I waited another couple hours for the rest of the neighbors to settle and then I ran across the street with every package of freezer meat I had thawed. I tossed the whole lot into the dog’s pen with enough sleeping pills to put them out for good.
It was easy after that. I just hauled each carcass into my garage where I put them on the jigsaw and did some hand sawing. Twelve hours later and a lot of dremelling and wood glue and I had the most original Christmas tree in years. The big bones of the Golden Retrievers and Pit Bull I placed at the bottom (big branches on bottom) and the little mutts like the Benji-dog and the rat-like Chihuahua I placed at the top.
As luck would have it, just after I finished the bare tree and poked the dogs’ eyeballs through the bone-branches along with various layers of canine sweaters and collars, I found a bat in one of the furnace vents. I whacked it with a broom and crammed a bone-branch up its ass for a perfect tree-topper.
If someone hadn’t called the cops and found all the blood in my garage, it would’ve been the best Christmas ever.
1995 (21-years old)
A great tradition around the neighborhood was for all the church groups to go around and sing Christmas carols on Christmas night.
For once they stopped at my house.
I cracked open another can of beer and pulled my robe over my boxers as the chilled wind blew through the porch.
“Merry Christmas,” they shouted.
I faked a smile and waved. “Merry Christmas to you too,” I yelled back, then added, “You stupid bunch of fuckers.”
I pressed the remote and a small explosion sounded beneath the group. Wood cracked, snow instantly melted and the ground gave way. Each fell into the hole I had spent hours digging the past fall. I had concealed it almost two whole months with wood and a slight covering of dead grass and leaves. Then snow.
Quickly I pulled a tarp from the living room and placed it over the hole.
Luckily, their screams didn’t attract any attention as I lifted bag after bag of dry cement and poured it on top of them. I thought my plan was destroyed when the garden hose had frozen, but it thawed enough indoors in the hot bath water to continue filling the entire hole.
Now that was a good Christmas!
1996 (22-years old)
Bad karma followed. Two good Christmases in a row wasn’t going to happen.
I stopped in at Mom’s on Christmas Day and she greeted me, hanging from a light fixture. She had managed to wrap her neck tight in a strand of Christmas lights. There was a note from Louie that I found later, stating that he had left her for another woman.
Nice.
For some reason I thought it was only suitable if I celebrated Christmas in a family tradition.
So I cooked Mom for 6 hours at 450 degrees. Once the thermometer popped out of her ass, I knew she was ready.
She would’ve wanted it that way.
And she stayed with me for months. 20 TV dinners later, we had finally spent some quality time together. At least until the bowel movement.
1997 (23-years old)
It only seemed right to wait until the anniversary of Mom’s death to pay Louie a visit. I found his new house and set up a string of remote control lights throughout his house.
He arrived a short time later with his “new woman” and they were both perplexed by the new holiday cheer that mysteriously appeared throughout their house.
So surprised they were that neither noticed the smell of natural gas that was leaking from their severed gas valve on their stove.
I clicked the lights on.
Now that was holiday cheer—they had the brightest lights on the entire block!
1998 (24-years old)
I tried desperately to make it two good Christmases in a row, but I failed. The karma-thing was always there to defeat me.
It had been three years since I pulled a stunt to take “Merry” out of Christmas and ruin the faithful, gullible followers of an American commercial holiday filled with fakery and hypocrisy.
The neighborhood was again decorated to its full extent when I just snapped.
Every night I walked by the Johnson’s yard and remembered how they turned me in for killing their dogs. I watched their grandchildren playing in their yard each day as they built snow fortresses and snowman. They had snowball fights and went sledding. I quickly found out the best way to ruin Christmas for everyone—it was to get to the children. Play some mind games—warp their innocence.
The Johnson’s grandchildren had worked on that same snowman for days. Even the old man came out to help them. I knew they would all return on Christmas to do what normal families do—eat, drink and sing, then kiss their loved ones under the mistletoe (Ouch, there’s that horrible vision again…Kiss her under the camel-toe, Santa!).
I was drunk out of my mind when Christmas Day had officially arrived at the stroke of midnight and that’s actually what I was doing…stroking it. I had taken the time to re-sculpt that snowman, to where it was now bending over, held up by two arm-sticks propping it up like a football center ready to hike. I stuck my finger in the snowman’s newly formed ass, burrowing my fingers in while stroking myself to full erection.
What better joke to play in order to ruin a poor child’s holiday than to cornhole the brat’s snowman?
I inserted my penis and it instantly shriveled from the cold. I quickly imagined myself screwing some Swedish whore and I again rose to the occasion. The friction and the excitement warmed the channel slightly, enough for me to climax, melting the snow around the snowman’s anus.
I backed away with my dick in my hand and smiled. “You gonna come to life now that I fucked you, Frosty?”
A string of cum dripped onto the ground.
“Didn’t think so.”
I chuckled as I turned around to face the Johnson’s flagpole, situated directly behind the snowman, recalling how I was actually saluting it, in a sense.
My laughter quickly faded as I staggered closer, the head of my penis touching the frosted, metal pole.
And it just stuck there.
No matter how hard I pulled, the skin just stretched.
Suddenly I sobered. I looked around the quiet neighborhood and watched distant yards flashing with lights. It seemed so peaceful in comparison to my own little plot of land I was now frozen to, yanking violently on my now shriveled dick, whimpering like a little bitch.
A stray dog walked by, gave me a strange sideways glanced, then lifted its leg and pissed on my shoe.
Piss a little higher, I thought, and you can melt my dick right off this fucking pole.
I tried pissing myself, but couldn’t manage to free my entire midsection now that my scrotum had blown and stuck against the pole as well.
By morning, my entire penis was bright blue. And I can still see the look on Mrs. Johnson’s face when she walked out of her house and saw me there. She looked at my frozen penis, then glanced at the half-melted snowman with the giant hole in its ass, then she fainted.
After the paramedics and fire department freed my icy member, a policeman slapped on the cuffs and said, “Come on Stud, were headed downtown, to a warmer set of bars.”
1999 (25-years old)
I think everyone has a time in their life that they find a path, a meaning, an answer to their destiny—an enlightenment, if you will, to the real reason why we exist.
My time finally came during the first time I had ever dropped acid.
I had never been more depressed on Christmas, never hated the day so much as when I sat in bed and put that dot in my eye. I sat there, alone for almost an hour until everything seemed fuzzy and my mind accelerated, my stream of focus settling outside my window to where the moon was bright, almost luring me outdoors.
A thousand thoughts flooded my mind, all of which lead to the following journal entry:
Jesus hates me for sharing his birthday. He’s been toying with me all these years, using his powers to crush me, play with me like a monkey, holding my head underwat
er when I most needed to breathe, smacking my ass when I was already crying. It’s not the drug in me tonight that has caused this stream of thinking—the drug was merely the key that unlocked the truth as to why this dreadful day has been haunting me almost every year of my miserable life. Jesus must pay. I’m not going to take his cruel punishments any more. He is my enemy now, by his own choice, and, though I’m a huge underdog, I will attempt to break him, crush him at his most vulnerable time of weakness. It is so clear now…I’m not a bad person, but I can no longer stand to be a helpless human, a sick puppet with God’s hand crammed up my ass, controlling me, asking his son, Jesus, what he would like to do to me next. “Here’s your birthday present son…I will fuck with this monkey however you want me to. Hell, you died on the cross and I’m King of the fucking mountain, so let’s screw with this little human, let’s fuck up his whole life, and really bend him over each Christmas…let’s kill off his Dad and Mom and Dog…let’s stick his dick onto a flagpole and make him look like a well-hung Papa Smurf in front of everyone just when he thinks he has the upper hand. Let’s make him fear death and hold him there, close to nothingness, without hope or dreams that can be achieved. Let’s watch him fill his empty life with anger and pain. And let’s laugh our ethereal asses off all the while he’s falling.”
I can almost hear them whispering. Well, now it’s my time to revolt. Tonight’s the night I’m going to etch myself into Hell for eternity and be proud to be home. Because that little monkey that Jesus has been fucking with for 25 years is about to peel that final banana. And guess what? He just happens to be the Anti-Christ. And all Hell’s going to break loose tonight, baby!
December 25th, 2000. 2:55 a.m.
After writing in my journal I glanced out into the night and watched the moon for an hour. It told me things, like how this night was the beginning of the new era and how Jesus was going to be reborn tonight. The Second Coming. His fight against the powers of evil to save mankind. Mainly just a war against me.
I took in the crisp air and the bright moon and closed my eyes. When I reopened them, there was another bright light in the sky. The Northern Star, just like when Jesus was born the first time and all the shepherds followed it there. Which was what I was about to do. But instead of giving Jesus a gift, I was going to whack him. Assassinate the savior to mankind. (Christ, I was starting to sound like the Grinch, only on a much more serious level.)
I followed that northern star. Hours and hours of treading across cold grounds I finally came to a neighboring town. And one of the first sights I saw was the hooker I had screwed at sixteen, the one that gave me crabs.
She was much older now and had a dyke haircut, short and choppy. She looked like a lesbian librarian now, but was still walking the streets.
“You!” she said at first sight.
“You!” I said, unconsciously scratching at my crotch.
“I’ve been looking for you for almost ten years now.”
“Huh,” I said, almost forgetting that I was on a serious mission to kill the baby Jesus.
“You must come with me!” she insisted.
I looked at the moon for an answer and it glistened. It felt right to go with her. There would be answers.
She took me up to her hotel and bawled my brains out. All the while I was wondering, How in the hell is this going to help my mission out?
She then told me that I had a son named Chip. And I wondered how a whore like her could actually know that I’m the father. Hell, the kid probably had a half-dozen fathers after she had been fucked that many times during her prime ovulation period. Maybe I owned the head or an arm or two, but I wasn’t going to take the fall for child support. Unless I was only liable for the portion of the kid’s head or arm, or had it divided up between the other handful of guys she fucked that night.
And what the hell was I worrying about anyway. This was probably just some scheme by God to slow me down. What did He figure—that I couldn’t go ahead with hunting His son down just because I had some kind of responsibility now?
As I continued to pound her from behind, shutting her up about this Chip of hers, I caught a glance at her legs. I cringed. Walking the streets had really taken its toll on her. A series of bright blue varicose veins appeared, running just under her skin. Nasty, I thought, until I noticed that each vein seemed to intersect one another at odd patterns. Familiar patterns. Like a map.
Ha! I thought, it had to be the map to the baby Jesus’ manger. This was surely a sign.
I quickly dismounted and smacked her over the head with the lamp. While she was unconscious, I ripped out a page from the motel’s Bible then traced her veins onto the sheet. As I traced, I noticed that the entire network of veins looked to be roads, connected into a star-like nucleus. I envisioned this like I would a map at a mall with a big red star that said, YOU ARE HERE!
I followed the map with the North Star for miles until it led me to a farm in the middle of nowhere. The light from the moon and star seemed to shine straight onto a barn, like a beam sent from heaven.
My first glance into the barn saw that the light filtered through a giant hole in the roof onto a pile of hay where a goat was laying down.
I approached the goat, cursing at my normal luck. All this time and travel, and I only found a goddamn goat. God was probably laughing his ass off right about then. Just another Christmas prank, I thought, until I saw the goat move.
A string of blood trailed to a white blur beneath it.
The blur started moving to where I could make out that it was a newborn goat. It made a weird bleating noise, like a dwarf screaming.
My heart began to pound harder as I shook my head. The light rained down on the white, newborn goat, and I thought to myself: could this be the Second Coming?
The mother goat suddenly charged me.
Before I could focus, the goat had buried its head into my groin and knocked me backwards.
“Ah, that’s it, you little virgin Mary-goat!” I screamed, getting back on my knees.
The goat lowered its head for another charge, all the while still seeping blood from its gaping womb. Just then, those damned crabs started really eating on me, and I was really in some hellish discomfort. I quickly became agitated at the constant itching and didn’t feel like dealing with some pissed off, cheese-producing farm animal.
It charged me again and I kicked it in the face. A chunk of afterbirth dangled from its underside, then plopped onto the ground.
“Take that, you virgin-bitch!” I said, then chuckled to the possibility that God had fucked a goat this time to place Jesus back into the world.
“Goat fucker, huh?” I asked, looking up through the hole in the barn roof, where the clear sky glittered with heavenly stars.
The goat was still dazed as I picked up a handful of its placenta and shoved it into its mouth.
It shook its head as I put my hand over its face, slowly smothering it.
I heard it gulp, then choke.
But I snapped its neck anyway, just in case.
The little savior was shaking in its nest of hay as I laid down the two-by-fours. I hammered its front legs through each crosspiece and shackled its rear legs at the base of the structure.
It died almost instantly.
I found some barbed wire to place on its head just for a joke, and then I headed back into town.
2004 (30-years of age)
Okay, so I was a little extreme that last Christmas. But it was the last time I reacted to Christmas in such a way. I think I had managed to finally work out all of my aggression that previous year.
I settled down shortly after the events and married that whore who I found out was named “Angel” (go figure!).
I became a father to the son I never knew whose name was Chip. And as I watched Chip open his presents, I took in a deep breath of joy, realizing what a wonderful life it had turned out to be.
Angel kissed my forehead as Chip opened the 12-gauge I had bought him.
“Wow,
thanks Dad!”
“Well, don’t just thank me. Go try it out!”
We all went to the front porch, watching Christmas night unfold.
The sky was blood red. People were fighting in the street. Groups of armed men were scavenging the streets, looking for wanderers.
Up in the blood-red sky, black-winged creatures circled the moon.
The earth trembled as Chip raised his gun.
“See if you can shoot that guy on the horse, the one holding that severed head,” I said.
It only took him three shots to take the guy down.
“Nice shot, kid,” a voice sounded from across the street. It was old man Johnson. He came walking nonchalantly across the yard with a tray of cookies. “Merry Christmas, neighbors” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead to reveal the “666” marking. He smirked, then laughed hideously.
I took the cookies, then told Chip to shoot him.
Chip blew his head off.
But it didn’t even phase the old man. He just clapped his hands, then turned and walked back to his property, somehow whistling without a head.
We finished the night with eggnog and watched horror flicks until dawn. I learned a lot that day. There’s more to life than hatred and anger. There’s true meaning in Christmas with family. And sometimes, things aren’t always how they have to be. You have the power to change your life, like I did. Sure, I’ve just caused hell to rise on earth and heaven to collapse, as the end of everything has started in my own hometown and will slowly spread across the country in the coming years. But, hey, now I’m a better man and a happier one as well. I’m proof that no matter how much life beats you down, there’s always a way to beat it back even harder.
Happy birthday to me.
I’ve been given the most glorious gift of all.
Freedom to live and love.
This wonderful life.
Al Sarrantonio
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 129
