Merry Random Christmas

by Julia Kent

  “You’ve been monitoring my cell phone?” I growled at her.

  Mom just kept talking to Madge like I wasn’t even there.

  I grabbed her shoulder and spun her toward me. She was a strong little thing, and my hands felt weird, moving my mother’s body in anger.

  “You will not ignore me,” I informed her. Mom’s eyes grew wide, like full moons.

  “Somebody grew some balls,” Madge muttered under her breath as she left us alone. “About time.”

  “You will not speak to me like this!” Mom snapped back, finger in my face, wagging like she could shame me out of standing up for myself.

  “What makes you think you have the right to monitor my cell phone texts!”

  “Your father and I pay the bill.”

  I reached in my back pocket, pulled out my phone, and dropped it to the ground. I was wearing thick winter boots, with hard soles that ground neatly into the glass screen, the twist of my ankle complementing the shout of my words.

  “No more.”

  “That’s a six hundred dollar phone!” Mom protested.

  “Now it’s trash. And it’s gone. I’m getting a new phone and a new number. And you’re done financially helping me. Period. Done.”

  She smirked. “If I weren’t checking in on your life, your girlfriend would still be rotting in jail.”

  “And if you weren’t stalking my life like a creepy hover mother who tries to co-opt my identity, you’d have your son there on the family ski trip, Mom. But you won’t.”

  She turned an unnatural shade of grey as she opened her mouth to say something snide back, then realized what I’d just said.

  “What?” she gasped.

  I heard shuffling sounds behind me, then a warm, soft hand interlaced its fingers with mine.

  My heart tightened. My gut ached and my legs twitched and everything in me that was coiled up loosened, like it had permission to be free.

  “You heard me.”

  “You can’t!”

  “Watch me.”

  It took everything in me not to turn back and look at her as I reached into my pocket and peeled off three oiled-up twenties, throwing them down for the bill.

  And marched out into the crisp, Christmas Eve night.

  Chapter Five

  Darla

  My boobs vibrated again, suddenly, as me and Trevor scrambled out of the booth and followed Joe outside. I schlumped along with my unlaced boots. You ever wear construction boots in the middle of winter in Massachusetts without socks? It feels about as glamorous as it sounds. When we’d walked into Jeddy’s, Madge had given me some craptastic old coat and these boots that reminded me of the Juggalos back home.

  Bzzzzzz.

  I answered my breasts.

  Mama.

  Tears filled my eyes as I said, “Hi, Mama.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean, what’s wrong?”

  “I could tell somethin’ was wrong with you before I even heard your voice.”

  “Did you feel a disturbance in the force?” I joked.

  “What does that even mean, Darla Jo? Are you high?”

  “No. I’m pretty fuckin’ low, actually.”

  “Spit it out,” she said, her voice going soft. When Mama got tender, it just made me cry even harder. Joe was half a block ahead of me and Trevor, storming off into nowhere here in the city. We were miles from our apartment and I wasn’t quite sure what the fuck had happened to our holiday.

  “So I just got outta jail.”

  “Jail?”

  “Yeah, jail.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Huh?”

  “You made it to twenty-five before being arrested. I think that’s a record for a Peters girl, Darla. The mayor should have a ceremony.”

  I snorted, tears spilling onto my cheeks, leaving icy trails. Trevor put his arm around me. I looked at him, gave a shaky smile, and mouthed, Mama.

  He just nodded and pulled me closer.

  “What you arrested for?”

  Trevor’s body tensed. He bit his lower lip, his face shifting to an expression of cringing empathy.

  For me.

  I stayed silent.

  “Darla Jo, this is like rippin’ off a Band-aid. Just do it. Blurt out the words and you’ll feel better afterward.”

  “I was accused of blowing Santa Claus for a five dollar gas card,” I said, taking her at her word.

  “WHAT?”

  “You said...”

  “You don’t even got a car!”

  “I KNOW, RIGHT?” My shoulders dropped with relief. Mama so got me.

  “Dumbass cops. Besides, a blow job’s worth way more than five bucks.”

  “Right, Mama.” No. Wait. I was not gonna ask her how she knew the value of a blow job on the streets. Nope nope nope.

  “You’re out, I s’pose.”

  “Yeah. Joe’s mom bailed me out.”

  “Joe’s mother? The one who puts the diapers on the chickens and treats you like shit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “About time she did something nice for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Darla, how in the hell did you get in this situation on Christmas Eve, of all nights?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I got plenty of time. Calvin went to the church to help fix the baby Jesus glow light. It’s broken. So he won’t be home for another hour or so, and then I’ll have to get off the phone, but I can listen.”

  “The baby Jesus light is broken?”

  “Yeah. It ain’t never been quite right since Pastor Johns beat old Doc Oglethrope with it after he caught him shoefucking the pastor’s wife’s shoes.”

  “Right.”

  Trevor overheard that and looked at me, agog.

  “I thought that story was a joke,” he whispered fiercely.

  I just shook my head slowly.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Baby Jesus,” I said back.

  “Darla?” Mama asked, her voice drawn out with the implied consideration that she expected the whole story, and nothing but the whole story.

  “It all started with a game of Truth or Dare,” I began. “We were just joking around, and we got those hundred and forty-four sleeping bags you won.”

  “The shitass ones with the candy cane piping? People on the sweepstakes forums are complaining about them, and let me tell you, Darla,when professional sweepers complain about free shit, you know it’s bad.”

  “Yeah. Those. So we challenged each other to a giveaway contest. Whoever could find the most people dressed like Santa and give them away wouldn’t have to do any cleaning around the apartment for a week.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Considering I’m the only one who really does any cleaning, I was motivated,” I explained.

  She laughed.

  “Go on.”

  “And Trevor and Joe were handing out their sleeping bags when they suddenly disappeared.” I looked at Trevor. “Where did you guys go?”

  He had the decency to look guilty. “Earlier in the day we’d gone out for sushi with Liam and Sam. They called and we had to rush over to them.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Put me on speaker phone, Darla Jo. I wanna hear all this,” Mama insisted.

  I did. Trevor balked.

  “Your mom doesn’t need to hear all this,” he hissed.

  “When my daughter ends up in jail, falsely accused of putting her mouth on some strange Santa’s flesh candy cane, I damn well do wanna know every detail about the events leading up to it, Trevor Connor!” Mama bellowed.

  Trevor looked at the phone like it had morphed into a dragon.

  “Hi, Cathy,” he said awkwardly, waving at the glass display like Mama could see him.

  “Hi there yourself, and Merry Christmas to you!” Mama said pleasantly. “Christ is risen!”

  “That’s Easter, Mama.”

  “Well, I had me a few too many egg
nogs waiting here for Calvin to come home so I can give him some holiday cheer in bed, if you know what I mean,” she said with a snicker. “I been a naughty girl, so Santa’s gonna slip me some coal in my pink stocking, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew what she meant.

  Gag.

  “Is your mother drunk?” Trevor whispered in my ear, making me shiver.

  “Sounds like it.” My stomach lurched.

  “Finish up the story, Trevor! You were eating fish,” she said with a snort. “And—”

  Did Mama just make a dirty joke?

  “Sam and Liam got food poisoning from the sushi restaurant I suggested. They had a one-time gig tonight. The job paid them each a thousand bucks plus tips,” Trevor explained.

  Mama let out a low whistle. “You guys make that much to play your music?”

  “No, Cathy,” Trevor said, correcting her. “That was the fee for being strippers at a Christmas Eve party.”

  The phone went silent.

  Then Mama cleared her throat and said. “Strippers? Darla’s a stripper?”

  “No, no, Mama. I’m not a stripper. Trevor and Joe were the ones stripping.”

  “Dangling your weenies in front of a bunch of women for a thousand bucks?” Mama sounded scandalized.

  “Weenies?” Trevor said. “Who the fuck calls it a ‘weenie’?”

  “So what the hell do Trevor and Joe taking their clothes off for money have to do with you blowing Santa Claus and landing in jail, Darla?” Mama asked.

  “We had to fill in for Sam and Liam. And we completely forgot to text Darla and tell her.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Sorry. And the owner of the entertainment service made us turn off our phones, so we never got Darla’s text messages.”

  “This is the stupidest story I ever heard,” Mama intoned.

  “Pretty much,” I said with a sigh.

  “And I was behind the vegan restaurant, giving away a sleeping bag to a Santa, when I climbed into the dumpster to help grab his chicken, and some cops found us.”

  “You were touching Santa’s cock,” Mama said. “That’s pretty strong evidence.”

  “I—what?”

  Trevor started trembling with laughter. I sucker punched him in the gut. He made a satisfyingly choked sound, followed by a wheeze. I needed to punch something. He fit the bill.

  “Meanwhile, Tortilla had opened up his pants and had his weenie out when I popped my head up—”

  “Quit calling it a weenie!” Trevor gasped.

  “And was offering me a five dollar gas card for giving him a BJ. Cops saw only that moment, and BAM! I didn’t have any ID on me, so I got brought in and charged with prostitution.”

  Silence.

  “That’s it?” Mama screeched into the phone. Geez, she really sounded like Josie. “That’s the whole tale?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “That is the most ridiculous arrest story I have ever heard, Darla, and my sister is Marlene, so I’ve heard quite a few.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Mama.”

  Her long sigh felt like the world was deflating.

  “How you gonna get yourself outta this mess?”

  “Same way I always do. With my mouth.”

  “I think your mouth got you into this mess. Why were you talking to a tortilla’s cock?”

  “Tortilla is the name of the homeless dude dressed up as Santa.”

  “That don’t make sense, either.”

  “Mama, none of the story makes sense! I get it! It’s stupid! That’s kind of the point. I feel like weird crap happens to me, like I’m a lightning rod that attracts weirdos instead of electricity.”

  “Hey!” Trevor said, pretending to be offended. The streetlight cast a shadow over his face, but those eyes were shining, his strong mouth tipped up in a smile, lips begging to be kissed.

  I looked ahead of us. Joe was resting against a fence, his head tipped up to search for stars. You couldn’t find many in the city sky. Too many lights clouding out the clear view.

  I heard a church bell tower gong in the distance.

  11:30 p.m.

  It would be Christmas in thirty minutes.

  Panic bubbled in my chest. It fizzed like pop rocks and Coke in your mouth at the same time, and I turned my face and closed my eyes, my cheek pressed against my shoulder as I took in a deep breath.

  “Damn!” I gasped. “Who reeks?”

  “Uh, that would be you,” Joe said as he walked toward us, his limbs looser than before, his face placid with the kind of tight control that took more and more effort from him.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m nothing if not honest.”

  “You’re great,” I said.

  “You two done having your lovefest?” Mama’s voice came through the tinny speakers of my phone. “’Cause Calvin ain’t home yet and listening to you be all kissy face makes me miss him. Damn, I never knew egg nog could taste so good. What makes it taste so good, Darla?”

  “Rum.”

  “There’s alcohol in this?” Mama sounded horrified. “When Calvin made this enormous pitcher for me before he left to go turn the Baby Jesus on, he didn’t say there was liquor in it!”

  “Turning the baby Jesus on sounds really perverted,” Joe said.

  “Mama, you’re pretty drunk,” I said.

  “No shit, Darla Josephine,” she shot back.

  Trevor snickered.

  “Look, you call me tomorrow after you open presents in the morning,” Mama said. “It ain’t the same without you here, you know.” This was my third Christmas away from home. Her voice went forlorn and sad, wistful and nostalgic, and suddenly I was clutching Trevor’s shirt and crying into his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I bawled. “I miss you, too.”

  “Then come home,” she said simply.

  I sniffed. I looked at Joe, who had an expression of compassion and understanding I rarely saw on his face. As I lifted my head to look up at Trevor, he mirrored Joe.

  “It’s a little late for that, Mama. It’ll be Christmas in a few minutes.”

  “We can celebrate the holiday late. We always kinda did anyhow. All your presents came after Christmas,” she stated.

  Trevor and Joe frowned. “What does that mean?” Joe asked.

  “I always got my stocking on Christmas morning,” I explained. “But Santa came on December 27. So did Mama’s presents.”

  “Santa comes on December 27 in Ohio?” Joe asked, one eye squinting in consternation. “Is that a regional thing?”

  “No. It’s a poor thing. I was too poor to buy anything good for Darla before the sales, so I always went when everything was fifty percent off or more after Christmas,” Mama explained.

  Their faces went slack with the attempt to cover up, but I knew they were both dumbstruck by that kind of family tradition. I’d seen both of their parents’ houses. None of Joe or Trevor’s parents was debating whether to buy up all the red and green foil chocolate at eighty percent and freeze it to pull out the red for Valentine’s Day two months later, and wondering if their kid would notice the green on Easter.

  To save money.

  When I was little, Mama said December 27 was just our special holiday. The two of us. By the time I was ten I knew better but kept my mouth shut. Kids at school could be little assholes, and one of them had taunted me with the truth. I’d beaten him to a pulp and been pulled aside by the school principal, who had kindly—but firmly—explained why my strategy for managing my emotions on this hot-button issue wasn’t acceptable.

  Christmas was as loaded as Santa’s sleigh for me.

  Emotionally.

  And then there was that family ski trip I wasn’t family enough to attend.

  “Mama, December 27 was our day,” I said softly.

  “It was.” Her voice cracked. “So give your guys December 25 and come see me for our day, Darla.”

  We were both blubbering, the line filled with gibberish and nonsense as we sobbed and apologized to each oth
er.

  And just as I was about to turn into a puddle of goo and beg my mama to sing me Christmas songs like she did when I was little, Trevor answered a buzz in his back pocket, looked at the glowing screen, and said:

  “We need to go see Liam and Sam.”

  Trevor

  I felt bad. I did. Christmas Eve was supposed to be about last-minute shopping and wrapping presents and looking at the glow of the lights around the tree the night before you went to bed and woke up to the excitement of Christmas morning.

  If I still lived at home, I’d spend the evening with Rick, Mom and Dad as Rick played every Christmas carol ever written on the piano, including his own arrangements of some pretty awesome Tran-Siberian Orchestra compositions. Rick loved Christmas with a fierce emotionality that had always made me smile, even as a little kid, because he was so hard to read most of the time.

  Christmas gave him joy. My brother doesn’t get to experience much joy in his daily life, so the indulgence was a gift. Mom and Dad didn’t need actual presents every season. They just needed a glimpse into my profoundly autistic brother’s heart, and that’s what the holiday gave them.

  I never appreciated it when I was younger.

  Now? Now I could, with a dawning realization that my childhood had been filled with presents and candy and the tacit expectation that big-ticket items would come my way, from X-Boxes to iPads, while so many other kids got so much less.

  Growing up in Sudborough meant that Christmas brought the season of community service with it. Coat collections for the needy, canned food drives, and the suburban version of noblesse oblige that meant doing these good deeds somehow neutralized the excess of our individual homes.

  December 27.

  Ouch.

  Darla had been one of the kids we were collecting for.

  Reeling from that, I took a deep breath, trying to know what the hell to say to her as she cried over missing her mom in Ohio, but then my phone buzzed.

  It was Sam.

  Why is Joe’s ass all over Instagram? he asked.

  It’s a long story, I typed back.

  Joe’s butt has made it onto Facebook, he replied, with a link.

  Oh, shit.

  And Liam’s here, he added.

  What he didn’t need to say was, Come give us our pay, but I knew that was implied. Sam and Amy were leaving right away for some trip her mom insisted on taking, and Liam and Charlotte were going to Maine to see her mom. They were broke and needed the tips we’d earned.