Black Friday: An Elders Keep Collection Special Edition

by Jeffery X Martin

  There. Six times, through and through. The rest of it was easy. Her feet were over the newspaper. Her mother had measured everything so her feet would be six inches above the stockings. When her body voided, the waste would land on the newspaper. It was perfectly precise. Claire exhaled and let go. The slipknot tightened. The other end of the cord, perfectly noosed around Claire’s neck, drew taut.

  V

  Epilogue

  FRANK WAS SMOKING one of his stinky cigars as he, the children, extended family members from both sides (even Claire’s bug-eyed younger sister, Jeannie)and some business associates from a South American island he couldn’t quite pronounce the name of waited outside the door.

  "Welcome home, everyone," Frank said in his most showmanlike manner. "And to my esteemed guests, mi casa es su casa." He laughed as if he had just done an amazing magic trick. His guests nodded and smiled, almost imperceptibly.

  Frank raised an eyebrow and remarked, "Tough crowd."

  "I’m sorry, Frank," Jeannie said from the back, "but I have to pee."

  "All right, all right," Frank said. "Hold your water."

  Frank unlocked the heavy wooden doors and pushed them both open at the same time, as if he were entering a palace. His eyes quickly surveyed the scene. Behind him, someone screamed. He never found out who.

  The living room was bathed in soft white light, both electric and candle. Elegant trays of food were set out and bottles of wine were chilling in silver ice buckets. Presents were wrapped and stacked neatly under the giant Christmas tree. There was a low fire, merrily crackling away in the fireplace, and the stockings were hung by the chimney, with Claire.

  Bamelyn

  I

  Assigned

  "THIS IS BULLSHIT," Nick said for the fifth time. "You can’t send me out to bumfuck nowhere for a gig. You see this beard? It’s fucking real. I’ve been growing this beard for ten years. This gut is real, too. No pillows. I’ve been working on the gut longer than the beard! No bullshit for the little shitheads to pull off or yank out. I’m the best thing you’ve got, Marshall, and you’re not sending me off to the goddamned east end of nothing for a gig, do you hear me?"

  Marshall sat behind his desk and shrugged. "Then, you’re fucking fired. I don’t give a dribbling shit. Get the fuck out of here." He waved Nick away with a limp, dismissive hand. "I handle bookings for the entire Eastern Seaboard, do you understand that? If anybody wants a Santa, they come to me. I don’t give a shit if you look just like Father Christmas, because I am Christmas, motherfucker! Are we clear? Do you have our relationship figured out now?"

  "Yeah, I get it," Nick said. "You’re the pimp and I’m the Santa whore. You should have a flashier hat, Marshall."

  Marshall lit another cigar, and the smoke filled the room quickly, thanks to the window-mounted AC unit. "Nobody else is going to touch you, Nick. Not after your little escapade in Birch Run. I’m taking a chance here, and I’m doing you a favor."

  "Fine," Nick said, "fine. I’ll take the gig in Eldritch Clit or whatever it’s called."

  "Elders Keep, Nick. The town is called Elders Keep."

  Nick was sweating, that terrible Florida perspiration that made the skin beneath his white beard itch. It was what he imagined leprosy felt like. It took every iota of willpower he had to not scratch his face until it bled. "Elders Keep, yeah. Yeah. That. It sounds great, honestly. I’ll take it. You tell ‘em I’m coming. You tell Elders Keep they’re getting the best Santa money can buy."

  Marshall burped softly and adjusted his glasses. "I would love to tell them that, Nicky, but I’m not in the habit of lying to clients. I’ll tell them they’re getting a Santa. But after last year, you better prove yourself to me. Make sure I know I didn’t make a mistake bringing you back for another season. You better not fuck this up."

  "I won’t, Marshall," Nick said softly, instinctively crossing his arms. "I promise. I’ll do good. I’m the best there is, man. You know that. I won’t fuck it up, Marshall, I won’t."

  Marshall threw a thin pile of paper on the desk in front of Nick. "There you go," Marshall said. "Contact information, hotel voucher, directions, store hours, the whole kit and caboodle."

  Nick picked the papers up and briefly thumbed through them. "Thank you, Marshall. I owe you. I really do."

  "Yeah, you do," Marshall said. "You owe me big time. But we’ll deal with that later. Go get your shit together, Santa Claus. Make sure you get someone to feed your fish and all that happy crappy."

  "Right, right," Nick said. "The fish."

  Nick stood up too quickly, too eagerly, to shake Marshall’s hand. He couldn’t cover it, couldn’t act cool about it. Besides, Marshall knew how desperate Nick was for work. There was no point in getting caught up in ego games now.

  Marshall shook Nick’s hand like he was picking up a wet sweat sock. "Now, go on," Marshall said. "Get. I hate long goodbyes and shit."

  II

  Black Friday Coming Down

  NICK ARRIVED AT The Store in Elders Keep at eleven in the morning. Santa was due in the toy department at high noon. If the parking lot was any indication, this place was going to be a king hell madhouse. Cars were parked as if they had been dropped from a helicopter, the designated spaces gleefully ignored. One car took up three spots, including a designated handicapped space.

  Shit like that frustrated Nick, who had a bum leg. Even though he never took advantage of the goodness of the handicapped parking laws, realizing there were others who had it worse than he, it ran all over him when cars with no handicapped tags sat in those spaces. If he really were Santa Claus, he would do worse than give those sons of bitches a lump of coal in their stockings.

  Suddenly, there it was, the Sweat, manifesting itself faster than Nick could even think. His fist clenched up hard and he was ready to go. He could faintly hear a drumbeat in his head, something low and tribal, not loud enough to point to, but just enough there to egg someone on, to push someone, that nudge over the edge into the first swells of madness.

  "No!" Nick said aloud. The sound of his own voice was enough to snap him back into reality. His vision cleared and the rage in his blood dropped back down to pre-crisis levels. "Not again," he told himself. "Not this time."

  He found an empty parking spot on the outer edge of the lot. It was a cool morning. As he stepped out of his car, little droplets of mist hit Nick’s face and evaporated instantly against his already red cheeks. He pulled his gear bag out of the trunk, slammed the lid back down and began the short hike to the store.

  There were some screams in the far-off distance, cries for help, cut off before they could be fully formed. To the left, he could hear faint mournful weeping, deep chuffs of air and heartfelt moaning. A little further in, Nick could have sworn he saw a midget beating up a woman in a van with a sweater. When he turned to look again, the van door was closed. Nope. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  It was going to be that kind of Christmas.

  Inside the store, bedlam reigned. Lines at the registers were long. Customers were screaming at cashiers and the cashiers were screaming back. One poor girl, obviously an employee, stood against the front wall weeping, as if all the Ghosts of Christmas had come through her line, one after the other, all wanting to pay with unrolled change.

  A man wearing a nametag and a vest hurried past him. "Excuse me," Nick said, reaching out to grab the man’s shirt sleeve. "Are you the manager?"

  "Sir, I promise you someone will be right with you if you will just please be patient…"

  "No, I’m Nick. Nick Vance." The manager showed no recognition. "I’m Santa Claus," Nick said.

  The manager’s face was both relieved and furious. "Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m so glad you’re here. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it on time or had seen the crowd and scarpered off somewhere."

  "Now that wouldn’t be the professional thing to do, would it?" Nick flashed the man his most reassuring smile.

  "Don’t start that with me, man," said the manager. "If
you were professional, you wouldn’t be in Elders Keep on Black Friday. My name’s Dick, by the way. Come on. You can use my office to change into costume."

  Nick followed Dick through the labyrinthine aisles. The stockers had started to just leave boxes on the floors, letting the shoppers tear into them. It was like chumming sharks. Halibut heads, microwave ovens, same thing. Cardboard and packing peanuts littered the floor like bones and guts.

  Dick was yammering about something. Nick heard little pieces of jargon.

  "This time of year," Dick said.

  "Profit margin. Shrink. Profound customer experience," Dick said.

  "My fucking bonus," Dick said.

  "Here’s my office," Dick said. "It’s not much, but it will keep you away from the fucking animals for a few minutes before you have to go back there." Nick dropped his bag and took a deep breath.

  The office was pretty much what he had expected. Shelves full of binders, binders full of printed out communications originally sent electronically as part of the company’s environmental initiative, needless paper archived in case an area manager or district manager showed up and demanded to see it. Nick bet those binders dated back well into the mid-nineties. One binder was probably full of nothing but corporate waterhead debate about how to merchandise those freak-out Jane’s Addiction albums with their lurid covers. Wood paneling, Robert Reed rec-room dark. Various awards were splatted on the wall. Employee of the Store of the District of the Safety Award for Breast Cancer fundraising for the last whatever fuck-alls in a row. Threadbare carpets and telephone wires, black and white monitors, cameras showing every conceivable angle of the store and the parking lot and a horse, a horse, Dick’s kingdom for a horse.

  "Let me tell you something, Santa Claus," Dick was saying. "I don’t know what the fuck you did up North that Marshall would exile your happy ass to this neck of the woods, but none of your fucking shenanigans are welcome around here. Let’s just clear that shit up right now. I’m not spending my time cleaning up after a two-bit dime-store seasonal freak of nature who likes to diddle little boys or put the poke on little Suzie. I’ll send your ass packing and get that fat fuck, Ricardo, from Electronics to take your place. Is that clear?"

  "Perfectly clear. Dick."

  Dick sat down in his faux leather swivel chair and focused on the monitors. Nick, not seeing any other doors to duck behind, began changing his clothes right there. "I used to drink a lot, Dick," Nick said, pulling on a white t-shirt. "A lot. I loved it. I was good at it. Whiskey, gin, this Greek stuff called ouzo that tastes just like black licorice. Ice cold ouzo at the end of a shift? Jesus, it was like drinking my childhood. That was my favorite. I started drinking a lot more than I should have. It began to affect my job performance. I realized it, I dried out and that’s how I ended up in Elders Keep for Christmas." He yanked his pants up over his belly and slipped his suspenders over his shoulders.

  "What was your breaking point?" Dick asked. "When did you realize you had a problem?"

  Nick took his spectacles out of their case, breathed on them and wiped them on his shirt. "You know how in some stores they’ve got the two-way glass, mirrored on one side but you can see through the other?"

  Dick nodded.

  "I was working the outlets at Birch Run in Michigan. Some fucking home electronics store. The manager’s office actually was above the store. He could sit and look out over the whole thing. Nobody was the wiser. If they looked up, all they saw was their own reflection. Well, this manager pissed me off pretty good one day."

  "I think I know where this is going," Dick said, raising one hand to stop Nick from talking.

  "Really?" Nick asked. "Well, then. You probably also know that I don’t take bullshit from people with superiority complexes. You’ve probably also figured out that one of my favorite things is the sound of glass breaking. So let’s make a deal right now. You don’t fuck with me and I won’t toss your flailing body through your own security windows. Is that cool? Dick?"

  Dick rose from his chair and shuffled over to where Nick stood. "You fat fuck," Dick said, stabbing Nick in the chest with his finger as emphasis for each word. "You don’t come in here and threaten me, you piece of shit. From now until Christmas Eve, I own you. And if that’s not enough for you, Marshall is only a phone call away."

  Dick snuffled a large wad of mucus into his throat and swallowed it noisily.

  "But, you’ll do okay, I think," Dick said. "Now that we understand each other, I think you’ll do okay. You got fifteen minutes before your grand entrance in Santaland. You need a drink or anything?"

  "I have some bottled water," Nick said.

  "I’m just fuckin’ with you," Dick replied, laughing. "Get your shit together. The kids are waiting. Little bastards."

  Nick found a spot on the dark office wall and focused on it. He thought he might leave a burn mark, created by sheer concentration. He never wanted to hear or use the phrase, "Just fucking with you," again. It reeked of desperation and fear. He stared it into the wall. He never wanted to deal with shrimp-dicked little men who sniveled their way into positions of power. He stared them into the wall. He never wanted to be told, "Get your shit together," again. He stared it into the wall. He stared until his brain seemed to be screaming and his forehead ached with the effort of removing those thoughts from his brain.

  With a loud exhalation, Nick closed his eyes. He was calm, if not totally relaxed. He was ready to go be jolly. Of course, you can have the football. I’ll have to check with your parents about the pony. And most importantly, say "Happy Holidays," not "Merry Christmas."

  "Jesus was stillborn," Nick muttered. "Happy Holidays." He checked his reflection in a picture frame. Inside the frame was the proud declaration that Store #7466 had won some bullshit safety award for the third consecutive sales term. Nick took one more deep breath (now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho) and went downstairs.

  III

  Bamelyn Rising

  EVEN BEFORE HE was paid to pretend to be Santa Claus, Nick Vance knew that deep inside children were monsters. Ill-natured, foul smelling, demanding and selfish monsters. Each holiday season, he hoped for something different. Once in a while, a new cartoon would come on television, one that taught children to be good and kind and that it was bad to be rude or hurtful. Those cartoons never gained popularity, though, and children remained assholes.

  There was, however, always that one moment, when he first made his appearance and the children went apeshit, that was shamefully satisfying to Nick’s ego. He had to admit to himself that was why he kept doing this job, year after year.

  He always lived it in slow motion.

  His leather boot hits the red carpet that leads to Santa’s big chair, the Throne of Wishes. The elves, high school girls in green leotards and pointy ears, jump up and down, pointing. "It’s Santa," they yell. "It’s Santa!" The crowd, having been in queue behind green velvet ropes for hours, shifts. Various small voices pipe up. "There he is! I see him!" Cameras flash. The lights are blinding. They reflect off Nick’s round glasses, back into the crowd. He is haloed in halogen and white hair. The children reach out to touch him. He puts his hand out, then suddenly yanks it away and lays one finger against the side of his nose. He laughs to himself. Punk-ass bitches, think they can touch Santa.

  Now the cry goes up, the chanting of Santa’s name, and why not? He is the Gift-Bringer. He is the fulfillment of every badly spelled postcard sent to the North Pole. He is the key to every commercial shown on television since the day after last Christmas. He is the cosmic credit card, the good child’s best hope, the naughty child’s last chance to cop a plea. He sits in that chair, the Bema Seat, and the children come to him one at a time, as if they were bringing tribute. Instead, they come with their requests. They come with their prayers to Mammon on their lips. They come hoping to escape the hell that is Moloch. They run away screaming from the guilty monotony that is Jesus. The children of the doomed kingdoms of the world run to Santa and they all pray one thing
: "Gimme."

  "Happy Holidays!" Nick cried, and the children of Elders Keep screamed and yelled back. He pulled a handful of miniature candy canes out of his red coat and tossed them into the crowd. It was like throwing peanuts to pigeons in the park. They thanked him for his gaily-colored blessings.

  Nick stood at the center of the universe. The people lined up to see him, to touch him, to see if he could pull off some kind of magic that used to reside solely in the hands of the High Priests and Magicians. He was Santa Incarnate. More correctly, he was Saint Nick. And he was about to let the good times roll.

  ***

  "I WANT THE thing on TV with the darts where you chase the guy and you shoot him with the darts and he goes, ‘Hooowaahhhhh,’ before he falls over and I need a new volleyball because fucking Danielle popped my other one and…"

  "Whoa, whoa!" Nick said. "What happened to your volleyball?"

  "Fucking Danielle popped it with her soccer cleats. She’s a cunt."

  "Maybe you shouldn’t talk about Danielle like that."

  The little boy dropped his eyes. "You’re right. That was naughty. I meant to say she’s a whore."

  Nick handed the kid a candy cane. "Be a good kid, all right?"

  The kid took the candy and hopped off Nick’s lap. "Thanks, Santa! I’ll be good!" He ran off into his mother’s waiting arms.

  "Bring the next one on," Nick told Brittney, one of his elves. "How much longer until break?"

  "After this next one," Brittney said. "You can go feed the reindeer then, or whatever you fat fuck pedobears do."

  "I’m not a pedophile, for Christ’s sake! I’m a guy playing Santa!"

  "Whatever, old dude," she said. "You doing okay? Do you need some water now? Don’t want you to die on me."

  "I’m fine, dear," Nick said. "Bring me the next kid."