Never Fear (29 page)

Well, that covered “boys a-singing.”
Our snitch had sung like a choir of angels.

Lenny and some of the Sanitation guys
had been sitting down the bar, and as was custom in Trooley’s,
jumped in on the conversation they could contribute to.

“
Obscene Caffeine can bite
it. Those guys suck. They throw out trash bags full of those
goddamn five-dollar cupcakes every night, and the rats go nuts
eatin’ em all up. Gross, chuckin’ a garbage bag fulla rats into the
truck.”

“
Next time you show up
there,” I instructed Roth, “take any of the food they’re going to
throw away and save it. We’ll give it to the homeless over by Port
Authority.”

“
Cool,” said Roth. It
sounded genuine.

I felt bad I had to send him out on
point as our double-agent in Santastic’s operation, but it was what
today’s plan required.

By the time Phuc and I had gotten to
Times Square, a streamlined version of the initiative that we had
discussed the other night was underway. We sat on the bleachers
that looked out into the sea of bright ads and watched as the
Santastic ship hopefully sank.

It was Clara and Mariana on the
ground, easily the most attractive women in Times Square despite
being bundled under their winter coats. Their beauty made it no
problem for them to sidle up next to Santastic for a picture. With
Roth conveniently using his body to obscure the sleight of hand,
Mariana neatly reverse-pickpocketed a sizeable stash of coke,
around a quarter of a kilo, individually wrapped into eightballs
for maximum appearance of intent to sell, directly into Santastic’s
xylophone gig-bag. As they giggled and gushed and pretended to fawn
over Santastic, the package was perfectly placed.

The original plan had been so good on
paper when we were drunk, but the streamlining would save us all a
lot of trouble, I figured. I realized after Reli shot down my idea
of facilitating a giant coke-fueled stripper onslaught that we
didn’t need all the bells and whistles. Just the blow. Two minutes
after it was planted, the anonymous tip I’d called in to the police
paid off: a pair of officers and a shiny black K-9 murder-dog
cruised past Santastic.

They were mid-“dance” number when the
dog went ballistic and surged on his leash toward the pretentious
but pitiable performers.

The dog caught one of the backup boys
straight in the ass.

In the commotion that followed, I
stood up on the bleachers, trying not to look too obvious. The dog
had the kid on the ground and had a lock on not his ass, but one of
those fanny-pack pouches that most of us knew had gone out of style
in the ‘80s.

The backup Santa-hipster had been
rocking one. Clara later told me it had been full of some really
killer-smelling weed.

The dog was now salivating over its
contents as tourists and the Santastic crew screamed.

The blow in Santastic’s bag went
untouched.

On the pavement, Clara and Mariana
clambered for a better look. Opposite them, the cheerfully-costumed
Marcos observed. Looking up in my direction, even from across half
of Times Square I could clearly see him shake his giant furry
character head as a “no.”

Screams regarding “police brutality”
and an “innocent victim” suddenly made a swath of cell phones
appear. The last thing I needed was to be a part of Santastic’s big
crime scene. Phuc and I muttered our goodbyes as we strode off in
different directions.

I went to the Pussycat. So did Clara.
She had work to do, and now I did too. I had to try harder next
time. And I was already out almost a quarter a key of blow—a cut
quarter key, but a ridiculous expense nonetheless.

I assuaged my woes at the Pussycat
with the classical definition of the day—nine ladies dancing. They
were more than happy to show appreciation for the rest of key that,
via Clara, they had been buying pieces of at reasonable rates. I
tried to watch her do her Mrs. Claws thing, but her mind was
obviously elsewhere, and so was mine. I watched as she gave
emphatic but not empathetic lap dances to other guys, and I finally
left after a quick cheek-kiss goodbye. I was pissed, and she was
sad at seeing me pissed, and there’s no amount of merry and bright
that can come from even the whitest Christmas there. I think she
knew—now that she had basically as much of the blow as she
wanted—that it was no way to really be happy, either making easy
money off of it or even when abusing the stuff. It just abused you
worse for offering that goddamn glimpse of magic and then receding
to reality. I left to accentuate that fact. This day had been a
major low point just all around.

Then when Phuc texted and I deduced
what he was up to, I figured I’d be feeling even worse.

The Ninth Day of Christmas.

I thought I’d hate myself when I heard
what happened with Carnahan.

Honestly, I just hated how
anticlimactic it was.

From what Phuc told me, a lavish orgy
had been taking place at a hotel frequented by the members of
RareBear. No expense had been spared—fine liquors, exotic drugs,
well-tailored leathers and silks and sex toys of all ilk made their
appearances.

Carson stuck out like bullshit in a
China shop.

The RareBear crowd weren’t holding
back this time. Carson had begged to be allowed to wear a leather
hood and get tied to the bed, but they didn’t want his gross sweaty
flab all over the Egyptian silk sheets. Carson had proceeded to
walk around the party on all fours with a riding crop in his teeth,
begging to be beaten. A few bears took him up on it, though with
each swat of the crop they told him he’d been an asshole for trying
to weasel up next to them at business meetings and nice cafes in
real life.

Carson finally had enough of the abuse
he’d brought on himself, and got grabby on some particularly
handsome studs locked in a threesome. These things were deeply
frowned on, and Phuc, ever helpful, was commissioned with removing
him from the party.

As going the extra mile was what these
types of power brokers were all about, Phuc took it upon himself to
make sure Carson’s pity-party had ended permanently.

Phuc had only to suggest that they
sneak off for a smoke on a private penthouse balcony, one which
several of the RareBears had made sure he had exclusive access to.
The maid who was the only outsider on the floor was using a breast
pump in a closet, trying to make ends meet for her and her child
like so many other brutally-bereft strivers on this
compassion-deserted island. Carson and Phuc had been on the private
balcony for all of two minutes before their smoke session ended in
a messy make-out attempt.

Phuc had slapped Carson across the
face, which he said made a sound like dropping a pound of loose
deli meat on the floor.

Carson Carnahan, heir to the Percy’s
Department Store fortune, current head of Holiday Operations, and
utterly useless paragon of the pathetic, started to cry.

“
NOBODY LIKES
ME!”

“
And that’s nobody’s
responsibility but yours,” Phuc said calmly.

“
YOU’RE BEING A
BULLY!”

“
I’m only repeating a
truth you yourself just confirmed. Nobody likes you.”

“
WHY ARE YOU SO
MEAN?”

“
The truth can be mean. It
can also be nice. But seeing as how you’ve never made an effort to
be nice, the truth will reflect that as such.”

“
I HATE
MYSELF.”

“
So change. No one else is
going to do it for you.”

“
IT’S TOO
HARD.”

“
Life’s hard. And you’ve
already got a leg up with your family money. It’s not going to get
any easier until you start personally doing better.”

“
I DON’T KNOW
HOW!”

“
Have some self-awareness.
Work harder on maintaining yourself. Learn from those around you
instead of abusing your power to give orders. Understand where your
emotions come from. Regulate your physical self. All of your
handicaps are self-imposed, and all of them can be fixed. But only
by yourself.”

“
I’LL SHOW
THEM!”

And thus, at the place where temper
tantrum met tough love, Carson Carnahan had made the choice to side
with perpetual pity.

Phuc said that it took a full five
minutes for Carson to maneuver his body over the
railing.

Around three minutes in, he’d wanted
to help, but thought better of it.

The impact of Carson’s body weight
hitting the sidewalk from fifty-one stories up wasn’t pleasant. The
blood spatter covered various snowbanks across both sides of the
entire block.

It wasn’t until some of the street’s
snow was plowed the next morning that they found one detached,
bloated foot, still sporting a men’s winter boot from the Percy’s
collection, piled up in the curb-snow around the corner. The
coroner said Carnahan’s blood was so distinctly fucked he’d have
been in a wheelchair from diabetes within the next year,
anyway.

So, as the blackjack dealers say, it
was a push.

I’d been at the bar going over drum
scores with Lenny. As Carson was hitting the pavement, I was
thinking about hitting the bass drum. That chance at musical
magnificence felt better than any beat down, literal or
metaphorical.

But I’m not gonna lie, I was at
Percy’s the next afternoon, Santa suit in hand, ready to capture
Carnahan’s spot as lively and quick as the job description
stated.

The Tenth Day of Christmas.

The paper’s headline didn’t include
any “lords a-leaping” puns, which was kind of them.

Stretch was happy to see me. He
suspected nothing.

Candy was, of course, not present. I
was rehired on the spot by the sympathetic management team who knew
how good I was.

I didn’t have a drink all
shift.

My joy at being reinstated in my
job—even under these sort of circumstances—baffled me. I was
smiling at least as brightly as any kid who hopped onto my lap and
started extolling their wish list. Maybe it was because I knew how
good at it I was. Maybe it’s because I know how brutally rare
actual second chances are. There’s no replacing one good thing,
even if there’s millions of similar ones available. It’s a
mentality we’ve lost in our overkill consumer culture. But even if
I was a cog in that capitalist machine, I was a happy one there.
Helping.

I realized that I didn’t even have a
wishlist of my own. I had everything I wanted.

Of course, that didn’t mean a few
Christmas surprises weren’t in store.

“
What’s the alternate
lyrics for today, Reli?” I asked, later at the bar.

She flipped open an old songbook, one
of many in the random bookshelves scattered around Trooley’s
Tourist Tavern, and scanned a page.

“
Hmm… yesterday’s was
‘Bears A-Beating’… wonder what was going on the day they composed
that! Let’s see… today is… ha ha. ‘Ten asses racing.’ Any idea who
that’d fit?”

My phone buzzed. It was Phuc. He’d
sent a picture of a mangled bike that was so screwed up, it looked
like an avant-garde metal sculpture. I looked up at
Reli.

“
Set up another round and
you’ll find out.”

Phuc arrived several minutes later.
Hrothgar the Hipster—human name, Roth—was in tow.

“
I swear I had no idea the
street would be that icy,” he said, sitting and tucking into an
Eight Maids A-Milk Stout. “I mean, I knew the entire route of the
Obscene Caffeine Xmas Alleycat bike race, and I knew that most of
those fuckers at Obscene Caffeine don’t keep their brakes in good
repair, and that they’ve been doing a lot of hard drugs during the
day, maybe smoking some freebase now because the coke is getting
too pricey or they’re trying to stretch some lucky stash they found
but… well, there was just no way to know for sure what those crazy
kids would get up to.” Roth shrugged and sipped.

“
They could have been a
lot more cautious about proper use of one-way streets, and not
running red lights,” Phuc added. “I know the nature of Alleycat
racing is intentionally daring and risky, but my goodness. They
should have at least worn helmets and not Santa hats.”

“
Oh boy,” I said. “You
know I hate asking this, but…”

“
Ten casualties. Five with
broken bones, three with broken bikes, two with broken
skulls.”

“
Damn,” I
muttered.

“
There was just no way I
could have known their exact route and made sure it was extra icy
with a few gallons of water beforehand,” Phuc continued, giving
Roth a wink and me a knowing nudge. “It was incomprehensible that I
could have stopped, after I’d been waiting appropriately, just
beyond the streetlight. No way I knew they’d run the red and be at
my mercy. Just terrible.

“
At least that’s what I
told the police.”

Phuc shrugged and delicately sipped
his martini, tilting up the space where his pinky finger would have
been. Roth smiled a genuine smile of achievement, not the smug
know-it-all hipster smirk that I knew had graced the faces of the
other denizens of Obscene Caffeine.