Never Fear (30 page)

“
And you probably get to
fill in a bunch of shifts there now, huh?” I asked Roth.

“
Well it’s not like I want
to fill in as Santastic”, he replied. “Anyway, I don’t mind
slinging java. I can read scripts for
real
auditions all day, and the
full-time wage’ll be good Christmas present money,” he said. “I
didn’t know how I was gonna make my rent this month. I’m no
Trustafarian. My parents gave me this jacket for Christmas last
year to keep warm, and this year now I can do something nice for
them.”

“
That’s nice, son,” I
said, still pretty sure I was feeling genuinely happy about the
day’s events. But when Roth went outside to smoke, I turned to Phuc
and spoke seriously.

“
Look, I know we trained
you from a young age to kill, and I know I let you repay a blood
debt to me that was really important for both of us, and this bike
race accident, well, honestly that just needed to happen. But
promise me you won’t make a habit of vigilante justice.”

“
As I live and breathe,”
Phuc gasped. “The Grinch’s heart has grown three sizes
today!”

“
Shut up and drink your
martini. There’s sober children in Asia.”

“
Indeed there are, Sam,
indeed there are. Just one more bit of business first though…if I’m
supposed to cut out the killing, and our plan is already in motion,
what the hell do you suppose is going to happen
tomorrow?”

I just grinned.
“
Our finest gifts we bring,
par-rum-pa-pum-pum
.”

“
Oh boy,” said Phuc.
“Well, we already cut down this giant trouble-tree and hauled it
home, we might as well light it up.”

The Eleventh Day of
Christmas.

THE NEW YORK POST—12.24.15—MERRY
XXXMAS!

Forget Rockefeller Center, today all
the coolest Christmas celebrants were enjoying “the most wonderful
time of the year”—in Times Square!

In a show of holiday cheer
that brought New Yorkers and visitors from all walks of life
together, today a dazzling holiday spectacle took over Times Square
in a modern miracle on 42
^nd
street.

In a surprise that warmed
hearts while doubtlessly chilling a few bared bodies, twenty-four
lovely ladies (some of whom are known better in the summertime as
the body-painted, bare-breasted beauties,
Las
Desnudas
) paraded their pasties in the pedestrian promenade. The
women, who appeared in high spirits and completely immune to the
cold despite being clad in little more than sparkly garland and
twinkling smiles, danced more rowdily than the Rockettes while a
crowd of fans of all ages cheered along.

Their soundtrack was
provided in a surprise appearance from New York’s Strongest: the
Department of Sanitation’s Emerald Society Pipe and Drum Corps. Who
knew that they had managed to work a funky bagpipe version
of
Blue Christmas
into their repertoire?

The oft-maligned costumed
characters of Times Square got into the action as well, and some
even got to act out their alter-egos when trouble was afoot. After
an attempted attack on the
desnuda
darlings by a gang of scraggly Santas that have
reportedly been terrorizing the town, reports indicate that a
bootleg Batman, an imitation Iron Man, and a faux Elmo teamed up to
physically subdue the carousing Clauses. The Santa scuffle,
however, took a backseat to the dance party that followed as the
delightful
desnudas
encouraged the crowd to dance the day away with them, along
to the swinging strains of the Pipe and Drum Corps’ version
of
Jingle Bell Rock
…

The pipes and drums buzzed and thumped
joyously outside the tiny construction port-a-potty I was wedged
into. Shaking in front of me, an inch away from being skewered on
one of my broken drumsticks, Braendeyn the Santastic quivered and
quaked.

In the midst of the fight, where he
and ten of his cracked-out cronies had tried in vain to battle the
costumed Phuc, Roth, Marcos, and scads of homeless vets who we’d
bribed to show up via yesterday’s trash bags full of
formerly—five-dollar Obscene Caffeine cupcakes, I’d quietly stepped
away from the band and forced Santastic in here.

The crowd had been more than focused
on the handsome, kilt-uniformed Emerald Society Pipe And Drum Corps
who’d arrived at my request, plus the twenty-four half-naked
strippers and bikini girls whose imperviousness to the actual snow
had been facilitated by Clara and Mariana’s dissemination of the
nasal-variety snow.

They hadn’t seen us leave at all. And
now I could cross one final name off this year’s naughty
list.

“
You stole peoples’
trust,” I lambasted Santastic. “You stole from charities. And you
stole earnings from people who are out here EVERY DAY, eking out a
living by giving at least half a damn about this scene. How fucking
dare you?” I brandished the drumstick as Santastic—I refused to
call him “Braendeyn”—cowered, crouched over the toilet
seat.

“
I had to! The Obscene
Caffeine money is all my dad’s! I can’t make enough money working
there to sustain myself!”

“
So it’s fine to underpay
everyone else there, but you deserve special treatment?”

“
I need it! I’m a
geeeeenius!” he wailed. “I was supporting the scene by bringing
people there with my art! My dad would have to respect it then, if
I brought in more customers!”

“
But you didn’t bring in
customers. You just took the money, and squandered it trying to
look cool. All while showing a distinct”—I jabbed him with the
broken drumstick—“LACK of genius.”

“
You just don’t understand
my brilliance. You’ve probably never even heard of me. I am an
IMPORTANT, RESPECTED…”

“
Stuff it. Your friends
like you for your drugs. Your hangout isn’t even cool. The majority
of the people you know don’t have the intellect or attention span
to cultivate anything worth a good goddamn, and are going to get
bored of everything here, including you, and leave. The rest won’t
be able to afford anything here on the money they make with their
negligible skill-sets, and you leading them on with a few hours at
your shitty, overpriced coffee shop just keeps them stunted as
humans and gentricidal to the people who actually worked to do
something good for their community. Yeah, how hip is that? The
people that you kicked out for all your precious coffee shops, they
made a community here before it was cool. THEY did. Not you. Your
so-called community has already abandoned you. I’d say they were
being intelligent in that choice, but they’re probably just being
as unobservant and easily distracted as always.”

I jabbed the stick into his skinny
belly. He shrieked. It was pathetic.

I hadn’t been this pathetic in a fight
when I was his age.

Of course, now, look at where that
mentality had gotten me.

“
THIS ISN’T FAIR!” he
wailed.

“
Life’s not fair,” I said.
“The closest thing that we get to it is the chance to make our own
fairness.” I withdrew the sharp stick a fraction of an inch. “Open
the lid.”

“
What?!”

“
Open the lid.”

“
Oh gawwwwwd,” he
moaned.

“
He can’t hear you. He’s
listening to the bagpipes for his kid’s birthday right
now.”

“
I don’t wanna die
heeeeeeere,” Santastic sobbed. “Pleeeeaaaase. I’ll work harder.
I’ll contribute more to the community. I’ll be a better artist.
I’ll put in effort. Please don’t kill me.”

“
You’re going to get very
into the community,” I said. “From the bottom up.”

And with that, I hoisted his skinny
hipster ass into the air, dropped him into the port-a-potty, and
slammed the lid down over his head. He was dazed but still
breathing as I discreetly strode back outside and tied the door
shut with a length of festive red packing twine from
Percy’s.

Re-shouldering my bass drum and
hitting it harder than my heartbeat, I rejoined the
party.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas.
Christmas Eve.

Reli held up her end of
the bargain. She always threw a hell of an Orphan Christmas party,
but this was one that the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and
future would all envy. The bar was jammed with everyone from the
now-famous
Times
Squaredance
, all still shining from the
day’s spectacle. Best of all, not a hipster in sight. They must
have been too cool for our communal Christmas.

At the end of the bar, I held court
with Roth and Phuc as endless rounds appeared before us. “You know,
people hate on hipsters when they try to pass off their pretentious
half-ass bullshit as art,” I told Roth, “But YOU must have some
serious acting chops to have been able to straight-faced tell
Santastic and his crew it was a good idea to get all yacked up and
come fight us, gang-turf style. You might actually have what it
takes to be a real actor, if you cut off that man-bun.”

“
Thanks,” Roth smiled and
raised his arm (still clad in the rented Ironman costume) and
clinked his Eight Maids A-Milk Stout pint to mine. “Maybe someday
I’ll be able to act as happy as you do when you see all those
Christmas kids.”

“
That’s not acting, son,”
I said. “Not anymore. I’ve achieved an actual ability to share joy.
Well, sharing joy and noble fisticuffs. But mostly joy.” Phuc, Roth
and I clinked glasses all together, then drank deeply.

“
You were an excellent
double agent,” Phuc, still dressed as Batman, congratulated Roth.
He eyeballed me and spoke distinctly. “Not that
I’d
know.”

Sergeant Franklin sidled
over, freshly shaven and wearing an ancient but clean Army
cold-weather jacket. Some of the other homeless vets, similarly
sharp from having been taken in by a shelter for the evening, were
shooting pool with the still-kilted Sanitation guys and enjoying a
few of the many pitchers that we’d bought with the
“
Times Squaredance
" proceeds from the delighted crowd.

“
Just wanted to say thanks
from me and the boys for giving us all those baked goodies. It
tastes like organic drywall, but it beats having to go hungry. I
can’t believe those coffeehouse creeps charge five dollars for that
stuff! But hey, we’ll raid their trash bags every day if it means
consistently copious chow since no one’s buying. Maybe even weird
out some yuppies in the process and take the property values back
down. Well done, sir.” He saluted me. I returned it.

Marcos, still in his furry red
character suit but without the head, strolled over with the
still-shirtless Mariana on one oversized arm. Mariana was wrapped
in tinsel like a tree, with ornaments hanging from her earlobes and
pasties, and a light-up star on her headband.

“
Awesome party, bro!”
Marcos said. “Yo, some cat hit me up about the video of me and your
boys throwin’ down on the Santas… we viral stars now, dawg! I might
get a streaming video deal!”

“
That’s great, man. Maybe
now you’ll get a promotion, you know, to acting someplace INDOORS
on Broadway!”

Marcos laughed. Mariana
gave me a hug. “And the
desnudas
have got a bigger following than ever now,” she
added. “Next summer, there’ll be no stopping us!
Tetas para todos!
” The
crowd of strippers and bikini-bartendresses that had served as the
dance squad cheered voluminously.

Marcos and Mariana tango’d over to the
dance floor, ebullient. I took a long sip of my beer to cool my
burning brain as the completely captivating Clara strode toward
me.

She was wearing the same furry snow
boots as she had that morning during the dance party/fight in Times
Square, and probably the same red booty shorts. I couldn’t tell, as
she was wearing my furry Santa jacket as apparently her only other
garment. It fell to the tops of her taut thighs and fluffed open at
the top to expose her exceptional entourage. A single jingle bell
hung deeply down from her neck.

She kissed me so hard I tasted
peppermint even over the powerful flavors of the evening’s constant
beer. I looked into her beautiful brown eyes, which were sharply in
focus. She stuffed a wad of something into the sporran I wore over
my Emerald Society kilt. Not wanting to take my gaze from her, even
for a second, I just kept staring at her, reveling in the
moment.

“
I sold it, bebe. All of
it. Is the cash for you?”

“
What about school? That
money’s yours.”

“
I make more. That…” She
grabbed my sporran, and left her hand lingering near my crotch. “…
is what you spent, porsooing happiness for me. With me. Thank you
for believing in what I got.”

“
I believe in much more
than that,” I said. “I believe in what we’ll get next too. But no
more perrico, okay? Too loco!”

“
Possible,
” she smiled. She kissed me
again.