The Krampus on Chestnut Street: A Novella

The Krampus on Chestnut Street: A Novella

By C. M. Smith

Copyright © 2015 C. M. Smith

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This ebook may not be re-sold or copied in whole or in part in any form. Thank-you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover photograph and design by C. M. Smith

CONTENTS

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Epilogue

Prologue

This therapist actually had a therapist’s couch. Or a chaise lounge, or a chaise, or whatever it is that you call such a remarkable piece of furniture. It had a small back where the back of a couch usually is for if I wanted to sit up and face her, but it also had, on the right side, a nicely cushioned back that angled up to a thick pillow. This pillow was inviting me to lay down and relax.

And I wanted to lay down and relax. I’d already sat face-to-face with enough therapists for one lifetime. I so wanted to lay down. But was that even allowed? Not sure, I just stared at the couch, paralyzed with my usual crippling doubt.

When I finally looked back at my new therapist, she gestured toward the couch. However you feel most comfortable.

So I laid on my back and stretched out my legs.

Is this your first time seeing a therapist? she asked.

No, I said. You’re just the first one with a couch.

It was a good start, the best start I’d ever had with a therapist, and I’ve had occasion over the years to sit down with many. They all wanted me to talk, at first just idle chitchat to foster a good rapport, but eventually to spill my guts and reveal to them all my darkest secrets. But I have found, to their obvious frustration, that my best coping mechanism is silence. This antithetical approach has put me at odds with every one of them.

After you’ve gone through as many therapists as I have, you start to notice a pattern. The first visit is always a cordial meeting. I answer some basic questions. I share some mundane facts about my life. We scratch the surface of what my problems are, and the therapist is hopeful that he or she can help me.

During my next visit the therapist starts to dig. I clam up. The therapist realizes that helping me will not be so easy. If I hadn’t lost all respect for him or her during the first session, I certainly do so in the second. It’s now evident, at least to me, that this therapy is going nowhere. Even so, out of politeness, I agree to a third session.

During the third session I barely pay attention. It’s pointless. We’re in the endgame. But the therapist tries harder to dig, dig, dig. I remain a clam. The therapist struggles to remain outwardly hopeful, but his or her professional façade is beginning to crack. And through these cracks I can see the first signs of frustration. I can also see the cogs spinning in their brain as they desperately try to think of a new approach to take with me. They won’t admit it yet, but they know their efforts are futile. I am a clam they will never crack, and they know it. And I know that I’m wasting their time. Our relationship has run its course. It’s best now, for both of us, if I become a former patient as soon as possible.

I schedule a fourth session, but the next day I will inevitably call to cancel.

Would you like to reschedule? they ask.

No, I say.

They understand.

I digress. Let me get back to my most recent therapist, the one who prompted the telling of this story, the one who might well be the last therapist I will ever need. Our initial session started with the usual promise. More promise than usual, in fact, if you consider the couch.

But my surprise at seeing the couch, and the subsequent pleasure that came with laying down on it, this had a negative consequence. It brought out my disclosure that I’d been to many therapists before. This got her asking questions.

If you’ve been to others, may I ask why you are seeing me? Did your last therapist retire or move? ...Or did it not work out?

It didn’t really work out, I said, and I paused before finishing, "...with any of them."

How many have you seen?

A dozen or more in the past thirty years, if you count the child psychologists.

"And you didn’t find any value in any of your sessions with any of them?"

I shook my head. No.

Then why are you here? Why do you keep trying new therapists?

Well, I said, repeating a line I had used with my previous shrink, when your car is broken you take it to the shop, right?

Sure.

So I’ve had a lot of people over the years who have cared about me enough to take me to the shop. First my parents, then girlfriends, then my wife. They all have good intentions... But sometimes things are broken so badly ... they can’t be fixed.

And you think that’s you? You can’t be fixed?

I didn’t respond. I think she understood my silence.

She let me own that silence for a good minute. It wasn’t what I would call an awkward silence. It was a comfortable silence. She wrote a few notes and organized the paperwork she was holding. I adjusted my position slightly on the couch and settled in for what was to come. I tried to mentally prepare myself for it; the couch already had me too chatty and I had to put a clamp on it. I had to put up my defenses, and as I’ve mentioned, the best way to do this is to just not talk.

But then she asked the question. From that comfortable silence she asked me the first question that in all these years I’d characterize as the right question. It was the first that meant anything to me. Instead of starting out with a long list of predictable questions — When was I born? Where did I grow up? What was my family life like? — she asked me one oddball question that got straight to the heart of my troubles. She asked it in a direct manner, like it was on the standard list, and she asked it with confidence, like my answer to this one question would tell her more about me than she could get from a hundred standard questions.

I couldn’t believe my ears.

She knew my history of therapy failure. I had tipped my hand. She knew I’d be a tough nut to crack. She knew she would need to take a different course with me, but of all the questions in the world, how did she know to select this one? Was it just a coincidence? Perhaps. But in that moment she seemed to possess tremendous insight.

I just laid there on that comfortable couch, staring up at her bookshelf, silent. It was different from my usual silence; this time it was from shock rather than by choice.

I apologize for the unusual question, she said. My approach is a little different from what you may have experienced in the past.

No need to apologize, I said. "That is a good question. Could you please repeat it for me?"

Sure, she said in a calm, steady voice. When did you stop believing in Santa Claus?

One

I stopped believing in Santa Claus on Christmas Day 1979. I was seven going on eight. To tell the full story, and to adequately explain exactly why I stopped believing, we must back up to June of that year. School had just let out for summer and I was looking at two glorious months of freedom before going into the second grade. The start of summer is always exciting, but for me and my two best friends, Eric and Nathan, this particular summer was extra exciting. Our radius was expanding.

What I mean by that is this was the first year we were allowed to roam freely around town.

Nathan and I both lived on Walnut Street, ten houses between us. Eric lived one short block over and one long block down from us, on Chestnut Street. The side street in the middle was Amsterdam, and the neighborhood playground sat on the corner of Amsterdam and Chestnut. We first met each other at that playground while still toddlers. In the dirt of that sandbox, gripping the rusty chains of those swings, and zooming down the scorching run of the metal slide, we became the best of friends. It was like we had known each other for our entire lives.

When we were very young, our parents took us to the playground and we played under their supervision. But our town was small and everybody knew everybody else. It was a safe neighborhood. So as we got older our parents would just walk us to the playground, then go home and come back for us later. Then Eric’s older brother Karl would bring him. Not long after that, Nathan and I were allowed to go there on our own.

And somewhere along the way, we were allowed to walk alone to each other’s houses.

As our ability to see each other increased, our friendship deepened. The three of us were inseparable.

When we were in kindergarten, Nathan would walk to my house first. Then the two of us would walk together to the playground, meet up with Eric, then proceed up Amsterdam to our school.

During the summer after kindergarten, the training wheels came off our bikes, and we became proficient at riding them. We were allowed to ride around the block, but not allowed to leave the sidewalk. The street was off limits.

But one year later, in that magical summer after first grade, we were ready to expand our range. We knew to look both ways before crossing the street. We knew to always watch for cars. We knew to stay together. And we had always, since we were toddlers, looked out for each other.

And most importantly, we knew where we wanted to go: the Flats.

So we begged our parents to let us go. We did more than just beg, in fact. We behaved perfectly in all areas of personal conduct. We presented ourselves as the most responsible seven-year-old boys to ever set foot on earth. And when school let out for the summer of 1979, our parents finally consented.

We were allowed to bicycle over to the Flats.

Let me explain what the Flats are. If you go over to Amsterdam, then take it in the opposite direction from our school, it comes out on Morgan Curve at the southwestern edge of the neighborhood. All the residential streets parallel to Amsterdam come out to Morgan, which channels all traffic to the south in a wide curve down to Main Street. Morgan doesn’t have any houses on it, or any development of any type for that matter. On the other side of the street, on a slight incline, there’s just a line