Holiday, Holi-don't, oh Lord forgive me, I'm starting a multipart column thing here. Even through the haze right now I can tell you this is a bad idea. But I got prepared for it, you know, I got...

I wanted to make sure I didn't stop myself from telling these three stories. Three, not two or nothing, no, three stories of the holidays that I wanted to tell you. But, you see, I didn't want to tell anyone. Who really wants to share this shit?

Oh fuck, remembering some of this is like having maggots crawl out of your asshole. I can't do it, but I told them I would. I mean I really did. I called up DGrove, the Sultan of Swing, and I told him, "Yes, sir, Sultan, I'll have them columns done for youse. You'll see. You'll gets 'em, I says!" and then I hung up and started shaking.

That was three days ago.

It isn't even that the stories scare me, naw that ain't it. I've just fought so hard to shut them down, to lock them away from my head, that I don't want to go back. Fuck.

All right.

I was like ten or something. We lived in a decent sized pre-war apartment in the Columbia area that looks a fuck of a lot better now and goes for twenty-seven times the price. Even then, though, it was a nice place to be as a kid.

Anyway, on Xmas Eve I would always be told to stay in my room past bedtime and not to get up or go out of the room until morning. Come morning there would be presents that Santa left under the tree. But if I got up and peeked, Santa would know, and he would leave, laughing.

Santa loves nothing more than taunting small children, you understand.

So I went to bed, and, Christ, you expect me to wake up and find, like, my father dead or some shit in a Santa outfit, don't you? No, I can feel it; I tread upon well-trod waters here, and I don't blame you one bit. I just want to preempt that before you think you have it figured out and start to skim, and, well there goes the whole fucking idea of reading doesn't it?

Maybe you're one of those people who thinks that websites are just cute, but not really print, I don't know. You want to respect it as print? Buy a fucking printer and shut the fuck up. Wait, no, where was I? Fuck I hope my editor will take that out for me. (Ed. Note - No I won't, and I am emphatically not his editor. I'm the bartender.)

So I went to bed, like I was saying. I went to bed and snuggled into warm covers and dreams of fuck all knows what, and I curled up, and I wanted a baseball bat so bad. A nice solid wooden baseball bat. Hell, I didn't even play baseball; I thought that would improve my chances, see. I figured that Santa would want to give me my baseball bat in hopes that I would become some kind of sports hero like my father wanted me to be.

The truth, though, is that I was just sick of this bully at school and thought upgrading to weaponry might help. That, though, is a different story.

So, come the middle of the night I wake up, like all ten-year-olds do on Christmas Eve, and I decide to peek to see if I can spot Santa. I mean, I knew the warnings, but I figured that was all bullshit told to keep me from seeing something, like, my parents having sex or whatever. I was world-wise, you understand.

I snuck out of my room and crept toward to the living room, being all super spy sneaky. I didn't make a sound. I was ninja.

There, in the living room, was a guy who was dressed in a Santa suit. He sorta kinda maybe looked like my father, but he also looked like someone utterly different. I saw him and fucking well froze. I stood stock still and thought about creeping away again, but he turned his head towards me and spotted me.

Then the bastard shrugged. He just shrugged and picked up some wrapped things -- one of them was bat sized, too -- and put them back in this big cloth sack he had. He shrugged at me with this look that said, "You knew the rules, kid."

I just stood there, gaping, as he left the apartment. I mean, I couldn't just run after Santa, right? So I went back to bed and figured it was all some sick dream. I got up that morning and went out to the living room, clutching to my supposed dream, and my parents met me in the hallway. They asked me if I had done anything, broken a rule. I hemmed, and I hawed, but I also confessed. They nodded sadly, and I saw that there wasn't a single present under the tree.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

I cried until I couldn't cry anymore. “At least,” I thought, “there'll be next year.”

I was wrong, of course. I never got a Xmas present again until I moved out.

So, as we approach the holidays faster and faster, that's my first big word of warning to you: Don't fuck with Santa. That bastard holds grudges.