NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

***

Part 1

What is the color of Christmas?

The white of untouched snow?

The green of a Douglas Fir

Or ceaseless mistletoe?

Could it be the red of stockings?

Or yule-log’s golden breath?

No. The color of Christmas is black

Black of a moonless winter's night

The black of coal in the abyss

The black of death

***

Koopman’s Department Store presents:

The 12 Days of Christmas

Grand Parade to city conveyed

This season big business

Announcer from Channel Thirteen

Mic picked up howling wind

Nor’easter of the century

From Greenland rolling in

Each float branded to perfection

Each with a sponsored theme

Franzenstein gingerbread houses

Toscani nativity scenes

They rolled along 34th street

Up to Koopman’s revolving door

Where Steve and his wife Portia throned

King and Queen of the store

A masterpiece of art nouveau

Engulfing block, tower

Dazzling retail cathedral

Where hard won coin showered

The windows full of season’s displays

Gorgeous crystalline glass

Each winter fantasies

Available for cash

Announcer spoke up: “Here she comes

It’s Mercedes Koopman

Steve and Portia’s only daughter

With her vocal debut”

The pre-teen rode high on a float

Promoting her own brand

Hawking neon fast fashion

And song without a band

Just as Mercedes started up

Before her vocals dropped

Announcer said: “Wait… here comes Santa Claus?

And he’s coming in hot”

Santa revved red convertible

Madness flashed in his eyes

He aimed full speed for Koopman’s store

Mercedes forced to dive

The crash destroyed the singer’s float

As Santa stripped his clothes

Revealing a Satan suit beneath

To the crowd he exposed

Something from out of his waistband

From crotch depth fustiness

He waved it around and yodeled:

“The hammer of justice!”

With hardware Santa Claus screaming:

“You bourgeois pigs must die

This one goes out to you, my Pearl”

Blue-haired girl averted eyes

He raised the groin-secreted tool

Shattered Koopman’s displays

Screamed about theory of labor

And radical cliches

Christian protestors turned their backs

So-called allies turned...

NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

Part Two

***

Portia hosted at Koopman’s cafe

A rich, aggressive bunch

Muffy Von Klump and Luz De La Cruz

These the ladies who lunch

“Delish! This dish… simply divine!”

“Bold boreal terroir!”

Caribou tartare, pine resin wine

Chowing down reindeer raw

“Tell me where you found your Santa”

“The line is out the door”

“Parents love him, kids terrified”

“And they keep coming back for more”

“Oh him? He’s Koopman’s special sauce

Says his name is Ruprecht”

“Your glass snow globe is filled with dough”

“The man commands respect”

A parent lugged her screaming child

Ruprecht hushed in his ear

Then youngin’ turned a sickly shade

Silent, quaking with fear

“Mercedes, won’t you see to Alfonso

Luz’s newly adopted son

Fresh from Mali? Or was it Malawi?

Some dump from whence he comes?”

“Go take him to Christmas Village

To sit on Ruprecht’s lap”

Mercedes cried: “That’s not Santa Claus

He doesn’t wear a patch”

Portia feigned shame before the gals

“Mercedes don’t talk back

Alfonso doesn’t know any better…

…Santa is handicapped”

I always wanted to adopt

Open my heart and home

I’ve got that idiot Izzy

Won’t move out, full grown”

“Oh yes…” said Muffy, “…Isidore

We caught his performance

A shame he soiled your parade

And lost those endorsements”

Luz pointed to the globe and said:

“Charity has two forms

The kind l have for Alfono

The other type performs”

***

Dunn stewed in silent apartment

Countless beer cans crushed

A Christmas tree 13 years dead

Ornaments cloaked in dust

He stared at Portia Koopman’s name

And cleaned his .22

Perused surveillance photographs

Silencer clockwise screwed

Dunn studied the plans for the store

Swigged down Peppermint Schnapps

No sense in procrastination

When assassins are cops

Dunn got a call from foot patrol

The North Star life raft found

In a sewer deep beneath city streets

In Koopman’s part of town

Dunn saddled up and slugged down rum

One-forty proof cologne

Heading down to Portia’s store

Kill two birds with one stone

***

Izzy hung out in the warehouse

These were his type of folk

Honest work from sweat of the brow

Clearly thought him...

NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

Part 3

Secret Santa’s crossed off the list

Drug dealers, arsonists, thieves

Necrophiliacs and mountebanks

Cops excised disease

Bodies found in alleyways

Sedan trunks by the docks

Arcades, bars, overpriced condos

In a playground sandbox

Some with bullets between the eyes

Some had jugulars ripped

Some injected with tree frog venom

Some dumped in ditches, stripped

Bodies piled high down at the morgue

As the winter weather cooled

Coroner ruled them accidents

Homicide had all fooled

***

Portia lunched with Muffy and Luz

“What a story to tell

Here’s my latest acquisition

Ladies, behold Noel”

“Isn’t she the waif you booted?”

“Yes, indeed, she’s the thief

Caught her in my charity globe

I gave the orphan relief”

“We welcomed her into our home

Hope she comes to trust us

This is what charity truly is:

Restorative justice”

“The criminal system is a mess

Trust me, group homes broken

So, I adopted this delinquent

You just took in tokens”

“Mercedes, please take our Noel

To sit on Ruprecht’s lap

Sure she love to tell him about

Dodging criminal wrap”

***

Mercedes paraded casting

Elbows and aspersions

To anyone blocking her way

Departments transversing

Noel followed at the girl’s heels

Into Christmas village

They cut the line and found Ruprecht

Koopman’s family privilege

“Excuse me, sir,” Noel piped up

“They say your name’s Ruprecht

But I’ve been watching you closely

Suspect that’s incorrect”

“Is your true name really St. Nick?

You seem to be the source

Of all those legends about him

I could be wrong, of course”

“Someone has been using your name

Your reputation’s heft

To drain the youth from orphan girls

Until there’s nothing left”

Ruprecht stared at the young orphan

And asked: “Are you the one?”

But then their rendezvous cut short

In walked Lt. Dunn

He flashed his badge, approached Ruprecht

The line drew to a halt

“Last night, what were your whereabouts?

Do you know Jacques Perrault?”

Noel spotted the flashing shield

She turned, in terror ran

Was this the goon from the North Pole?

The man who took Roxanne?

Portia stopped the inquisition

“What’s the meaning of...

NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

Part Four

In a parking lot, Dunn waited

Desperate, fleeing gallows

In the backseat of a federal fleet

Obscured among shadows

When agent Jones entered her car

Dunn made himself known

“Please, this whole things is a setup

Couldn’t reach out by phone”

Dunn produced the North Pole matchbook

The burden that he lugged

Who could these markings belong to

These fingerprints in blood

"How did you know where to find me?”

“I know what your routine is”

"I need your help to search this thumb

No way it’s Joe Martinez”

***

Jones and Dunn worked in underground lab

Federal agent convinced

Needed to find the owner of

These bloody fingerprints

The system ran a billion thumbs

To try to make a match

With a ding as it landed on

A perfect pair at last

“It’s just like you said,” Jones showed him

“These prints are Joe Martinez”

“But he’s been dead 13 years

Any explanation for this?”

“Let’s check Martinez’s first arrest

In analogue era

If system hits another print

We can pin-point error”

Jones pulled up Martinez’s file

From 1993

There was a different ink thumb

For anyone to see

“What happens if we run this one?

It might land on our Joe

But if its a sloppy hacking job

The culprit’s one may show”

Jones ran the print from ’93

“I think that there’s a glitch”

A face and name appeared on screen

"Not sure how this was missed”

“His name is Kolya Kalmykov

With deep alias list

Nicky Green Eyes, Ochi Nefrit

Others call him: St. Nick”

“13 years ago he vanished

Gave Interpol the slip

How did he and Joe Martinez

Get their fingerprints flipped?”

Agent showed a grainy photo

From years and year long past

A man with topknot, golden teeth

And dangling mustache

“I know I’ve seen that face somewhere

Doppelgänger for Kohl

But that man can’t be our sergeant

He’s decades way too old”

“Could Kalmykov be Kohl’s father?

Fingerprints passed to son?”

“No, every set is unique

That’s just not how its done”

“If these prints belong to Kolya

Could be a lighting trick

Or perhaps plastic surgery

But your sergeant is St. Nick”

***

Kohl and Noel entered banya

Obscured in clouds of...

NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

Epilogue

***

Muffy Von Klump, Luz de la Cruz

Lunched at Bistro Chez Bleu

Where once the gang was a trio

Now there were only two

“There’s no decent reindeer anywhere”

Luz sulked and dropped her fork

Muffy sighed, “its out of fashion

But you knew that of course”

“Speaking of thing gone out of style

What did you do with Beth?”

“I wheeled her down to a group home

She rolled on my last nerve left”

Muffy asked, “How is Alfonso?”

“I hear he’s doing grand

Such a shame we needed his room

That reno was unplanned”

“Occasionally we get letters

For reunion pleading us

Frankly, they go straight to shredder

Neediness is tedious”

“Any new projects?” Muffy asked

“I took a page from Portia”

“Are you crazy? Committing fraud?

Or dealing in orphans?”

“Those are things that are just not done

Nothing… inelegant

I’m elevating charity

Making it more relevant”

“She was right about the justice system

The whole thing is rotten

Inmates linger in filthy cells

By the world, forgotten”

“So, I’ve committed to fix it

To let dignity ring

I’ve become a prison mentor

With felon under my wing”

“She reports to me her progress

Gives run down of her chores

Work beneath the righteous wives

Reforming for her I’m sure”

“Oh my, that sounds restorative

Muffy bubbled with glee

“Any chance you’ll meet with her soon

Now that, I’d love to see”

****

Inmates entered the visiting room

Guards barked out commands

Muffy and Luz sat by the glass

Receivers in their hands

Muffy’s eyes sparkled with delight

Seeing Luz’s project

Now this was a soul needing reform

Looking ragged, unkempt

Luz spoke into her receiver:

“Have you been doing good?

Are you staying out of trouble?

Like a model inmate should?”

Muffy produced Japanese fan

“It’s awful hot in here

What in god is that yeasty smell?

It reeks of rotten beer”

“Guards say you cell’s been messy

Grub’s constipating you

That jumpsuit fits like a trash bag

What’s with those hideous shoes?”

“Just think, in a decade you’re out

After you’ve made amends

This decor drab and depressing

Are you making any friends?”

“Time to say our affirmations

Repeat them after me:

I’m a felon worthy of love

Self-respect,