A short beak-nosed woman in front of me on the bus shoved me into two teenagers with painted-on pants and red lipstick which didn't quite hide their fangs. They got all pissed off at me for bumping into them and flicked cigarette ash in my direction. As if it weren't bad-enough having to go home and see my parents for the holidays--they always tell me I'm 30 years old now, live less than 20 miles away, and should know enough to visit them more often--like once a week. I don't even do my laundry once a week. Beak-nose started screeching at a man she'd spotted, asking him all about his wife and kids, dental operations, the family dog. When I found a seat, it wasn't much better. I started reading a historical novel from Stop & Shop, about colonial South America. Everybody was supposed to be very masculine. There were dozens of love scenes and a picture of Tupec Amaru being beheaded. One way to get rid of a hangover.

As I got off the bus my parents popped into my head again--which political conflict were they going to pick to talk about after Christmas dinner? They are Republicans.

The kids who hang out in the center of Still River where I grew up are getting scarier and scarier. It's not just their short hair. They don't really look like people--the guys are bald monkeys and the girls kewpie dolls. What would Margaret Mead have thought? But they saw only a fat woman with braids, peering at them. I scrammed.

Grapenut Hill is just a half hour's walk from the center, and I got there pretty quickly. The sky had changed to its otherworldly glow of late afternoon in New England between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It makes you think winter vacation is coming up even though it's been 15 years since you had to go to school and throw spitballs. Anyway there's no winter vacation in the real world. I took a course in Zen once, but it didn't help me deal with the real world. Climbing the hill. I kept seeing people in laundromats, throwing lint on the floor, people pushing other people in the aisles in the frantic search for New Wonder Fab Cereal, people running each other over with Pacers. Datsuns and Mercedes Benzes.

Just when I noticed it was kind of a nice day out, a skinny kid popped out of a bush by the side of the path. He looked a little like the kids downtown, except he was wearing a tank top, a dog collar, and a funny pointed hat. Hoping he wasn't a guerrilla. I asked him where his coat was.

"I'm tellin ya," he interrupted, "there's sompin crazy goin' on here. This old guy's runnin' aroun' here, he's flipped a lid or sompin. Damn Pinko. He's got a commune all set up."

I blinked. "A commune? What's that hat you're wearing?"

"Whatsa matter, lady--you get all you clothes from Eastern Mountain Sports? Ain't you seen kids 'round here wearin' these hats? We're the Death Angels, me an' a bunch of guys. We got the cops 'round here so scared--"

"Nonsense," boomed a voice behind us. Turning, I saw a big old man, looked a little like Allen Ginsberg, standing up at the top of the rocks. "I'm tellin' ya, that's him," the kid hissed. "You come any closer an' I'll--" I saw the kid had a big tire chain slung through a loop in his pants.

The old guy stepped down to where we were anyway. He was wearing a lumber-jack shirt and pointy boots. "I believe we haven't met," he said, calmly dusting his hands off before clapping us each on a shoulder. "Lenny here is deceiving you a bit. That's no Death's Angels hat he's wearing--he's my newest lab assistant Sometimes called an elf."

Lenny looked at me nervously and whispered. "What I can't figure out is how this guy got all the way here from Harvard Square." He yelled, "Commie!"

"Lenny," the aging hippie continued, "came up here just to get stoned with me and help me load up sleds with toys. It's a prime location, here where I've set up my lab. Unfortunately, Lenny didn't realize that I stopped making toys ages ago--I've been outmoded in that area. At my lab I've been experimenting with new techniques."

The kid's face had been turning purpler and purpler, and before I had time to ask the man about his new techniques Lenny had whipped out his tire chain and started swinging it his jaw tightening. "My dad--my dad told me about people like you--"

And he vanished in a puff of smoke. In his place sat a red stuffed elephant with a green bow tied around his neck. The hippie grinned.

I wished I were back in the laundromat, running out of fabric softener. "How did you do that?" I choked.

"The power of suggestion, my dear, he said, sitting down on a rock and stroking his chin. "It's how the whole legend about me got started. But everyone sure is out of date on what I've been doing."

"What, you have a Lear jet instead of a sleigh?" I tried to humor him

"I just told you. I gave up toys. They're worthless," he snapped, gesturing at the elephant, whose trunk still clutched Lenny's tire chain. "It's kids like that that bug me--kids who never believed in me in the first place. That's how I got obliterated or forced out of the toy business anyway. All the kids were yapping about some guy who left toys in their stockings, so the unbelieving parents decided to leave presents on their own. The demand for the real article dropped to zero--some means of production are better if they're not centralized."

"Gee, that sounds like a real bummer." I said, giving the red elephant a poke with my tow. It had started to rain, and he looked a bit soggy. "What's going to happen to Lenny, there--uh, are you going to change him back?"

"Are you kidding? Resurrect your enemy? Never, never in a million year!" he chortled, rubbing his hands. "You never leave the enemy in position of power--haven't you ever read..."

I wasn't going to hang around for any more of this stuff. Genetic engineering...the enemy...power of suggestion.

Maybe my parents weren't so bad, after all, as long as I had a shot of bourbon and a cigarette.

Even the Denny's in the center of town seemed, with its day-old fish-and-chips aroma, kind of inviting as I sprinted past.