Under Cover of Christmas

“Mom, can you write me a check for $65.32? Please make it out to L.L. Bean.”

I handed her an envelope with two ten dollar bills, two twenties, a five, a quarter, a nickel and two pennies.

“What’s it for?”

“Christmas presents.”

She gave me a skeptical look, “Are you sure you’re not spending too much?”

“I’m sure.”

“Did you get the postage right?”

“Yes, I double checked.”

“Tax?”

“YES!”

It was just after Thanksgiving. The first snowfall blanketed the world and had transformed the leafless trees into a winter wonderland. It felt like Christmas, and I had set about my holiday preparations by writing up a mail order of presents for the family.

Mom sighed, but she knew there wasn’t any reasonable objection. After all, I was being generous. Isn’t that the behavior all parents wanted to cultivate in their children? And it was true, most of the items in my mail order were for others. Everything except for the $19.95 that was going towards a locking knife with a 3.5″ blade.

That one was for me.

Thirteen-year-old boys in Wisconsin are addicted to jackknives, at least they were in the ‘80s.

You shouldn’t go out into the woods without a jackknife.

There are bears out there!

Also, you needed a knife to cut down saplings and make spears or swords or bows and arrows and whatnot. Kids these days have smartphones and drones and all manner of fancy digital devices.

In the ‘80s we had jackknives and we never wanted anything else.

But all jackknives are not created equal. Most kids had tiny blades that were barely longer than their pinky finger. That was the kind of thing grandpa might give you on your birthday under the disapproving scowl of your mother. They were basically worthless, no good for cutting, slashing or stabbing. I mean, if there was no chance of seriously hurting yourself, what was even the point?

Also, folding knives were prone to clapping back down on your fingers while you were using them. That was dangerous! You could cut yourself and bleed out! Maybe even lose a finger! Sometimes boyhood adventures took you several miles from home. Imagine trying to drag yourself back to the house hampered by the blood loss and agony of a wound from a folding blade!

No, you needed a locking blade.

Locked for safety.

Safety first, isn’t that what mom always said?

I had all the arguments all figured out because I’d learned it was best to prepare for the debate, even if those arguments were fundamentally contradictory. In the heat of the moment, sometimes your tongue seized up. I spent hours alone in the woods practicing my talking points on trees.

But even better than preparing was avoiding the whole argument in the first place. Poor mom had enough to think about, she didn’t need me nagging her about the safety features of a locking knife.

Really, I was just putting her best interest ahead of my own. It was very much in the Christmas spirit. She’d be so proud of me if she ever knew, even though I desperately hoped she never would.

Deep down I recognized that my treatise on the safety values of a 3.5″ locking blade might be good enough to get me out of trouble if the knife were ever discovered, but they’d never be sufficient to convince her to agree to purchase one in the first place. A couple years earlier I’d tried to get her permission to buy a survival knife like Rambo had. It had been a disaster.

“But it’s got a compass!”

“No.”

“It comes with a sheath that sharpens the blade!”

“No!”

“Look, there’s a fishing line! If I get lost, don’t you want me to be able to fish?”

“No!”

“But Jason’s mom let him have one!”

“NO! I said no and that’s it. You’re not getting a survival knife like Rambo and that’s final!”

Oh, the tyranny! How did I manage to turn out so well with the childhood trauma of being the only thirteen-year-old boy denied a fixed blade with an 8″ razor sharp edge on one side and a serrated edge ideal for cutting wood or wire on the other?

With no access to a checkbook, I had little chance of getting any type of knife. You couldn’t send in cash because somebody would take one look at the crude handwriting, pocket the funds, and pretend the order never existed. You couldn’t buy one at the drug store because they insisted you had to be 18.

But under cover of Christmas, heck, I could order all the knives I wanted.

And, besides, it wasn’t like I was defying her directly. I wasn’t ordering a Rambo knife. No, she’d made it clear that wasn’t allowed. I was ordering a lock back knife which she hadn’t specifically prohibited me from having, because I hadn’t asked her about one yet.

Plausible deniability. Oliver North had been on television saying that a lot. My parents made me watch the news because they said it was important that I develop an awareness of politics. They wanted me to model my behavior after that of our noble politicians, so I was doing so.

Plausible deniability.

Another phrase I’d learned recently was, “I don’t remember.”

Mom made out the check and gave me a look before she handed it over.

“Thanks Mom!” I said, stuffing the check into the envelope and sealing it. I’d even paid for a stamp.

Mom and dad loved their presents from L.L. Bean, whatever they were.

I loved my knife.

It had a solid plastic handle that was ergonomically formed for the hand so it wouldn’t slip out of your grip during use.

Even Jason was impressed.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said, “It’s not a survival knife, but it’s a pretty cool jackknife.”

Even when I wasn’t using it, I just loved carrying that knife around. It had a pleasing heft as it rested in the pocket of my jeans. When folded and locked, the blade looked enormous. I felt that if I ever ran into bear, it would probably turn on its paws and flee at the sight of my L.L. Bean blade.

Rightly so!

For a few blissful months, there was no trouble, just me and my knife and many wonderful wilderness adventures.

But when the problems finally came, they were bigger and more terrible than anything I had ever anticipated.

It started with a family vacation to Denver. Family vacations were great, it meant no school for a week. We were visiting some relatives or something, I didn’t care. The important thing was that I was out of school.

I had a yellow hardback suitcase to pack. I’d almost finished when I considered bringing my knife.

Would I really need a knife out in Denver?

Probably not.

Then again, you could never be too safe.

So I picked up my knife and had a look at it.

What was it mom had said about airlines and suitcases? Sometimes the baggage handlers lost the suitcases, right? I didn’t want to risk losing my precious L.L. Bean knife. That would be a tragedy!

I decided to play it smart and slipped the knife into my jacket pocket.

“Are you ready to go?” Mom yelled.

“Yup!” I said.

I piled into the car with the rest of the family.

We were all excited as we went to the airport and checked in. Mom held the tickets.

“What’s next?” I asked, enjoying the adventure so far.

“Security.”

“Uh-what?”

“Yeah, they just check us to make sure we aren’t bringing any weapons on board the plane.”

“Weapons…” Suddenly the knife in my pocket seemed very heavy.

“Yes, don’t worry about it, they’re only doing this to keep us safe from criminals.”

“Criminals…”

There was nothing I could do as we got in the security line.

I watched as people were stopped, frisked, and brushed with a wand that made strange electronic noises like a video game.

“Put your jacket on this moving platform.”

I swallowed hard and took off my jacket. I stepped through the metal detector and kept my eye on the agent who sat there staring hard at a screen which showed the X-ray of all the items passing through.

Would he notice the knife?

The knife was no big deal right?

It was just a tiny little locking blade, who cared about that?

It’s not like I had a gun or anything, right?

The guy sat there. He had thick glasses and his head was tilted back. He didn’t look like he could see anything. The platform continued rolling steadily forward. I caught a glimpse of the cuff of my jacket emerging from the machine. I began to relax. It was all going to be okay!

Then the attendant, who hadn’t moved until this moment, shifted his hand slightly and the jacket retracted back into the darkness.

He sat there for a moment.

“Come on,” my mom said, “we’re going to be late.”

I gulped.

“My jacket hasn’t come out yet mom.”

Now another attendant had come to stand by the first one. They were pointing at the screen. Oh no! This was terrible!

The sitting attendant sent the platform moving again and the second one came around to grab my jacket. Without hesitation, he reached into the inside pocket to withdraw my L.L. Bean jackknife.

Mom’s eyes got as big as softballs.

“Where did you get that?”

I’d learned when it was best to argue a cause, and when it was best to shut up and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

I shut up.

The attendant pulled out the knife and opened the blade. Man, that knife looked HUGE! He laid it on a tray with markings on the side.

“3.5 inches,” he said. “You’re not allowed to bring anything over 3 inches.”

Mom didn’t say anything, but I could sense the reactor was overheating, a melt down was imminent. The attendants hadn’t noticed the warning signs, they were putting all of our lives in danger. How reckless of them.

“Here,” they said, smiling, “we’ll just put this in an envelope and you can pick it up at baggage claim.”

“Okay,” Mom whispered.

“What’s your flight number?”

She gave it. Everything was happening on auto pilot. I knew my invisibility was critical. I said nothing, I made no eye contact with anyone. I tried to visualize and emulate the behavior of a mote of dust.

There’s nothing to see here, just an infinitesimal particle drifting on some random air currents.

We passed out of the security area.

It’s all going to be okay, I thought to myself. Just let a few minutes pass, then a few hours, then a few days, then I can risk talking again. Until then, just lay low.

The flight was uneventful.

I half expected my knife to be lost to history; but sure enough, at the baggage claim, out came the little envelope with the knife in it. My mom grabbed it and handed it to me.

She handed it to me!

Obviously she’d decided to adopt the strategy of pretending this event had simply not happened.

We had both incorporated elements of behavioral patterns we’d witnessed during congressional testimony into our lives, for better or for worse. It just didn’t happen. I don’t recall. Plausible deniability. Carry on, carry on, carry on…

I knew I’d dodged a bullet, so the moment I got into the hotel I buried my L.L. Bean knife deep in the inner pockets of my suitcase and resolved not to bring it out again until we were safely home.

It took a whole day for the tension to ease, and it was three more days until I started enjoying myself. Finally, on the fourth day, I began to rethink my knife philosophy.

Denver was fun, but Denver would be even more fun if I explored it with the familiar weight of my trusty knife in my pocket. It was always better to be ready for anything, and what better way to be ready than to have a 3.5 inch locking blade?

On day five, I dug the knife out of its hiding place and stuffed it into my pocket.

Mom probably told us where we were going that morning, but I didn’t listen to her. I was too focused on the awesomeness of being reunited with my knife. We weren’t going to the airport, so what could possibly go wrong? It didn’t occur to me that there were places in the world with even more security than what you find at the airport.

We got into the rental and drove through the city. It was a cowboy morning. The big sky stretched out into infinity.

A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a fortress of a building. The place was covered with American flags.

“Where are we?”

“I’ve told you twenty times, we’re at the Denver Mint. Don’t you want to see where money is printed?”

“A mint?”

“Yeah, it’s like a bank.”

I blanched and glanced around for a place to stash my knife in the car.

“Come on!”

Drat! Too late.

Maybe it would be okay? After all it was just a federally owned and operated bank.

We opened the door, stepped in, and my heart sank.

There was another X-ray and metal detector!

Of all the days to bring my knife! I knew I was in for it this time. I’d escaped the last disaster through some sort of convenient, unspoken agreement that the airport knife transgression would be forgotten. It had been a miracle second chance. But even I understood that inherent to the agreement was the assumption that it would never happen again.

It was about to happen again…

I stepped forward.

“You can take your jacket off and put it on the belt.”

“No, I’m kind of cold. I prefer to keep my jacket on.”

The innocent enough exchange was enough to alert my mom. Moms have a sixth sense for when something is off. She focused on me, and I could tell she knew. The muscles in her face got tight, and her eyes seemed to drop. There was a warning there. I looked away.

Taking my final walk, I approached the metal detector looking for an escape and knowing that there wasn’t one. An old man sat on a stool, the final guard. Back in the ‘80s you still occasionally met a man who had once relied on a horse as a primary means of transportation. This guy was one of them. He’d probably been a gunfighter for hire in his youth, a real cowboy. Here he was, manning the security at the Denver Mint. This was his last hurrah.

“Step on through son,” he said in a gravelly voice that made me want to rush out and buy cigarettes.

I stepped through.

The alarm buzzed, lights flashed.

Mom’s glare intensified.

I was done for.

The old security guard dismounted from his stool and started mumbling to himself, “Now I gotta check this kid, like a kid is any threat, I bet this kid isn’t planning on robbing the place, ridiculous…but regulations say I have to check him. The indignity of it…”

His name was probably Cody…

Or Earp…

Or Hickok…

There was probably a “Wild” in there somewhere too.

Wild Cody Earp Hickok sauntered up.

“What’s the matter son, did you forget to check your six shooters at the door?”

I didn’t answer. I just tried to put on a dumb smile. Maybe he would think there was something wrong with me. Don’t be too hard on that kid, can’t you see there’s something wrong with him? Think of what his poor mother has to deal with.

Wild Cody Earp Hickok patted my left pocket.

“I know you don’t have anything on you, this is just for appearances,” he said. He moved over to the right pocket. He squeezed the outside of the pocket. I could feel his hand close around my knife.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

Mom looked at both us.

A smile flickered around the corner of Wild Cody Earp Hickok’s eyes. I don’t know for sure what he was thinking, but I like to imagine he had a sudden flashback to when he was sixteen and he rushed off to defend the Alamo against the forces of General Santa Anna armed only with a Bowie knife and the proud, adventurous spirit of a boy raised on the American frontier. Maybe he’d come to think that the youth of today had gotten too soft, that you couldn’t rely on any one of them to bring a locking 3.5 inch knife with him wherever he went anymore.

How was a kid supposed to be expected to get all of his important kid activities done if he didn’t have a locking blade? That was asking too much. The lack of knives represented one of the fundamental causes of everything that was wrong with society today!

Right then, it was within his power to do something about it.

“Okay son, you can go. Enjoy your tour of the Denver Mint.”

I relaxed.

Wild Cody Earp Hickok’s eyes lit up in silent laughter.

Mom turned away and pretended that she didn’t know exactly what was going on.

I don’t remember the tour except that, on the way out, I saw a garbage can and casually took advantage of it to dispose of my knife.

I didn’t have any more problems with stashed blades, although a few years later there was a small kerfuffle about a pretty cool pellet gun I acquired that was made to resemble a Colt .45.

People didn't have a sense of humor about such things back in the 80s. Today, it's even less so.