Humbug
It’s a hell of a thing, finding peace in a voice you ain’t supposed to hear.
Trina’s gone for real this time, lawyer on retainer. She’s still at my house. I’m still at the club, sleeping on sheets I haven’t changed. The brothers keep their distance, watching to see if I break. I don’t. Not where they can see.
Tonight, I park my Harley in the alley behind Sno-Globes and wait until Carol’s shift ends. She doesn’t make me wait long.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says right off. “What will folks think?”
“I ain’t big on carin’ about all that,” I answer.
She climbs on behind me anyway, no helmet, wind in her hair, arms tight around my ribs like she belongs there. We don’t go far, out past the town lights, down roads that only deer use. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes she hums under her breath, and I pretend it doesn’t shake me.
When we stop, I tell her things I’ve never said out loud.
“I was ten,” I start once, voice rough from cold and truth. “Mom worked nights at a bar not too different from Sno-Globes. Titty bar.”
“Sno-globes isn’t a titty bar.”
“So, it’s a cleavage bar? You’re right. This place wasn’t no wanna be Hooters.
Anyway. Dad didn’t work at all. No legit work anyway.
Christmas Eve, he came home drunk, mad that there weren’t gifts under the tree.
He hit her. Cops came. She begged them not to take him because she thought I needed a father.
But I was tired of his shit. In the bathroom, I broke the mirror, sliced my jaw so I’d bleed.
I told the fuzz dad hit me, too. Showed them the blood…
Man never touched me like that in my life.
After that, dad bailed out, took the truck, and never came back.
Mom never forgave me for lying. Said I was born bad. Soon she bailed on me.”
Carol listens, quiet as snowfall. No pity, no fake sympathy. Just that soft presence that makes it easy to keep talking.
“I figured Christmas was just a con after that,” I say. “A bright lie for people who can afford it. Anyway, thankfully my dad had a brother who had a wife who raised me right. Still never liked Christmas… When I got out of the Marines, I bought a Harley, was a mechanic for a while.”
“Aren’t you still?”
“Yeah. My own shop. I meant, for someone else. But they wanted to pin some shit on me. Went to my cousin Frost about it, and the Executioners helped clear my name. I joined the club, climbed the ranks. Trina was a club bunny, so I should’ve known better.”
“A bunny? Like Playboy?”
“Yes, and no. It’s what we call the club girls.”
Carol nods, even though she doesn’t understand.
“When I married her, Trina knew I hated Christmas, but she’d guilt me into it, year after year. Then one Christmas she ends up in bed with another man. With Santa Claus, actually. I caught her. Things haven’t been the same since.”
“Santa?”
“Her boss in a suit.”
Carol slides her hand into mine. “Maybe it’s not the season that’s wrong. Maybe it’s who you spent it with.”
I don’t answer. Can’t. Her fingers are small, strong, sure. They remind me what it feels like to be held without being owned.
She opens up. “My dad used to hit my mom, too. Bastard left on Christmas as well. But we were afraid he wouldn’t stay gone so mom packed up and moved us here. Sno-Globes was the only place that would hire her on account of who my dad is.”
“Who is he?”
She shrugs. “I was so young. Mom won’t tell me. To this day I don’t even know. I don’t want to know about a man so important that even the rich folks who own Evervale are scared of him.”