The Spokes Critter Killings

Detective Dirk Wagmore dumped his coffee cup in the trash before donning nitrile gloves. The forensics team had been on site long enough to wiggle into their bunny suits, cover the body, and cordon off the area with police tape.

“Victim’s some kind of cartoon rodent,” his partner said. “Fisherman found him floating in the river and called it in.” Detective Liz Torres wore a jacket that covered the 1911 pistol, chambered in 10mm, she wore on her hip but nothing could cover her disdain for Mexican food. It didn’t take Dr. Freud to realize that the heiress to the Guillermo’s Taco empire had daddy issues. The police academy was her way out of a life of carne asada and refried beans. Once she got her badge, she never looked back. “Victim has no ID but from the animation style, I’d guess he was in his mid-forties.”

“What do we have, Joyce?” Wagmore asked the coroner kneeling by the body.

“Choked to death on a 42-ounce cannister of oatmeal.” Dr. O’Brian pulled back the sheet to expose the rodent’s face and neck. “Bruising indicates it was forced down his throat. Lack of swelling means he can’t have been in the water too long. Open sores and bleeding gums indicate the victim had diabetes. Finding his identity’s going to be tough. Cartoons don’t have fingerprints. I’m not sure about DNA and dental records. We might try to run the ink through a gas chromatograph.”

“You must not have watched Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s,” Wagmore said. “That’s Lenny the Cornflake Chipmunk. He was always running scams to get breakfasts that rodents weren’t supposed to have. Looks like we’ve got ourselves…”

“Don’t say it, Wagmore.” Torres put her fingers in her ears.

“…a cereal killer.”

***

The demon Mephistopheles appeared in the scholar’s study.

“What is your wish?” 

“That you will provide me with Bruckner’s Cornflakes as long as I live.” The disguised Lenny the Chipmunk closed a leather-bound book of spells.

“I am a servant of great Lucifer and may do nothing without his command.”

“And what would convince Lucifer to command thee?”

“Your immortal soul.”

“I would be damned a thousand times for just one bowl of Bruckner’s Cornflakes,” Lenny replied.

“Then sign this contract in blood.” Mephistopheles handed Lenny a parchment and a blade to nick his finger.

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny ran around the study and his robe fell off revealing a rodent body.

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” Mephistopheles disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll sell your soul for just one bite,” the announcer said.

 “That’s one of the tamer ones.” Captain Barkless turned off the VCR. “No doubt, Lenny made a lot of enemies with the Decency Council. Start by interviewing people who knew him.”

“Got it, Captain.” Wagmore and Torres left Barkless’s office.  

***

“Seen this chipmuck before?” Wagmore slapped a photo on the bar.

Of all the cereal cafes in all the world, Skim City had to be the worst. Even in mid-afternoon, teens with pimply skin, gaunt women with bitter frown lines, and overweight bikers whose denim vests revealed prison tattoos crowded the dimly lit room with their desperate craving for sugar, corn syrup, and carbohydrates. A TV over the dispensers showed an animated Wanda, the Woke Walrus, emphasizing the importance of inclusive language. The cereal tender picked up the photo.

“Naw, we don’t serve no rodents in here.” He was too skinny to be sampling the product.

“Look again.” Wagmore tapped the photo.

“Hey!” A biker sprang from his stool and grabbed Wagmore by the shoulder. “The man said he didn’t see him!”

Torres swung the biker around. After two quick slaps, she captured one of his hands in a wristlock and pointed her big pistol at his eye.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” Wagmore showed his badge. “Be a shame if the health department found some expired cereal containing red dye number two. We’re investigating a murder so look again.”

“All right. I seen him.” The cereal tender wiped spilled milk off the bar. “Understand we can’t keep rodents out of here if they wearing disguises like top hats, football jerseys, of they dressed like pirates. Always going on about how he used to be famous and hitting up my customers to buy him puffed rice. Felt sorry for the guy so I gave him a little oatmeal now and again.”

“When did you last see him?”

“About a week ago. Said he had some big score that would put him back on top.”

“Any idea what?”

“Said something about getting the old gang back together.”

The TV cut to a commercial with a man in a plaid shirt standing by a horse.

“Seems five-hundred-million dollars doesn’t buy as much as it used to. Like you, I’ve had to cut back by buying my daughter a Porsche instead of the Bugatti she wanted.” He placed a saddle on the horse and continued talking while tightening the straps. “Used to be, you could kill a hooker and pay the police chief to make the body disappear. Those days are gone thanks to the Washington elites and their big-government allies. I still believe America is the land of opportunity where anyone from a wealthy family can build a sweatshop or dig a strip-mine in a national park. That’s why I’m running for mayor. Even though I’m a billionaire, I need your checks for twenty-five, a hundred, or twenty-thousand dollars. I’m George Kintsugi and I approve this message.”

***

Disguised in a trench coat, Lenny entered the Soviet embassy. The scene cut to an interview room where a man with a large jaw sat behind a bust of Lenin.

“You wished to see the resident?”

“These are the specifications for an x-ray laser used in the Strategic Defense Initiative.” Lenny slid an envelope across the desk. “I can get more.”

“And what do you want in return?” The KGB agent opened the envelope and studied the papers.

“A lifetime supply of Bruckner’s Cornflakes.”

“We prefer an ongoing relationship. How about a month’s supply for every batch of documents you deliver?”

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny danced around the room and his trench coat fell off revealing his rodent body.”

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” The KGB agent pocketed the secrets.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll betray your country for just one bite.”

***

“Dean Shumway?” Wagmore showed his badge. “I’m Detective Wagmore and this is Detective Torres. Mind if we come in?”

“Sure.” Shumway ushered them into a living room, gestured to a leather sofa, and took a seat on a bearskin rug in the middle of the floor. He was wiry with blue eyes and a beard that was white with age.

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Shumway?” Torres pointed to the antelope and cape buffalo heads mounted on the walls.

“Bow hunting,” Shumway replied. “Just like our ancestors did for thousands of years.”

“When was the last time you saw Lenny, the Cornflake Chipmunk?” Wagmore asked.

“Saw it on the news. Real tragedy but it was bound to happen.”

“What do you mean?” Torres asked.

“If somebody didn’t kill him, the processed foods would have gotten him eventually. After I starred in all those cornflake commercials, I realized the human body wasn’t designed for that kind of diet. Tried to convince Lenny but he wouldn’t listen. Had a blow up three years ago. Haven’t spoken to him since.”

“Where were you on Tuesday night?” Wagmore asked.

“Giving a seminar at the Mukherjee Center.” Shumway pointed to a hardcover he’d authored, titled The Neanderthal Diet.

“Know anybody who would want to hurt Lenny?” Torres asked.

“You might check with our costar, Maggie,” Shumway said. “There were rumors of sexual harassment on set.”

As they were leaving, Wagmore noticed a Kintsugi for Mayor bumper sticker on Shumway’s Porsche.

***

The interview had to wait because Wagmore got a call about a dead body in the hills. The deceased was none other than Wanda, the Woke Walrus. Her maid found her unresponsive by the pool and called it in.

“Energy drinks, Adderall, and methamphetamine.” Dr. O’Brian pointed to the cans and bottles strewn by the body. 

“Could it be foul play?”

“My guess is an overdose or suicide. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

“Seems like she couldn’t get woke enough,” Wagmore said.

***

Adolph Hitler shook his fist and ranted in front of a giant eagle and swastika while thousands of fanatical followers cheered. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Fuhrer,” Wanda, the Woke Walrus, raised her hand from the front row. “You forgot to tell us your pronouns.”

“He, him, his.” Hitler slapped his forehead. “Mein Gott! I’ve been wrong all this time.”

Black-and-white, newsreel footage played backwards. A building reassembled as a bomb rose and attached to a Stuka’s belly. German troops marched backwards retreating through the Arc de Triomphe. 

“Always remember.” Wanda wagged her finger. “Language has power.” 

***

“Two advertising mascots dead in two days! There has to be a connection, Captain!”

“Damn it, Wagmore! Homicide doesn’t have the budget for you to chase wild-goose chases. Dr. O’Brian said the walrus died of an overdose so drop it.”

“Yeah, just like the aardvark killer. The department never has the budget when it comes to saving toons’ lives.”

“That was thirty years ago.” Barkless fixed Wagmore with a stare he’d perfected over decades as a beat cop, a stare that could fill gangbangers’ intestines with icicles. “These deaths are isolated incidents. Now, get out of my office.”

“Come on, Dirk.” Torres put a hand on Wagmore’s shoulder. “We’ve got work to do.”

***

“My parents never liked him.” Maggie Haywood sipped her drink through a straw. Taking a break from shooting a toonbang, she’d covered her nudity with a blue, nylon robe while a herd of toon rhinos and their ox pecker fluffers waited for the next scene. “Lenny and I were both sixteen but dad said he was over a hundred in chipmunk years. Anyway, the studio offered a cash settlement for my parents to forget the whole thing.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Torres asked.

“Twenty years ago. After the settlement, my parents moved us to Ohio. Said it was a more family-friendly atmosphere.” Air bubbled in the straw as Maggie finished her drink. “I followed his career, though. He was more than a mouthpiece for cornflakes. He wanted to play King Lear.”

“Know anybody who would hurt him?” Wagmore asked.

“My parents but they cashed in that big poker chip in the sky after a fifth-wheel sideswiped their minivan in Vegas.” Maggie nodded toward the director. “I got to go back to work. If I can help, let me know.”

“Thanks for your time,” Torres said.

***

His hair cut in a mohawk, Dean approached Lenny, who was disguised in a fedora and muscle shirt.

“I’m looking for some action,” Dean said.

“Officer!” Lenny held his wrists together as if in handcuffs. “I’m clean.” He showed that his arms had no tracks. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“I ain’t a cop,” Dean said.

“Then why are you asking me for action?”

“She sent me.” Dean pointed to Maggie who wore sunglasses and shorts.

“One box of Bruckner’s Cornflakes for fifteen minutes. Two boxes for twenty-five.”

“I don’t know,” Dean said.

“I promise you ain’t never had pussy like that.”

“All right.” Dean produced two boxes from beneath his olive-drab jacket.

“Woo Hoo!” Lenny danced around and his fedora fell off, revealing his rodent head.

“Foolish Chipmunk. Cornflakes are for humans!” Dean retrieved the boxes.

“Bruckner’s Cornflakes – So tasty you’ll pimp your sister.”

***

“Looks like a flightless bird took a swan dive off the thirteenth floor.” Dr. O’Brian pulled back the sheet for the detectives to see the body bleeding purple ink.

“Can’t say I feel sorry. That’s Oscar, the Obedient Ostrich.” Torres leaned forward for a better look. “When I was growing up, my parents told me and my sister to be more like Oscar. Funny thing. They never said that to the boys.”

“Detectives, I think you should see this.” A uniformed officer motioned Wagmore and Torres to a stairwell marked with an arrow and a sign that said, “This way.”

The detectives trudged up the stairs, followed the signs to exit onto the roof, and stopped by one that pointed over the edge saying, “Step here.” 

“That dodo was too dumb to live,” Wagmore said.

***

Oscar and an eel sat in a secure room.

“These documents prove our government has known the Vietnam war is unwinnable for decades.” Eelsberg pointed to a stack of papers marked Top Secret. “We need to inform the public.”

“Don’t do it.” Oscar grabbed Eelsberg by the shoulders. “Even though we have security clearances, President Nixon knows more about the situation than we do.” 

“You’re right. We must trust our superiors.” Eelsberg sat down.

The following day, Oscar showed the headline on the New York Times that said, “Hanoi Surrenders!”

“You were right all along.” Eelsberg shook Oscar’s wing. “Always obey the authorities. They know more than you do.”

***

“So, you were right, Wagmore,” Captain Barkless said. “What do you want? A citrus, caramel sundae?”

“With toasted almonds.”

“Damn it, Wagmore!” Captain Barkless left and returned thirty minutes later with Wagmore’s sundae. “There! So, some serial killer is bumping off the most annoying cartoon characters in Jupiter City. What are we going to do about it?”

“Shame we have to do anything at all.” Torres picked an almond off of Wagmore’s sundae. “Jupiter City would be a better place without those lowlifes.”

“Agreed!” Captain Barkless looked at the dessert and touched his expanding waistline. “The citizens don’t care but mayoral candidate George Kintsugi’s making noises. If he gets elected, it could affect our budget.”

“We could. Excuse me.” Wagmore swallowed. “Stake out potential victims.”

“Who are the most annoying cartoon characters in Jupiter City?” Captain Barkless stroked his chin.

“For my money, they would be Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, and Gilbert, the Gospel-Quoting Gopher.” Torres answered.

“Sounds like a plan,” Barkless said. “Wagmore, take the gopher. Torres, you’ve got the bear.”

***

Wagmore parked his Ford Crown Victoria in front of an A-framed church on Inspiration Way. He entered and found the cartoon gopher kneeling in front of a large cross behind the pulpit. Even in animation, Gilbert’s suit looked drab and unflattering. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Gopher. I’m Detective Dirk Wagmore. We’re concerned about your safety. Have you received any threats?”

“Do you believe in Jesus, Detective?” Gilbert adjusted his plastic-rimmed glasses.

“I don’t think about it much.”

“Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

“Right.” Wagmore realized it was going to be a long day. “Let me check the locks on your windows.” 

***

Later that night, Wagmore’s cell phone rang.

“Dirk, I’m screwed,” Torres said. “I stepped out for fifteen minutes to get some chicken and waffles. When I came back, I saw Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, getting into a limo with George Kintsugi. I tailed them to the abandoned plutonium mine on Racine. I need backup but if I call it in, the captain will have my ass.”

“On my way.” Wagmore dashed to his car.

Even with lights flashing, it took Wagmore twenty minutes to drive across town. When he skidded to a halt in the parking lot, there was no trace of a limousine or Torres’ Dodge Charger. He rushed to the entrance and peered inside.

“Hello.”

The only response was the sound of his echo and smell of alpha particles. Wagmore called Torres but there was no signal. His police radio had no reception, either.  It must have been the radiation.

“Shit!” Wagmore slapped his head. “The gopher!”

He jumped in his car and raced back to the church.

***

“Drop your gun or the gopher gets it!” Torres held Gilbert from behind with her pistol to his head.

“We can talk about this, Liz.” Wagmore placed his pistol on the floor and raised his hands. 

“Sucker!” Torres fired two rounds into Wagmore’s chest. The hollow points expanded as they ripped through his lungs and he died choking on blood. 

Torres scooped up Wagmore’s pistol and executed Gilbert, the Gospel-Quoting Gopher, just like she’d killed Lenny, Wanda, and Oscar. She’d hated cute characters who propagandized little minds, too young for fact checking, ever since Marco, the Manteca Marmot, had crashed her quinceañera. Once the heat cooled down, she’d introduce Barry, the Union-Busting Bear, to an industrial shredder. After that, she’d knock off Frances, the Family Values Fox and those porcupines on the toilet paper ads. She wiped her fingerprints off Wagmore’s pistol, placed it in his dead hand, and prepared for the best acting of her life.

“This is Torres,” she sobbed into the police radio. “It was Wagmore. He killed all of them. I tried to save Gilbert but I was too late.”

The Golden Child

The name’s Waterloo Clyde. I’ve been working these hills for longer than anybody. I didn’t take up with too many women in all this time. Women found my countenance disagreeable. The hills have always been the warm bosom what grabs me and holds me through the long nights.

I had some lean times and some boom times, striking a nugget here or some flakes there. Whenever I had had the gold in my pocket, I drank and fucked it all away, until I had to go back into the hills for more.

I did call on the Widow Vern a few times to go for evening strolls. She and I would saunter past the gas lamps on the cobblestone plaza of The Town. She was fair in manner and presentation, and carried an ebullient air.

I asked her one evening, “Will you be my wife? There’s no use in both of us being alone.”

She replied, “Waterloo Clyde, I can look past the face, but you are too dirty and too poor to marry.”

I didn’t take too much offense to it. She was right. I was dirty from living in the dirt, and I was poor from not having enough money.

This happened out on her porch, where we could have iced tea within the quiet scrutiny of The Town, who needed to know we weren’t up to any funny stuff. Such were the morays of the time.

“You’ll see, ma’am. I’ll get a big payday and buy me a bathtub. I’ll wash up real good, so you’ll be proud to be around me.”

She said, “If you can get me a baby, I’ll marry you. My insides ain’t fit for childbirth, according to Doctor Tom. So that’s the deal. You have my word.”

I figured I could find a baby. Babies wasn’t as rare as gold and I found that plenty of times. So I went to the hills and started mining for babies. 

I spent years digging thousands of holes. I found some gold here or there, but mostly it was just mud.

One night I heard the holler in the dark. It was a baby’s cry. I followed it and found its source were under the ground, there in the clearing where the pines gave way to the stars. 

I began to dig. I dug like I dug into the grip of a bottle: with fury and trepidation. I hacked through roots and bramble, digging toward that plaintive wail. I used my hands when the cry got louder. What was born from that hole was a lump of gold 19″ long, roughly the size and shape of a child, there in the full moonlight. I knew what I had to do. 

I went back to The Town. I shaved part of the nugget off to pay a metal worker to sculpt me a golden baby. He had it finished within a fortnight and I presented the baby to the Widow Vern.

“Why Waterloo Jones, this not what I meant. I wanted a human baby, not a decadent facsimile of a baby.”

“Is it not as expensive as a baby? Love it like a baby. Everything is transactional.”

“Yes I suppose there is love to be had in a golden child. I think I’ll call her Goldie.”

And we paraded the baby through the streets, all hailed it as a triumph, and the Widow Vern became Mrs. Waterloo Clyde.

“We need a new house for Goldie,” she said as she nursed the metallic child.

And so I went, hat in hand, to the bank to ask for a home loan. 

Mr. Bankman, the owner of the bank said, “That’s no problem, Mr. Clyde. We’ll just need the golden baby as collateral.”

“Mr. Bankman, sir, that’s quite gracious of you, however, I don’t think I can square that with the wife. You see she’s become very attached to the baby. She’s not going to take too kindly to being separated for the duration of the mortgage.”

Mr. Banksy Bankman thought on this a second. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do because we do want your business. We will place the baby under glass and put it in our lobby. That way your wife can visit the baby during business hours.”

I thought this was a good compromise and presented it to Mrs. Clyde. She said, “So We need a bigger house to accommodate the baby, but if we get a bigger house, we have no baby to accommodate.”

“True.”

“How does that make sense?”

“I guess it really doesn’t. But we need to choose one or the other.”

“Why?”

“Because Mr. Bankman says it is so.”

“Oh. Well let’s get the house then. I can go visit the baby all day every day. Or whenever it suits me.”

This meant I had to work digging up them hills for enough gold to make the payments on the house. This was difficult because the hills was picked over like a Thanksgiving turkey, days after the feast. It wasn’t just ol’ Waterloo Clyde roaming the hills anymore. Word of the golden child spread far and wide. Now every pissant with a shovel was combing the hills, eating up all my glory.

I had to go so far to find gold, I never even visited the house I was paying for. I sleep still in a hole in the ground.

Meanwhile, throngs gather to see the golden baby. People swear they hear the baby crying still, like it did that night below the ground. Others claim to hear nothing but the echo of a marble bank lobby packed to capacity.

Party Pickle

Everyone calls me Pickles, from my biological family to my found one at Club Climaxxx. Don’t judge—or assume I got that nickname because I smell briny. Just ask my customers, I smell more like the raspberry jam of Linzer cookies. 

The nickname has more to do with my good luck. And okay, I drink the juice straight out of the jar, neon seeds and all. But ’tis the season for green stuff. You see, it’s German tradition to hide a pickle in the Christmas tree so whoever finds it gets an extra gift and blessing to carry into the new year. And I always win that Gherkin.

Some would say I’m too competitive over it, except now it’s strippers, not siblings, insisting it. But I need that good fortune more than ever since my family ices me out over my “exotic” job. I won’t have any celebration to come home to.

“So, let’s have X-mas at the club,” my boyfriend Geo says from the front seat of his shiny Escalade. He started as my escort to and from the club and remains that way for safety reasons. Sometimes I think I should still tip him for his advice. “Why not? Plenty of us are disowned by our families for running in underground crowds. Screw them. Let’s pop some bottles, exchange some bags, toss around a li’l mistletoe.”

I stop myself from chewing off my gloss. Though I can’t imagine candle-lighting the family tree after twelve teary “raised you better” voicemails from Mama, unstuffing stockings with near-naked girlies sucking on oranges and airplane bottles seems as off. 

He glances in the rearview as I stick rhinestones around my eyes to simulate a snow-speckled ice queen. The Santa toy from the Kinder Joy chocolate I gave him a year ago hangs off the mirror, its egghead winking at me as it metronomes to the soft techno. “C’mon, the holidays are bigger than the two of us. Let’s bring some folks together. We’ll have a blast. I’ll bring the Grand Brulot. Been eyeing a bottle since your girl turned me onto the VSOP.”

My smile resurfaces when I remember Chastity drinking him and DJ Jinx under the table over a game of Never Have I Ever. “I don’t know. . . That sounds like a big to-do. Chastity would be on board, but I don’t know if the girls wanna ‘waste’ their money so last-minute.”

“Ah, don’t sweat it. I’m not taking lip from selfish Sheena or too-cool-for-school Anissa. Trust me, I’m a master debater.” He rolls up to the big sign with the club’s bit lip logo. “I’ll bring the whole fam together. You can call me K-rizz Kringle,” he laughs. 

I lean over to noogie him. “Think you got too many sugar plums dancing in your head, handsome.” 

I kiss that big forehead, then we tell each other to be careful. But as I’m walking into the back of the club, I see Geo get out and beeline for the club owner’s mini monster truck. He knocks on the slime-green decaled door and down rolls the window. 

I scrunch my shoulders and push away thoughts of Mister Miser laughing at the idea—or polling all his pole minxes and them doing it to my face.

“Ooooh, Pickles,” Chastity cheers from her vanity, waving a sparkly blush brush at me. “What’s up, girl? Did you hear Miski finally got fired for thieving? Christmas come early, right? Now I can actually afford who’s on my Nice List.”

I plop into the pink roller chair next to her. “Good. That girl was feral. Worse attitude than the Cash Me Outside girl.”

“Total Grinch,” Anissa agrees, leaning into our conversation to borrow Chastity’s cotton candy perfume. “I’d put coal in her stocking and beat her with it like a prison rock sock.”

“Naughty, naughty,” Chastity clucks. “Have you really been to prison?”

“Just jail.” Anissa rolls her shoulders like it was a stint in summer school. “One night over a stupid lotion set I ’lifted for my moms… Bitch wouldn’t even pick me up at the station.” She shakes her head until her frown turns into a grin usually reserved for customers. “Who knew Kmart had security like that?”

“His helpers are always watching,” Chastity ominously intones, staring at a bedazzled Santa hat somebody draped over a mirror bulb.

“You play too much.” Anissa gives her a half-hearted shove. “What about you, Pickles? I know you ain’t never been to the pokey. But you ever done some stupid shit over people you thought was family?”

I flash on the holly-dotted embroidery hoop I have sitting on my coffee table, likely to become a dust-catcher after Aunt Zelda told me I’d “have better luck being an esthetician, not an embarrassment.” Scratching at the clasps on my bustier, I murmur, “Well, haven’t we all?”

***

On the stage, glacial in temperature and shade, I forget about all my sad-browed relatives and lack of holiday plans. I shake off the stress, keeping the beat even though I’m sick of Ariana Grande’s caterwauling and the customers who think I don’t see them reusing bills from the edge. Men keep their billfolds closer to the chest this time of year, squeezed tighter from their kids’ wish lists, hosting the in-laws, and their wives’ endless list of “necessary decorations.” 

I’ve heard about it for countless lap dances and tabletop bops, so I dip, slide, and shimmy through the night and early morning until Geo comes to get me. He greets me with Mister Miser, Chastity, and Anissa at his flank. 

“You gotta real fun braintrust here, Pickles.” The club owner winks and glances at his gold Rollie. 5AM. “Merry Christmas Eve. You gonna deck the halls with us next shift or what?”

“Huh?” I wipe sweat and glitter off my forehead, raising a brow to my man.

“Said I gotchu, Pickles!” He shakes up a bottle of Moet but doesn’t pop the top. “This Christmas will be five times funner than some dusty ol’ family function, a fusion of the new and classic! Let me surprise you.”

Well, this is surprise enough, I think, but seeing he’s even got the cheapskate club owner and snooty booty Anissa on board… “We’ll see.” My smile shows I’m already cautiously optimistic.

***

Though 7PM is more like breakfast to clubsters, twelve of us sashay through the doors of The Melting Pot. We soak in all the actual and metaphorical cheesiness of eating liquid cheddar while draped in fluffy white bras and hookah smoke. 

“Germans always have fondue for Christmas Even, right?” Geo asks, as eager as a puppy who actually studied the homework instead of ate it. “That’s what Google said. It’s corny fun anyway, right? Nice.”

“Yes. Kitschy in the best way.” I beam, hoping he’ll relax. “Can’t believe you actually coordinated something with eight strippers,” I whisper as he pulls my chair out.

“Can’t believe you doubted your boy!” He winks and asks the waiter for a round of cranberry mojitos. Once they arrive, he toasts, “Miami doesn’t have much of a winter, but it’s definitely the coolest place to come together. I hope this is the first of many years we support this tradition. Even if we move away from the club, we can all take a piece of this memory, knowing that family is what you make it. Thanks, Pickles, for inspiring this! Cheers, everybody!”

Everybody clinks glasses, then laughs about the droplets that fall and sizzle on the hotplates at our roundtable. The bouncer teases Mister Miser that these drinks are less watered-down than his, and the girls squeeze each other’s shoulders in playful shoves, kidding about who’ll get drunkest before dusk. We share cauldrons of Swiss to dunk duck and fillet mignon, charcuterie and shrimp, we cook ourselves on skewers. Anissa entertains us with how she used to slink into her mom’s closet as early as November to slit open her presents with a nail file. Chastity talks about how glad she is not to have to be glared and ogled at for free in church this year. By the time we move onto chocolate and wedges of bread, pineapples and pretzels, I forget why I ever feared rejection here.

“And the best is yet to come,” Chastity sings at me with as Geo signs the bill. 

***

The Champagne Room is strewn with candy-striped balloons. On the red-hot couches, we all sit for the gift exchange by a Charlie Brown tree. Our heels excitedly stomp on the carpet patterned with hair-swinging babes. Anissa tries her best not to fight over that Agent Provocateur lingerie set she had to trade in the shuffle. Chastity and I giggle like schoolgirls over the gag gifts of literal stress “balls” and pregnancy tests that got passed around. I’m more than pleased with the Body Works basket I won and the spa certificate I gave away, but Geo’s sweet deep voice says, “Wait. Pickles, it’s not Christmas without your signature.” 

He nods toward the artificial tree. 

It’s easy to see through its limbs but it takes some digging to pluck that ornament of a Vlasic classic. The other girls halfheartedly search, munching Haribo gummies. 

That pickle prize is mine! I hold it up like a torch.

The girls whistle and clap. 

Geo snatches it from my hand. 

Before I can ask why, he plants a jewelry box in my palm instead. He flicks open the small square and reveals an emerald ring. 

“Ol’ switcharoo. Whata ya say, Pickles?” He proposes, “Year one of many traditions?”

I say, pickles really are lucky. I am.

Fuck Christmas

Since it was Christmas Day Mom wanted to get drunk. This sounded like a good idea but it’s illegal to sell alcohol in Massachusetts on holidays. She would not be discouraged.

“We’ll drive up to New Hampshire. There’s liquor stores just across the State line.”

That sounded depressing. A storm had covered the Northeastern Corridor with several feet of snow that’d mostly turned black and crusty.  But anything was better than being at home, except maybe the Bay State Prison where I’d spent the last few Xmases. 

“And then we can drive a bit further north and visit your father.”

She put icing on the suicidal cake. My old man’s buried just outside the Navy Stockade at Portsmouth. He struck an officer while intoxicated. They could’ve strung him up, but he took care of that detail himself. 

Black ice blotted out the long stretch of industrial blight. Mom’s naturally chatty. I turned on the radio to drown her out. She doesn’t appreciate Satanic metal, and switched to a station heavy on the Xmas carols. She sang along tunelessly and it was better than her usual nonsense about happier times.

She’d dressed as though we were headed to Miami instead of closer to the North Pole. The car’s heater was broken. She mewled about eggnog, Yule logs and chestnuts burning on an open fire.

The New Hampshire liquor stores were all open. Even so, there were long lines. Xmas is hard to face sober. Mom waited till we were back in the car to open the first bottle. 

“Did you see how all those men were staring at me.”

The attention made her merry. The sky got lower and lower, grayer and grayer. Jesus Christ is born, hallelujah. A storm warning interrupted the carols and prayers. It was strongly recommended that citizens remain in their homes and avoid the highways. 

The prison loomed deathly pale against black clouds headed in from over the Atlantic. There were no other cars in the visitors parking lot. 

The inmates’ graveyard is just outside the chain-link perimeter. The names on the tiny headstones face in towards what amounted to home and family for those dead men.

Mom got weepy, even though her first ex-husband had spent all her money, knocked her up and then left her for some other alcoholic floozy. I never even met the guy, but he’d passed on the prison gene. 

The ice storm hit while we were on the bridge that leads onto I-95. The old car had bald tires and we skidded like a rattlesnake in a jar of vaseline. Police cars had staked out all the exits and the cops were waving people off the road. I prayed they wouldn’t make me pull over because I wasn’t too sober at that point and wasn’t supposed to go out of State. 

Mom saw the pink neon motel sign. “Oh look I stayed there with your father once. At least I think it was him.”

Seemed like a miracle when the old guy at the reception desk took a check for the room. He must’ve been new in the motel business, or maybe he was drunk too. 

“Oh look honey a double bed. We can snuggle up and watch TV like when you were a baby.”

A bottle hit the floor and I awoke to what looked like a snowdrift dancing up and down on my lap. The TV glowed an electric snowstorm and roared static. Mom looked up. 

“Oh I thought it’d be OK as long as you’re asleep.”

Actually it felt pretty good, and it wasn’t as though I had any other hot dates lined up. So it was time to follow through, head in where I came out of, turn life into a round-trip. The place where everything started was nice and cozy and Mom was singing jingle bells but then a thought crossed her mind and she stopped. 

“Ooh baby weren’t you awful lonely in prison?”

“They never stuck me in the hole.”

She moaned. “Oh that’s not what I mean, honey. Didn’t you have a nice cellmate to hug you and keep you warm on Christmas Eve?”

Those are the memories you forget as soon as they let you out. “I’d rather not talk about it, Ma.”

“You don’t have to talk about it, baby. Just let me feel it.” She assumed the position.

TV glare showed a wreath of dead flowers that pulsated with the cathode vibrations. The thing went in slow.

“Ooh now I remember why I fell in love with your papa.”

Guess I’d learned a thing or two at the Bay State Correctional Facility, the only place I was ever popular. 

Outside the motel the snow fell and fell. Mom sounded so happy. She sang about her dreams of a white Xmas. 

The white stuff came out, eventually. And I remembered through an alcoholic haze that there was something else I’d picked up in prison that maybe I should’ve told her about.