In my latest opus, The Magic of the Bike Path (A Jack Miller Senior Moment: Book Six), Jack has been tasked with being the “ghost guide” for Ebenezer Scrooge on the night that he’s visited by all those spirits. This is during my rather, ah, different take on the Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. Remember when the spirit of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s late partner, sets the stage for the evening with his chain-dragging visit? In this version his former partner, Rastafarian Wiggy Marley, is the ghost who moves those chains.
The setup: in Scrooge’s sitting room, the old miser knows that something is afoot. Impatient, he asks Jack when the show will get on the road. Here is the scene:
I didn’t have to reply, because the answer came in a distant sound from below, one that I immediately recognized: the rattling of some long chains. Scrooge jerked up in his chair, like a hot poker had been shoved up his ass, the bowl of gruel flying into the fireplace.
I smiled. “The show just got on the road.”
“What is that?” he snapped as the sound intensified. “I mean, what the fuck is that?”
“Just an old friend coming to see you. Don’t freak, whatever you do.”
I had left the door to the sitting room open, so the drama of a ghostly figure passing through that solid portal was absent. Still, when the smiling, translucent Wiggy Marley entered, the lengthy chains dragging behind him, it proved to be more than enough drama for Scrooge, who I thought might have a massive coronary on the spot.
“What…what is this?” he squeaked.
Marley walked—no, floated—over to where Scrooge now stood. “Ebby, my ol’ friend!” the ghost exclaimed. “Long time no see, mon. How you be?”
Scrooge eyed the spirit dubiously. “Wiggy? No, it cannot be! Wiggy Marley is—”
“Dead, mon? Yeh, dead dese seven years, remember? Or maybe you forget, since you not come to de funeral. Too busy at de counting-house, yeh?”
“Sorry about that.” Scrooge sounded anything but contrite as he pointed at the chains. “What’s this about?”
“Dese de chains I forged in life. One link after de udder when we foreclose on de poor folks, when we make deals and screw de udder parties, when we don’ help our fellow mon and watch people have hard times, when—”
“Enough, I got the message,” Scrooge interrupted. “But how come only you forged these chains, and not me?”
“Oh, you forging de chains all right, mon, you just don’ see dem, and dey be longer den mine. You be seein’ dem after you die, and you be shlepping dem around de limbo place of de afterlife, and dey be real heavy, mon.”
Scrooge turned to me. “He’s full of shit, right? I have no such chains!”
I shook my head. “He’s telling it like it is. Yours are a doozy.”
“T’anks, Jack. But Ebby, dat’s why I be here. You have a chance; you can still shed de chains.”
“I wear the chains I forged in life.”
“Yeah, how?”
“Tonight you be visited by t’ree spirits. First one come real soon, yeh?”
Scrooge scowled…which seemed redundant. “A visit from t’ree—uh, three—spirits? No, I’ll pass.”
Marley suddenly began wailing and rattling his chains, which freaked out Scrooge and didn’t do my eardrums much good. The wailing went on for a minute, and I swear, at various points it sounded tuneful, like either “Three Little Birds” or, more apropos, “The Redemption Song.”
It finally stopped, and Marley said, “Ebby, dis be last chance for you. Jack, you go wid me old friend, yeh?”
I shrugged. “Dat’s…that’s what I’m here for, like I told you before.”
As you can imagine, lots of craziness follows. The Magic of the Bike Path is available from Amazon in eBook and paperback. Enjoy!