“Frosty the Snowcone Machine and the Matchbox car suitcase.”
“What for?”
“Survival. It was 1965, and we’d just ridden out Hurricane Betsy.” Serge joined a long line of traffic with blinkers turning into an enormous parking lot. “Guess it scarred me. It was a different time back then: People didn’t evacuate like they do now, just like they also didn’t wear seat belts and sold candy cigarettes to children. I was afraid my family and the neighbors might be wiped out by another storm or nuclear attack-they were still talking about that on TV at the time because the Cuban Missile Crisis was only three years earlier-and I’d have to survive on my own. I really sweated out those last months till Christmas. And that Christmas morning was more relief than joy. I’m like, ‘Whew! Now I can survive.’ I got the snowcone machine. You can get ice anywhere, and the machine came with flavor packets, so I’ll be able to eat, and I ripped the dividers out of the Matchbox case and filled it with clothes and a toothbrush, and hid it under my bed for emergency departure. And before dark every night, I made sure my tricycle was pointed out of the driveway. Then I’d conduct drills each week, racing from the house and throwing the little suitcase and Frosty in the tricycle’s basket and take off up the sidewalk. My folks later told me they’d stand in the window, thinking, ‘Look at that intense expression on his face. And look at him pedal! It’s almost like his life depends on it.’ ”
“You always have a plan.”
“But the one thing I don’t have is the Christmas memory I want most. I’ve never seen snow, not on December twenty-fifth or any other day. People find that outlandish, but among us who have lived our entire lives in Florida, it’s actually quite common. And I even had my chance once. On January twentieth, 1977, there was like a super-rare two-hundred-year storm event, and it happened in my lifetime. It snowed all the way down to Miami Beach. Just tiny flurries and no accumulation, but it was snow, and the Miami Herald ran headlines like when man landed on the moon. Except I was inside or something and I missed it!.. I’d give anything to see snow.”
“Look!” said Coleman. “There must be a thousand people outside that store!”
“Speaking of which…” Serge pulled into a parking slot that seemed like a mile away. “You ready for this one? We’re taking Christmas big!”
Coleman pushed his elf hat on tight. “Let’s rock.”
They got out, walked to the back of the Chevelle, and popped the trunk. A third elf, bound and gagged, squirmed like a caterpillar. Serge grabbed the edge of the duct tape across the man’s mouth. “Sleep well last night?” Then ripped the tape off, prompting a verbal deluge.
“Oh, please don’t hurt me! I wasn’t going to do anything to that woman! I swear! I’ll do anything you want! Please don’t hurt me!”
“Of course we won’t hurt you,” said Serge, producing a hypodermic needle from a shaving kit.
“W-w-what’s that for?” asked the captive.
“Fun, fun, fun!.. Coleman, where would a junkie inject? I wouldn’t want to leave the false impression of foul play.”
Coleman tapped the inside of the man’s left arm. “That vein there.”
Serge held the syringe upright, delicately pressing the plunger with his thumb until a bead of liquid dripped off the tip of the needle, then he stuck it where Coleman showed him and emptied half the chamber.
The hostage raised his head. “What was in that…?” The sentence trailed off into merry humming.
“What was in that?” asked Coleman.
“Liquid Valium. I smashed up some of your pills.”
“Serge!”
“Consider it your contribution to the War on Christmas.” Serge grabbed an arm. “Now let’s get him out of the trunk.”
They got their captive upright and began guiding him slowly across the parking lot.
“Serge,” said Coleman. “He’s got spaghetti legs.”
“Just don’t let go.”
The man continued humming and looked at Coleman with a hapless smile. “You have a funny hat.”
They eventually finished traversing the parking lot.
“The crowd’s even bigger than I thought!” said Coleman. “And we’re way in the back. We’ll never get in.”
“Yes, we will.”
“I don’t see how? They’re packed like sardines.”
“You underestimate the power of the Christmas spirit. Just don’t let go of him…” Serge raised his chin and his voice. “Elves coming through! Elves coming through!..”
The crowd magically parted, then closed back up behind them after they had passed.
“Serge, it’s working.”
“Elves here! Elves at work!..”
The trio reached the front of the crowd, which sandwiched them against the store’s locked doors. Coleman’s nose and cheek flattened against the glass. “These people are really pushing!”
“They must seriously want those Play-Boxes.” Serge needed to check his wristwatch, and struggled to get his arm up to his face like he was in a straitjacket. “I have a minute to nine. And here comes the manager with the key. Just remember what I told you.”
“My face is getting numb.”
Just as the manager reached the door and began inserting his key:
“Excuse me!” Serge shouted back at the crowd. “I’m the head elf at this store, and it is with deep regret that I must inform you we don’t quite have one hundred Play-Boxes…” Serge paced his words as he watched the manager’s key in slow motion. The lock clicked free. “We only have ten!”
Doors flew open and the mob charged.
The three elves were carried inside like surfers riding a wave, and it didn’t stop until Serge and Coleman fell off the left side of the wave near car audio.
Coleman got up and brushed dust from his felt stomach. “That was a rush… Sorry about losing my hat.”
“We lost something else,” said Serge, standing on tiptoes and craning his neck.
“Where’d he go?” asked Coleman.
“Probably wants a Play-Box. Let’s check out the DVDs.”
Bayshore Manors.
A low-rise residential complex tucked between the towering condos along Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard.
It advertised an “active retirement lifestyle,” but it was more of a rest home.
Occupants sat around the dayroom. The sole TV was playing The View.
A ninety-two-year-old woman shuffled across the terrazzo floor in slippers. She glanced around, concealing something inside her nightgown.
Three women about the same age waited on a sofa.
“Did you get it?” asked Edith.
Eunice looked back over her shoulder and nodded, then pulled a bottle from her nightgown. “Absolut. I bribed one of the therapists.”
“I got the eggnog mix,” said Ethel.
“Pour that shit,” said Edna. “And don’t be stingy.”
Everyone got their serving, and Eunice stuffed the bottle between sofa cushions. They settled in.
Edith grabbed a morning paper. “Listen to this: ‘Elf Trampled to Death in Holiday Sale Stampede.’ ”
“Every year the same headlines,” said Eunice.
Edna frowned at the television. “What’s happened to Barbara Walters?”
“I hate this show,” said Ethel.
“I hate this whole place,” said Edith.
“It’s not so bad.” Edna finished her glass. “Break out that bottle again.”
“It’s a terrible place,” Edith emphasized. “The kind of joint where they stick you when they won’t let you drive anymore.”
