The Snow White Christmas Cookie

very, very lucky.

I became the man I wanted to be. Did the work I wanted to do. I loved a special woman. When I lost her I didn’t think I’d make it-until I met a woman who was even more special and I loved her even more.

That’s pretty much all a man can ask for, isn’t it? What else is there? Kids? Okay, he and Des didn’t get that chance. But he did pretty damned good for a shlub from Stuyvesant Town. True, maybe this fade-out scene right here was a tiny bit on the sad side. Maybe he was blinking as he fought back the tears that had started to come. Blinking as the flashbulbs started popping before his eyes again, bright as could be. But this would be over soon. He just had to surrender to it. And so he did. Mitch closed his eyes and he surrendered.

“If a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass so much, follow me?”

CHAPTER 17

They floored it tO Breezy Point, lights flashing and sirens blaring as they tore their way around the rush-hour traffic on the Post Road-Des in the lead car, Yolie on her tail with Tommy the Pinhead and Gigi Garanski handcuffed in the backseat of her cruiser. It took them ten minutes to reach the park turn-off on Route 1. When the road dipped under the Amtrak trestle, Des hit a pothole that was deep enough to rattle her spine. She slowed now as she drew nearer to the parking lot, her eyes searching the dusk for someone out walking. Someone large and Jewish who was desperately trying to find help. But she saw no one as she pulled into the deserted parking lot, her high beams sweeping the woods alongside of it.

If he’s dead then I’m dead, too. I’ll stop eating. I’ll stop caring. I’ll die. I’ll just curl up and die.

She left her engine running, jumped out and threw open the back door to Yolie’s cruiser. “Where are they?”

“On the beach,” Tommy the Pinhead answered. “Like I told you.”

“He’d better be okay. Because if he’s not I swear I will shoot you both and leave you here. The coyotes will eat your remains.”

“Tommy, she’s scaring me,” Gigi whimpered.

“Shut the hell up, will ya? The dude’s fine,” he assured Des. “I just gave him a little love pat on the head, that’s all.”

She slammed the door and zipped up her Gore-Tex storm jacket. Then she and Yolie started their way down the snowy, windblown path into the park. They needed their big Maglites to show them the way in the deepening darkness. And the walking wasn’t easy. Every time she put her foot down it kerchunked on the hard, icy surface left by last night’s rain and went plunging down into two feet of soft snow. Each footstep was serious work.

“MITCH?…!” she cried out, her ears straining for a response. She heard nothing over the wind. “Damn, I hope he didn’t wander off and get lost.”

“If he wandered anywhere it would have been back toward Route 1. We’d have seen him. Mitch ain’t dumb.”

“But he got whacked on the head, Yolie. He’s already had one concussion this year. And this is Mitch we’re talking about. For all we know he may think he’s on a lion hunt with the Ale and Quail Club.”

“The Ale and Quail who?”

“You never saw Palm Beach Story? I swear, that sequence on the train has to be the funniest ten minutes I’ve ever … Will you listen to me? I’m even starting to sound like him. I swear, if that man’s still alive I’m going to kill him.”

“Okay, here we go,” Yolie said as they reached the narrower path that snaked through the woods to the beach.

She could hear the surf washing up on the rocks as they made their way down the path. It was considerably windier out on the open beach. Blowing really, really hard. The windchill was something fierce. They waved their flashlight beams out along the water’s edge and spotted two large shapes out there in the snow. Two large, motionless shapes.

“MITCH?!.…” Des screamed over the howling wind.

Nothing. No response.

Des broke into a mad sprint through the deep snow, her legs straining, chest heaving as she gasped and gasped and gasped. “MITCH?!.…”

Still nothing.

The first person her flashlight beam found was Casey, who was curled up dead like a giant, frozen worm. Huddled a few feet away from him was Mitch, who lay on his side wearing only a Pats hoodie, a pair of white socks and a bloody shower curtain that had slid down around his knees. He was … blinking at her. Or trying to. His eyes were practically frozen shut. And he was shuddering so violently she could hear his teeth chattering. He had no pants on. Not even any underwear. The poor man’s genitals were fully exposed to the howling wind.

She whipped off her parka and fell to her knees before him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wrapped it around him. “Oh, baby, baby…”

“D-Do you?…”

“Do I what?”

“Any c-clam chowder?”

“What’d he just say?”

“He wants some clam chowder.”

“Not a problem, big boy. We’ll get some in you right away.” Yolie took off her own jacket and put it over him.

“Can you believe they left him out here buck naked?”

“I can believe it.”

“Would have been nice if they’d mentioned it.”

“Girl, I think you need to accept that these are not nice people.”

“We’ll have to carry him back. I’ll take him by his arms. You take his legs. Be real careful with his feet. If he’s got any frostbite in those toes you don’t want to squeeze them or rub them.”

“Hey, I took the same lifesaving classes you did, remember?”

“Sorry, I’m just a tiny bit out of my mind right now.”

“No, you’re not. You’re fine. We’re all fine. Right, big boy?”

“K-Kids,” he croaked as they secured their jackets around him.

Des frowned at him. “Which kids?”

“Our kids.”

“He must be tripping.” Des shined her light on the back of his head. “Yeah, he’s been bleeding. Got whacked real good.”

Yolie worked the zipper of her parka up toward Mitch’s exposed genitals.

“N-Not sure I’m ready for our relationship to go this f-far,” he told her.

“I’ve seen a man’s tool before,” she assured him, zipping him up nice and snug. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen one so shriveled though.”

“From the c-cold. I–I don’t have frostbite there, do I?”

“Not to worry, stud. It strikes your extremities first. And, trust me, that ain’t no extremity. Girl, is it always so small?”

“We are not going to have this conversation right now. And no.”

“If you p-pop it into your mouth you’ll warm it right up.”

“He talking to me?”

“He’d better be talking to me.”

Now he was muttering something under his breath about a frog having wings.

“You following any of this?” Yolie asked her.