Gavin the Garden Gnome
by Robert Reese, 2004
Once upon a time, hidden among the rolling hills, there was a beautiful garden. A low-lying layer of fog always drifted into it from the direction of the koi pond, even when the summer sun was scorching and the air was dry and dusty. Gavin, the garden gnome, complained once to Mr. Reese that the fog seemed incredibly unnatural on those intense summer days. The complaint was ignored and fog kept rolling in over the koi pond.
If there had been a thermometer, it would probably have read around one-hundred-twelve degrees on this particular afternoon. Gavin was sitting on an oak stump in the shade of his tool shed, smoking a pipe. His tool shed looked like a giant mushroom but was made of wood. It was not really his tool shed. It belonged to Mr. Reese, the man who owned the rest of the garden, the castle-like house that overlooked it, and the surrounding fifty acres of rolling hills.
Gavin was getting old, probably about sixty-three or so. His long white beard reached almost down to his belly. Mr. Reese insisted that he wear elf shoes with the curls on the toes. They were the same color crimson as his hat, his knickers were Christmas green, and he wore a light mocha colored shirt that had a dark brown semicircle of perspiration around his neck and under his arms. His hat was pointy and he had a significant belly that stretched out the bottom of his shirt. There were also dark brown spots of perspiration on his lower back.
He stroked his beard absentmindedly and took a puff of his pipe while running down a mental checklist of everything that had to be accomplished that day. As the garden gnome, Gavin was responsible for all maintenance of the garden, care of the koi and unicorn, and upkeep of the tool shed. He had fed the fish and unicorn in the morning, weeded the vegetable garden, and cut a bouquet of roses for Mr. Reese to give to his wife. She loved little surprises. It was impossible to do anything in the heat so he decided to just continue sitting and smoking his pipe. He watched the fog come in slow, steady spurts from across the pond.
The heat and the relaxation of his pipe made Gavin drowsy. He had almost nodded off when he heard a scream from up by the house. He jumped off his log instinctively and spun in a quick circle, looking for the source of the noise. The scream came again before he found where it was coming from. Gavin looked up towards the house and realized that it was just Billy. Billy was the loudest, most spoiled kid that Gavin had ever met. The gnome climbed back up onto his tree stump and pulled out a bag of tobacco to refill his pipe. Just as he had finished refilling and was looking for a match, he heard the crashing of hooves racing his direction.
Sparkle came tearing into the garden. She skidded and stopped in front of Gavin, whinnied, and stared at him impatiently. He quit looking for his match and started to look for a cube of sugar. After finding it in the pocket of his shirt, he handed it to her and resumed his search for a match. He finally found one, lit his pipe, and sat watching Sparkle as she began to graze on the grass between his shed and the roses. He always had to be sure that she did not go into the roses because she would get nicks and Mr. Reese said that a bloody unicorn does not look like a unicorn at all, now does it? Gavin noticed that she was not glittery enough and he would have to sprinkle some more glitter on her before the end of the day. It looked like she had been rolling around in the dirt. He also noticed that her horn looked a little crooked. He would have to fix that later.
For now, Gavin just sat looking at the beautiful scene in front of him. There was a backdrop of golden hills dotted with strong, green oaks behind the rose garden. Fog was emerging from among the roses and rolling out over the pond. A light breeze from the east nudged it over the grass and it hid the feet of the white, somewhat sparkly unicorn who was sniffing around for her favorite vegetation. She paused a moment, looked up, raised her tail, farted and let out a huge pile of dung. It splattered to the ground as if it was in a hurry.
"Damn unicorn shit," Gavin grumbled to himself. He then asked Sparkle, though not expecting an answer, "Why do you always have to shit in the garden? There's a whole ranch out there filled with ample space for you to take a dump, but you have to do it here, right in front of my rose garden where I have to clean it up. Damn midget horse." Gavin, despite the harshness of his words, was not really angry, and he decided that cleaning up Sparkle's mess could wait until he was done with his pipe; Mr. Reese wouldn't be home until the evening.
He finished smoking his pipe, set it down, and fell asleep with his hands folded across his belly. Another scream woke him up. This time it was closer. When Gavin opened his eyes, Sparkle was gone and there was nothing in the garden other than the fish, starting to surface in anticipation of their evening meal. The scream came again and Gavin turned to look towards the house. Billy was running down the hill as fast as he could. His nanny was following slowly. There seemed to be no reason for the screaming.
As the boy got closer, Gavin noticed that he had his Indian feathers on and was carrying his bow and arrow. "So that's what all the screaming is," muttered the gnome, "an Indian war party." He looked around for the victim of the symbolic attack, but didn't see one, and hoped that it wasn't him. But as Billy, red war paint on his cheeks, continued running and screaming in the gnome's direction, it seemed more and more certain that Gavin was indeed the target. There was little he could do to resist. He'd have to take the shots of blunt arrows, like always, then clutch at his chest and fall to the ground pretending to be dead, like always. Billy was twenty yards away and fast approaching. Gavin moved his hands to cover certain parts of his body that were especially vulnerable to the arrows. Ten yards away, the boy let out a screeching war yell and reached over his shoulder to grab something. Not the tomahawk. Gavin winced.
Five yards away, the boy's face changed. Surprise flashed across his eyes and he started to fall forward. Gavin, still wincing, watched as Billy's face headed towards the ground. He fell fast, but it seemed to the gnome like slow motion. Billy's face was full of surprise at first, then shock, then fear. He was clutching his bow in his left hand, had the tomahawk in his right, and no spare hands to break the fall. Unicorn poop squished all over as Billy's face came crashing into it before the rest of his body could catch up.
Gavin didn't know at first what had happened because the boy was hidden in the fog. The nanny couldn't see what happened because she was lagging behind, walking slowly to protect her shoes. Billy couldn't understand what had happened because, in all of his sheltered life, he had never experienced anything so terrible. He smelled a terrible smell, but didn't recognize what it was. Although Billy played with Sparkle everyday, he had never seen her poop because the gnome always cleaned it up so quickly.
Billy stood up and yelled, "There's mud on my face! There's mud on my face!" and abruptly started wailing. Gavin looked at Billy's face, realized what had happened, and said nothing before turning and running into the tool shed to look for a rag. The nanny arrived at the bottom of the hill as Billy was in the midst of a spectacular sobbing scream.
"Jesus Christ, Billy!" She almost never swore around Billy. "You've got shit all over your face. How'd you go and get shit all over your face?"
Billy put a finger up to his cheek, smeared it, and put it under his nose. He began wailing even louder. The nanny began yelling for Gavin. She didn't see where he had gone. He came trotting out, dark brown stains larger than ever, holding an old rag that looked like it had been used to polish the floors of the garden.
The nanny screamed at him as soon as he was in sight, "What the hell happened? Why is there shit all over Billy's face?"
"I don't know. He must have tripped and fell."
Billy screamed even louder.
"Why was there shit on the ground in the first place? You're supposed to clean up the unicorn shit!"
"Why weren't you watching Billy?"
Billy, worried that he wasn't the center of attention, screamed louder than any normal six-year-old boy is capable of. The nanny and the gnome looked at him. His screaming transformed into yelling. "I'll have my dad fire both of you!" There was still poop smeared all over his face. He was trying to be angry and threatening, but he looked rather comical. Afraid that they weren't taking him seriously, he backed up his threats. "I had my last nanny fired. I said that she hit me. And, you," he turned to Gavin, "you're just a midget. I'll tell my dad that you pushed me down. He'll fire you. You're just a midget."
The nanny started laughing. It was a crazy laugh that began as a reaction to the humor of a six-year-old covered with shit but slowly descended into helplessness and resignation. As the laughter slowly ebbed out of her, she turned to Gavin and began speaking to him as though Billy was not even there. "We'll lose our jobs for this, you know."
"It was an accident."
"Nothing's ever an accident. I was supposed to be watching Billy and you were supposed to have cleaned up the shit. They'll say it was our fault and you'll be back to unemployment the eleven months out of the year that you can't be one of Santa's elves at the mall and I'll be stuck looking for another family careless enough not to do a thorough background check before hiring a nanny to watch their kids."
She made her speech so suddenly and with such conviction that Gavin knew she was right. He contemplated everything that had happened. It happened so fast that it seemed like a blur. Then, shaking his head, he dropped the rag on the ground, looked over at Billy and idly said, "You can't say he didn't have it coming."
Billy began screaming again. The nanny, as if just now realizing that he was there, turned around and slapped him open-handed across the face. Stunned, the boy became silent. After the shock wore off, he looked up at her with sudden hatred. But the nanny did not see it. She and the gnome had already turned their backs on the quiet, shit-covered little boy and were walking west towards the silhouette of a unicorn standing on top of a hill.
When they reached the top, they paused and watched Sparkle canter down the other side into the vineyards. They saw the uberos turn their heads without stopping their work to watch her gracefully descending. Even from as far away as they were, Gavin could see that the workers' shirts were soaked in sweat. He sighed a deep, involuntary sigh and began walking down towards the vineyards with the nanny following closely behind him.