Merry Christmas, Motherfucker by Thomas S. Roche
The fog was coming off the river and shrouding the town in winter magic. Vi slipped the 68 Caddy into low gear and came down the hill toward the housing development. Bruno reached out and touched her on the arm, a gesture of reassurance. She looked at him without smiling, but the warmth between them was obvious. They were two soldiers in combat.
The faceless Southern-California suburb reeked of murdered pine trees. But they could still smell the fat man’s spoor. They could hear the not-so-subtle chinging of bells that spelled the late-night capitalist infiltration of a billion homes across the world.
“I can smell the sonofabitch,” Bruno said. “I think he knows we’re here. He knows we’re still after him.”
Vi lit a cigarette, answering Bruno’s nervousness with a comforting rasp. “Of course he does, baby. He knows we’re after him, just like he’s always known. How could he not know?” She patted Bruno on the knee. “He thinks he’s immortal. He thinks he rules the world. He’s an arrogant son of a bitch — and that’s why we’ll beat him — eventually.”
Bruno nodded. “I hope you’re right, baby. I just hope and pray you’re right.”
“I hope so too,” said Vi under her breath.
Bruno reached down and checked the bag of goodies as Vi parked the Caddy on the street in front of a faceless, grey suburban condo. There had been unspeakable sadness inside. Vi and Bruno were here to change all that.
Bruno looked at her. She was a package, all right. Bruno and Vi wore identical skintight black turtlenecks and black fatigues, padded-sole combat boots, web belts. But the shape of Vi’s body under all that black still stirred Bruno and made his head swim. He leaned over and kissed Vi passionately on the lips. She responded with tongue and teeth and a faint stiffening of her nipples beneath the cotton turtleneck where Bruno’s hands touched her affectionately.
“Night’s almost over,” said Bruno. “We’ll be home soon, baby. Home at last.”
“You know it,” said Vi, her full, inviting lips parting in a gentle pant of excitement. “All the way in the hay.”
They looked at each other once more, longingly, their eyes meeting in a tender expression of passion and love and devotion and desire. There was no longer any fear, for this was a moment of action.
They popped the doors and rolled out of the Caddy. They headed out, each of them in a crouch, their black clothes hiding them from any watchers, moving fast for the front door of the condo. Vi clutched her crowbar close, slipped the lockpick out of belt pouch. Bruno hung back, cradling his big black bag.
In a minute Vi had the lock opened. The alarm system was no problem. The fat man had been sloppy; he’d left the alarm off when he’d left. The sonofabitch had no respect.
They were in the door and down the hall in moments. Vi checked the doorway to the living room, waved Bruno past. Bruno did a quick roll into the shag carpet, then came onto one knee just before the fireplace. He halted.
There they were. His heart filled with anger.
There in the still-warm ash of the fireplace. Those big motherfucking footprints. The bastard had been here, all right.
Bruno couldn’t suppress a growl. His hand went to the knife at his belt.
“Just once,” he growled. “Just one fucking Christmas Eve, if I could start a fire in every fucking fireplace in the goddamn world — from Detroit to Canoga Park to Timbuck-fucking-too — ”
“Easy, man,” said Vi, putting her hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “Don’t let the sonofabitch get the best of you.”
Bruno nodded, coming to his senses. He put the knife away, patted Vi’s hand.
“Thanks, baby,” he said, and opened the sack.
*****
Bruno had faced down the fat man once. It had been years ago, in the days when he had gone about his business armed like a NYC cab driver. Before he’d found Vi, when all he wanted to do was catch the fat man in the act and put some slugs in the fucker’s chest.
It was in another faceless suburban condo, might have been Ohio, maybe Wisconsin, possibly Illinois. Didn’t matter. Bruno had made it in the front door before the fat man had gone back up the chimney. He had found the fucker lounging in a recliner, reading the Dad’s Hustlers and jerking himself off.
Bruno had felt all the rage well up inside his body. His hand had come up holding his prized weapon, a .44 automag, eight-round clip — just like the kind Dirty Harry used. He chambered a round as the fat man got to his feet.
The fat man stood there, hands on hips, a jolly fucking grin on his face.
He swept the furry tail of his hat out of his face, tucked his schlong back in the red fuzzy pants, and sized up Bruno. The fat man stared down the barrell of the .44 automag, the grin on his face untouched.
Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“Ho — Ho — Ho –!”
It was a sinister sound, one with all the evil Bruno had ever feared or hated, and it sent chills through Bruno’s body, made his asshole cinch tight and his balls crawl up into his body. He leveled the automag at the fat man’s face.
Then the fucker had spoken, and Bruno was riveted.
“Put the gun down, puss-boy,” said the fat man. “You know you can’t harm me. Nobody can kill Christmas. Nobody. The spirit of Christmas lives on, prickwad.”
Bruno looked at the fat man’s forehead, lined up in the sights of the .44 automag. Bruno’s hands were shaking. He thought it horribly undignified for the fat man to be hurling insults like that, but that’s not why his hands had started shaking. The reason he was freaking out was because he knew the fat man was right.
He couldn’t solve this problem by putting a bullet in it. Even eight bullets wouldn’t do the trick. Sixteen or maybe twenty-four would be a start — but that wasn’t the point. From violence comes violence — from nothing, nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Bruno lowered the .44 and motioned toward the chimney.
The fat man just laughed again, “Ho ho ho, fuck you — ho ho ho –” and took his time getting out of there. He seemed to be contemplating whether he should finish what he’d been doing with the magazine. But part of him must have thought better of it — and that’s what told Bruno that in some part of the fat man’s mind, some tucked-away corner, there was fear.
Once the fat man had disappeared up the chimney. Bruno collapsed to the carpet sobbing. But it was in those tragic moments that he knew what needed to be done. He worked hard all year, and in June in a cafe in Amsterdam he had met Vi. She was ex-SAS, turned sour on the whole capitalism/imperialism thing and the duality of the cultural gender-model. She was a founding member of an obscure transgender activist group called Kill the Pigs. She was just a few weeks away from the operation, and he realized in a flash that he’d never love any woman this much. When Christmas came, Bruno was ready, and he had the perfect partner. Armed with love and their sack of toys, the .44 automag sitting at home on the dresser, Bruno and Vi had set out on their Christmas-Eve travels.
*****
The fat man had been here, all right. They could see his footprints in the ash. There was a boy and a girl in this house, and each had their own kind of atrocities offered in the stockings which hung from the mantle. The boy had a Killer Jack army doll and a Green Beret dagger. The girl had gotten Beverly Hills Sue with six glamorous outfits, a Golf Club Dan and a pair of pot holders. Vi sneered.
Bruno went to work quickly as Vi kept a lookout. Lily-white Beverly Hills Sue was replaced with the racially ambiguous fat-chick model Bruno had put together in his own workshop. Instead of her frilly pink clothes, Sue was clad in a leather harness, a leather jacket and combat boots. The T-shirt bore a SILENCE = DEATH sign, and across the back of the leather jacket was “DON’T FUCK WITH ME.” And of course this model was anatomically correct. In one of her little hands there was bullwhip. There was also a pamphlet on the importance of consensuality in all matters and extensive diagrams showing the location of the clitoris and the G-spot. Golf Club Dan was replaced with another anatomically correct doll, this one in a black lace teddy and spike-heeled shoes, with an accompanying pamphlet on gender roles and their utilization by imperialist forces in an oppressive capitalist society. The pot holders went in the fucking fireplace.
Killer Jack was replaced with Vegetarian Activist Jack, with a couple of furry friends, a pet chicken and a cow. The accompanying pamphlet, with unsavory details on factory farming and a number of mouthwatering vegetarian recipies, spelled it all out. The Green Beret dagger turned in to a pocket calculator and a biography of Ghandi. Let’s see the fat man do better than that, thought Bruno.
“The brats are coming,” hissed Vi as Bruno finished up. “We gotta hit the fucking high-road!”
Vi and Bruno slipped out the back door as they heard the shrieking pleasure of the boy and the girl opening their presents. It was followed with a confused silence — and as Vi and Bruno knew, there would be many confused silences to come as the seeds they had planted grew.
They rounded the condo and climbed into the Caddy. This time Bruno drove, firing the car up and peeling out as they raced down the street to the onramp.
*****
It made Bruno sad sometimes. They couldn’t win; Vi had to know that. They couldn’t hit every house in the world on a single night. The most they could manage was ten or twenty. They didn’t have an army of vertically-challenged non-unionized workers to do their dirty work and support their enterprize, the way the fat man did. They could never show up in every store as a symbol of the season.
But they could fight, on the battlefield they knew. And they could take down that fucker in every place they found him.
Vi, her exhaustion showing, slumped into the passenger seat. She looked up at Bruno with love in her eyes.
“We’ll be home soon, baby,” he said comfortingly, patting her knee. “We’ll be home real soon.”
“Bubble bath?” murmered Vi, her full lips twisting into a smile.
Bruno chuckled. “There’s two pints of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer with a couple of foot soldiers’ names on them, baby.”
A shudder of pleasure went through Vi’s body. “Oooooh, I love it when you talk dirty,” she said. She leaned over and kissed Bruno’s neck hungrily, and as she whispered sweet nothings into his ear, her hand slipped into his lap.
“But why wait?” whispered Vi.
Bruno leaned back into the seat and rolled the window down. His face went slack as he heard it. Outside, directly overhead. Ching-ching-ching-ching.
The sound of fucking sleighbells.
They he saw it: outlined against the moon. Fuck, someone ought to get those poor reindeer some union propaganda.
A smile spread across Bruno’s face.
“Till next time, fat man,” growled Bruno. “Merry fucking Christmas to you, motherfucker. And pleasant dreams.”
Bruno heard it. Vi paused in her affectionate ministrations: she heard it too. Echoing over the faceless suburb. Ominous and terrifying.
“HO. HO. HO.”
Bruno chuckled, flipped the fat man the finger.
“That’s right, old man. We’re coming for you with both barrels. We’re coming after you and after all your lies. Ho. Ho. Ho. Season’s Greetings, motherfucker. And to all a fucking good night.”
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Posted by Thomas Roche
on Saturday, December 10th, 2005. Filed under Fiction.
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