Santa kicked the boy with his big red clown shoe, right in his soft midsection, which elicited a loud moan from the portly fellow.
The boy woke with a gasp, eyes wide and fraidy-pants white in the shadowed mudroom. Blood trickled from his bottom lip.
Kneeling at the boy’s side, before he could get off a scream, Santa whispered promises of death and dismemberment if he so much as farted.
“Now, be a good lad and tell me your name.”
The boy looked to be on the verge of tears. His bottom lip retracted and quivered over his tongue, sending ripples through his fat cheeks.
“Oh no,” Santa said. “We’ll have none of that, you hear? There’s nothing to be afraid of, boy. Now tell Santa your name.”
“You’re not Santa,” the boy said, a bit too boldly for one who was about to wet himself.
“Indeed, I am,” Santa said. He stood, spread his arms out slowly, indicating the bright red suit he’d snatched from the backseat of an unlocked car a few streets over. “As you can see by my velvety hat and suit, not to mention my very jolly demeanor, I am the one, the only, Santa Claus.”
The boy looked him over, head to toe, and said, “Christmas is next Saturday.”
“Layoffs, my boy. Tough economy up north. Had to start early this year.”
“And you’re wearing clown shoes.”
“I have big feet. Plus, I like them.”
“And clown makeup.”
“Chicks dig it.”
“You have no beard.”
“I cut it off and donated it to cancer patients”
“You’re a clown wearing—”
“Enough!” The boy’s mouth snapped shut like a clam sensing danger. But the plump little thing was right, of course. He was a clown, the world famous Lucky the Clown, to be exact. How he ended up dressed in this Santa getup was purely chance. Fate, if you will. He had needed a jacket, and there one was. Kismet. When an opportunity presents itself, one takes it or suffers the consequences—like, for instance, hypothermia.
It had all gone wrong earlier that afternoon. Lucky had been doing his act at a rare, late December birthday party for some uppity middle-class losers and their spoiled spawn. Normally he didn’t work this late into the season, but he figured the extra money would do him some good—and not to mention allow him to buy his lady, the world-renowned Har Dee Harhar, something nice—so he took the job.
It hadn’t gone too well. In fact, it had been quite a disaster.
He was just getting started with his first act when something warm and wet hit him in the forehead, slid down over his eye, down his cheek, and plopped to the floor between his shoes. Mashed potatoes, it was. Mashed fucking potatoes! At a birthday party! Who brings mashed potatoes to a fucking birthday party? Seriously. And everyone laughed—the sniveling kids, the parents, even a squawking parrot in a cage at the back of the room seemed to be laughing at him. No one laughs at Lucky the Clown, not like that, not for the wrong reasons.
To his amazement—after all, it was only a stupid kid doing what stupid kids do best, which is being fucking stupid—rage twisted Lucky’s good sense. He saw red.
He rushed the little turd—who, thinking about it now, may or may not have been the culprit, but was the closest and easiest target—picked him up, slammed him onto the table amidst the pig-like squealing of startled children—none of whom were louder than the boy struggling on the table—and began stuffing his mouth and nostrils with mashed potatoes, chicken tenders, cake, ice cream, anything within reach.
“How do like that, you little shit?” Lucky had shouted. “Who’s laughing now?” He was just getting ready to light a candle and stuff it in the crying boy’s ear when the parents pounced.
In the ensuing chaos, Lucky was able to cop a feel on one of the more well-endowed mothers and easily escape through a side window. (Okay, he’d been thrown through it, but he knew good fortune when he saw it—or hit it, as it were.) He came through relatively unscathed, too. A few cuts and bruises, but he still had his pride, and pride was a clown’s most prized possession...aside from, you know, his actual possessions, which unfortunately were left behind during the melee and his impromptu escape.
After spending the day hiding in and traipsing through the woods, he found himself in this lovely Bridgetown neighborhood.
One of boy’s knees cracked as he tried to stand, startling Lucky. The sly little fucker was trying to attempt an escape of his own. Lucky would have to be more careful. He was a great clown, but maybe not the greatest criminal in the history of criminal clowns.
“You’re being very naughty,” Lucky said. “Santa doesn’t like naughty, so let’s try nice.”
“You’re not Santa,” the indignant twerp said again.
“Shut your face! I’ll ask again, for the last time. If you don’t answer, I’ll cut off your quivering lip. Now what’s your name?”
The kid just sit there, saying nothing.
“Answer me, boy.”
“You told me to shut my face.”
“And you just disobeyed me by being a smart-ass. Now cut the shit and tell me your name, or else I’ll filet your stupid face.”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy what?”
“Stanford.”
“Delightful. Jimmy Stanford. A pleasure to finally meet you. Do you live alone, Jimmy?”
Jimmy stared at him, an incredulous look on his face, and Lucky realized how fucking stupid of a question it was. The kid looked to be about ten years old. Do you live alone? Jesus.
“I mean, who else lives here with you?”
“My dad,” he said, loudly.
Lucky winced. “Keep it down, dummy.” He paused, listening for any movement that would indicate Jimmy had been heard. This one was braver than he was smart. “No one else lives with you two? What about your mother?”
“She died last month.”
Jimmy cast his eyes downward, still clearly affected by the loss of his mother. “I’m sorry, boy. Didn’t mean to bring up painful memories. Come on, why don’t you give me a tour of the place and we’ll get this shindig started.”
On their way through the kitchen, Lucky snatched a butcher knife from the cutlery block on the counter. Next to it, he spied a rack of prescription medication.
“Well, well, would you looka-looky here,” Lucky said. He went through the bottles, looking for the fun stuff. But he didn’t recognize any of it. “Amaryl. Glucovance. Unpronounceable. What is this shit?”
“My mother’s meds.”
Indeed. Amanda Stanford. Her name was on each bottle. “What the hell did she need all this for?”
“Diabetes,” Jimmy said. He looked away. “And cancer.”
“Christ. I’m sorry, kid.” What a bummer. This was turning out to be one hell of a depressing day.
Farther down the counter, by the fridge, Lucky noticed an empty glass and a plate piled high with cookies. “Sneaking a midnight snack, were you, Jimmy-boy?”
Jimmy didn’t answer. Understandable. He wasn’t having a good night.
“That’s okay,” Lucky said. “I won’t tell.” He grabbed a cookie from the plate and took a bite. Chocolate and peanut-butter chip. “Mm. Not bad. Now move.”
He prodded Jimmy in the back with the knife, and Jimmy walked briskly into the living room. Under the Christmas tree were a scant few presents.
“Is that it?” Lucky asked, disappointed.
Jimmy said, “That’s what my father bought me. Santa will bring more.”
“Ho ho!” Lucky said. Little Jimmy still believed in old Saint Nick. Which meant Lucky only had to find out where the father had hidden the mother lode. “Interesting, my friend. Interesting, interesting.”
Light suddenly spilled from the top of the stairs. “Jimmy,” the man who was presumably Jimmy’s father said, “what are you doing up?”
“Dad! Help!” Jimmy shouted.
Lucky spun on his bright red heel and punched the weaselly prick in his gelatinous gut. Jimmy folded
in on himself, and Lucky shoved him away. Behind him, the monstrosity that was Jimmy’s father came barreling down the stairs. The guy was enormous, easily four times the size of King Kong, and just as hairy. He was also naked.
“Good lord, my man,” Lucky said. “Put on some clothes. There are children about.”
“I’ll kill you,” the man bellowed, striding forward.
The comedy of the situation wasn’t lost on Lucky, and he almost dared to ask Jimmy’s father to please say “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of my fat son” before proceeding any farther, but instead decided it was more prudent to reach over and grab a handful of Jimmy’s blond hair, wrench his head back, exposing the neck, and place the tip of the knife to it. Lucky then said, “Let’s talk this over, shall we, old chap?”
Papa Stanford stopped in his tracks, huffing and puffing—and seething with rage. The elder Stanford’s upper lip curled back in a sneer, his skin as red as Lucky’s nose. But a knife to his son’s throat was as good as a baseball bat to the old man’s kneecaps.
“Sit down, take a load off,” Lucky said. “And do cover up the funky monkey with a pillow, please.”
Jimmy’s father did as he was told, taking a seat on the drab gray couch. He quickly covered his unmentionables, even seemed a bit embarrassed that he was sitting before his son and a clown dressed in a Santa suit, stark naked. And fat. Probably that was the most embarrassing part. Fat and naked. A terrible combination.
Lucky let Jimmy go with a shove toward the love seat. “Now sit there and be a good dog.”
“Woof,” Jimmy said.
Lucky shook his head, turning to the father. “Your name, good sir?”
“James,” he said.
James and Jimmy. Lucky looked back and forth between the two and wondered if little Jimmy had been conceived via male-female coupling or if he’d just been an overgrown wart that had fallen off his father’s ass a decade or so earlier. By God, he sure did look the part.
Lucky turned to the former ass wart and said, “Hey, Jimmy. Do your old buddy a solid and get him some milk and cookies from the kitchen. Me and pops here have some business to discuss.”
Jimmy slowly stood, unsure, no doubt wondering how he could escape or call the police.
“Don’t be stupid, son,” Lucky said. “Try anything funny and I gut the old man.” He gestured toward the kitchen with the knife. “Now get.”
“Go on, Jimmy. It’s okay,” James said. “Just get the man some milk and cookies, like you used to do for your mother.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said.
Lucky squeezed off a double blast from his horn—hee-honk hee-honk—as Jimmy walked passed. He jumped in his skin, and Lucky laughed so hard he nearly peed his Santa pants. If Jimmy hadn’t been the size of a baby whale Lucky was convinced he would have hit the ceiling with fright.
Never stop clowning. First rule of the Universal Clown Credo, and Lucky was having a blast.
However, he was also a bit apprehensive to let Jimmy have any amount of freedom, given the smart-aleck manner he’d already displayed throughout this ordeal. But truth be told, Lucky didn’t want to ruin the kid’s Christmas, not entirely anyway. Let him go on believing in Santa Claus. It wasn’t Lucky’s place to take that away from him.
Unless he had to kill him, of course.
James eyed him from the couch. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Anything of value, of course. Consider it a donation to my Financial Recovery Plan. I experienced a rather stunning and swift downsizing of my repertoire earlier today, so I’m paying that misfortune forward.”
“We have nothing of value.”
“Lies, of course. Your tree is nearly bare beneath it. Your boy thinks Santa is real, but we both know better. Where are the rest of the presents? Your wife’s jewelry, your wallet, those i-thingies? Time to give up the goods, tubby.”
Jimmy returned from the kitchen, a plate of cookies in his right hand, tall glass of milk in his left.
Lucky salivated at the sight. His stomach seemed to spin itself in circles like an excited dog. Aside from the one cookie he had earlier, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Milk and cookies,” Jimmy announced, setting them on the table before Lucky. “Just like mom liked them.”
There was a chipper tone to his voice, and Lucky didn’t like it. He watched the boy, who now sat silently on the chair across from his father. Was that a smile he was struggling to hold back? Lucky hadn’t seen a phone in the kitchen, but could he have missed it?
“Did you call the police?” he asked, pointing the knife at Jimmy’s face.
Jimmy looked at him blankly. “There’s no phone in the kitchen.”
“You could have used a cell phone.”
“I don’t have one. Dad says I’m too young.”
“He’s telling the truth,” fat-naked-hairy James said. “And my cell phone is on the nightstand upstairs.”
“You better hope so. If I hear or see the cops, body parts fly. Capiche?” He bit into a cookie, then drained half the glass of milk. Delicious. “Now hand me that string of Christmas lights, Jimmy.”
Jimmy moved to the fireplace, slowly pulling away the single string of lights that was draped over the brick mantel.
“Any day now, partner.”
After unplugging it from the wall, Jimmy crossed the room and handed the string of lights to Lucky, who was now on his third cookie.
“Thanks,” Lucky said. “These cookies are wonderful, by the way.” He wiped away the crumbs from his lips and took another swig of milk.
“Turn around,” he said to Jimmy.
“What for?”
“Now that’s the Jimmy I remember. Jimmy the wise-ass. But you don’t ask the questions around here. Now shut up and turn around.”
Jimmy complied, and Lucky commenced to tying his wrists together with the Christmas lights. Only it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
Lucky knew knots. He’d been a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout as a child, and he’d also been Den Leader as a young adult. He knew his goddamn knots. His fingers were strong and nimble. He was a master at making balloon animals, the delicate twisting and turning, a skill that had come to him naturally, thanks to his years of knot-tying as a young boy. But now he struggled with a simple overhand knot.
James leaned forward and said, “You don’t look well, mister. The milk will do you good.”
Milk, Lucky thought. Milk milk milk. Something about that word. But he couldn’t focus.
His hands shook, and it felt as if the air around him were solidifying and pressing close, pulsing. His armpits tingled as sweat began to form on his skin. The bastard must have cranked the heat. That’s it. Milk, indeed. Cold cold milk. He took another long swig, draining the glass, and wiped his mouth on his smooth velvet sleeve.
“You turned the heat up,” Lucky said, the words coming out slower than he had intended and with a drunken slur that lacked the joy of actually being drunk. “You sub of a nitch.”
Jimmy spun away, and Lucky stood. “Now you stop—whoa.” The room began to rock back and forth—or Lucky did, he wasn’t sure. His legs quivered. Jimmy and his absurdly fat and hairy and naked father watched him. They were both smiling, laughing like those fucking kids with their mashed potatoes. He’d teach them. No one laughs at Lucky the Clown. He looked down at the knife sitting on the table, stumbled forward and lunged for it.
The table hit him in the face so hard Lucky had a sudden appreciation for the soft, comparatively loving nature of mashed potatoes. He heard the table crack—along with a few of his ribs, if the pain lacing across his chest was any indication—and buckle beneath him. The table canted, and Lucky rolled off and flopped to the floor like a dead fish.
Father and son loomed over him. Jimmy reached into the front pocket of pajamas and pulled out a bottle of pills. He shook it and smiled. “Nembutal,” he said. “My mother also had trouble sleeping.”
James clapped his son on the back, the gesture of a proud
father. He leaned down and picked up two things: the horn...and the butcher knife.
The last thing Lucky saw was an arching streamer of glinting silver and an enormous fat man, naked and hairier than a gathering of apes, smiling down at him.
And as the world went cold and black, Lucky heard the soothing song of his world-famous horn—hee-honk hee-honk hee-honk hee-honk...
Nigel Bird
MERRY CHRISTMAS (I DON’T WANT TO FIGHT TONIGHT)
“DO I REALLY have to go down there?”
“It was you promised your ma a pearl necklace.”
“Aye, but I meant we was going to buy one.”
“You daft banana. Price of those things, I’d have to get a job.”
“Some dads have jobs.”
“And some don’t. Now get the fuck down there before I tan your arse.”
Craig held on tight to the chimney and looked inside.
“It’s pitch black Dad.”
“Fuck’s sake, son. The torch.”
He’d borrowed his brother’s cycling lamp and fixed it on to an old sweat-band so that he could wear it round his head. It was his own invention. Allowed him to see where he was going and keep his hands free at the same time.
Craig flicked the switch then looked down. His fingers gripped the brickwork.
“I’ll never fit.”
“Get out. Boys twice your age were up and down these bloody chimneys just to give them a clean.”
“But there might be a fire.”
“If there was a fire, there’d be smoke.”
“What if Santa comes?”
“Jesus. There’s no such thing you fruitcake. Now get down there and find us that necklace. Don’t forget Mummy loves any kind of jewellery. And lots of it.”
Craig stepped onto the stack. Tears welled up in his eyes and spilled out onto his cheeks.
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 61
