See Those Elves? Don't Touch Them.

By Sean Tarjoto (tarjoto@hotmail.com)

Two weeks ago I was shelling out multi-colored brand-manufactured greeting files for potential accounts in the large, powerful, wealthy, megaconglomerate, Hallmark store I had the fine skill to land a position in. It was a nice, neatly kept Hallmark with happy wallpaper, and was owned by a guy named Mark, and so, was appropriately named “Mark’s Hallmark". Mark and I were stationed in a shopping center in a middle-class suburb just off the interstate. Mark wasn't working in store that day.

I was putting away a small section of unbought Christmas cards into a small shoebox (which, I'd bring out next year again, ritualizing the annual clearance sale of another set of year-old cards). Stuffing away with a ferocity rivaling that of the next guy who’d spent 2 months here, I avoided papercuts, loose envelope covers, the mysteriously-wetted glue of loose envelope covers, and simultaneously managed to glimpse the punchline of a birthday-card or two.

Stopping midway between the Snoopy cards and the Dilbert cards, were the generic no-celebrity cards for those too poor to binge the extra 99¢ that might purchase something Garfield-like or equally witty. It was here that a small, red-green card with nothing on the front, nothing on the back, and nothing on the inside, sat somehow mixed in with the most pathetic of greeting cards.

At first, I had thought it was an envelope and that I’d slipped one card too fast. I pulled it out of the rack and realizing there wasn’t anyway to seal this thing with the lick of a tongue (or the drop of a faucet depending on which you prefer). It stirred my curiosity cells. This was no ordinary card. It was a nice, small, red-green one with absolutely nothing on it but a semi-pagan, almost playfully insane, taste in color. I furrowed my brow, jut my lower lip, and put the card in my pocket.

At lunch, I’d gone down to the food court, as usual. I'd had for the last 15 minutes the mentally conjured image of two burgers and a box of chicken nuggets, with a large Coke. “Number six, please.” I told the cashier girl in her oversized uniform hat.

I only remembered the card when I went to sit down. Its modernistic rectangular form stabbed my thigh and ribs simultaneously. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and looked at it. Red on the outside, green on the inside. Except now the bind was weakened and foldable in both directions, its corners were rubbed dull, and there were several creases across its middle.

I flipped it open and closed. Open and closed. I bit into a nugget, flipped the card open and closed with one hand. I stared across the food court at a lady and her little girl, flipping the card open and closed absentmindedly. I ate another nugget, grabbed my Coke, and sipped through the straw. And then I spit it all out for some reason.

Apparently I'd choked on a bad nugget. It had burned skin which had reluctantly travelled down my esophagus. Or something. Nevermind the fact I'd just spat a fourth of my lunch across the table of a crowded foodcourt. That was the least of my problems.

In front of my personal eating area was a group of large, angry men, who were exposing their combined wrath with their rotten teeth, while simultaneously trying to dry their Coke-drenched sweaters and t-shirts. Their heads, reminiscent of five chubby-faced sillouettes of Alfred Hitchock, had all been punched in the nose by God. In front, and a moment later, surrounding me, were a bunch of really ugly looking angry guys with Coke on their shirts.

I was scared as hell. I stuttered and flubbed around my chicken nuggets and held my Coke protectively. “Oh, I'm–I'm sorry, I wasn't–I didn't...” didn’t help. Tipping the Coke over my head didn’t help. Being grabbed by two men with doors for arms didn’t help. Being escorted toward the back of the mall like a shoplifter didn’t help. And being dragged to the men’s room, pulled in front of a toilet, and asked to understand what it felt like to be suddenly awash in a liquid substance most people didn’t appreciate having on them with thier clothes on, didn’t help.

Water streamed into my ears and flashes of red and orange bounced around the inside of my skull. Someone was kicking my ribs into my lungs. My hair was being unsurgically removed from my scalp. And then, as I felt my cheeks flood with lead-heavy hydrogen dioxide, it stopped.

Having been beaten up in my early childhood, knew that this shouldn't have been the end of it. I wasn't blacking out. I wasn't whiting out. This big can of whoop-ass had yet to come.

I'd found nothing restraining my shoulders, and pulled out of the bowl. I stood up and my hair rained on the bathroom floor, forming a clear puddle next to that red and green card which, in ironic retrospect, seemed far better off than me. I was silent. The stall was silent. And outside, was a rubbery rustling.

Sprawled infront the stall were all five men, bloody-nosed and worse. And standing aloofly triumphant, was sixth man, who was peeling a red mitten off his right fingers.

I took a long, bewildered look. My god, this was a large individual. His bulky lower body was draped rotundly by the heavy red wool of his long coat. He seemed to be wearing green army boots, and judging by how wonderful some of the people he'd obviously gotten rid of, steel-toed ones. And he had a beard. A big white puffy beard.

I said a stupid thing. "Holy @$%& Christ!"

His eyes averted themselves from the guy who'd forced me into the toilet. He stared a moment, at me, and then glanced down to where a small puddle had pushed the card next to my feet.

I didn't notice it, and he didn't take it. It was too close to my feet or something, probably. But then, I wasn't in the state of mind to stick around, enjoy the festivities, or treat him to a Widmer. I splooshed the puddle and ran.

About a week ago after New Year's I got a red and green card in the mail telling me to have a wonderful, happy, safe @*$&# New Year, in Sharpey's black pen. The card was clean, dry, and actually smelt like pine (or maybe that was the Sharpey's). Scrawled in pink lipstick were the words, "Holy @$%& Christ to you too --Mark. P.S. You're fired, you ungrateful chicken of a nugget."

Naturally, I was piqued. The fact the card I'd pulled out of my mailbox wasn't in an envelope and instead, a stark, red on the outside, green on the inside canvas of maniacal pink handwriting deterred me. It deterred me from realizing that attached by a thin white string was my nugget bucket and my Coke. Both were cold. My Coke was still empty.

The moral seemed to be: be grateful if a red and green stranger who just happened to be working eight hours a day in a Santa suit with 300 something snotty kids landing on his lap every five minutes decides to deal with five guys with Coke a chip on their shoulders. Be grateful, I suppose. Real grateful, because the likelihood is that it's not going to happen again. Not in the same year, anyway.