T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the trailer park, not a creature was stirring, except for one dastardly no-good-doer named Baja Blast.
You've met Baja Blast, right? Infamous moon-shiner with a penchant for mischief? Well, he owes me a favor, you see, on account of I got him out of some hot water with the law back in 2016. He thought I forgot, but a gator never forgets. They really say that about elephants, but there ain't no elephants around here and I never did forget, and besides, who's writing this thing, anyway?
Well anyway, I got in touch with old Baja Blast about a quarter past midnight, 24 hours before Christmas and 20 hours before Baja planned on having a good old fashioned Christmas Drunk. Mason jars filled with odoriferous liquids, each one a varying shade of clear, lined the kitchen table where a Christmas dinner would be prepared. Color changing smart lights had been installed, and were currently lighting the room in a dazzling display of pink and orange. Two standing floor speakers, which Baja would never admit set him back about four grand a piece, stood ready to explode eardrums with bass and banjo. And Mrs. Elizanoranette the Third, a very fat and very floofy white Persian with atrocious table manners, was curled smartly up in his lap while The Game played on the DVR. Baja Blast was gonna have himself a good Christmas, dammit – which is why, when he saw my name pop up on his caller ID, he cussed so loud he scared Mrs. Elizanoranette across the trailer.
He sent me to voicemail the first couple times. But Baja Blast and I go way back, and he knows I don't give up easy when I've got a wild hair to be annoying. So on the third call, he answers, and his shouted "WHAT?" blasts through the earspeaker of the burner phone I'm smart enough to hold three feet from my ear.
"Baja," my reptilian vocal chords hiss as I return the phone to my face, "remember that time you totally didn't get caught smoking weed in the abandoned ladies' restroom in Dwink Hall in college?"
Baja's silence tells me he absolutely remembers.
"Aaand," I continue, as he's giving me nothing conversationally, "do you remember how I definitely didn't get that cop off your back and hide the evidence for you?"
Silence, for a moment, and then he responds: "'Hiding the evidence' sounds a helluva lot better than 'eating an ounce of marijuana in one bite like a boa constrictor.'"
I wave one clawed hand in front of my face as if he can see me physically dismissing the statement. "Details. Listen, I ain't asked you to do nothin' for me since then --"
"Horse shit. Last week you asked me to help you move a sofa set from Mississippi to Wyoming."
"Yeah, well, I can't bear the thought of those animals up in Yellowstone not havin' anywhere comfy to sit."
"And you thought two loveseats and a recliner was gonna fix that?"
"Well hell, Baja, it's squirrels and shit. They're small and they can share."
The pause from the earspeaker of the Nokia flip phone in my hand was deafening. Finally, that grizzled slur I've come to know and love piped up once more.
"Well I suppose that makes sense. I'm still afraid I can't help ya. I'm out of town right now and --
"You're sitting on your sofa with your feet on the table watching a football game from 2022."
Baja sputtered and looked around wildly, before barking into the phone, "No I am not! … How did you know that?"
I sigh and raise the hand not holding the burner phone and knock three times on Baja Blast's door. Silence from within, silence on the line. Finally, I hear the muffled sound of boots hitting carpet and the clicking of seven locks being undone one by one. The door swings open, and there he is. Standing at just under six feet, long, tawny blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, and 5'o'clock shadow permanently affixed to his chin, Baja was the state's youngest and most accomplished moonshine artist. And right now he's watching me cross the threshold of his trailer and plop unceremoniously into the seat he just vacated.
"I need you to break into my friend's house and I also need you to pretend I did it."
His expression does not change. He simply fixes his gaze upon me vacantly.
"… No."
"Now hang on, Baja! I ain't told you the details yet!"
"Don't need 'em. Last time I broke into somewhere on your behalf, I had eighty pounds of German Shepherd chasin' me around half of Smith County. Now I've got a scar the shape of Alaska on my ass, and…" He looked around, desperate for an excuse, for a way to weasel out of doing his favorite customer a Christmas favor. Finally and suddenly, he snatched up a jar of amber liquid that sloshed violently as he did so. "And I've got two quarts of cinnamon 'shine starin' me down. Callin' my damn name."
A grin curled at my lips, exposing a row of triangular teeth. "I think you've had enough, Mr. Blast."
"Had enough a' yer bull!"
I sigh in exasperation and lift my scaled feet up to rest on his coffee table. "Listen. Listen listen listen. I obligated myself into this Secret Santa thing, and I have no idea how to do a Secret Santa, Baja. I just need you to get some presents down his chimney and act like Santa did it, but really ya gotta act like I did it while pretending to be Santa. And also it's gotta be perfect. And also don't get caught."
That same fixed stare. "And why can't you do this yourself?"
"Because it's a Secret Santa! If I get caught, there goes the secret!"
Baja sputters. "And if I get caught?"
"I told you don't get caught!"
Baja Blast sits down beside me in exasperation, unscrewing the lid of a mason jar and taking a measured sip of cinnamon 'shine. We're quiet there for a while, which happens often with the two of this. It's not an awkward thing. I know he's probably thinking about a solution to our (my) predicament, and I know I'm thinking about ducks. What goes through those tiny little brains?
After a while, Baja speaks. "The person who you gotta be Santa to. Who is it?"
I sigh. "Someone who deserves way better, I tell you. I bet if anyone else had drawn his name, he'd have a normal present and not… whatever this mess is."
"That don't answer my question, Teef." Baja offers the mason jar, and I take it gratefully. The heat of spices and alcohol floods my senses, and as I swallow, I feel a warm confidence in my chest.
"Well, it's like, you know sometimes you meet a person who's just a kinder person than you can ever imagine being? A beacon of positivity shining brighter than the sun? He's the glue that holds my crowd together, I know it."
"And you're agonizing here because…?"
"Because, dude! Have you met me? Everything I touch, I make weird, and one of the awesomest dudes I know deserves the awesomest present I can come up with, which is why I need you."
There's a sigh and a shift and next thing I know Baja is staring me down in a way I've seen a thousand times. It's the look that says, plainer than English, "you're a damn idiot." He takes the moonshine away from me.
"This guy is the king of positivity, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Which means he's nice?"
"Literally the nicest."
"Then why don't you just tell him that?"
I'm silent for a long moment. Our eyes search the others', mine perplexed and his set in seriousness. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't understand an honest moment of emotional sincerity. You're an alligator."
I shoot to my feet, claws contorting and legs powering me towards the door. Mrs. Elizanoranette is once again startled across the trailer. "Oh, really?!" I reach the door of Baja Blast's trailer and cast a derisive glance over my shoulder. "For your information, Baja, I don't understand emotional sincerity because I don't understand anything. Being an alligator has nothing to do with it!"
Baja just grins as the door slams behind me. The drive back to the hotel is a short one; not a short distance, oh no, but you'd be amazed how fast a 2002 Honda can go if you've really got the spirit. Emotional sincerity. I'll show that bastard. I enter the hotel room in a flurry, a cyclone of paper and pens swirling around me as I prepare to be emotionally sincere. Finally I'm sitting cross legged on the floor, surrounded by supplies of sincerity. The next 24 hours are… a bit of a blur. I can't tell you what happened during them, but I can tell you how it ends.
It ends with a note in your inbox.
