Chapter 6 Axel
Axel
The only thing easier than stealing a Santa suit from a department store is pretending you ever believed in Christmas in the first place.
I got to the local mall at nine sharp, when the only people on the clock were hungover, underpaid, and one more customer complaint away from blowing their brains out in the employee breakroom.
I stashed the Harley behind a dumpster, out of sight of the mall’s fake security camera.
It was thirty degrees and drizzling, a wet bone-suck that made my hands ache.
I didn’t bother with gloves. You lose too much feeling that way.
I pulled my hoodie up, walked with my hands jammed in the pockets, head down, and posture tight, like every other lowlife counting the minutes till they could shoplift a rotisserie chicken from the Kroger next door.
I clocked the security guard right away—old guy, pants two sizes too big, sporting a fake badge and a real limp. He was scanning the perfume aisle, probably tracking a middle-schooler who’d pocketed a bottle of Adidas cologne. He never saw me. Or if he did, he didn’t give a shit.
The Santa suit itself hung from a rolling garment rack behind a half-wall of “Seasonal Specials.” It looked like a crime scene with its drool-stained lapel, shredded Velcro, and a smell that hit me even before I got my hands on it—stale peppermint, cheap bourbon, and the undertone of fifty thousand unwashed mall kids.
I grabbed the suit, the hat, and a beard that looked like it’d been harvested from the undercarriage of a Ford Taurus, then circled through Menswear, hit the fitting room, and locked the door behind me.
I checked the mirror. I looked less like Santa and more like a guy who’d beat the shit out of Santa and left him for dead in a Red Lobster parking lot. Which, honestly, was the vibe I wanted.
I rolled the suit tight, jammed it into my backpack, and smoothed the hoodie over the bulge.
On my way out, I made a pit stop at the sock bin and palmed a pair of black crew socks—last year’s style, nobody ever checked the tags on the sale stuff.
The guard was still circling, but when I caught his eye, he just nodded.
I nodded back, and that was the whole transaction.
I was out of the store in three minutes, maybe less.
By the time I got to Fable Christian, the sky was spitting ice and the parking lot was already jammed full of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks so big they probably required a CDL.
The church sat at the top of a hill, all fake-stone facade and stained-glass windows depicting Jesus with the abs of a pro wrestler.
They’d gone balls-deep on the Christmas theme.
A twelve-foot inflatable Nativity, lights on every branch, a projection of snowflakes dancing across the steeple like a club kid’s wet dream, sat front and center.
I idled in the shadow of the youth rec center, zipped up my hoodie, and swapped out my jeans for a pair of black slacks I’d swiped from Vin’s laundry pile. The suit went in the duffel; the real magic, as always, was in the details.
Inside the church, I kept my head down, followed the smell of cookies and the noise of a hundred screaming kids. There were volunteers everywhere, all in matching green T-shirts with “Jesus Is The Reason For The Season” printed in Comic Sans. I flashed a smile and tried not to show my teeth.
The “Santa Prep Room” was a converted Sunday School classroom, with posters of cartoon Noahs and cartoon zebras lining the wall.
The real Santa was sitting at a folding table, stuffing his face with sugar cookies and making small talk with a volunteer in a reindeer headband.
The guy looked exactly how you’d expect, standing six-five, four hundred pounds, a white beard that was at least thirty percent nicotine stains, and a gut so big it had its own gravitational field.
I sized him up.
“Can I help you?” he said, crumbs spitting out with every syllable.
I set my duffel on the table and gave him the once-over. “Yeah. I got a proposition.”
He grunted, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The volunteer—some college sophomore, probably doing penance for last week’s blackout—looked back and forth, trying to decide if she needed to run for help or if this was just more church drama.
“I’m listening,” the Santa said, voice already bored.
I unzipped the duffel and took out a roll of cash, all ones and fives, but enough of them that it looked substantial. I set it on the table.
“You take a lunch break, I take your place. One hour, no questions.”
He stared at the cash, then at me. “You wanna play Santa?” He said it like maybe he’d just met the world’s biggest pervert.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve got… friends, and they got bets on whether I could pull it off without getting tased.” I paused, let the threat hang. “Plus, I got a kid of my own I don’t get to see. It’d mean a lot.”
The Santa guy looked at the money, at me, then at the girl. She blinked, said nothing. The guy chewed his mustache. “What if I say no?”
I leaned in, low. “Then I come back tonight with a few of my friends, and we make sure you never work another Santa gig in this town.” I smiled. “Or you take the money and hit the bar before your shift’s over. Who’s gonna know?”
He snorted, almost laughed. Then he palmed the roll, looked the girl in the eye, and said, “Bathroom break. Be right back.”
He left through a side door. The volunteer watched him go, then looked at me. “Is he coming back?”
I shrugged. “I doubt it.”
She stared, then finally smiled, like maybe this was the best thing that’d happened all morning. “You know how to put the suit on?”
“Do I look like an amateur?” I shot back, and she actually giggled. I liked her for that.
I unrolled the suit, shook out the red felt and white trim.
It was two sizes too small, but I made it work.
The beard itched like insulation, but at least it covered most of my face.
The hat wouldn’t fit over the hood, so I crammed it down as far as I could and let the pom-pom dangle over my left ear.
The girl helped pin the name tag to my chest—“SANTA BOB”—and handed me a laminated schedule of events.
“You got ten minutes,” she said, “then you walk down the main hall and take the throne. Smile for the parents, wave at the kids, don’t make promises about ponies or anything alive, and whatever you do, don’t let anyone sit on your lap more than thirty seconds. ”
I took it all in. “What’s the record for the day?”
She grinned. “Five hours, forty-seven minutes. Don’t worry, you won’t break it.”
I flexed my hands, which felt naked without a cigarette or a beer. “Got a mirror?”
She pointed to the utility closet, which had a cracked bathroom mirror taped to the inside of the door. I ducked in, took a look, and almost laughed out loud.
Santa Bob, meet the Ghost of Christmas Felony.
The beard barely hid my stubble, and the hat kept sliding off my skull.
The suit strained across my shoulders, leaving a gap at the wrist where my tattoos showed like prison bars.
I looked less like a jolly old elf and more like the kind of Santa that showed up in children’s nightmares, stealing their presents and then threatening to shank the Easter Bunny behind the Waffle House.
I pulled a flask from my boot—old habit—and took a long pull. Cheap whiskey, but it did the job. The warmth bloomed in my chest, chased off the nerves, and reminded me why I was here. I practiced a couple “Ho Ho Ho”s, but they came out like coughs or threats. I tried again, softer.
“Ho, ho, ho,” I whispered, voice raspy from the smoke and the cold. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
I liked the sound of it.
Outside the door, the noise was getting louder. Parents corralling kids, the bounce and drone of Christmas carols, the wheeze of a busted PA system.
The girl knocked. “Ready?”
I nodded, popped the beard over my chin, and squared my shoulders. “Let’s make some Christmas memories,” I said.
She giggled, then yanked the door open and led me out into the corridor.
I paused for a second, just to savor the feeling.
Not nerves, not dread. Something else. Like the ghost of hope, or maybe just the knowledge that for the next hour, nobody expected me to be anything except exactly what I was, a fraud in a red suit, faking it for the crowd, trying to hold it together long enough to get through the day.
I flexed my hands, felt the fabric rip at the seams, and walked toward the sound of children screaming.
Santa Claus was coming to town.
***
The main hall of Fable Christian Church was a crime against good taste and probably several fire codes.
There were enough blinking lights to trigger an epileptic episode, tinsel everywhere, and a dump truck’s worth of plastic snow so dense you couldn’t see the actual tile beneath it.
Someone had built a North Pole out of PVC pipe and packing peanuts; every time a kid bumped it, it shed a new layer of drifts on the floor.
At the end of it all was my destination, the high-backed velvet throne surrounded by mechanical reindeer with dead eyes and a mound of cotton-ball snow that looked like a cocaine bust from the ‘80s.
The second I stepped into the light, a hundred eyes turned and did that flicker of hope to confusion to something darker.
Parents hustled their kids forward, shoving them into line, but the kids were wary.
Some went full statue, locked in terror.
A few started crying before I even sat down. It was a beautiful thing.
I plopped onto the throne. It creaked under my weight, and the fake beard slid up over my mouth. I yanked it down, then motioned for the first kid to approach.
He was five, maybe six. His name tag said “Jimmy,” and he looked like he’d seen some shit already. His mom hovered behind him, camo parka and a look on her face that said she’d tackle Santa if he got too handsy.