sorry."

The Goose laughed it off, as if Max was obviously joking, but he shook his feathers from neck to tail, and hunkered down defensively.

They passed a shed along the B&O main into Cumberland, and found themselves bathed in a warm glow. "Say, strangers," a gravelly voice called after them, "care to share a fire?"

They turned. The Goose hissed reflexively, then relaxed a bit. Not The Goose growled reflexively, then stood tall and let her tail wag - just a little. Mad Max braced himself for another attack on his plump waterfowl, then likewise eased up. "Great day in the morning, guys - it's JACK SKUNK, working his way as far east as he can get before New Year's! Jack, ol' buddy - you're a lifesaver and a saint - a true gentleman. We can't repay your kindness, this cold and rainy Christmas Eve, but we will gladly walk the rest of our days in your debt..."

And the three wet, frozen travelers huddled around the fire of one of the smelliest hoboes ever known, and were welcomed and warmed and not eaten, and it was good.

The 300... (...th Posting Of Drivel-y Bits To The Drivel-y Place)!

 The 300...

Islamorada, FL - Photo by Joe

300 times have I done this. I sit and stare at this screen and wonder, "What in THEE hell is wrong with me?" I'm not sure how to commemorate my 300th post. For POST #100, I shared the first sentence of each of the first 100 posts. Tedious, but the results were kind of cute, I guess. When it came time for my 200th POST, I spent hours stringing together the first word of the first post, the second word of the second post, and so on - all the way to 200. That post reads like the offspring of a fever dream and a dictionary on acid. For some reason, I felt compelled to mark my 250th POST with a "clip show" - not a true greatest hits collection; more of a random sampling of my first quarter-thousand posts. You're welcome to click on that one and then on the links within it, for old times' sake. I'll wait...

Did you go? I went. I even clicked on some of the links! One still mystifies me, and gives me an idea that isn't very good but when has that ever stopped me...

Presenting the Mostly Harmless Drivel 300th Post Awards! 

• Most Viewed Post: I still don't know why, but CARDBOARD & APATHY: A LOVE STORY is still my most-viewed post, by a LOT. I like it, but it's not that good. Some cute dialogue, a stupid ending, but what brought this post to so many screens? I just don't get it.
• Least Viewed Post: Okay - technically, a couple of the posts from this month are the least-viewed, but that's not fair. So, of the 270ish posts from before this month, the least-viewed is We'll Drink To That! And That! And That.... Brings back memories. [Maris] and I used to have shots and chips for dinner, and this post utterly FAILS to capture the fun and buzzy cleverness of those evenings and their toasts. I remember, though...
• Best Hobo: It's a tie! SANTA FE JINGLEBELL, THE WORLD'S MOST CHRISTMASSY TRAMP and JACK SKUNK will have to share this trophy. No matter - some fellow hobo will steal it within the first week. What can I say - I'm a sucker for a hobo with hope - and second chances.
• Worst Hobo: Wicked Paul Fourteen-Toes. Yeah, he's not very nice at all.
• Best Picture: 

  

  Jim Sees Me! Photo by Joe

  Okay, technically not my best picture, by a longshot, but it's got Jim and Charlie, and Jim's saying hey to me (or, "hey - put your phone down, mate!"), so I dig it. Also it's not the muddy Bart Simpson doll, for the dozenth time, and you're welcome!
• Author's Least Favorite Post: [Deleted]  Ha! Sorry, it really has been removed. If it hadn't been, this would be post number 301, and space-time would collapse in on itself like a neutron star. 
• Author's Favorite Post: This one was hard, and if you ask me to choose again next week, I could easily come up with several other selections. But tonight, this award goes to Heads, We're Dancing. It's just a wee bit of flash-fiction-y romance with a title stolen from Kate Bush, but it begat my favorite and most potential-ish novel. So, yeah. 

Lasers. Why'd it have to be... lasers? - Photo by Joe

So, there are 300 of these things, now. How 'bout that? Not sure I have another 300 in me, but who knows? There are at least that many names left on John Hodgman's list of hoboes. And I still have muse-like influencers - like three of 'em! So stay tuned. Maybe we can celebrate some more hundreds together...

Thank you for taking the time to read my mind, such as it is!

Jack Skunk Fils And The Ghost Of Hope

Yeah, I see you...

"It's too cloudy. I don't think we'd be able to see the dawn, even if there were three suns. I'm going to sleep," Tommy Lice-Comb muttered. "And my scalp itches."

"I think I can see a couple of stars peeking through, over that way," Jack Skunk Fils said, gesturing by way of dipping his right shoulder toward the west, "and of course your scalp itches. You're pretty much just lice, from the neck up."

"You makin' fun of my condition?"

Jack held up a defensive hand. "Now, don't get sore, fella. You know what I mean."

"And you know that lice killed my mother."

"Yes, I know. Everyone's mother was killed by something awful and strange. I'm sorry to know about your mum's passing - and the lice that done it."

"I appreciate that," Tommy said. "Now, tell me again why we had to hoof it all the way to Maine in the middle of winter - no food or jobs or friendly folks in sight for miles?"

Jack Skunk Fils, son of the late, smelly, optimistic hobo Jack Skunk, re-explained his mission. They had made their way as far east as the railroads of America would allow, so that they could resurrect Jack's father's tradition of being the first hoboes to see the dawn of the new year on the morning of January first. Hearing himself recite it aloud, Jack suddenly felt that he'd been rather officious in his insistence that poor Tommy Lice-Comb accompany him, but what was done was done. "Pop died ten years ago tonight," he added. "It's only fitting."

Tommy sighed and poked at their struggling campfire, which had begun to hiss irritably as icy raindrops fell into it. "Your old man sure loved that New Year, new hope jazz. He ever lose that?"

"Nope. The sicker he got, the more broken the world became, the uglier people grew, the more hope he had. It was downright bizarre, to me. Still is, really."

"You don't feel that same hope in the first light, then?" Tommy said.

"Not for years now. I'm just doing it to honor Pop's memory, at this point."

"That's sad, man. Just give it up. Maybe visit his grave once a year, and say a little prayer for him on New Year's - which you can do from, you know, someplace warmer - where the smart hoboes are. Somewhere like Jacksonville, maybe?"

Jack stood up and stomped an angry foot in a ratty shoe. "I am NOT going to spend another night in Florida! Not after what happened in Baldwin!"

"Oh, shut up about Baldwin," Tommy groaned. You know as well as I do that that wasn't a turkey. It was a groundhog, and probably rabid. Those kids did us a favor, stealing it."

"I don't care. It was rude. I'm gonna stop talking for a bit, and just get drunk."

"Good idea," Tommy said. "Me too."

The first of January slogged its way from midnight to one, then to two, skipped three, four and five, and lurched unsoberly toward six-thirty. The rain got bored and wandered northeast from Portland, and ever so grudgingly, the clouds thinned and eventually parted - sliced open by a blade of golden dawn.

Jack Skunk Fils stood and stared, as his traveling companion and only friend, wrapped in an old burlap sack, snored his way toward his traditional New Year's hangover. Jack had expected to feel a renewal of grief, a fresh sense of the loss of his father, ten New Year's sunrises ago. On cue, it washed over him in a cold wave. "I miss you, Pop," he whispered.

Gazing at the first light of 1952, what he hadn't expected was the hope. It felt like a physical presence, as if his father were suddenly standing there next to him, and it made no sense whatsoever. The world was still an alien place to which an old (32 whole years old) hobo could not return. For over a year, trains full of tanks and trucks had been rumbling west to feed the war in Korea. The hobo code was beginning to lose its meaning, and the dwindling population of hoboes was increasingly drunk, lazy, and hostile. Jack had pains a healthy man shouldn't have. Nothing was looking remotely hopeful.

But there it was again, standing with him and imploring him not to give up. Jack marveled at its persistence, its ridiculous resilience. It just didn't know when to quit.

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and sighed, "Anything is possible, Pop. Anything."


Okay, so this was supposed to be a New Year's post, but the world has really gotten in the way, lately. Then I saw the "Two for Tuesday" prompt (Officious) last week at Our Write Side, and I just had to push on through. Thanks for bearing with me whilst I work thought this bleakness...