A Christmas Story

I originally wrote this for the Do Some Damage Christmas Noir Fiction Challenge but it didn't make the cut. (Sniff.) I still like the story though, in a creepy Christmas kind of way. Merry Christmas y'all. See you next year.

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice…

Eddie always gets better stuff than I do because our parents love him best. Last year I really, really, really wanted a Bakugan Brawlers Battle Pack and instead I got a Crayola wonder color light brush with a card saying I should explore my inner artist with it. I guess it was a step up from all the “My Little Pony” crap I’ve been getting for the last four years.

Hello, I’m 11, not five.

Eddie always makes lists of what he wants and then types it up on the computer with links to where mom and dad can get the stuff he requested. They think it’s cute. He’s nine and they think he’s a genius because he can navigate Google.

Please. I hacked into mom’s eBay account when I was nine and messed up all her auctions.

She lost out on a vintage 60s dress she really, really, really wanted even though it was a size six and the only size six she wears are her shoes.

Eddie even gets better stuff from grandma than I do because he sucks up to her when she comes over and I don’t. He doesn’t wrinkle his nose when she kisses him and he pretends that he doesn’t mind her old lady smell.

Excuse me, but if I smelled like pee and dead roses, I wouldn’t go around kissing on people.

Mom says I’m an ungrateful brat and don’t deserve presents at all if I’m going to complain about what I get. Dad, whose idea of a really great present is a book, doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t really like kissing grandma either.

Mom picks out books for us to give him; he gives us new copies of books he read and loved as a kid which was like a million years ago. They always have little messages in them.

Robert Francis Weatherbee, the Boy Who Would Not Go to School. Guess what that one’s about.

Eddie’s been making his Christmas list since Halloween, adding to it and subtracting from it. This year he’s drawing pictures of the things he wants, just in case Mom and Dad haven’t seen the ads on television.

A lot of the things he’s asking for sound like totally good things, things that will help him do better in school. Mom and Dad love that. Remember, they think he’s a genius. They don’t know that he used the chemistry set they got him last year to poison the neighbor’s dog.

No, their little genius wouldn’t do something like that.

They don’t know that the Lincoln Logs Red River Express Building Set they paid $60 for got turned into a log prison for a kitten he found. It was too little and weak to break out, so it starved to death. And then he buried it in our mom’s garden.

I told mom about the kitten but she didn’t believe me, not even when I showed her the tiny grave in her garden. When she finally dug it up and found the dead kitten, she called me a jealous little trouble maker and a liar and she slapped me. I heard her tell Dad later that she thought I was sick and probably needed some help.

Eddie thought that was funny. Eddie thinks a lot of things are funny.

One of the things on Eddie’s Christmas list this year is a set of big cooking knives. Our parents think that’s adorable and probably figure he just wants to be like the Iron Chefs Mom watches on the food channel.

Seriously. They’re that clueless.

They might just buy him that set of cooking knives.

Best Books of 2010

You've got some reading to do!
This is the time of year when critics and magazines and ordinary readers make their lists. If you're looking for a good book to take your mind off the weather, here are some places to start:

California Literary Review.

January Magazine

Publisher's Weekly

ThirdAge.com has a roundup of other peoples' picks here.

Christmas Noir at Do Some Damage

So--you're coming down from a sugar rush or just generally feeling Grinchy? What you need is some Christmas noir and fast. So head over to Do Some Damage for a dose of holiday flash fiction that celebrates the season without giving you cavities.

New at NoHo Noir--After Party

Read the new story in my series NoHo Noir. This features a return of homophobic cop Ethan, who tries really hard to be a good guy here but learns that his efforts are wasted on "Christo," the self-involved wannabe screenwriter:

Gift Guides for the Gift Challenged

You're running out of time. Christmas is a week away. The pressure is on. But before you resort to a stocking full of gift cards, check out these two excellent guides to gift giving:

Mystery Scene Magazine. Where it's a "Fisticup" Brass Knuckle-handled mug ($18) or a set of three brass "bullet pens," ($13), there's bound to be an original gift that fulfills all your buying needs. We're particularly tickled by the "blackmail postcards" that come with blank cards and colorful letters. ($8).

Dark Valentine Magazine has posted a three-part gift guide that includes books, art, charity gifts and more. Check it out here and here and here.

And the rest of the stories!

Here are the stories from this session of Icarus' Flight to Perfection fiction prompts. Stories from Cormac Brown, David Barber, Carolina Beach Bum, and Nicole Hirschi. Enjoy a quick infusion of fiction before heading out to face the Christmas shopping crowds.

Situation Ethics

This story was inspired by "the starter sentence" on Cormac and Nicole' blog Icarus' Flight to Perfection.
I hope you like it.


Sometimes promises are made to be broken.

That’s my first thought when I see the man they’ve wheeled into the operating room.

It’s a miracle he’s still breathing. He’s got multiple stab wounds in his torso and neck and slash wounds on his arms. Whatever happened to him, he fought back hard.

I run through a mental checklist of the pathophysiology of “penetrating trauma,” thinking, as always, that medical jargon is worse than legalese for obscuring pain and suffering behind big words.

This guy’s got it all—hypoxia, partial paralysis, unequal pupils, and active major bleeding. Whoever attacked him got his lungs, his spinal cord and who knows what all else. I count 12 different entry wounds and then, over the hot copper scent of his blood, I catch a whiff of shit, which means his bowel has been pierced too.

Everybody’s moving fast and with purpose. The nurse monitoring his vitals looks stressed.

I am not stressed at all. I issue orders. A nurse cuts off the patient’s blood-stained clothing and drops it on the floor, kicking it out from under our feet. Someone else starts a second I.V. line. We’re pouring fluids into him as fast as he’s bleeding out. Everyone’s looking at me, waiting for me to do my thing.

Looking down at the man on the operating table, I think, if this man dies on my operating table, no one will miss him. No one will mourn him. And more importantly, no one will ever question his death.

When I became a doctor, I swore the Hippocratic oath. I said, “I will practice and prescribe to the best of my ability for the good of my patients, and to try to avoid harming them.” I meant every word of that promise at the time.

But that was before I met the man on the table. His name, he had told me, was Cory and that was the first of his lies, but not the last. He stole my car. He emptied my bank account and he broke my heart. That last betrayal is the one I can’t forgive.

The men he owed money to came to my door and when they didn’t find him, they took out their anger on me. The cops who were looking for him came to my door and when they didn’t find him, they let me know they thought I was worse than scum. And then the other women came to my door looking for him and when they didn’t find him they told me their stories.

I look down at the man on the table whose karma has finally caught up with him. The words of the oath I swore go through my mind and…I let them go.

Sometimes promises are made to be broken.