7. I dare you to ask Santa for your next message.
No. No fucking no no no.
If I hadn’t appreciated her sadism, I would’ve headed straight for the hills.
But instead, I headed straight for Santa.
It wasn’t as easy as that, though. I got down to the main floor and Santa’s Wonderland, and the line was at least ten classrooms long. Children lolled and fidgeted while parents talked on cell phones or fussed with strollers or teetered like the living dead.
Luckily, I always travel with a book, just in case I have to wait on line for Santa, or some such inconvenience. More than a few of the parents—especially the dads—gave me strange looks. I could see them doing the mental math—I was way too old to believe in Santa, but I was too young to be after their children. So I was safe, if suspicious.
It took me forty-five minutes to get to the front of the line. Kids were whipping out lists and cookies and digital cameras, while I just had Vile Bodies. Finally, it was my turn. I saw the girl in front of me wrapping up, and I started to move forward.
“One second!” a dictatorial rasp commanded.
I looked down to find the least satisfying cliché in Christmas history: a power-mad elf.
“HOW OLD ARE YOU?” he barked.
“Thirteen,” I lied.
His eyes were as pointy as his stupid green hat.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice not sorry at all, “but twelve is the limit.”
“I promise I won’t take long,” I said.
“TWELVE IS THE LIMIT!”
The girl had finished her stint with Santa. It was my turn. By all rights, it was my turn.
“I just have to ask Santa one thing,” I said. “That’s all.”
The elf body-blocked me. “Get out of the line now,” he demanded.
“Make me,” I replied.
The whole line was paying attention now. Kids’ eyes were wide with fear. Most of the dads and some of the moms were getting ready to jump me if I tried anything.
“I need security,” the elf said, but I couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
I walked forward, knocking his shoulder with my thigh. I was almost at Santa when I felt a tug on my ass—the elf had grabbed the back pocket of my jeans and was trying to pull me back.
“Get. Off. Of. Me,” I said, kicking back.
“You’re NAUGHTY!” the elf screamed. “Very NAUGHTY!”
We’d caught Santa’s attention. He gave me the once-over, then chuckled out, “Ho ho ho! What seems to be the problem?”
“Lily sent me,” I said.
From somewhere behind the beard, he figured it out. Meanwhile, the elf was about to pull down my pants.
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Get off of him, Desmond!”
The elf let go.
“I’m calling security,” he insisted.
“If you do,” Santa murmured, “you’ll be back to folding hand towels so fast you won’t even have time to take the bells off your boots or your balls out of your elfy boxer briefs.”
It was a very good thing that the elf wasn’t packing any of his toy-carving tools at that point, because it might have been a very different day at Macy’s if he had.
“Well, well, well,” Santa said once the elf had retreated. “Come and sit on my lap, little boy.”
This Santa’s beard was real, and so was his hair. He wasn’t fucking around.
“I’m not really a little boy,” I pointed out.
“Get on my lap, then, big boy.”
I walked up to him. There wasn’t much lap under his belly. And even though he tried to disguise it, as I went up there, I swear he adjusted his crotch.
“Ho ho ho!” he chortled.
I sat gingerly on his knee, like it was a subway seat with gum on it.
“Have you been a good little boy this year?” he asked.
I didn’t feel that I was the right person to determine my own goodness or badness, but in the interest of speeding along this encounter, I said yes.
He actually wobbled with joy.
“Good! Good! Then what can I bring you this Christmas?”
I thought it was obvious.
“A message from Lily,” I said. “That’s what I want for Christmas. But I want it right now.”
“So impatient!” Santa lowered his voice and whispered in my ear. “But Santa does have a little something for you”—he shifted a little in his seat—”right under his coat. If you want to have your present, you’ll have to rub Santa’s belly.”
“What?” I asked.
He gestured with his eyes down to his stomach. “Go ahead.”
I looked closely and saw the faint outline of an envelope beneath his red velvet coat.
“You know you want it,” he whispered.
The only way I could survive this was to think of it as the dare it was.
Fuck off, Lily. You can’t intimidate me.
I reached right under Santa’s coat. To my horror, I found he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. It was hot, sweaty, fleshy, hairy … and his belly was this massive obstacle, blocking me from the envelope. I had to lean over to angle my arm in order to reach it, the whole time having Santa laugh, “Oh ho ho, ho ho oh ho!” in my ear. I heard the elf scream, “What the hell!” and various parents start to shriek. Yes, I was feeling up Santa. And now the corner of the envelope was in my hand. He tried to jiggle it away from me, but I held tight and yanked it out, pulling some of his white belly hair with me. “OW ho ho!” he cried. I jumped off his lap. “Security’s here!” the elf proclaimed. The letter was in my hand, damp but intact. “He touched Santa!” a young child squealed.
I ran. I bobbed. I weaved. I propelled myself through the tourists until I was safe in menswear, sheltered in a changing room. I dried my hand and the envelope on a purple velour tracksuit that someone had left behind, then opened it to reveal Lily’s next words.
8. That’s the spirit! Now, all I want for Christmas (or December 22nd) is your best Christmas memory. I also want my red notebook back, so leave it, with your memory included, in my stocking on the second floor.
I opened to the first available blank page in the Moleskine and started to write.
My best Christmas was when I was eight. My parents had just split up, and they told me I was really lucky, because this year I was going to get two Christmases instead of one. They called it Australian Christmas, because I would get presents at my mom’s place one evening and at my dad’s place the next morning, and it would be okay because they would both be Christmas Day in Australia. This sounded great to me, and I honestly felt lucky. Two Christmases! They went all out, too. Full dinners, all the relatives from each side at each Christmas. They must have split my Christmas list down the middle, because I got everything I wanted, and no duplication. Then my father, on the second night, made the big mistake. I was up late, way too late, and everyone else had gone home. He was drinking something brown-gold—probably brandy—and he pulled me to his side and asked me if I liked having two Christmases. I told him yes, and he told me again how lucky I was. Then he asked me if there was anything else I wanted.
I