On Holidays - Christmas

It was December of 1993 when I was sitting in a small café near Nabray Street watching sugar dissolve in iced tea. It was a nice area, secluded but modern, and the restaurant had just started putting its tables out again for the warm weather. I had visited LA for two weeks in November and, disgusted with the climate, had returned to the sunny landscape of a December Australia. Christmas Eve, I reminded myself, and wondered again what to get my brothers for the holiday.

The waiters were fidgeting around the packed sidewalk, trying to interrupt my quiet time, when I noticed the thrill of my day. Huffing down the sidewalk, brass bell clanking in step, came a charity Santa Claus, dressed in full red velvets and white furs. He looked as if he'd just been stripped of elves, the mood he was in. But down the walk he bulleted, anger creasing what should have been a jolly face.

Children were running. I couldn't help but laugh into my drink.

Santa stormed inside the café, slamming through the front of the establishment, and I decided I had to know what was going on. I left some money on my table, abandoned the iced tea, and went in through the door in the fading light of the evening.

I nodded to the barkeep, who made some half grunt upnod of greeting in return, and promptly returned to his rigorous schedule of ignoring his customers. Santa was nursing a cheap local brand and grinding his fur-lined hat into the counter of the bar. I sat down next to him and studied him, watching him grow angrier and angrier when he realized I was staring.

But for all his wrath, he was still an attractive man. Young, fair, with dyed black hair and blonde roots showing an inch. Blue eyes. Still, I found myself thinking...this Santa was pretty.

"Is there something I can help you with?" He spat at me.

"I thought you were supposed to ask if there was anything I wanted for Christmas?" I nudged him carefully, not sure how far I could push him without there being a Saint Nick Massacre on my hands.

"Ho, ho, ho," he said miserably and slugged his beer. "Very funny. No."

"What happened?" I tried to put a little holiday cheer into my voice, but it came out more like holiday pity.

"I just got fired from my job at the department store, and-"

"You're the department store Santa?" I had to interrupt. He looked cross and nodded in reply. "I can't imagine why they would've chosen you..." I muttered to myself, squinting forward.

"You don't know me," Santa said indignantly.

"I know you're not a very good Santa. You got fired. What happened, you flirt with an elf?" I tried flagging down the bartender, but he was studiously ignoring me again, tucked behind a 'Soap Opera Digest'.

"They said I took the job too seriously," Santa replied miserably.

I froze, signaling hand in midair. "You...You what?" I stuttered.

"Too seriously," the man enunciated bitterly. "Some mom tried to get me to explain to her kid that I wasn't really Santa. I couldn't do that, man. Could you?" He turned to me. "Tell some kid that there's no Santa?"

I shook my head. "Probably not. They fired you over that?"

He shrugged. "She complained. Took me back to the manager's office, demanded that I tell the truth to her little Billy. I still wouldn't do it. Man, you should've seen that kid's face light up when I told him the truth."

"You told him you were Santa?" The bartender was finally on his way over.

"No. I told him I was Santa's son, because Santa was still making all the toys at the North Poll." Santa winked at me, his blue eyes sparkling. "Then I got fired. One day before Christmas. No paycheck. How am I supposed to buy presents now?"

I shook my head in sympathy. "That's a rough break, man." I turned to the bartender. "Coffee, black?"

"In this heat?" He complained, but complied. As he was pouring the mug, he looked at Santa. "Your tab's overdue, Darren. You know that. I hope you've got cash."

"Ah, Tom, come on, it's Christmas..." Santa - Darren, I suppose - whined a little, picking at the label on his beer. "Give a little."

"I give at home," Tom replied. "Take your charity somewhere else, if you can't pay." He grabbed the beer off the counter.

I fished around in my wallet. "I've got ten. That'll cover us both, yeah?" I looked up at Tom. "Give Santa back his beer, damnit."

He grumpily slid the bottle back over the lacquered wood, and handed me my coffee. "If that will be all, Gentlemen?" He mock-bowed over his stained shirt and I waved him away in disgust.

"People these days," I groused. "No holiday spirit."

"Thanks for the beer," Darren said. "I can't pay you back..."

I shook my head. "Not necessary. I'm Daniel, by the way."

We shook. He had soft hands.

"What do you do?" He asked, and I groaned inwardly.

"Not much right now." It was the truth. Unemployed at Christmas time, when even the laziest bum could find work at a McDonald's, was humiliating to say the least. "When I find work, it's usually thanks to my brothers. I'm a musician."

Santa jumped, the little jingle-bells on his feet ringing. "What kind?"

I smiled, spreading my hands to look at my fingers. Calluses. "Guitar."

"Wow," he gushed. "That's great. So great. Guitar is so...cool." He emphasized the last word.

I cocked an eyebrow suspiciously. "Yeah...I guess." Shaking my head, I looked away. People who obsess over musicians freak me out, no matter how good-looking they might be. I'd gone through a string of relationships that I'd ended because my fame hadn't gone anywhere.

"What, it's not?" Santa got defensive, taking a swig.

I shrugged. "I'm not one of those people interested in actually doing anything with my music. I don't want to be famous. I lost a few girlfriends over it."

Darren scoffed. "Everyone wants to be famous."

Looking him dead in the eye, I frowned a little. "I don't." An awkward silence passed between us, and I coughed and looked away. "Besides, I'd need a singer."

"I can sing!" offered Santa.

"Right," I replied.

"I can!" He bit back his indignity.

"Everyone says they can sing. Almost no one can," I said simply, draining my coffee in one fell swoop and collecting my change off the bar. "Besides, even if they can..." I searched for words that wouldn't sound ostentatious and failed. "...they just wouldn't sound right with me."

I stood and offered my hand. After a wounded moment, he shook. "It was nice meeting you, Santa. Best of luck tomorrow."

"Thanks," he muttered. I couldn't tell if he was still bitter over the unemployment, or if he was mad at me now. Didn't matter either way. I'd never see him again. And besides, I still had shopping to do before the malls closed.

*

Home was a two bedroom apartment with five people and a very lumpy couch on Banzai Avenue. The plumbing worked when it wanted to and the fridge light was permanently broken, despite my roommates' efforts to repair it, but it was a good place to spend the night and a safe haven for my instruments. With at least two people in the place at any one time, I knew I could leave it in minimum security - something I never would have done otherwise.

As I was trekking the four-story climb - no lift - I wondered again about Darren. A boy like that working as a Charity Santa must have something he needed. Anyone to work in a job like that needed something, or someone.

Not that I'm one to talk, being unemployed, I thought bitterly.

The door opened for me before I could shoulder my bags and rummage for the keys.

"Presents!" My brother Jon exclaimed.

Oliver's reply grunt echoed from the bedroom. "Wuzzat?"

"Dan's brought presents!" Jon called over his shoulder as I pushed past him.

"Not till Christmas," I warned them with as much steel as I could put behind my voice.

Jon grinned cheekily and tried to peer into the bags. "Went to the mall? Did Santa tell you what we wanted?"

"Alas, no," I replied. "He's been laid off."

Oliver came grumpily into the kitchen, rubbing the bed-head hair on the left side of his skull back into position. "Santa's on the dole? That's not right."

I ducked into my room to stash the bags in a wooden chest where I kept other things of importance and then joined my brothers. "Not on the dole, as far as I know anyway. Just plain old fired. The mall Santa."

"Well, that's what the 90s have come to," complained Jon. "No good will toward men. Or holiday icons, as the case may be."

Slipping off my worn hi-tops, I collapsed onto the couch and stared out the window at the warm night. "What's for dinner?"

I felt Jon lean over me. "What're you making, little brother?" I scowled and he tousled my hair in a most detested way, and I was about to sock him with a pillow when Oliver leaned out the window, looking down the street.

"Those carolers are coming again," he said, a bit of curiosity in his voice. "Got more nerve than I thought."

Jon grinned and abandoned my head at news of fairer game. "What's on tonight? More water balloons, or rotten eggs, or what?"

My brothers were sadistic bastards when they wanted to be. It had been four nights running and each night the carolers had been subjected to new horrors from above. Jon said that they deserved it; the singing was just that bad. Jon's tone deaf, so I don't know what gives him the right.

"What's that about good will toward men, Jon?" I ribbed him, and hauled myself off the sofa before he could attack. "Besides, I don't think they're that bad."

He wheeled on me anyway. "Oh, you don't, do you? Maybe you'd better go out there with them, then?"

Oliver nudged him. "Leave off, Jon." The latter ha-rumphed and turned back to the window. The carolers were only two buildings away now, and there were battle plans to be made.

And to be foiled, from my point. "Going out for a smoke!" I called a bit louder than necessary from the front door. No response as I slipped out and bolted down the four stories of metal stairway, rattling the whole way down.

The carolers were only one house away by the time I made my way to the group. And really, they weren't that bad. Why is it bad to spread holiday cheer? It's the heart, not the voice, that should count. Like that mall Santa. His heart was in the right place...not his fault that he couldn't lie to a little kid to save his job.

Speaking of...

I slid to a halt.

"Come to hear me?" Darren took a moment to adjust his Santa's hat, little frizzes of black hair sticking out around the white fur-lining. The other carolers sang on, serenading a few families who had stepped out of the house to listen.

"You're a caroler?" I hissed, pulling him away from the group.

He looked mighty pissed, and shook off my arm. "I told you I could sing."

Shit. He was right. He could. But I shook my head. "You can't go to the next house."

Darren managed to look smug and angry at the same time. "Ah, the Jones brothers. Not big fans of our music. But I guess you knew that, if you're warning me..." He patted me on the shoulder, pulling me back toward the singers. "Don't worry about them. We know how to get around them."

"Unless your plan involves turning around, I don't think it's going to work," I whispered. "And what do you mean, 'the Jones brothers'?"

"They're musicians. I'm surprised you don't know them," Darren whispered back as the carolers wrapped up their last song for this house. My dread rose as the group shifted down the street. "And our plan is NOT to turn around. It's to go across the street." And, indeed, the group began to file across the boulevard, well out of range of heavily thrown things like eggs and water balloons.

I could hear my brothers swearing in frustration above me.

"I DO know them," I protested, but Darren hushed me as the group launched into song.

And then something else launched.

And it hit a caroler square in the head with a wet SMACK! But the song went on. I groaned in embarrassment, and Darren nudged me. "Sing!" he demanded.

"I don't sing!" I said distractedly, trying to make out just how my brothers were slingshotting wet balls of toilet paper across the four lane road. Another wet slap and another caroler went down. Darren raised his head higher and sang harder.

Have you ever been hit by wet toilet paper, I remembered Jon asking a few weeks ago. An old school prank he used to play on the rugby players from the stands. A ball of toilet paper, totally soaked through, in the freezing rain, would pelt as hard as a golf ball. Tennis ball was optimum size if it wasn't cold out - enough mass to hurt, but not to bruise.

The catapult was a bra, I realized.

Then two things happened simultaneously that would change my entire life: My brothers fired a double load - one in each cup - to take out two singers at a time. The second was that I looked at Darren singing.

Slow motion: two carolers fell to the sidewalk, bits of double-ply quilted flying through the air in an almost heavenly snow courtesy my siblings. Darren singing these fucking stupid Christmas carols like he had something to prove to the world. Like he needed to show the Jones family just what he was made of - and it wasn't rosy cheeks and a bowl full of jelly. His eyes shone like a fiery angel brought down to announce the vengeance he would wreak upon the evil. He glowed. Even if he had been fired from his job as a worthless Santa's Helper, he could still sing his heart out to any song he damn well pleased, and no lingerie slingshot was going to change that.

I had to respect anyone who could stand against my brothers.

And then there was the accompanying splat and a string of dirty swearing and the carolers really did have to break for the next house...no one was coming out of this one anyway.

Needless to say, the moment was shattered.

I pulled Darren backward, past a row of decorative bushes, but I could see him still watching the fourth floor window venomously. "Hey," I shook his arm a little, and he looked at me, a bit startled. "It's over," I said. "Let it go. It's Christmas."

He huffed and took his hat off. "I guess you're right. Those bastards, though..."

"My brothers," I supplied. He looked at me to see if I was serious, but didn't say anything. "We all have our shortcomings, Santa," I reminded him. I walked a few steps away from the road and into the park I lived across from, and turned back to look at him. "Just give them coal."

Darren grinned at that, and caught up with me. We walked in silence while I tried to think of how to ask a man I barely knew out to dinner. I also tried to remember whether he'd mentioned anything about having a girlfriend, but that was worthless. Memory like a sieve.

"So," he started, and we watched the little white Christmas lights in the park twinkle in the night. "You're straight?"

"Well, that was easier than I expected," I muttered loud enough for him to hear and tried not to be disconcerted by the image of Darren wearing only pointed elf shoes asking me if I'd been naughty or nice. "Sometimes."

"Sorry?" He asked.

"Sometimes I'm straight," I clarified, patting my pockets for cigarettes, and found a pack. Fuck. Empty.

"But you said you had girlfriends," he reminded me.

"Mmm-hm," I mused, idling closer to him. "But you didn't ask about boyfriends."

He grudgingly allowed this victory and steered us closer to a park bench. The silence stretched. I pressed one arm lightly into his own to get his attention and said, "You can sing, by the way."

He smiled, satisfied, and put his hand on my own. I looked down at it. "No one should be alone on Christmas," he said quietly.

I sighed, and nodded. "Promise me something?"

"Depends," he answered, letting the night take over.

"Promise you'll never, ever tell my brothers that you sang in that band of carolers."

I could hear him snort his laughter even before I was done. "Only if you'll let me sing with you."

I almost replied, "I don't sing." But it was nearly Christmas, so I just nodded consent. There would be time to bitch about my talentless vocal abilities later on.

"Can I..." Darren started, and I turned to look at him.

"What?" I asked, taking the Santa's cap out of his unoccupied hand, and plunking it on my head. He smiled and twisted on the bench, watching me comfortably. His hand snaked around to the back of my neck, and we met in the middle of the bench with a
seeking kiss. It felt...nice. Like unwrapping a present, layers upon layers of future waiting in that kiss. Ho, and tongue? I quirked an eyebrow as we broke away. Touché.

"You taste like Candy Canes," he said with an air of suspicion. Darren's face is effortless to watch.

"Darren," I said seriously. "You know I would never, ever go to another Santa."

He laughed and leaned into me. "Good. What would you ask him for, if he still had a job?"

"Hot, kinky, anal sex. With multiple partners."

Silence. The sounds of cars far off filled the air for a moment, tires crunching over gravel.

"You're kidding, right?" He whispered.

"I don't kid," I whispered back, right into his ear. A shiver ran up his back and I kissed the spot between his ear and hairline. "Well, okay, maybe I was kidding."

"Maybe?"

Grinning, I turned and met his lips again, letting one hand wrap in his hair and watching Darren's eyes drift shut gracefully. He kept them closed while I kissed back to his neck and wondered how far he would let this go before he remembered we were on a walkway in a park.

"Can I unwrap you?" I asked him, and put one hand on his knee, thumb stroking the inner seam of his pants. Just suggestive enough, I decided.

"It's not Christmas yet," he protested.

"Do you know the chances of me finding you in this city two times in one day? I want to open you early." He met my eyes, and an unsettling, impish grin crossed his face.

"In the park?"

Damn. "At my place, with my brothers?" I countered.

He frowned, thinking. "I know this little village..." He started, and stood up, pulling me along.

"This had better not be the Santa's Village at the mall," I warned him jokingly.

Darren turned and grinned, and I saw a set of keys dangling in his hand. "What better way to get revenge on my anti-Christmas asshole employers?"

I smiled and planted a quick peck on his forehead. "Will I have to dress like an elf?"