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“It started coming down just as White dropped me off,” Billy commented, walking through the front door of Video Madness, the door jingling to announce his entry. He shook off the light powder clinging to his jacket and fluffed his hair to dislodge any snow that had nestled behind his precisely styled upward cresting quiff.
“Shake the cornstarch off your mukluks and warm yourself by the cellophane,” Alison quoted cryptically from her elevated perch behind the register, looking bored and barely moving her eyes from the movie-screening monitors positioned around the shelves of VHS tapes available for rental.
“Nice window,” Billy gestured to the front window where the usual posters of new releases were now outlined with blinking multicolored Christmas lights and tinsel and large plastic lawn ornaments of a giant candy cane and leaping reindeer nipped at the bottom edges of Judge Dredd and Mortal Kombat in their posters.
“As likely to trigger a seizure as Holiday cheer,” Alison said in monotone, not moving her gaze from the in-store TV monitors.
The store was, as any sane person would expect at 5 PM on Christmas Eve, completely empty aside from the sole employee paid to be there and, now, Billy Quizboy.
“Aren’t you worried about being alone at night in the store? Seems like it could be dangerous.”
“Because of serial killers praying on nubile young co-eds?” On the monitor a spray of very clearly fake blood filled the screen, distracting Billy.
“What are we watching?” Billy asked, rushing up to the cashier’s desk, shrugging off his heavy wool jacket.
“1974’s own Black Christmas,” Alison recited monotonously, “Sorority sisters get threatening phone calls and are killed one-by-one by a knife-wielding maniac. Real heart-warming holiday magic.”
“Sure, but aren’t you worried about getting robbed or something? Being alone like this.”
“I’m not alone, you’re here,” Alison replied flatly, “Plus I got my AK under the cash drawer in case any two-bit punks wanna step to me.”
“Riiiiight,” Billy muttered, opening his messenger bag and putting two thermos bottles and a small metal tin of Danish Butter Cookies (stretching as much as he could to reach the high register counter), “I brought hot chocolate and cookies ”
“We’re down to the last sorority sister so it’ll be over soon,” Alison reassured him, “You missed National Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation and Die Hard earlier. Coming up next is—“ Alison rifled through the pile of VHS tapes below the counter “Ooh, The Apartment. I love a Christmas story with a suicide attempt in the middle of it.”
“Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is a fantaschtic movie and you know it,” Billy said, popping the tin of cookies open, selecting the one shaped like a pretzel and handing it to her, “You’re just acting too cool for school.”
“Not homemade?” Alison said snobbishly, regarding the cookie.
“I wanted to capture the feeling of an after-church social tea so cookies in a tin are a must,” Billy argued, “I’m coming up there. I can’t keep stretching up to your counter without pulling a hammy.”
“It’s against all company policies to have a civilian in the register station. I’m scandalized you’d propose such a thing.”
“I don’t respect any company policy that makes anyone work until 8 PM on Christmas Eve. Like, what kind of person rents a movie ON Christmas Eve?”
“Jews and Muslims and Atheists who are crap at planning ahead.”
Billy sighed.
“Don’t feel bad, Pumpkin Pie. I’m happy for the overtime. Not like I was doing anything else.”
“Your family doesn’t—“
“Mom thinks all American holidays are a scam to trick you into spending money and… she’s kinda not far off. I assume she’s sitting at the dining room table right now stamping and addressing 500 new Happy New Year/Sell Me Your Home flyers for her real estate business.”
“Oh,” Billy said, a little disheartened.
“And dad is ‘working,’” Alison air-quoted, “Meaning he’s half a dozen sheets to the wind in some grimy dive bar just south of the Air Force Academy campus.”
“Oh Alison, I’m so sorry—“
She shrugged, “What about your better half? Where’s Powder tonight?”
“He actually got a gig— DJing a New Wave Christmas dance party.”
“I wouldn’t imagine there are THAT many New Wave Christmas songs. What’s he doing? Playing Christmas Wrapping over and over for three hours?”
“You are so, so, so mischinformed,” Billy wagged his finger, “There are HUNDREDS of New Wave Christmas songs— Eurythmics, Cocteau Twins, XTC— and I’ve heard ALL of them over the last week.” Billy’s tone showed he was not thrilled with this discovery.
“The snow is actually sticking. Look at that. I hope my car can drive in this.”
“It’s unusual for this time of year, too. While December is the COLDEST month, with an average temperature of 30.8 °F, statistically-speaking, March is the snowiest month in the Rocky Mountain Aero—“
“Don’t trivia-vomit your quizboy shit all over me, Gingerbread. I’ve had a long day.”
“We’re also the most active lightning strike areas in the US,” Billy added meekly, squeezing in one last fact.
Alison grumbled.
“Oh! I just remembered— I have eggnog, too!” Billy opened his bag again and pulled out a bottle of mayonnaise-colored beverage.
“Alcoholic?”
Billy made a face, “What do you think, schmart guy?”
Alison frowned exaggeratedly, “I’ll stick with hot chocolate.”
Billy poured and Alison sipped, thinking for a minute before announcing, “I know I say I hate everything but I, like, really don’t like the holidays.”
“Not Thanksgiving either,” Billy asked, surprised.
“That one we really never celebrated. Being stationed all over the world on Air Force bases where they don’t have Thanksgiving, it became a real afterthought. At least at Christmastime the Air Force got some fat airman to dress up as Santa and hand out candy canes to kids on the base.”
“Thanksgiving is the one time of year I really miss my mom, “ Billy said wistfully.
“Oh no, don’t go to pieces on me. Remember all the bad shit she did to you.”
“No, it’s not like it erases why I’m not speaking to her or anything. It’s just she always made such a big deal about it, so worried I’d miss out on a traditional real American Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings even though it was just the two of us. So she roasted a full turkey and made stuffing and mashed potatoes and green beans and rolls and everything else."
“Cranberry sauce?”
“Yeah, not even from a can. From whole cranberries! She made just this over the top feast and at most it was me and her and whoever she was dating at the time. Which meant for the next four weeks all we ate was turkey leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can’t even look at a turkey sandwich without a chill running up my spine.”
“So what do you do in the absence of mom?”
“This year,” Billy said, “White bet me he could heat up a turkey pot pie using only the laser we have in the lab. I called bullshit so Thanksgiving was watching him fiddle around with all these mirrors and aluminum foil for 40 minutes, get pissed off, point the laser directly at the still-frozen pie, fall forward and accidentally step on the pie and catch his pant leg on fire.”
Alison bugged her eyes, “Jesus.”
“Then we ordered a pizza and watched a WKRP marathon on Nick at Night while I treated his leg for third degree burns.”
“That’s a holiday tradition for you,” Alison held up her cocoa mug.
“May it never repeat,” Billy clinked his mug against hers.
__
“So, I got you something,” Billy said, hesitating momentarily over his bag before taking out the snowman-paper wrapped 12 x 12" flat square package.
“You’re supporting my dream of becoming a professional disc-golfer by getting me THE DOMINATOR pro-level Frisbee™?! Oh, my heart!”
“Shut up and open it,” Billy grumbled.
She tore into it revealing a stack of albums— Martin Denny “Exotic Moog,” Provocative Percussion, Switched on Bach and others, “Oh wow, these are GREAT. Some of these are really rare, too, how did you find them?
“White helped me,” Billy admitted, “With his record collector connections.”
“Remind me to thank him the next time I see him with a merry yuletide blowjob.”
“Jesus, Alison,” Billy rolled his eye, “Could you NOT? It’s f’ing Christmas.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m just sort of speechless. I never thought I’d own such exquisitely terrible records. Thank you.”
“That last one with the ventriloquist dummy passed out on the bar? I was told that it’s a standup album from Montreal’s premier X-rated ventriloquist but it might be in French, in which case I will translate it for you.”
“Only if you do all the voices, my precious polyglot knucklehead,” she leaned down and kissed him right on the soft spot on top of his skull.
“I got you something, too,” Alison rummaged below the register and brought out two packages wrapped in pages of the Sunday funnies, “Not as well-wrapped, clearly. But colorful!”
“You didn’t have to—”
“Of course I didn’t. But I did. I will warn you, I’m on a budget so I made both of them. So, like, manage your expectations, ok,” Alison muttered, uncharacteristically bashful, “So do you want naughty or nice first?” She wiggled the package in her right hand, then her left.
“Nice, please,” Billy said, receiving the package and delicately unpeeling the Garfield and Blondie strips around what appeared to be– “Some kind of… knitted… bag?”
“We went out thrifting a month ago and you went on a rant about how no hat will ever stay on your head and your ears were always cold in the winter unless you wrapped a whole scarf around your head like you had a toothache?”
“Did I? Honestly, I rant about everything and I can’t keep track of what I’m pissed off about most of the time,” Billy said, stretching out the pale green yarn bag in his hand, trying to figure out what he was looking at.
“I learned to crochet as a kid. Must have been for school or something and I hadn’t done it for years but after that rant I was determined to make you a snow hat that FITS.” Alison took her crocheted creation from his hands, inverted it and pulled it over his head (crushing his quiff in the process).
“It’s got tons of stitching mistakes in it, y’know, but it’ll keep the snow off your head and if I counted my stitches right it should cover your crazy unnaturally low ears.” Alison flipped up the lower edge to reveal Billy’s eyebrows and forehead.
“Oh my god, it fits. It covers my head without pulling apart, or crushing my skull. It’s like… a Christmas MIRACLE.”
“I assumed you knew this was coming when I measured your head a couple weeks ago.”
“I had no idea. I just assumed you were making fun of me with prop comedy,” Billy shrugged, feeling warm in his new green snow hat both in his ears and in his heart.
“The other thing is just a… it’s dumb,” Alison shrugged, handing the second package over.
“You’ve already blown my mind by making me a hat with your own two hands I can’t imagine…”Billy trailed off, opening it equally delicately, like he wanted to preserve the comics pages.
“Just tear into it! Rip it apart!” Alison urged. Billy ignored her and continued with his personal method of unwrapping presents.
“Is it a comic? Kind of a zine?” Billy described the folded xeroxed object in his hand.
The cover was obviously a xerox of her Rusty Venture Show lunchbox with a small photograph of Billy’s head cut out and placed over the cartoon of Rusty Venture. The title of the comic, written in letters cut out from magazines ransom note style was BILLY QUIZBOY: BOY ADVENTURER!
She must have lifted one of Billy’s old GOLD KEY cheap-o Rusty Venture cartoon cash-in comic books where the characters never stay on model— Rusty’s hair is colored yellow half the time and no one noticed— and xeroxed it page-by-page, always pasting that same photo of Billy’s half-smiling, squinting face over the cartoon Rusty in every panel. The dialogue bubbles had been completely pasted over with nonsense. Characters forgot each other’s names. Some bubbles were full of animal noises or phrases pasted in from Sassy magazine headlines. It was accidental Dadaism.
In the very last panel, the bubble over Billy-headed cartoon Rusty concluded, “Now that the adventure’s over I can go home and masturbate!!”
“So it really is a happy ending,” real life Billy’s face on Billy’s body said dryly, closing the bizarre hand-made comic book.
“Didja like it?” Alison said with an evil smile, unclear whether she was hoping for a yes or no answer.”
“That was… very strange but very you. Thank you. I love it, “ Billy said, a bit confused, “It must have taken so much time to do!”
“Time wasted excellently, if I do say so myself,” she pointed to the clock, “5 to Eight. We get to close up. If anyone shows up to rent a copy of The Burbs they are, my friend, shit out of luck on a Christmas cracker, woo-hoo!”
Billy was equally baffled and bowled over by her enthusiasm as she pulled a large vinyl zip-topped pouch from under the register and banged a key that made the drawer pop open.
“I have to count out the cash on hand, make sure it lines up with the purchases of the day— two of them, I’ll have you know— how much I started with and how much I’m closing with,” Alison said at motormouth speed as she counted out the ones, fives, tens, twenties without a break in her patter, “I started the day with 200 in small bills and Video Madness, your local and beloved VHS rental store is closing the night with an astonishing… two hundred and SEVEN dollars. Applause PLEASE!” She hip-checked the register drawer hard enough to send it reeling back into the machine. She dropped the cash in the pouch and zipped it with purpose.
Billy clapped enthusiastically.
“Now I have to drop this,” she held up the pouch of cash, “in the safe and sign out. And your job, as my unofficial Santa’s Little Helper—”
“Calling me that counts as heightist abuse…” Billy mumbled.
“— is to unplug all the Christmas lights in the display up there so this place doesn’t burn down before New Years. Then, pull down the grate outside in front of the window,” Alison handed him an antique and abused looking metal hook about two feet long.”
Billy enjoyed having a task with clear parameters. He saluted with his fleshy hand as the robot hand seized the metal hook.
“Then I’ll lock the front door and we’ll be outta here!” Alison almost sang as she ran to the back room to deposit the cash.
Nine different frayed, taped-together cords plugged into duct-taped, dust-clogged two surge protectors plugged into one extension cord later, the front window display went dark. She wasn’t joking— it was a Holly Jolly fire hazard.
He suited up in his winter gear again to tackle bringing the grate down. A simple task, despite the two or three inches of dry powder clinging to every surface, crunching under his boots. Nothing he couldn't handle.
He scanned the area for a trash can or a pile of boxes he could stand on but all around him everything had been transformed by the snowfall into unidentifiable white sparkling gumdrops. He looked back at the window glass and up to the edge of the gate, seven feet above him.
He held the hook with his fingertips, stood under the lip of the gate and jumped as high as he could. Not even close.
“If I get enough speed up, I can ricochet off the glass, redirect my velocity 90 degrees to jump up and grab the edge of the gate and bring it down with me,” Billy calculated, backing away from the front window.
He took a breath, looked at the straight line path ahead of him and gunned it. He hit the front window at full speed, splatting his face into the glass. He shook it off. Not the result he had hoped for.
He paced in front of the window, trying to think of an ingenious, novel solution to this relatively simple problem. He could get Alison out here and sit on her shoulders, but that was tantamount to admitting defeat. He swung the metal hook around on his finger as he paced. He looked up at the gate again, taunting him with its not-closed state. He furrowed his brow.
“Need a hand with that gate?” said a voice behind him, lifting the metal hook from his hand before waiting for an answer.
Billy started to protest when the guy (he assumed it was a guy) bundled up in a coat and scarf effortlessly leapt up, hooked the edge of the gate and brought it down in one smooth motion.
“No problem,” the voice said, handing Billy back the hook. Billy turned around to thank him but he was gone.
“Who was that?” Billy asked out loud. He looked down at the snow and didn’t see any tracks. He looked down the block to his left and didn’t see anyone.
Was it… his guardian angel? No, he was a scientist; he didn’t believe in that stuff. But, still. Could it have been… SANTA CLAUS HIMSELF?! HOLY COW!! He felt a jab in his side and looked to his right. The guy was there, pushing a suspiciously pistol-shaped item into his shoulder.
“Go back inside so you can give me all the money in the register, ok?”
Billy put his hands up. The guy poked him again, goading him towards the door.
Alison was back in her cashier’s booth, wrapping a scarf around her neck and reaching for her coat.
“DON’T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES!” the stranger shouted, throwing Billy to one side as if he were a bag of particularly top-heavy garbage.
“Great, now this,” Alison said, bored, as if this was an everyday occurrence. It wasn’t, but her manner made it clear she was not impressed by her would-be robber.
“Alison, do what he says,” Billy gasped, worried for her safety and choosing cowardly self-preservation over heroism (usually Pete’s M.O.)
“Gimme all the money in the register! Hurry!” the ski mask-wearing burglar demanded.
“Can’t,” Alison said bluntly, “You have got the worst timing, pal.”
“GIMME THE MONEY OR I’LL SHOOT YOU!” the burglar thrust his scarf-wrapped pistol closer to her face. Alison didn’t flinch.
“You’ve wrapped everything but the barrel in that scarf but the orange on the tip tells me it’s a toy gun, genius. You gonna squirt me to death, Captain Ski Mask?”
“It’s a balaclava!” the burglar protested, pointing at his ski mask.
It was dawning on him that this wasn’t going to work out how he had planned. He dropped the fake gun and pulled out a pocket knife that wouldn’t cut a slice of bread, but he waved it menacingly.
”Balaclavas get their name from their use at the 1854 Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War…” Billy spat in a hysteric rush “But the first confirmed use of the term was much later— in 1881.”
“Billy, relax. You’re panic-quizboying, flooding the zone with trivia,” Alison tried to calm the situation,
The Balaclava Burglar kicked Billy in the head, flinging him across the room until he skidded to a stop in front of the turned-off Christmas display by the front window.
“Florence Nightingale came to prominence training nurses during the Crimean War, ” Billy muttered woozily, grabbing the sides of his head to stop the room from spinning, “She invented the pie chart.”
“Look, dude, the money’s in the safe and only my boss has the combination. You can rob me of my copy of…. Um… Darkman?” Alison picked up the nearest videotape.
The gun in the burglar’s hands shook a little. Alison looked him in the eyes. Red-rimmed. Tiny pupils.
“Although Friday’s probably more your speed since you’re obviously high as shit.”
“How could you rob a store… on Christmas,” Billy tried to shame him.
“SHUT UP.”
Billy looked into the display, hatching a plan. He grabbed the largest plastic lawn-ornament candy cane that was nearly taller than he was with both hands. Holding it above his head, he charged at the burglar, screaming at the top of his lungs. He leapt onto the New Releases shelf next to the register, pushing off to get enough lift to bring the candy cane down hard on the top of the robber’s head with all the force he could muster.
A resonant “Bonk!”
Bonk? That’s not the sound of a skull being crushed. Billy looked confused. The balaklava man seemed entirely unaffected. He looked at his deadly red-and-white-striped weapon… the plastic had caved in. It was hollow.
The burglar finally turned around and noticed Billy. He leaned down with his tiny pen knife to carve his vengeance in Billy’s tender skin when Alison interrupted.
“HEY! I’m the one you’re robbing,” Alison scolded, “Eyes up here, buddy.”
The addled robber turned his attention back to Alison at the register.
“What’s your name, man,” she asked.
The burglar hesitated. Was this a trap? “Um… Phil.”
“Look, Phil. I got… five, ten , eleven, twelve… Ok, fourteen bucks in my purse. You can have that and… the cookies,” she offered the metal tin of Danish butter cookies, “You take off and we don’t call the cops. Deal?”
Phil hesitated and then snapped the wad of small bills from Alison’s hand, stuffing them into the pockets of his baggy jeans.
“You want the cookies, too?”
Phil shook his head.
“C’mon. Take a couple. It’s Christmas," Alison urged.
Phil looked annoyed for a second, then dropped his shoulders and reached out, grabbing a fistful from the tin.
“Merry Christmas, Phil,” Alison said flatly, “Now fuck off.”
Phil backed towards the door, throwing a glance at Billy still sitting on the floor where he fell.
“Hey bro! NICE HAT,” Phil threw finger-guns at Billy before wrenching the door open with a faint jingle from the bell as he bolted through, disappearing into the night.
Alison glanced aside to the remaining cookies on the tin, “Aw, that douche bag took all the ring-shaped ones. What a dick!”
Billy steadied himself and struggled to his feet.
“How’s the head? No concussion?” Alison asked with a lesser, non-ring-shaped cookie in her mouth.
“As long as I don’t land on a soft spot, my brain seems to be well-cushioned by all the fluid in my head. No major malfunctions,” Billy said, hands on the sides of his face.
“It’s a Christmas miracle!”
“If you keep saying that phrase it starts to lose all meaning.”
“Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?” Alison asked, doe-eyed.
“That makes even less sense!”
Alison jangled her official employee ring-of–keys and marched to the door, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
They walked outside the Video Madness shop, Alison giving the door a tug to make sure everything was securely locked up tight.
The air was cold. The night was clear. All around them the strip mall was blanketed in white. A few snowflakes started to fall.
“Oh. It’s snowing again,” Billy observed.
“It’s a Christmas mira—”
"Stop it."
[end]
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*Alison was introduced in Billy & White story Tomorrow's Just Another Day, but all you need to know is she's a snarky clerk at their local video rental and Billy's friend (but could be more than a friend?) who likes cult movies, thrifting and insulting Billy (with affection).