A Ghoulishly Good Time!

It was 6 a.m., and like his six Columbus Days prior, Jimmy Finnegan couldn’t sleep another moment. He sprung out of bed and woke up his pre-teen sister Mary, who shared the same room in their south London flat.

“Wake up, Mary, it’s Columbus Day!” Jimmy shouted with an accent that Charles Dickens probably had when he was a child.

“Get away from me, Jimmy,” Mary grumbled, completely hungover. “Your breath smells of onions.”

Jimmy rolled off Mary and ran to his parents’ bedroom, jumped in their bed and shouted, “Mr. Finnegan, Mr. Finnegan, wake up! It’s Columbus Day, it is!”

His father woke up grudgingly. “Jimmy, please, it’s six o’clock in the morning. And call me ‘Dad.’ It makes me uncomfortable when you call me Mr. Finnegan.”

“It makes me uncomfortable to be informal around adults,” Jimmy responded shyly, tears forming.

“Alright, take it easy, son.”

“Oh thank you, Mr. Finnegan. You won’t regret this none at all you won’t!” Jimmy exclaimed, his accent strengthening with each word.

“Control your accent, James,” his mother commanded.

“Sorry, Mum.”

“Now how come you call her ‘Mum’ and me Mr. Finnegan?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Finnegan. She’s less of an authority figure,” vindicated Jimmy. “Now let’s celebrate Columbus Day! Where are the gifts?”

“James, we don’t have the money for Columbus Day gifts this year. We never do. Because you don’t celebrate Columbus Day with gifts,” decreed Jimmy’s mother.

“Why last year Ol’ Mr. Chumpswaggle with the glass eye and low knees gave me smallpox to celebrate the discovery of the new world, he did!”

“That was merely a coincidence, James,” mandated Jimmy’s mother.

“And I don’t think you should be spending so much time with a man of Mr. Chumpswaggle’s age. It isn’t right, son. He’s just so hairy.”

“But he says I’m the Nina to his Santa Maria.”

“Was the Santa Maria and old, hairy boat?”

“No, but we both love to celebrate Columbus Day!”

“Oh, it’s time you knew already. Columbus isn’t real, Jimmy. Nothing had to be discovered. There were already plenty of established New World civilizations before Columbus arrived there. All he did was name them the wrong thing.”

“‘Tisn’t true! ‘Tisnt! I’m runnin’ away t’where I can practice my beliefs without pers’cution!”

“Where ya gonna go, Jimmy? To the New World?” Jimmy’s father asked sarcastically.

“Ooo, burned,” said their neighbor, who oft listened to the Finnegans’ bedroom conversations.

Jimmy ran into his room and put on his best scarf and knickers. He splashed soot onto his face, flipped on his newsboy cap, flipped off his neighbor and slipped on his new pair of hobo gloves. He stepped outside and snow grazed the tip of his nose.

“A white Columbus [Day],” he thought. “In early October? Hmm. That’s weird,” he said, answering his inner question aloud, just as a biracial couple walked by, and, after hearing his comment, shot a glance toward Jimmy.

“No, not you!” Jimmy yelled, reverting back to an inner-monologue; however, on the outside, he merely stared and pointed.

Dismayed, Jimmy continued into town, handing out gifts and checking people’s pulses.

“There goes Jimmy Finnegan, the gayest seven-year-old in all of London!” shouted Cribby, the red-haired blacksmith who didn’t understand what blacksmithing was.

“I thought it had to do with horses.”

Jimmy made his way toward Cribby and pulled a gift out from his bag of gifts.

“Here ya go, Cribby! It’s a Columbus Day gift I got you, I did … get … you …”

“Thanks, Jimmy. Too bad me mum already bought me plenty of books for Christmas last year. I just have trouble reading all those letters jumbled next to each other like a bunch of things standing next to other things, none of which I can read.”

Jimmy took out a dense book entitled How To Read. A smile stretched across Cribby’s face and then all the way around the back of his head. Jimmy threw up a little.

“Oy! Jimmy this is the best Columbus Day ever! Not that there’s another Columbus Day I specifically remember, but nonetheless, I thank you, you little turnip-crap,” Cribby said like a human with specific speech patterns.

Just then, Mayor Nayor crossed the street walking from the local Pub House Inn Tavern Pub House Inn.

“Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor …”

“It’s Nayor.”

“What?”

“My name is Nayor. Mayor Nayor.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said Mayor.”

“Right.”

Pause.

“Well, are you enjoying your holiday, sir?”

“Yes, I just had a revitalizing sexual experience with a prostitute named Elda.”

Pause.

“I got you a gift, sir.” Jimmy reached into his bag and handed Mayor Nayor a mustache.

“Why, it’s a mustache!” Mayor Nayor put on the mustache and then went to the local barbershop for a shave, after which he looked like a new man.

“Thank you, Jimmy! Merry Columbus Day!” he shouted while floating away.

Running through the streets from person to person delivering superfluous presents, Jimmy changed Columbus Day forever and earned the reputation of the town crazy person. His parents sent him to a prestigious orphan house, whose alums included Oliver Twist, a boy who once played Oliver Twist and Ken Griffey, Jr. They then used the money they would have spent on him to send their drunken daughter to a halfway house. One Columbus Day, Jimmy got hit by a Model-T and some hobos dragged his body onto the sidewalk. The hobos then kindly dragged him to the hospital 12 miles away, where both of his eyebrows were amputated. Realizing he wasn’t dead, Jimmy shouted in triumph: “It’s a Columbus Day Miracle!”