HOME | DD

Description
Carson's First Christmas.  Part 1 of 7---R for language, lots of language.  Keith is in it, isn't he?

This is a weird little side bunny that snuck in while I was trying to be responsible and finish something else.  It got me by the throat and threatened my life if I didn't pay attention to it.  It's funny how writer-bunnies are always much nastier than real life rabbits.  Sometimes I think mine hang in the hood and sell drugs for a living.

Anyhoo---Carson lived with his demon father, ya'know.  He never really experienced a holiday in his life.  Guess who was appalled when he found that out?  And it is during Christmas break that Carson arrives, so---

I think this would occur after right after Phone Call VI, which I am still beating into shape.  So it skips about a day.

REVISED On the advice of an internet buddy who grumbled about the lack of True Magick on Keith's part, this bit has been significantly revised .

Part 1  Puttin' On the Ritz

I was like a fucking kid in a toy store.  I had never shopped in downtown San Francisco before, not with someone else's bottomless wallet I hadn't.  And I'd finally discovered that it could be fucking great.  With the right attitude, of course.

My attitude at first hadn't been all that good.  Trouble was, you go where the driver goes, and Carson had for some weird reason brought me to the upscale part of San Fran.  It was like a hostile foreign country to me, and I was tense.  I felt like an alley cat with fleas in an elevator full of white Persians with pink bows, traveling straight down to the cat show in hell to be judged alongside them.

Most of these haughty felines seemed to be dressed as sales clerks, oddly enough.  And all eyeing me and Carson as if we came from outer space.

I tried to ignore them loftily, emulating Carson.  I don't know why it didn't come off on my end---probably the fact that I didn't just grab what I liked and tell them I'd take it.  But I had been a boy on a budget too long for that.  I couldn't shake the poor-white-trash habits of a lifetime in half an hour.

After a nervous period of checking price tags and saying "Fuck me! No way!" through store after store, I finally noticed Carson's closed expression.  His deepening silence, and no trace of the beautiful smile he'd worn at home, when I'd finally agreed to let him spend some money on me.

And I realized I was being an anal dick, Scrooge incarnate.  Worse, a middle-aged old fart.

I was ruining his first real Christmas Eve.

It was about two in the afternoon downtown when he dragged me into Gump's, bright but chilly as is usual in a Bay Area city in the winter.  On the last shopping day before Christmas the streets were jammed.  Even in this snooty-tooty part of SF, frantic rude shoppers jostled from stores and snarled with tension.  They were just better dressed-assholes with more packages than the ones on Powell Street.  Meaner, too, it seemed to me.

Gump's.  The stuffiest, most broomstick-up-our-butt rich people's flea market on the face of the Earth.

I coulda killed Carson for bringing me to this pesthole, except I knew that he was trying so hard to please.  He was focused on spending the huge bucks on me, and didn't have a clue why I wasn't having fun.   I don't know if he would've understood even if I explained.  These ritzy surroundings totally squashed any merry feelings I could muster, I didn't know why myself really.  And
Carse was not the kind of boy who let the outside world get to him.  We were truly on different wavelengths in this case.

Even crowded the place reminded me of a funeral home.  Poised clerks in grey-flannel suits like stuffed, disapproving morticians eyed us as we trudged inside.  They all resembled either Ed Sullivan or Alfred Hitchcock to me, even the women.  Especially the women. We were definitely not dressed for Gump's.

I picked up a box just to please Carson, then studied it more closely and almost forgot about all the disapproval winging my way.  It was a beautiful thing, etched on the sides with a leaf design.  I liked stash boxes, even if they had no stash in them.  This one looked like it had been carved from an opalescent crystal.  It was not so big for a box, about the size of a fat Stephen King paperback.  I opened it---the lid was connected to the container by a delicate silver chain.  There was a square-cut green gemstone of some kind on the top, I reckoned maybe a peridot.

The inside bottom was a mirror lightly etched with a silver unicorn.  I saw my face reflecting behind the beast like a giant kid gazing down into fairyland, my mouth drooping open with sheer wonder.  Even with a mustache, I looked about twelve years old.  Well, the store sucked wind but they did have some nice stuff, I'd admit to that.

I decided I had to have this trinket.  I still felt guilty about having nothing for Carson, but the lure was too strong and I was one hooked trout.

Okay. I'd let Carson buy this one thing for me----it must cost at least a couple hundred, because the workmanship was incredible.  After maybe a few more small presents, I'd urge him on home, wear him out with sex until he dropped like a rock. Then I'd sneak around my house and search for some old treasure lost in the clutter that I could pretend I bought for him.  It would be like an archeological dig, but worth it to me.  I knew I'd lost some precious stuff in my very own home, in five despairing years.

I turned the box over, saw the discreet little price tag, and nearly dropped the damn thing.  I was totally speechless for a second.  In fact I thought I had gone crazy, or maybe my glasses had fallen off and I hadn't noticed.  I put the box almost against my face to look, felt the soft clink of crystal against my John Lennon specs and finally believed it.

Fuck me, my first CAR didn't cost five thousand nine hundred dollars and fifty-two cents!

The store hadn't been loud to begin with, polite murmured conversations seemed to be the order of the day here.  My voice was the loudest thing in the place, actually.  Oh yeah.  I'd said it aloud all right.  And after I did you sure as shit could hear a pin drop.

I imagined the Ed Sullivan clerks booting me off the stage.  The Hitchies would be waiting below with scalpels, ready to operate on my profane larnyx.  I looked around guiltily, and it was indeed like being a rocker boy on stage at a Moral Majority convention.  There were looks of shock at my language----but I realized it was a kind of pleased shock.

I was performing as expected.  The long-haired twit in blue jeans and worn fringed suede jacket had obviously wandered in with his biker pal by accident.  He would now put the box back neatly and slink out the door like a good little low-life, thereby inflating every Gumper's already godlike opinion of him-or-herself.

I looked over at Carson.  He was watching me silently, looking a little tired, somewhat sad.

His expression changed though.   I know that because we never glanced away from each other as my eyes slowly turned as green as the emerald on that ridiculously overpriced box.

I checked in the mirror to verify.  Oh, yes.  Inhumanly green this time.  I mighta been wearing designer contacts, except I wasn't.

You can't chase magic down and catch it.  It just pours through your fingers like water if you try.   But if you're lucky, it pauses every now and then, like a curious kitten, and gives you a brief chance to make it your friend.

I did not put the box down.  Instead I grabbed Carson's butt in the region of the back pocket and felt around.  He actually jumped.  I think everyone in the store might have done the same, but I was only focused on one person.  Not for the reason the shocked richies and probably Carson himself thought, though.

"Where the hell you keep your wallet, man?  Gimmee."

Staring at me with gradually building wildfire in his eyes, he reached into a hidden pocket inside the leather jacket, and handed it over.

I checked inside and whistled softly.  "My sugar daddy.  Uh-huh."

I slipped the wallet into my own jacket and pulled a wadded plastic Safeway bag from my jeans.  I always kept one on me, since I never knew if the flea markets I went to would supply anything to carry your crap in.  Although they seemed to do far better than Gump's; hadn't seen anything like a cart or even a hand-basket in this joint.  "You're a rich-folk boy," I observed conversationally to Carson.  "What do you guys do, carry your crap on your heads?  Or maybe stick it up your---"

He didn't answer, was staring over my shoulder.  His face was arrogant now and forbidding, except for one helpless twitch at the corner of that beautiful mouth that I suddenly wanted to taste.  Maybe I would, soon as I got rid of the Ed Sullivan I felt looming at my back even before he tapped my shoulder discreetly.

"Sir?  I'm afraid I'll have to ask you and your friend to leave before you---"

I turned to face him while briskly shaking out the bag and dropping the box in.  "Yeh, yeh---break something.  Don't have to spell it out to me, Ed."  And then I strolled to another museum-quality display and picked up a little statue of Baast curiously.  I squinted at the price-tag and squalled. "Nine hundred dollars and sixty-shit-- Nah, won't waste your money, Carse.  The Mystic Eye got the same thing for about a hundred fifty.  Wanta go there later?"

"Certainly."  His voice was stony because he had gotten between me and the sputtering clerk, but I at least could hear the faint tremor in that rich intimidating voice before he conquered it.

Given his protection, added to the annoying fact that my poor old sack was beginning to tear from the sharp corner of my little box, I decided to entertain him further.  He was a tough audience, but I knew I could crack him.

I grabbed out my box, allowing the grocery bag to flutter to the grey patterned rug.   I still had the little cat statuette in my other hand.  Something, probably the cat-goddess herself, prompted me to start juggling the items while looking around hopefully for a third item of the same size.  I always juggled best in groups of three.

And then my mind took over; I've always had a very visual imagination.  All my therapists said so.  It explained to them why I visualized Carson's dad turning into a demon as he attacked us.  It explained why I needed to cling to reality.  It explained why I needed to reject that past image, and all other weird suspicious images.

Like the one right in front of me, the image of a snarky cat-girl with long blue hair braided six ways to Sunday, and skin like black silk.  Jesus Christ, and she was talking!

Baast was not happy.  She had been brought here by evil magic, imprisoned in bronze by a sculptress who thought only of her commission, not of the honor of recreating the Goddess.  They had frozen her by some evil spell so she could not move or leave this dreadful tomb, and stuck a number on her butt designating her value as if she were a slave.

But now one had finally come who understood magic.  She would help him.  She would be free again.  And she would wreak havoc on her torturers.

I was freaked, I admit it.  "Bronze, huh?  Explains your weight.  Hard to juggle. "

A gentleman, I was primly informed, did not mention a lady's weight.  Nor her age, not after so many many years.  But since I saw her as she was, she might forgive me.

Since I was doing so many things right at this point.

"Juggle me," she whispered seductively.  How could I help but laugh?  "And I will help you see----"

Despite all this, I was still able to keep half an eye on Carson as the bleating clerk frantically tried to push him aside and failed as miserably as any sheep would, butting a stone wall like that.  I turned negligently so I could watch that little show and also make a request.  "Hey Carson?  Could you grab that little what-not there----yeah, that one---and toss it to me about a foot above my head?"

The little what-not was a silver lizard with chips of red stone for eyes.  As I mentioned it, the item suddenly shook itself, turned its head, and looked at me piercingly.  I heard a shocked gasp from one of the customers who had obviously seen the movement.

The clerk turned the color of day-old cat barf.  "Call security!" he screamed out, in a suddenly much less refined tone.   Apparently he ranged with the majority, who only saw my juggling act and the mundane trouble I was causing here.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Carson said quietly, and something in his voice made the mortician confronting us freeze.  Then my boy reached into the other side of his jacket, and I burst out laughing like a maniac, stopping the juggling act since he was too busy to help me.

I felt the wave go through the room. Rich people were humans after all, everyone there experienced the impulse to hit the deck at my boy's move.  A few actually lost all their refinement, broke training and scuttled to the exit to escape before the shooting began.

And despite the fact they didn't know what I would do next any more than I did, a sizeable number of people were beginning to laugh.

The ice-eyed killer in black leather pulled out his Luger, just as his ratty red--haired friend said plaintively, "Can I get some help over here?  And maybe a better shopping bag?  I need more stuff but I don't wanna break this box!"

I kept one eye on Carson, interested, as he handed the trim, obviously costly leather cardholder to the bug-eyed sales clerk.  "My driver's license, and my bank's number.  I would suggest you call that number before doing anything you might very seriously regret.  And ask for a Mr. Hampton."

"Wow," I observed as the guy took the card and backed away, now dropping uncertain "Sir's" all over the place, even to me I think. "Root of all evil, my ass.  Money rocks.  That bozo looked less scared when he thought it was a gun!"

The snotty look on Carse's face---which he did damn well by the way---faded as he studied me.  He looked about twelve years old now himself.  He also looked like he was gonna kiss me senseless any second here.

I could have gone for it right then and there.  And Baast was on my side, the shameless girl.  She was leaning on me now, studying Carson with total approval; I could see her clearly, but only felt a portion of the weight a five foot four inch human should possess.  But her purr rippled through me like low thunder.  "You have chosen well, flamewielder."

"Don't I know it."

"He is beautiful."

"Got that right."  If Carson noticed Baast at all, it was only as a glow around me.  And being a sex-goddess, well, I guess she was firing up his hornies.  The expression in his eyes had changed from admiration to a pure force of lust that was gonna render me horizontal in a flat second if I didn't distract him a bit.

"You will have him this night."

"And without any help from YOU," I agreed, pushing her away strongly.

Thank gawd, I felt an uncertain tap on my shoulder and turned to accept a discreet sort of padded paper bag from a gal maybe a couple years older than Carson.  She didn't look like Ed or Al one bit.  Oh, she was dressed for this place, a severe modest grey suit, nylons and conservative pumps my maiden aunt wouldn't have been caught dead in.  And she had a good poker face, but her eyes were nearly watering with suppressed laughter and her voice was decidedly friendly.  "Here.  Or I could wrap your purchases as you choose them, sir. And hold them at the----"

"Thanks.  And Merry Christmas---" I squinted at her nametag, which was as damned discreet as the price stickers in this incredibly fucked-up place.   "Candy?  I'm Keith, not sir.  You work on commission, right?"

She looked a little startled at the question.  Maybe totally stunned, since she blurted out, "Well, a shitty salary plus commission plus all the perks of working with statues----"

She shut up automatically, then met my eyes and we both cracked up, breaking the mood of the place for that day at least.  Several well-dressed sorts were hanging on each other and nearly weeping by now, and I thought the better of them for it.

And then at last I could hear what I needed---one other person just behind me finally gave up too, helpless deep laughter I loved the sound of.  I didn't bother to check if everyone else in the place had dropped dead because there was sure no sound from any of the ones who weren't howling.

Baast had vanished, and the lizard had scuttled away.  The walls were no longer moving in waves of color as if a storm wind was rippling through curtains.  The one guy who had noticed all the otherworldly crap was rubbing his eyes almost frantically.  I felt like doing the same, almost.

I was a belligerent rocker boy who'd flipped out some uptight jerks.  Made my lover proud of me.   Nothing more or less.

"So you get a commission if you follow me around and show me the good stuff and ring up my order, right?"

"That's how it works." She had a really nice smile, I thought.  And a really greedy look on her face I enjoyed immensely.

"'K then."  I glanced back at Carson, who was snootily accepting his little wallet back from the same grey-faced, speechless clerk.  He dismissed the guy by simply turning his back on him without a word of thanks.  Then he turned his full attention to me.  Oh, man.  I was gonna get a hard-on right in the middle of the store if he kept smiling at me like that.  Hell, I already had it.

"Let's go shoppin' first," I said, putting every bit of innuendo I had into the words.  "Candy here is gonna help us out and get a big fat commission, right Candy?  And then probably retire on the proceeds to a farm in Ohio or something."

She glanced toward one of the gaping female Gumpers, a dark woman who was tall as me, but skinny as a swizzle stick.  If there were any boobs on this babe she was keeping them in her pocket or something; I've seen guys who had more than she did, and not fat guys either.  She had a hoity-toity expression, and her make-up choices reminded me of the evil stepmother in Snow White.  Yeh, that was it.  And the poor woman musta got stuck in her transformation to witch, because her nose was a hook that coulda killed somebody.  Looked pretty odd, in that cold elegant face.  Her powder-blue pantsuit was more than odd.  She musta been a big shot, to be able to pull that off in this store.  Yeah, she was a fox, all right.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard to keep from laughing at her nose and clothes.  No need to be too damn rude I guess.

"MS. Brewster!" this witch cracked out in a warning voice, and that seemed to lock my new friend's decision firmly in place.

"You are soooo fucking right about that, Keith," Candy sorta drawled, and then all three of us cracked up yet again.

I bought maybe four more items in that joint before checking out, and thankfully with Candy's help it went much quicker.  We trotted from piece to piece, giggling and gabbling like kids playing hooky.  She would explain why such-and-such was great, or whether a bit that caught my eye could be had for much cheaper elsewhere.  She was a stone groove.  I think part of the reason she was so helpful was to irritate her supervisor even further, and by gawd the woman already looked like she might explode outta her panties.  But we liked each other too.  When she rang up my purchases I dropped my phone number on her, carefully explaining that it was in case these guys tried to stiff her outta commission, so Carson could take care of it.

She looked kinda wistful, as if wishing I really was coming on to her.  Then she glanced at Carson, who was drifting around the store picking out items in a casually sneaky way that didn't fool either me or Candy one bit.

That bastard.  "And I still don't have a thing for---"

"You have his wallet.  What's the problem?"

I stared at this amazing woman in delight.  "Buy him presents with his own damn money?  That's almost----"

"Incestuous?"

"Uh-huh.  Damn good idea."

"But not in this dump," she suggested firmly.

"Nah.  He's seen everything you have here, wouldn't be a surprise."  I paid for all my shit, said goodbye and stepped outside like a gentleman to wait at the door.  You know, to give Carson breathing room to shop and think he was actually fooling me.

Rich folks hustled and bustled past me, some of them looking with disbelief at the numerous Gump bags I held so carelessly.  A few people coming outta the store paused to introduce themselves, shake my hand, say they wouldn't have missed it for the world.  I collected several phone numbers and offers to "do lunch", whatever that meant.  Sounded kinda filthy to me.  One woman mentioned that Gump's should hire people every year to put on a show like that, whoever had planned it was a marketing genius.

Hmmm.  I was that entertaining, was I?

The magic was still simmering high in me.  It was the same kind of feeling I always used to get onstage with my band, when self-consciousness would wither and die.  I'm not sure if I put on a mask or took a thousand masks off, but I was always someone else with a guitar in my hand and music foaming around and through me.  I had never thought I could sing in front of people, until I joined Dreadnought and discovered that enthralling a crowd was what I loved best.

Yeah, a part of me was total exhibitionist.  And although it didn't come fully formed, that rich babe's careless assumption gave me a groovy idea.  Wouldn't work in this crusty part of town, though.

I waited impatiently for Carson to emerge so I could haul his butt to my chosen turf.  I'd been a San Francisco kid before ever hearing of Berkeley, and I knew where they hid the good stuff.

I intended to show my boy some shit he'd probably never, ever dreamed of.

Even as I thought this, I felt a soft push against my ankles.  I looked down into the very blue eyes of a small, lean black kitter-cat with a golden collar.  Not a cat-collar, more like layered jewelry.

I have always been a cat person, this was actually the first year I had been without a pet feline or three.  And so I've seen cats grin before---but nothing like this.  The amusement was intense, intelligent, almost frightening in its purity.  "Chosen One," she purred.  "I am insulted, you did not purchase me."

"I---uh!"  From the corner of my eye, I noticed the silver lizard scuttle out of the doors of Gump's.  It took a breath, leaped off the tidy stairs of that austere establishment, and inflated into a thirty-foot dragon with glistening scales.  Once airborne the critter leisurely flapped off in the general direction of Chinatown.

Other critters rushed down the stairs as well, a bit less concrete in form than the cat but still partly visible to my suddenly heightened senses.  Lions and bears and tigers, oh my.  A white rabbit walking uncertainly on its hind legs and pulling at its red waistcoat.  Jesus Christ, where was Carson?  Was I going nuts here?  I needed him suddenly and badly, to center my whirling brain.

Instead of Carse, the one human guy who had seemed to notice the magic pushed through the door, followed by his brightly chattering, oblivious girlfriend.  He was dressed in casual rich-guy daywear, expensive slacks and a patterned sweater.  But how had I missed the longbow thrown across his back, the pointed ears, the quiet suffering in that elegant face?

He looked directly at me with piercing eyes the color of starlight, and smiled with a kind of arrogant sorrow.  Slowly, as if it meant everything and nothing, he raised his hand and formed the peace sign.  And then, while I was still gawking, changed the gesture to the Vulcan salute.

"Oh---Brad!" his girlfriend's voice broke the moment like nails down a blackboard, and suddenly we were a scruffy teacher and a slightly contemptuous rich boy/Marin yuppie, studying each other with mutual dislike.  "C'mon.  We'll miss our dinner reservation.  I swear Gump's is getting so commercial, hiring Christmas entertainers.  And not very good ones; I know exactly how he did everything.  And even YOU can juggle, it's not that special."

"Brad" glanced down at the small black cat now calmly grooming her ears at my feet.  His broad, slightly dumb face was unreadable.  But his eyes remained crystal for just a moment or two before reverting to placid hazel.

"Yup, it wasn't much of a show," he observed nastily.  "But it was different, I guess.  Here, buddy."  He flipped me a quarter with the most condescending of gestures.  I was just surprised enough to catch it and automatically drop it in my pocket before realizing it was way too heavy for a quarter.

I might have dug for it and gone for a closer look, except the doors flung back and for a moment I barely recognized Carson stepping through.  The wind streamed his hair into a banner of night touched with warm fire.  I could have sworn a cape whipped from his shoulders like a violet flag stitched with razor metal.  His eyes sought and found me, and it was like being caressed, to meet those eyes.  Hell, it was like being groped to be looked at in such a way.

The black cat at my feet sniffed.  "You stand there like a gawping lump.  Kiss him now, or I may regret my patronage and decide against accompanying you to the more interesting areas of this city."

Well, now.

Although I wasn't quite sure if I wanted this nosy incarnation of Baast at my heels while I entertained Carson, I certainly knew better than to disobey a direct order from a cat.  That only led to trouble.

I moved into Carson's arms, dodging his packages, grabbing a taste of his mouth before he really knew what hit him.  And then continued to sample, for oh, must have been five minutes or more.

Except for the smug little cat, two leprechauns and a small frisky blue squirrel that oozed from one of my packages to chitter encouragingly, no one in the immediate area seemed to notice the two guys sucking face on the hallowed steps of Gump's.

We didn't get arrested, anyways.

Worked for me.

TBC

~Feed The Author~