The Judge Who Stole Christmas (10 page)

TUESDAY NIGHT, DECEMBER 12

Thomas arrived at the town square while it was still light. The night before, he and Theresa had been up until two in the morning tracing and cutting life-size manger figures out of plywood. Though Theresa hadn't been happy about it, she had done a wonderful job painting the donkey, the sheep, the ox, the shepherd, and of course, the Virgin Mary. In Thomas's opinion, the Virgin Mary looked a little bit like one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, but other than that, the figures were easily recognizable. Besides, Scripture never said that Mary was easy on the eyes.

He carted the plywood figures out of his truck and attached wooden bases made of two-by-fours in the shape of an X. As he hauled the figures over to his usual spot on the square, carrying two at a time, the shepherd slipped from Thomas's grasp and landed on the hard ground right on the crook of the shepherd's staff, snapping the plywood at a particularly thin point. Fortunately, Thomas had a few rolls of duct tape kicking around in the back of his truck, and it didn't take him any time at all to fix the staff.

Around 5:30, just as darkness was falling, Thomas placed Bebo in the makeshift straw-lined cradle that he had built out of old two-by-fours and leftover pieces of plywood. He turned on the spotlight that he had hooked up to a Walmart car battery and took his place next to the plywood Mary.

A few folks who had watched him assemble his set told him how nice it looked. For some reason, they hung around after Thomas turned on the spotlight, perhaps waiting to see if he might be thrown in jail. Soon they were joined by a few other passersby. As folks gathered, many would tell him what a great idea this was. Others would remark about how this would really show that federal judge a thing or two. The townsfolk snapped pictures as if the manger scene were a national monument.

“You got a permit for that?” one of the men asked.

“Do you even need a permit?” someone else inquired.

“I'd just hate to see that judge get him on a technicality,” the first guy said.

“Did Mary and Joseph have a permit?” Thomas asked. Since nobody seemed to have an answer, that was the end of the discussion.

Cell phone lines in Possum started buzzing, and word spread quickly. Soon the crowd had grown to nearly a hundred folks. Someone started singing “Away in a Manger,” and the entire group of onlookers joined in. After a few more phone calls, an entrepreneurial villager arrived with a card table, a pot of hot apple cider, and a hundred Styrofoam cups. He sold the cider for a buck a cup so he didn't have to make change.

Eventually the mayor himself joined the throng and started singing, shaking hands, and patting the heads of children as he worked the crowd. Somebody mentioned the permit issue, and the mayor disappeared into his nearby office. Fifteen minutes later he emerged with a slip of paper and a megaphone. During a break in the caroling, he stepped out in front of the crowd.

“I've just been on the phone with Mr. Ottmeyer,” he said into the megaphone. “And the town attorney wanted me to make a few things clear.” Some scattered moans drifted forward. “First of all, the Town of Possum did not request this display, fund this display, or even know about this display. But he also reminded me that this is a town square, a quintessential public forum—” the mayor couldn't help but grin a little at the enormous word that Ottmeyer had given him—“and that we would be on shaky legal ground if we tried to keep Mr. Hammond from celebrating a national holiday with this peaceful little display of his. I've therefore taken it upon myself to grant him a permit to display his manger scene at all times between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and midnight from now until December 25.”

Frumpkin turned and handed the paper to Thomas while the crowd cheered. Someone yelled for a speech as if they really expected Thomas to say something into the megaphone. Soon others joined in the chant, and Thomas realized that he had no choice.

He took the megaphone from the mayor. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks to all of y'all.” Then he handed the megaphone back to the mayor, and the crowd roared wildly. Someone broke into a rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and others followed along, though most mumbled through a fair amount of forgotten words. This led to another round of singing as more people continued to pour onto the square.

The crowd ebbed and the hot cider flowed for nearly three hours. People formed a line to come forward and pass before the straw manger. It seemed to Thomas that the Virgin Mary was smiling.

She continued to smile until nearly nine o'clock. “I reckon I better shut down for tonight,” Thomas announced. The crowd had died down, and there was no longer a line. “I'll be back out here tomorrow night.”

Vince Harrod stepped forward, huddled into his long overcoat as if he were some kind of secret agent who had been hiding in the crowd. He handed Thomas a typed piece of paper. Apparently his cell phone had been busy too. “I wouldn't be so sure about that,” he said.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

Theresa didn't wait for the alarm to go off at 5:30 before she crawled out of bed and padded to the kitchen. She hadn't been this tired since the first few colicky weeks of little Elizabeth's life—a nonstop screamfest that deprived Theresa of sleep and nearly her sanity. Last night she had been kept awake not by Elizabeth but by worries about today's court hearing and the way things were escalating out of control. Thomas, on the other hand, slept soundly, snoring as loud as ever. Twice she woke him up, supposedly to stop his snoring. “
Thomas
, can you roll over on your side, please?” Secretly she hoped he would wake up enough for them to discuss this situation.

But not Thomas. Stubborn, silent Thomas. He could sleep through Armageddon.

Theresa flipped on the kitchen light, emptied yesterday's coffee grinds from the filter, and started a new pot. She warmed Elizabeth's bottle just in case. She started cooking the oatmeal and dropped two slices of bread in the toaster. She heard the alarm go off in the bedroom and Thomas roll out of bed. Within minutes he had dressed and joined her in the kitchen.

During the spring, summer, and fall, Thomas had a steady lawn-care business taking care of the rich folks in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. During the winter, Thomas morphed into a lumberjack, paying farmers for the right to cut trees on their property, then selling the firewood to convenience stores for resale to customers. He would be gone before the sun came up, spending his first few hours splitting and wrapping the logs he had hauled out to the road the prior day. Thomas could never understand why anybody would pay so much for a half-dozen fireplace logs. Based on the proven willingness of city folk to pay for bottled water and bundled wood, Thomas kept threatening to figure out a way to distribute clean country air as well. “I'll put it in aerosol cans and sell it in New York City,” he said. “Before you know it, I'll be a billionaire.”

Theresa spent the days cooped up in the trailer, taking care of Elizabeth and two other toddlers who belonged to a single working mom. The Hammonds weren't rich, but they got the bills paid. Their savings account, however, had been wiped out by medical bills and the funeral expenses for little Joshie, not quite a year and a half ago.

“Mornin',” Thomas said as he came over and kissed Theresa.

“Mornin'.”

He ate in silence for a few minutes while Theresa put away the dishes that had been drying in the drainer overnight.

“Comin' to court this afternoon?” he asked.

“Don't think so.”

Thomas paused as he took a sip of coffee and a bite of oatmeal. “'Cause?”

Theresa placed the final few glasses in the cupboard and hesitated. She wanted to support him so badly—but why did it always have to be
them
? Why couldn't somebody else fight this battle? It couldn't come at a worse time.

She sighed, lacking the emotional energy for a fight. She grabbed the peanut butter out of the cabinet, the jelly from the refrigerator, and started making sandwiches. “Elizabeth can't stay still that long. Plus I promised the other kids we'd go Christmas shopping after school.”

“Already spent a lot of money on the plywood,” Thomas said as if Theresa didn't know. “Don't get carried away.”

“Forty-eight dollars for the plywood,” Theresa said. “And another eighteen-fifty for the paint.”

More silence followed, which drove Theresa crazy. “That's sixty-six dollars we don't have, Thomas.”

He grunted and ate a few more bites of oatmeal. “I'll make it up this week. Firewood sales are always good around the holidays.”

You gonna sell firewood from jail?
she wanted to ask. But what good would that do? She should be supportive, not nagging. But sixty-six bucks was a lot of money. And that federal judge scared her. She fixed lunch in silence and thought about everything that could go wrong. She waited until he had finished his breakfast to bring it up again.

“What did Jasmine say?” Theresa asked. She put two PB&J sandwiches in small sandwich bags and then placed them in a larger white plastic bag. She threw in a PowerBar, the remainder of an opened bag of chips, an apple, and a napkin.

Thomas had been watching her pack his lunch from the breakfast table. He stood and placed his dishes in the sink. “What am I gonna eat for dessert?” he asked.

Theresa shook her head and placed a brownie in his lunch bag too. “Now, what did Jasmine say?”

“She thinks we've got a good case. Says the worst I'll get is a good chewing out.”

“And then?”

“Then, in a worst-case scenario, the judge will tell me not to do it again.”

“Then?”

Thomas picked up his lunch from the counter, added another brownie, and grabbed the drink cooler from the refrigerator. “We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Theresa came over and wrapped her arms around him. He put his lunch on the counter and gave her a quick hug, the same kind of out-the-door hug he gave her every morning. But this time she didn't let go. She had to say something, though she couldn't look at him when she did. “I can't go through this again, Thomas.” Her voice became thick. “Promise me you won't go to jail again.”

He held on to her and stroked the back of her hair. “I'm not going to jail, Theresa. Jasmine said we've got a good case.”

“Promise me you'll back off if you have to.”

He hesitated.

“Promise me, Thomas.”

He kissed the top of her head and gave her a squeeze—a subtle signal that it was time to let go. “You know I can't do that, Theresa. A man's got to do what a man's got to do.”

She
hated
that expression.
Hated
it! What's that even supposed to mean? That a man's got to go on some crusade for Christmas and ignore the needs of his own family?

She unwrapped her arms and pursed her lips. She had stood silently by her man so many times in the past. Thomas and his crusades. Thomas and his convictions. It had already cost them a son. Couldn't he see that? “Sometimes,” she said, “a man's got to do what's right for his family.”

Thomas just looked at her, sadness and resolve filling his eyes. Then he grabbed his lunch and headed for the door.

Tiger loved the Dollar Store! He squeezed the five-dollar bill in his right hand and elbowed his way from aisle to aisle, breathlessly checking out all the stuff. There were so many people in the store, he could barely move around. But fortunately Tiger was small and could squeeze past people and . . . whoops! He knocked over a bunch of Christmas tree decorations and some Christmas curly swirl. He bent over to pick up a box of the ornaments and took a quick look around—nobody watching. He gently kicked the stuff over to the side and took off. His mom always said if you broke something in a store, they made you pay for it. No way was he gonna use his money on Christmas curly swirl.

Halfway down the next aisle he found some stuff his mommy would love! Bubble bath, necklaces, girlie junk everywhere! Stinky, Tiger's big sister, was hanging out in this aisle. Her real name was Hannah, a name she now wanted everyone to use, but Tiger liked the nickname his dad had given her when she was still in diapers. When Stinky saw Tiger, she put her hand over her little shopping basket, as if she had already picked out his present. Then she hurried off to another aisle.