I stared at it, the contrast between the clean, hopeful paper and the wreck of my own hands making something dark inside me bubble up.
I tore the flyer from the board, held it in both hands. For a second, I pictured myself in a Santa suit, the beard doing nothing to hide the scars or the broken knuckles. I pictured the looks on the faces of every kid who’d been lied to, every parent who’d prayed I’d choke on a chicken bone before Christmas. I pictured the taste of church cookies, the smell of pine needles and cheap candle wax, the way my own mother had once dragged me to Midnight Mass just to show the neighbors I hadn’t been kicked out of school that week.
I laughed, sharp and mean, and crumpled the flyer in my fist. It felt good. It felt like a challenge. Back in my room, I tacked the flyer to the wall, right above my mattress. I stared at it until my eyes burned.
Tomorrow, I decided, I’d pay the church a visit. Not for God. Not for the club. Just to see if anyone still believed in miracles, or if the only thing left was the echo of a cheap Santa laugh.
I slept better that night, dreaming of snow and broken promises, and the taste of whiskey on my tongue.
6
Axel
The only thing easier than stealing a Santa suit from a department store is pretending you ever believed in Christmas in the first place. I got to the local mall at nine sharp, when the only people on the clock were hungover, underpaid, and one more customer complaint away from blowing their brains out in the employee breakroom.
I stashed the Harley behind a dumpster, out of sight of the mall’s fake security camera. It was thirty degrees and drizzling, a wet bone-suck that made my hands ache. I didn’t bother with gloves. You lose too much feeling that way. I pulled my hoodie up, walked with my hands jammed in the pockets, head down, and posture tight, like every other lowlife counting the minutes till they could shoplift a rotisserie chicken from the Kroger next door.
The department store had gone full Christmas with wall-to-wall Mariah Carey, racks of synthetic garland, and employeesdressed like elves on suicide watch. The Santa display was right inside the front doors, a tinsel throne surrounded by inflatable candy canes and two mannequins dressed as Mrs. Claus with facial expressions that screamed for the sweet release of death. There was a sign reading, "Mall Santa on Break, Please Return in 30 Minutes!" I had about 29 to work with.
I clocked the security guard right away—old guy, pants two sizes too big, sporting a fake badge and a real limp. He was scanning the perfume aisle, probably tracking a middle-schooler who’d pocketed a bottle of Adidas cologne. He never saw me. Or if he did, he didn’t give a shit.
The Santa suit itself hung from a rolling garment rack behind a half-wall of “Seasonal Specials.” It looked like a crime scene with its drool-stained lapel, shredded Velcro, and a smell that hit me even before I got my hands on it—stale peppermint, cheap bourbon, and the undertone of fifty thousand unwashed mall kids. I grabbed the suit, the hat, and a beard that looked like it’d been harvested from the undercarriage of a Ford Taurus, then circled through Menswear, hit the fitting room, and locked the door behind me.
I checked the mirror. I looked less like Santa and more like a guy who’d beat the shit out of Santa and left him for dead in a Red Lobster parking lot. Which, honestly, was the vibe I wanted.
I rolled the suit tight, jammed it into my backpack, and smoothed the hoodie over the bulge. On my way out, I made a pit stop at the sock bin and palmed a pair of black crew socks—last year’s style, nobody ever checked the tags on the sale stuff. The guard was still circling, but when I caught his eye, he just nodded. I nodded back, and that was the whole transaction.
I was out of the store in three minutes, maybe less.
By the time I got to Fable Christian, the sky was spitting ice and the parking lot was already jammed full of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks so big they probably required a CDL. Thechurch sat at the top of a hill, all fake-stone façade and stained-glass windows depicting Jesus with the abs of a pro wrestler. They’d gone balls-deep on the Christmas theme. A twelve-foot inflatable Nativity, lights on every branch, a projection of snowflakes dancing across the steeple like a club kid’s wet dream, sat front and center.
I idled in the shadow of the youth rec center, zipped up my hoodie, and swapped out my jeans for a pair of black slacks I’d swiped from Vin’s laundry pile. The suit went in the duffel; the real magic, as always, was in the details.
Inside the church, I kept my head down, followed the smell of cookies and the noise of a hundred screaming kids. There were volunteers everywhere, all in matching green T-shirts with “Jesus Is The Reason For The Season” printed in Comic Sans. I flashed a smile and tried not to show my teeth.
The “Santa Prep Room” was a converted Sunday School classroom, with posters of cartoon Noahs and cartoon zebras lining the wall. The real Santa was sitting at a folding table, stuffing his face with sugar cookies and making small talk with a volunteer in a reindeer headband. The guy looked exactly how you’d expect, standing six-five, four hundred pounds, a white beard that was at least thirty percent nicotine stains, and a gut so big it had its own gravitational field.
I sized him up.
“Can I help you?” he said, crumbs spitting out with every syllable.
I set my duffel on the table and gave him the once-over. “Yeah. I got a proposition.”
He grunted, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The volunteer—some college sophomore, probably doing penance for last week’s blackout—looked back and forth, trying to decide if she needed to run for help or if this was just more church drama.
“I’m listening,” the Santa said, voice already bored.
I unzipped the duffel and took out a roll of cash, all ones and fives, but enough of them that it looked substantial. I set it on the table.
“You take a lunch break, I take your place. One hour, no questions.”
He stared at the cash, then at me. “You wanna play Santa?” He said it like maybe he’d just met the world’s biggest pervert.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve got… friends, and they got bets on whether I could pull it off without getting tased.” I paused, let the threat hang. “Plus, I got a kid of my own I don’t get to see. It’d mean a lot.”
The Santa guy looked at the money, at me, then at the girl. She blinked, said nothing. The guy chewed his mustache. “What if I say no?”
I leaned in, low. “Then I come back tonight with a few of my friends, and we make sure you never work another Santa gig in this town.” I smiled. “Or you take the money and hit the bar before your shift’s over. Who’s gonna know?”
