Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas

[franksolich]

Note: Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas is a story usually posted on Christmas Day, December 25, but was delayed for release this year because Mrs. Alfred Packer lost her mother of blessed memory about two months before that holiday, in late October-early November, and in the usual and standard observance of good taste and good manners, release has been delayed until Mrs. Alfred Packer, the "hippywife" primitive on Skins's island, had indicated she was done with mourning, and that all was normal again.

Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas is extrapolated from the adventures of the "hippywife" primitive and hippyhubby Wild Bill as described by her own words on Skins's island, but since it's an extrapolation rather than a word-by-word dry recitation of the facts as Mrs. Alfred Packer has written them, it is a work of fiction, although one suspects at least two-thirds of the people and events described therein are real, and factually described by franksolich.

Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas is gracefully and delicately dedicated, as it is every year, to her good friend the sparkling husband primitive, with the humble hopes of the author that both the subject of the story, and its dedicatee, enjoy it.

[franksolich]

Mrs. Alfred Packer does Christmas.  The light of the mid-afternoon sun struck unevenly against the window of the kitchen, smearing the view, as hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer tediously flopped-walloped-flopped-walloped the bread dough on the top of the table.  Sweat dripping down her face, she paused to wipe it, catching the glint of the sun shining on her set of Revereware pots and pans.

Well, at least this is going to be nice, she thought; all this stainless-steel copper-bottomed cookware in which to prepare Christmas dinner.  She dare not call it "Christmas" dinner, though, as hippyhubby Wild Bill forbade any mention of the Holy Season in his presence.  Wild Bill had a vigorous hostility towards anything decent and civilized people did, such as doing Christmas, and Mrs. Alfred Packer had learned a long time ago not to cross him.

But, she recalled with satisfaction, there is a touch of Christmas here, looking at the red-and-green oilcloth table covering.  It was a Christmas tablecloth, but she had convinced Wild Bill it was the colors of the Irish Communist party, red and green, and he of course was okay with that.

Mrs. Alfred Packer again looked at the Revereware.

I wonder what happened to the yellow man, she thought; that dirty little Chink who sold this to me.

It had happened in mid-summer, one morning when Mrs. Alfred Packer was swabbing a slab of meat, looking out the same window as now, when she had seen someone walking up the path to the house, a knapsack larger than his frail body on his back.  As he approached, she noticed he was a son of the Celestial Kingdom, and Mrs. Alfred Packer didn't care for the Chinee and their products.

She flung open the window, and stuck halfway out, yelling at him to go away; she didn't want what he had.

The little Chinaman however ignored her swatting-away, and came up close enough that she could hear him; he was Hop-Sing, and wished to show her his wares, in this case a 124-piece set of American-made Revereware.

"Tlow hlundred dlolla, ladee," he said; "bluys all."

Mrs. Alfred Packer was dubious, but a close inspection of a couple of the pieces showed it was indeed the real thing.

"All yours," Hop-Sing repeated, "flor tlow hlundred dlolla."

Mrs. Alfred Packer hesitated.  She worked cleaning the kitchen of the local nursing home, bringing in two hundred dollars a week after taxes, but Wild Bill, who wore the pants in the family, insisted upon her signing the check over to him, so as to bail one of his brothers out of jail, or pay past-due child support, or something similar.

In exchange, he gave her once a week a counterfeit $10 bill, to spend as she pleased.

She pointed out she had only ten bucks.

Hop-Sing, accustomed to buyer resistance, replied, "tlen dlolla a wleek you play me, flor tlwenty wleeks."

Mrs. Alfred Packer mulled it over.

But twenty weeks was an awful long time.

Hop-Sing, accustomed to buyer resistance, replied, "blut afta tlen wleeks, I glive you the plots and plans, an tlrust you flor the rlest, tlen dlolla a wleek until played."

Well, that was better, and for the next ten weeks, the Chinaman came to the house to collect ten dollars, after which he delivered up the 124-piece set of cookware.

But on the eleventh week, Hop-Sing had failed to show.  And the twelfth and thirteenth weeks.....

One day in early autumn, the county sheriff had dropped by, tipping his hat to Mrs. Alfred Packer.

"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am," he said, "but I'm making inquiries about some funny money that's been going around the county, fake $10 bills.  For a while, we thought a stranger, a gentleman of Chinese derivation, was passing them, but the gentleman disappeared, evaporated into thin air, some weeks ago, and the bum bills are still showing up.

"Would you happen to know anything about that, ma'am?" he asked.

No, said Mrs. Alfred Packer; she knew nothing about any fake money.

"Well, it never hurts to ask," replied the sheriff; we'd appreciate it greatly if you kept your eyes open, ma'am, on ten-dollar bills."

Turning to leave, the sheriff spotted the refrigerator, leaking a red liquid from the bottom of the door.

"You might want to tell Wild Bill," he suggested, tipping his hat again, "to put a new gasket on the refrigerator door."

[franksolich]

Mrs. Alfred Packer heaved a sigh of relief as the sheriff left, and quickly grabbed an old rag to sop up the mess on the floor, blood dripping from cuts of fresh meat Wild Bill had brought home, packaged in white paper and tied with twine.

She thought perhaps he had rustled a cow, but it was most peculiar that Wild Bill insisted they have chop suey and chun-king and chow mien with these cuts.  Wild Bill was finicky about what he ate; things had to go together.

The man's a handful, Mrs. Alfred Packer thought.

Hearing the soft chords of Adeste Fideles from the radio, she paused to remember.  She would have to change the channel before Wild Bill got home, but for the moment, Mrs. Alfred Packer lapsed into memories of Christmases past.

Growing up in urban Ohio, she had been the apple of her mother's and father's eyes, the good, dutiful, pleasing daughter, who aspired to become a nun, like Sister Mary Aloysius, who was so pretty, so pleasant, so nice-smelling.  When she had gotten a Barbie doll one Christmas, finding nothing appropriate in the wardrobe and learning how to sew, the adolescent Mrs. Alfred Packer had designed and made a nun's habit for Barbie.

As Adeste Fideles on the radio melted into Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, Mrs. Alfred Packer remembered more about those Christmases past; the odors wafting from the kitchen, the Christmas tree in all its glory, the sense of anticipation as one got ready for Midnight Mass; and then the Mass itself, in the candle-lit darkness, the stone walls bursting from the choir singing a Gloria in excelsis Deo; the processions of priests and altar boys, censors of smoking incense swinging back-and-forth, bells tinkling.

Mrs. Alfred Packer wiped away a tear as she remembered.

[franksolich]

It had all gone wrong, so wrong, when Mrs. Alfred Packer grew into a teenager, developing hormones of such a vigorous nature that her father oftentimes commented he would have to lock her up in the closet, so as to calm her down.

Mrs. Alfred Packer had met Johnny when they were in the tenth grade in high school; handsome Johnny, dark Johnny, good-looking Johnny, Johnny of pleasing Italianate features.  They had been an "item" for a couple of years, Mrs. Alfred Packer and handsome Johnny.

But she had wanted more than what Johnny could offer her; Johnny wanted to work at the tire factory, settle down, buy a bungalow, and have some children.  Mrs. Alfred Packer wasn't sure exactly what it was she wanted, other than that she didn't want that.

So one day during a particular time of the month, Mrs. Alfred Packer had sent handsome Johnny away.

Her parents were disheartened; the match to them had seemed made in heaven.

"Those who ask for too much usually don't get anything at all," her father reminded her.

In the years following, handsome Johnny, who had in fact gotten a good job at the tire factory, married another woman and settled down with her, to raise a family in modest middle-class comfort.  They had nine children, and Johnny's wife grew more and more rosy and content with age, very happy with her man.

It now was some years since Mrs. Alfred Packer had heard from handsome Johnny; his wife used to send her a Christmas card every year, itemizing the accomplishments of her husband and the children, many of whom were now physicians, attorneys, engineers, and in the Foreign Service; and of course Johnny was even back then building up a rather remarkable retirement fund for the two of them.

But her first Christmas with Wild Bill, when the annual card came, hippyhubby had grabbed it and tossed it into the wood-burning stove, reminding Mrs. Alfred Packer that they didn't do Christmas, that he wanted no sign of Christmas at all anywhere in the house.

And thus had the past been snapped.

Mrs. Alfred Packer herself had become a "career woman" after high school, a bachelorette, a single woman.

But by the time she reached her late 30s, she began sensing cold desperation; she needed a man, and in a hurry.

Mrs. Alfred Packer haunted the matching-sites on the internet, ultimately discovering Wild Bill in the wilds of northeastern Oklahoma.  He was not as smooth and sleek as handsome Johnny, and in fact seemed rather rough and coarse, but he was a man, and she could no longer be selective.

Her parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law had been dubious about Mrs. Alfred Packer getting hitched to a stranger she knew only via the internet, but she had thrown all caution to the wind; she needed a man, Wild Bill was a man, and she couldn't be choosy.

It had been a doleful sight, that day at the bus station in Ohio, as Mrs. Alfred Packer got ready to board; her silent parents fortified by Christian fortitude, her brothers and sisters-in-law trying to persuade her not to go, and the little nieces and nephews clinging onto her dress, tearfully begging and pleading that their beloved aunt stay with them.

[franksolich]

Wild Bill's family was, to put it mildly, a trip for Mrs. Alfred Packer.

But never mind that, as appearances are only skin-deep, while attitudes and values dig clear down into the core.

While Mrs. Alfred Packer's back was turned, she shaking hands with the gap-toothed cackling dear old mum, Wild Bill's favorite brother, the one with both eyes on the same side of his nose, lifted Mrs. Alfred Packer's skirt to see if she had on anything underneath.

My, my, thought Mrs. Alfred Packer; these in-laws are going to take some getting used to.

She had imagined life among the Packer clan would resemble life as it had been in Ohio; close-knit caring friends and neighbors, handsome men, beautiful women, healthy robust smiling children.

There was, in fact, that, and more than that, among the good and decent people of northeastern Oklahoma, but Wild Bill had made it plain that his wife was not to associate with them.  He had even locked up her shoes, so she couldn't leave the house without his knowing about it, and those few times she went out without him, upon her return, he slapped her around and queried her about whom she had seen, and what had been said.

Wild Bill didn't like people, especially people better than him.

Money needing being brought into the house, what with Wild Bills' brothers always needing bailed out of jail, or Wild Bill's past-due child-support assessments, or some new fixtures required for the clandestine stills maintained by Wild Bill all over the heavily-forested county, Mrs. Alfred Packer first went to work as a waitress at a neighborhood cafe in Tulsa.

But Wild Bill had gotten uncomfortable with that, her being around decent and civilized people all the time, and so had later gotten her a job cleaning the kitchen at the local nursing home.  There were decent and civilized people there too, but it was a more-"controlled" environment, her being penned up.

At some point, Mrs. Alfred Packer had become an Avon lady, so as to bring in a few more bucks; she had done so well selling cosmetics to the residents of the nursing home, many of whom who monthly signed over their entire social-security checks to her, that Mrs. Alfred Packer had earned a pink Cadillac, a brand-new one.

But that was only a two-day phenomenon, as Wild Bill had taken out the engine for use in one of his stills, and sold the body for scrap metal.

Mrs. Alfred Packer felt locked up, imprisoned, confined.....but she had a man, and couldn't be picky about it.

[franksolich]

As the radio began playing Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, Mrs. Alfred Packer felt a hand wrapping itself around her neck, pulling her head back.

"Damn you, woman," cursed Wild Bill; "you know we don't do Christmas here."

Wild Bill had just gotten home, accompanied by the brother with a goiter the size of a grapefruit.

The chinless brother could be seen through the window standing by the automobile, a 1939 Ford pick-up truck held together with baling-wire, leering and drooling at the chickens in the yard.

"We're just about done moving a still out yonder, and by the time we get done, we expect some eatings' to be on the table, for all of us, including dear old mum and sis.

"But I'm tired of Chinese food, so make it Indian instead."

[franksolich]

Mrs. Alfred Packer sighed as she dug through the paper-wrapped cuts in the refrigerator, looking for one marked "FedEx," wondering if it would go good with cornmeal muffins.

As the meat was frying atop the natural-gas stove, dear old mum and sis traipsed up to the door.

"Oh, look, dear old mum," hissed sis, "we're having a Christmas dinner here."

"Oh, good," cackled dear old mum, "Christmas dinner with all the Christmas fixings."

Her eyes rolling up inside her head, dear old mum began humming, "We three kinds of gonorrhea are, bearing gifts of syphillis, warts, and other venereal delights, to bring forth a babe....."

Mrs. Alfred Packer swallowed hard, and it showed.

"Oh, what's wrong?" asked sis; "what's wrong with your tender little feelings?"

"She's upset because we don't do Christmas," dear old mum reminded sis.

"Oh, dear," replied sis; "aren't we fancy people, wanting to do Christmas."

"Deck the halls with boughs of marywanna," sang dear old mum.

Mrs. Alfred Packer started to cry, but at about that same time, in walked Wild Bill with all of his brothers.

Slapping her, Wild Bill ordered her to get the grub on the table, post-haste.

In a bacchanalia of devourment, the Packers greedily and noisily chewed and chomped on the feast, shredding the meat with their fingers, gnawing on the bones, and snapping boogers at each other across the table.  The brother without a forehead stuffed food through his nose.

The revelry continued for some hours, paired with copious moonshine, broken bones and offal piling up on the floor underneath the table.  The brother whose elbows began at his shoulders tried to paw Mrs. Alfred Packer's upper shelf.

The brother with the glass eye suddenly started choking, and Wild Bill hit him on the back, causing him to eject his crystal glommer, which as if a marble, lazily rolled under the stove.

"Can't see, can't see!" he squealed; "that's my good eye, that went under there!"

Wild Bill shoved him out of the way, and yanked the stove away from the wall, breaking the 3/4" copper piping that fed natural gas into it.

Getting down on all fours, lighted cigarette in mouth, Wild Bill looked around for the glass eye.

the end

[Ballygrl]

Hop Sing?

[GOBUCKS]

Hop Sing?

Yeah, that surprised me. First time I've ever known coach to use a TV reference.

[franksolich]

Yeah, that surprised me. First time I've ever known coach to use a TV reference.

Well, the only other Chinese names I could think of were mostly those of Reds.

I needed to keep the story credible, and I don't think a peddler named "Mao Tse-tung" or "Chou En-lai" would've cut it.  Or the non-Red "Chiang Kai-shek."

"Charlie Soong" might've worked, but "Hop-Sing" just sounded more credible.

[Chris_]

    That was excellent.  So many good parts to choose from.

[Karin]

Excellent!  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  The chinless brother, leering and drooling at the chickens....I wondered what it was he had in mind....

The brother without a forehead, and the brother whose elbows started at the shoulders....are those new family members?  They were too bizarre to bring down out of the attic in the first stories, I suppose. 

[franksolich]

Excellent!  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  The chinless brother, leering and drooling at the chickens....I wondered what it was he had in mind....

Chomping on raw chicken isn't unknown, although it's something decent and civilized people try not to do.

The brother without a forehead, and the brother whose elbows started at the shoulders....are those new family members?  They were too bizarre to bring down out of the attic in the first stories, I suppose. 

No.

You got to be kidding me, madam.

You actually remember last year's story?

[Ballygrl]

Still , frank you really are a good writer.

[AprilRazz]

A great read as always Frank!
I would love so see one about how Wild Bill and the clan whoop it up for new years.

[AllosaursRus]

Another masterpiece Coach! Problem is, I've met people like this down in the backwoods of Oregon during the Hippy Commune days!

Troglodytes, every one of 'em!

One time 'ol Hank was tryin' to listen to his Country Western station on the radio, and Aunt Bev had the TV up loud, watchin' the old Let's make a Deal with Monty Hall.

It was loud, too loud and distracting, so hank walked down the stairs from the cabin loft and blew the thing all over the living quarters with double ott buck!

As I was over fleecing Hank's wife playin' Cribbage for a dime a point, I got to see the entire spectacle! My ears rang for a damn week! Just somethin' 'bout shootin a damn 12 gauge off in a closet that will stick with ya for a while!!!!!

[franksolich]

I would love so see one about how Wild Bill and the clan whoop it up for new years.

I don't imagine it would be a pretty sight after the natural gas stove explodes, leaving the largest remnant of Wild Bill being his leg dangling from a tree-branch, as if a Christmas stocking.

That by the way, madam, is from real life.

[vesta111]

I don't imagine it would be a pretty sight after the natural gas stove explodes, leaving the largest remnant of Wild Bill being his leg dangling from a tree-branch, as if a Christmas stocking.

That by the way, madam, is from real life.

Frank your storeys bring back memory's of a not so distant past.     No Hop sing or Hay Boy, but real life encounters when it comes to peddlers

Amway comes to mind about the pots and pans.

When we first got married Hubby's good friends got into Amway.     Some of that wares are really expensive but Hubby decided to buy me a life time guaranteed complete set of cook ware the best money could buy.

It was Xmas and he wanted to surprise me and had paid $400.00 for a complete set of cookware.---Now this was 20 years ago and this was a large expenditure for him.

When I opened the box at Xmas I was a bit surprised as this was a set of cookware I could buy at K Mart for $60.00  Hubby was all excited to be pulling the pots and pans out of the box telling me that these were the best Amway sold and what a good thing he had caught it on sale for $400.00.  He told me got this at half price as his friends could get a discount for family as they were Amway dealers.

Me, I am now on very uncomfortable grounds, Hubby had known these dealers for 20 years before he met me and trusted them. What to do, say something like your life long friends ripped you off.??

Now I had to make a decision, what is more important to my Hubby, we had been married less then a year.   He had friends he trusted for years before he came into my life, he believed in them, OH shit.

Perhaps I should have raised a huge stink but I said little, and in the next year these people ripped him off for perhaps $4,000 by selling him a car worth perhaps $600.00. 

Peddlers and traders that one trusts are the first to rip one off.   Today Hubby trusts no one but myself, but when he goes into something that looks a bit odd, I still say nothing, I have to think of his EGO and manhood first.

A lesson in how to keep life serene, when I got ripped off he never said I told you so, ---nor will I, his choices are his and so are mine, if either of us get taken by a peddler or trader, that is not anything to to bitch about except to ourselves.

[Tess Anderson]

Ought to be stretched out into a novel and "fictionalized' beyond recognition - there's no way she'd agree to sign a waiver. I'm serious. Literary talent wasted is a waste.

[GOBUCKS]

I don't imagine it would be a pretty sight after the natural gas stove explodes, leaving the largest remnant of Wild Bill being his leg dangling from a tree-branch, as if a Christmas stocking.

That by the way, madam, is from real life.

Yes, that's real life. DUmmy lonestarnut reported numerous corpses and parts of corpses festooning the trees in Galveston, due to Dubya's inattention to a half-assed hurricane. She was praying for Katrina II, but it just didn't happen.

[AllosaursRus]

Ought to be stretched out into a novel and "fictionalized' beyond recognition - there's no way she'd agree to sign a waiver. I'm serious. Literary talent wasted is a waste.

Why?

What's wrong with the 'ol line..........

"Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent"?

[Tucker]

Irish Communist party, red and green,

That's some funny stuff.

Thanks for the great read.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Frank, I hope they never find that CCTV cameral you squirreled away in their hovel.

 

[longview]

Great read, Frank.

I've been looking forward to this.

[franksolich]

Frank, I hope they never find that CCTV cameral you squirreled away in their hovel.

Actually no, sir.

Mrs. Alfred Packer writes the story herself, as the "hippywife" primitive on Skins's island.

I just add a few details she forgot to put in, nothing more than that.