Naughty-Nine Tales of Christmas

by Steve Hockensmith

  Mr. Macnee had been waiting for decades for something to happen. A U.N. army invading America, federal stormtroopers coming to take away his assault rifles, the Men in Black bringing another implant to shove up his butt. And now, at last, here it was. The barbarians were finally at the gate.

  If I'd started a singalong by belting out "Dashing through the snoooow in a horse-open sleeeeiiigh," maybe we could've calmed him down. Maybe. But I didn't. I waited until Mr. Macnee had slammed the door shut-as I'd hoped he would-before turning to the Reptile.

  "That's him!"

  I shrieked it, because the words weren't just for the Reptile and Diesel. They were for Mr. Macnee, too. I wanted him to have no doubt whatsoever that the goons outside were there for him.

  "Do it," the Reptile said to Diesel, pointing at the door.

  Diesel didn't hesitate. He stepped toward the door and reached for the knob with one of his long gorilla arms.

  And then: Pop.

  Diesel stopped, staring at something on the door at eye level. It was just to the left of his head and it hadn't been there a second before.

  It was a hole. A fresh bullet hole.

  That's when I started running, dragging Arlo with me over the driveway and across Macnee's side yard. There was another pop, and I heard more pounding footsteps behind me.

  "Run!" the Reptile howled.

  I glanced over my shoulder, about to say, "What does it look like I'm doing?" But I didn't bother. Back beyond Diesel and the Reptile, Mr. Macnee was stepping out onto his porch with a gun in his hand.

  "Yeah! Run!" I yelled. I let go of Arlo, as I figured by now even he would've gotten the general idea.

  I dodged around trees as I ran, but I was still half-expecting to find out what it's like to be shot. I was totally expecting not to like it. Mr. Macnee had something else in mind, though.

  "Get 'em, Cujo!" I heard him shout.

  It's hard to think of any other words in the English language that could get you to run faster than those. The ground was soggy-wet with snow, but we were zipping over it like it was Astroturf, cutting through backyards in a diagonal from Knopfler Drive to Knob Hill.

  Somewhere behind me, I could hear the huffing and puffing of a large animal moving quickly-and it wasn't Diesel. The sound was growing louder by the second.

  But then from up ahead, a new sound caught my ear. It was as angelic and soothing as Cujo's panting was demonic and alarming. I could see Knob Hill by this point, and it seemed to be bathed in a heavenly light.

  A gaggle of real carolers was walking along the road. There were maybe twenty of them in all, each carrying a small candle. They were between us and the cars.

  "Si-i-lent niiiight. Ho-o-ly niiiight," they sang. "Alllll is caaaalm. Alllll is-"

  A sickening ripping sound split the night, followed by a bellowed curse. I looked back again.

  A large, lumpy shape had attached itself to the seat of Diesel's camouflage pants. It was an overweight pit bull. Cujo. He was trying to dig in his paws, but Diesel had all the momentum of the trucks he was named for, and the big dog was being pulled across the ground like a one-horse open sleigh.

  The carolers had stopped to stare at us now, though a few of them were valiantly trying to carry on, crooning about yon virgin mother and the holy infant so tender and mild.

  "Sleeeeeep in hea-ven-ly peeeeee-eace. Slee-eep in-"

  And that was the end of the heavenly peace. There was another loud rip, and Diesel suddenly shot ahead of us, sans pants. We were right on top of our innocent bystanders now, and he barreled through them, knocking carolers and candles alike into the snow. The singer to get the worst of it, I was shocked and pleased to see, was my old boyfriend Josh Strassman, who ended up flat on his back with a boot print on his forehead. The rest of the carolers scattered, screaming.

  As Arlo, the Reptile and I weaved through the crowd, Cujo went streaking past, his beady eyes still locked on his chosen target-Diesel's juicy behind. Diesel must have heard him coming, because he looked over his shoulder and reached into his jacket pocket.

  "No!" I cried out.

  But it was too late. Diesel pulled out his weapon and used it.

  It was an ice scraper. He hurled it at Cujo, and the plastic doodad bounced harmlessly off the tubby pit bull's broad back.

  I'd been "punk'd," as the idiots on MTV say. Diesel couldn't have blown my head off. The worst he could have done was scrape the frost off me.

  That was it. I was through. I veered toward my car, threw myself behind the wheel and tore out of there.

  I took a look back in the rear-view mirror as I left. Arlo and the Reptile had made it to the Hyundai. Diesel, too, though he wasn't inside. He was on the roof, a leg hanging perilously over the side. Cujo had clamped his jaws to one of Diesel's combat boots and was thrashing around like a great white shark going to town on a sea lion. The Hyundai lurched forward, and Cujo fell to the ground, taking the boot with him. The carolers had regrouped in a semi-circle a safe distance away, and they watched it all, looking kind of like the Whos at the end of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, except they were confused and appalled instead of joyful and smug.

  When I was about a mile away, I pulled over at a convenience store and just sat there in the car for a while, panting. Once I'd caught my breath, I got out and stuffed my ski mask in the garbage can out front. Then I went inside to buy myself a Slurpee to settle my nerves. The little donation jar by the cash register was for the Humane Society, not the American Emphysema Association, but I stuffed in a couple bucks anyway.

  I got home just as Jimmy Stewart was learning that if he'd never lived his wife would've become-fate worse than death-a librarian. With glasses! Mom leapt to her feet and rushed to the door as I came in.

  "Where have you been? I've been worried sick!"

  "I couldn't find that damn book. I was looking all over for it," I said, slipping past her into the oversized closet we jokingly call my "bedroom." My copy of Hannibal was buried under a pile of old Entertainment Weeklys my mom had snagged from Dr. Roth's office, and I yanked it free and brought it back out to the hallway. "Oh, man-it was here all the time!"

  Yeah, I was getting better at lying and manipulating. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

  I didn't hear from Arlo that night or the next day or ever. Maybe he still feels guilty. Maybe he has nothing to say. Or maybe-and I think this is the most likely explanation-he can't remember my last name or the store where I worked. The guy has a memory like a sponge… by which I mean it's soggy and full of holes.

  That meant I didn't hear from Diesel and the Reptile either, which was a nice Christmas present. They didn't have any reason to be mad at me, anyway. As far they knew, I'd told the truth. The aging horndog who'd bought the fur coat and the jewelry turned out to be a well-armed gun nut. That's just the kind of bad luck you probably get used to when you're an incompetent petty criminal.

  It didn't bother me that Diesel and the Reptile got away that night. We'd all had a dose of what one of my more granola college friends used to call "karmic retribution." We'd had evil, selfish thoughts, and because of that we were shot at, chased by an enraged attack dog and (in one case) de-pantsed in front of a large group of horrified strangers. Lumps of coal in our stockings would've been overkill after a night like that. The universe had already spanked us and sent us to bed without dinner.

  So maybe there really is such a thing as justice. Maybe there really is a Santa Claus. I don't know.

  There was a loose end, though. One of the bad guys did get away unpunished. And as much as I tried to push it out of my mind, it still cheesed me off. So the next day, I did something about it. Nothing big. Nothing illegal. I'd learned my lesson. I just drove back to the old neighborhood and dropped off a Christmas card.

  Nice, right?

  Well, not really. Not if you know what I wrote inside.

  Hey, big guy!

  Thanks for inviting me over to make a cold winter's night extra HOT!!! I sure hope "Mrs. Claus"
doesn't find out what how b-a-d you've been! Give me a jingle when you're ready to meet me under the mistletoe again!

  XOXOXO,

  Your little ho ho ho

  I sealed the card in a white envelope and kissed the front with a mouth smeared with my sluttiest lipstick. Then I left it in Naughty Boy's mailbox. It was Christmas Eve, around 9 p.m., and the radio weather guys had already gone into their annual routine about a blip on the radar heading toward us from the North Pole.

  I didn't know what would happen with the card. Maybe Naughty Boy would get busted and maybe he'd end another year thinking he could get away with anything. It all came down to this: Who would bring in the mail the day after Christmas, him or his wife?

  There was no way for me to know. But I'd done my part.

  The rest was up to Santa.

  HIDDEN GIFTS

  Karen had just spoken blasphemy, plain and simple. Heresy. Sacrilege.

  Not that her little brother knew what blasphemy, heresy or sacrilege were. But he did know poo-poo when he heard it. And to Ronnie, this was big poo-poo. The biggest.

  "That's not true!" he screamed, popping off his pillow and scrambling over the wadded-up macramé blanket that separated his half of the couch from hers. "You're lying!"

  Karen didn't even look away from the television.

  "Oh, don't be such a baby. Everybody knows it."

  And she said it again. The blasphemy. The poo-poo. The innocence-scorching truth.

  "Santa isn't real."

  "No no no no nooooooooo!"

  Ronnie balled up his fists and pounded at Karen with them. But Ronnie was only six, and small for his age. He may as well have tried beating his sister senseless with a pair of earmuffs.

  "Stop it. I can't hear."

  Karen swiped out a long, thin arm that swept her brother off the couch. She didn't do it maliciously. It was a casual gesture, like opening a curtain. There were things she wanted to see. Things she wanted to feel.

  Cousin Rick hadn't been in the apartment when she and Ronnie got home from school. And when their scrawny, thirtyish "cousin" (they refused to call him "Uncle Rick," like Mom wanted) wasn't around to hog the TV and flick lit cigarettes at their heads and hunch over the phone having hissy-whispered conversations with his creepy friends, Karen tried to make the most of it.

  Today, "the most" meant soaking up Christmas cheer.

  It was December 23, 1979, and the afternoon reruns were Christmas episodes. Andy Griffith, the Beverly Hillbillies, even the Addams Family-they'd all been wrapping presents and drinking eggnog and learning Very Special holiday lessons. It was totally phony and forced, but even bogus Christmas cheer with a laugh track and soap-flake snow was better than no Christmas cheer at all.

  Karen and Ronnie didn't even have a tree that year. They'd started to put one up with Mom, pulling out the big fake fir Dad used to call "the holly-jolly green giant." But Cousin Rick put a stop to that.

  "Jeez, what are you doin'? A guy can barely turn around in this sardine can, and you're gonna plop that big S.O.B. in the middle of the room? No way. You want a Christmas tree, decorate the bushes in the parking lot. Now shut up, would you? I gotta keep my cool. The Big Call could come any minute, and those guys ain't messin' around."

  The kids turned to their mother.

  Cousin Rick had been waiting for "The Big Call" for a week, and something was always getting on his nerves. When he wasn't out "hustling"-his word for whatever it was he did all day-he paced the apartment like a barnyard rooster, twitchy, herky-jerky, his round, anxious eyes darting from the TV to the phone. He'd already turned off the Christmas carols (he couldn't hear B.J. and the Bear) and nixed the stringing of lights (the bright colors reminded him of "a bad trip," whatever that meant). Now he wouldn't let them put up a tree?

  Surely, Mom would stand up to him this time. Surely, she'd choose their Christmas over her boyfriend's weird little tics. Surely.

  Without a word, Mom packed up the tree and stuffed it back in the closet. The next day, Karen saw it poking out of a dumpster around the other side of the building.

  Which is how Christmas came to be something out there. At school, in stores, on billboards. In the past.

  Or on TV.

  It was the Bradys' turn now. Little Cindy was asking a department store Santa to cure her mother's laryngitis so she could sing a solo at their church Christmas service. That's what had brought up the whole Santa Claus thing in the first place.

  "Stupid kid," Karen had snorted. And then she'd said it, blasphemed. And Ronnie had flipped out.

  "There is a Santa Claus!" he howled from the floor.

  His voice quavered, as if he might cry, but Karen knew it wasn't the tumble off the couch that had hurt him. Their apartment may have been tiny, but the musty, mustard-colored shag covering the floor was as thick and soft as a dirty old sponge.

  No, she'd hurt him, and she wasn't even sure why. His faith in Santa had been irritating her, rubbing on her nerves like sandpaper, for weeks. She was a big kid-almost ten-and she knew she should let Ronnie have his little kid dreams. Yet another part of her longed to shake him awake.

  She kept her eyes on the Bradys.

  "Santa's fake," she said.

  "He's real!"

  "No, he's not."

  "How do you know?"

  "I just do."

  "But how do you know?"

  "I just do."

  "Prove it!"

  Karen finally tore her gaze away from the screen.

  "You want me to? Really?"

  Her brother blinked at her. It was up to him now.

  If he insisted on this, she'd have to go through with it, right? That's what big sisters are for-helping little kids learn. And if a lesson stung a little, well, that wouldn't be her fault, would it?

  Ronnie nodded reluctantly.

  "Alright," Karen said.

  She walked over to the TV and switched it off. The reruns would come around again one day. That's why they call them "reruns." But this moment with her brother-it would come only once.

  "Follow me."

  She headed for the bedroom Mom had been sharing with Cousin Rick the past few months. The door was closed. The door was always closed now.

  "Where are you going?"

  Karen looked back at her brother. "Where does it look like I'm going?"

  "But… we can't go in there."

  "Why not? Mom's at the Tiger tonight. She won't be home for hours. And you know how it is when he's supposed to be watching us. He'll probably show up five minutes before Mom and pretend he was here all day."

  "But if he catches us… you remember what he said."

  Karen did remember. The tone of Rick's voice, anyway. If he ever found them messing with his things, he'd have to do something… ugly. Karen had understood that much even if some of the words were new to her.

  "He won't catch us," she said. "We'll only be in there a minute."

  She turned and opened the bedroom door. The room beyond was messy, dark. Adult.

  She stepped inside.

  The bed-that was the place to start. Karen got down on her hands and knees and pushed away the crumpled clothes and cigarette packs so she could take a look underneath. The shades were drawn down over the windows, yet just enough silver-gray light glowed around the edges to see by.

  There wasn't much to see, though. Just more clutter.

  A single shoe. Dad's aluminum softball bat, the one Mom kept around "for protection." An old People magazine. A torn wrapper with the word "Trojan" printed on it.

  It suddenly occurred to Karen that she might not find what she was looking for. The thought scared her.

  "What's down there?"

  Karen looked over her shoulder. Her brother stood in the doorway, half-in half-out of the room.

  "Nothing."

  She stood and started toward the closet. To reach it, she had to step around a pile of dirty clothes as high as her waist.

  The apartment had never been like this when
Dad was alive. But after Mom had to start working two jobs-days at the Lawn Devil plant, evenings tending bar at the Toy Tiger Lounge-things changed.

  And then Uncle/Cousin Rick showed up, and things didn't just change some more. They fell apart.

  He appeared overnight, like Christmas presents or Easter eggs. One morning, Karen and Ronnie stumbled bleary-eyed from the tiny bedroom they shared and there he was. A complete stranger eating their Boo Berry at the kitchen table.

  "Hey," he'd said through a mouthful of cereal. "Your mom's still asleep."

  After another half-hearted bite-and a full minute of awkward silence-Rick dropped his spoon and stood up.

  "I don't see how you can eat this crap," he mumbled, and he stomped past the still-gaping kids and disappeared into their mother's bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  He'd left the bowl, still filled with milk and soggy blue blobs, sitting on the table. That was The Rick System for dining and dishwashing: Dirty bowls, plates, cups and silverware were left out, encrusted with food, until there was nothing left to eat with. And when you reached that point, you got all your food from KFC and White Castle and ate it straight out of the box.

  Cleaning (never), sleeping (late), bathing (when people noticed the smell)-soon it was all on The Rick System. Mom was on The Rick System. And it was making her seem less like Mom every day.

  Dad used to warn Karen about "bad influences" at school, but she never really knew what he meant until she saw the effect Cousin Rick had on her mother. If there really were a Santa Claus, she knew what she'd ask him for. Not that the fat man would do it.

  Santa gave bad people a lump of coal. He didn't drop them down abandoned mine shafts.

  "What are you looking for?" Ronnie asked as Karen stepped up to the closet Mom and Rick now shared.

  "You'll see."

  But Karen wasn't sure he would. What if there was nothing to see? Could Cousin Rick have changed Mom that much?

  She pushed aside one of the closet's sliding doors and got her answer.

  "Come here," she said.

  She turned to her brother and grinned.