The Naughty Ones

The elves take children from their parents and plunk them down on Santa’s lap. I take
their picture. Most times, the kids flash gap toothed smiles. Other times little Johnny
or Susie cries. Every once in a while, some kid has a total meltdown. I’m talking
complete nervous breakdown, the kind where snot goes flying and the hysterics are
shrill enough to pierce eardrums. I have a theory about those wailers – they’re going
to be the naughty ones. And they know that when they grow up Santa will be very
unhappy with them…

LAST YEAR:
“Smile!”

The girl grins from her perch on Santa’s lap and I click the camera’s shutter button.

“Good job.”

While Santa’s helpers, college kids in red and green costumes, replace the girl with a
boy I type the customer’s order number, 070144, under the picture and hit the send
button. The parents will buy a copy – or twenty – and after doing this three thousand
or so times the night will be over. All I want to do is get back to my brother’s couch
and fall asleep in front of his fireplace.

Santa lets out a bold, “Ho ho ho! And what do you want for Christmas, little boy?”

I hate this job. The noise of it, the deep, fake Santa-bellows, hurts me. The din of
children, their high-pitched voices giddy with greed, works its way into my head, a
sharp icicle expanding in the cold.

I adjust my camera, framing the picture, and tell the boy, “Smile.” He’s three, maybe,
and he stares blank-faced at the camera. Other Santa photographers might try to coax
a little grin out of him, but I couldn’t give a piece of reindeer shit about it.

The line of parents and children wraps through the mall lobby and into the west wing.
I can’t see the end of it. The night will never end.
Click. “Good job.” I title the picture, 070145.

I used to photograph models. That’s how I met my wife. She wore a swimsuit the size
of a two ipods and sand on her legs. I fell in love with her big eyes and pointy
eyebrows. She had a rough laugh, like she was hungry for joy, and she dropped the
brooding-sultry-model act the second I shut down the cameras. Who wouldn’t love a
warm hearted girl like that?

Another little boy takes his place on Santa. He’s about seven. His father stands nearby
and he looks like he’s dying of cancer; gaunt faced and sallow. An Eddie Baur coat
hangs lopsided on his shoulders. Maybe it fit him when we was well, before his
disease started eating him from the inside out. He looks familiar to me…

“Smile,” I say, forcing my own lips upwards.

He does. Click. And then I label the picture, 070146, and as I’m framing the next shot,
I realize who he is and why I didn’t recognize him. He lost eighty pounds in prison.
At least I have that, I think and turn to watch him walk toward the purchase table, one
hand on his boy’s back. At least I can see that the year he served for manslaughter was
hard on him.

The sick looking man with the boy is the fat guy who ran his BMW over my wife.
Upon impact, my lovely girl was caught between his car and the asphalt. He ground
her into a blood smear three feet wide. After a bit, he stopped and backed up. Then he
drove around her body, easing his sedan into traffic, leaving the bag of broken bones
that had once been my wife behind him, forgotten road kill.

THIS YEAR
I don’t blame those kids, the wailers, for being scared. Santa’s a real gem when
you’re good. When you believe in him, miracles happen. Of course, it’s hard to
believe in something that’s not real. We grow up, we learn the “truth” and we
forget… It’s okay with Santa. He couldn’t take gifts to all the good boys and girls and
cover the grown-ups, too. The fact the people forget is the only thing keeping Santa’s
operation afloat. The thing is, though. Santa doesn’t forget.

He keeps those lists updated. Both of them.

 LAST YEAR
“Not a creature was stirring,” I thought. Ha ha ha. I stretched out on my brother’s
couch, where I’ve been living this December. I don’t have my own place anymore.
Everything I had died in a parking lot. So family and friends put me up, a month here,
six weeks there, all so I can pull myself together and get on with my life. Like that can
ever happen.

The fireplace stared back at me, an empty hole. I wish I was an alcoholic. Then I
could slip into a whiskey-coma every night. I could drink until my liver looked like a
cracked sponge and die. Instead I get the quiet. Tonight, however, the silence is
broken.

The noise starts on the rooftop, a long banging, like cars slowly crashing. It startles
me so bad I bolt straight up on the couch. My brother remains asleep, I guess, because
he doesn’t charge down the stairs. I head toward the windows, the hardwood floor like
ice against my bare feet, and open the curtains. I see a few parked cars, snow covered
yards, that’s all.

Then, I hear a sound like pieces of sandpaper being rubbed against bricks and I spin
around. The creature lands in the fireplace. Enough light enters the room for me to see
the black cloud of soot rise under his feet. He ducks down and steps out of the
fireplace.

“Oh, God!”

He – it – is two feet tall and dressed like one of Santa’s helpers, but instead of green
and red his pointy boots and tights and top jacket are black as motor oil. His face
seems smashed, like he ran right into a wall. But what freaks me out most is the eyes –
two pinpoints of yellow, glaring at me.

“No, not God,” he says.

And that’s when I start to scream.

THIS YEAR
About those grown-ups who make the naughty list, they really can’t help it. There’s
something wrong with them. It’s in their genetics, I suppose, and whatever the flaw
it’s strengthened by upbringing. So the world is stuck with adults who do bad things,
who live without remorse even when they crave the taste of blood. On some level,
though, they all know they’re being bad.

They also know they could do better if they worked at it and because they won’t they
know they deserve to be punished.

LAST YEAR
We talked a long time. I thought the creature’s voice would be grating and scary, but
his tone was soothing, his words all comfort and rationale. He explained everything;
Santa, his lists, the naughty and the nice… He told me the difference between the
punished and the free.

“The unrepentant,” the little troll said, “are everywhere. One of

them lives right here.”
He handed me a piece of paper, customer order 070146. For a second I wondered how
he got it, but then I realized I was talking to a two-foot tall elf dressed in black with
the yellow eyes of a predatory and I stopped wondering about the trivial.

I had in my hand the address of the man who’d slain my wife. He’d been punished,
yes. The police had found him before the blood dried on his bumper. But he wasn’t
sorry, not the way he should’ve been.

“The naughty one takes his little boy to sit on Santa’s lap,” he said. “Santa doesn’t
like that.”

“I don’t either,” I said. “It’s not right.”

“Perhaps we can remedy that injustice?”

He held a tiny hat in his small hand. His fingers, more like claws tipped with talons
the color of rotting teeth, waved the pointed hat at me, gesturing, offering, ordering
me to take it. I snatched that hat. The felt was thick and rough under my fingers.

“Put it on.”
“It won’t fit.”

“Believe,” he said, “and it will.”

THIS YEAR
When I was a boy, there was this man that lived down the street. His wife used to
pummel him. He could no more defend himself against her than he could turn into a
weather balloon and float away. She was evil and he was her victim; and that was all
that could be said about that. That’s why I believe that those on the naughty list can’t
help it. The man couldn’t help being a weakling who let his wife beat him and she
couldn’t help but turn his nose into pulp. It was the way they were. But you know who
suffered? Their kids. The family dog. Even the neighbors, I suppose, who had to listen
to all the screaming.

Santa sent a mean little elf to cut their throats and burn down their house…

LAST YEAR
The hat did, in fact, fit and when I took the elf’s hand we ascended through my
brother’s fireplace chimney and to a sleigh. Reindeer, yellow eyed like the elf, carried
us to customer 070146.

“Wake up,” I told him.

When he did I jumped on his chest and wrapped my tiny hands around his throat. He
looked back at me with bulging eyes while I strangled him.

I released my grip and asked him, “Do you know why?”

He coughed, looked to his sleeping wife and didn’t answer.

“Do you?”

“Please,” he began.

I latched on to him again and this time I finished him.

I have to admit, I felt elated about punishing him, like I had a reason to keep my heart
beating. And when my new friend gave me the list of naughty ones I set off on my
own sleigh with more energy than I’d had since my wife was alive.

It was the best Christmas ever.

THIS YEAR
He sees you when you’re sleeping and his list is long this year. It’s divided up among
Santa’s yellow eyed helpers. I’ve got my share and I hope you’re not on it. But if you
are… Well, just think about this way; our time together gives peace to the wounded
and justice to the guilty. What better Christmas present is possible than that?

So to all a good night, my grown up boys and

girls, and to those on the naughty list, I’ll see
you soon.
The Naughty Ones

Lake Lopez

Copyright © 2010 by Lake Lopez. All Rights Reserved.

DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places and events portrayed in this
work are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to people, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.