First thing that comes to mind is a "big stick". In my stocking, hanging with the others on the plywood fireplace my old man made, the one ma covered with contact paper that gave it the appearance of bricks, hollow behind, where I stashed some loot I got Christmas Eve one year--this on the advice of all the grown-ups, telling me Santa wouldn't be leaving me anything what with all the stuff I'd gotten. Maybe it was Uncle Whistle who came up with the hiding place...got a Morgan Silver Dollar from him and Rita. It was that phase of childhood when you start to consider the logistics of Christmas, the time when a child begins to lose that sense of wonder that makes it possible for a fat man to slide down a gad-zillion fake chimneys covered in contact paper, all in a night's work.
"I want a Big Stick!"
My one demand when ma asked what I wanted for Christmas. "The better to paddle your arse, little boy!" that I thought, but didn't express. Some things are best left unsaid. What do you want from Santa Claus? A Big Stick! I was onto their game. All that "I'm gettin nuttin, for Christmas! 'Cause all I have been is bad!" "He's makin a list, checkin it twice." That sort of thing. Figured to use some of that reverse-psychology on him, not that I knew what psychology was.
Musta been wearing an expression of disgust I come downstairs Christmas morning, ma and dad there, waiting, instead of us waking them up at three in the aye-em. My Big Stick poking up outta my stocking, musta been about three four feet long, pine, no knots that I recall, unfinished. "Look! You got a Big Stick!" This from ma, dad someone in the room trying not to laugh. Sumbitch gave me a Big Stick, I was thinking. Some things are best left unsaid. Dunno what I did with it. I no longer have it, alas. Maybe I stuck it inside the hollow of the fireplace.
