I had so much fun with the [Fiction] Friday prompt at Write Anything yesterday, that I thought I would continue it to find out what happens with our character and that "fat harbinger of joy."   Enjoy!

We sit, sipping our house beers, staring at each other.  I’m bad at knowing what to say when I don’t know someone as it is, but some fat guy in a red velvet and fur suit with a beard that puts even Grizzly Adams to shame?  Forget it!  Before I know it, my pilsner glass is empty except for the foam, and my meal hasn’t come out yet.  The Clause huffs and walks up to the counter.  I’m alone, at a long wooden table.  People are staring at me.  They’re staring at him.  I cough.  I mess with my nose.  I pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head.  I’ve never liked being the center of attention. 

All of a sudden, a woman comes over and plops down next to me.  I swear, the bench lifts a little bit up off the ground with the force in her hind quarters. 

“Is it him?”

I shrug and stare at my empty glass. 

“How do you know him?”

“I don’t.”

“Why did he just order more beer?  Why is he helping you?”

“I don’t know.”  I turn my body away from her and she feels the need to place her hand upon my shoulder, “Look can you not touch me, please?”

“Oh, but I must know how you know him.”

At that moment, Santa turned around and straightened his hat.  Did I mention that he’s walking around Chicago, in sauna-esque temperatures sporting a Santa hat?  In case I didn’t, please make note of this.  He straightened it, and spent at least three minutes making sure that the ball was in just the right place while staring into a Coors Light® mirror.  I had no idea Santa was so vain.

I was so struck by the hat adjusting fiasco that I failed to notice Miss Nosey had returned to her four blabbering girlfriends in the corner.  They all stared without shame.  The Clause walked over with our food baskets and sat them in front of us. 

“So what’s your story?”  He asked, blunt, annoyed.  I notice that hidden behind the crows-feet are two jade-blue eyes that rolled back in his head. 

“I, uh, well you see,”  I open my bag of chips while the bartender, now not trying to hide his snide smile, sets down our beers.  I suppose Santa drinking some cold ones with some young scrappy looking chick like myself is just too much for his brain to handle.  “I, I’ve been down on my luck lately Santa.  You see, it’s a bad economy right now.”

When you say these words to someone and you’re wearing the same pair of jeans for the five-hundredth time in a row, you sort of expect them to place a hand on your shoulder, say, “I’m sorry,” or even give you a look of forced pity.  What you don’t expect is a loud guffaw that could potentially cause every dog in a twelve-block radius to turn around and snarl.  This is what that fat bugger did. 

“It’s uh, I don’t think it’s that funny.”  However, it’s too late.  Santa is slapping his knees, which is causing his chin to jiggle.   I don’t get how the two body parts correlate to each other, but that’s just what happened.  “Nah seriously, it really isn’t that funny.”

When he calmed down and was only heaving between breaths in order to keep himself from launching into earthquake-inducing laughter again, he managed to get out, “Not-your-situation- just-the-way-you-sugar-coat-it.”  I try taking a bite of my burger.  It’s hard to have an appetite, even when you haven’t eaten in about thirty-six hours, when a fat man is shaking in fits that would make a grand mal seizure look mild and an entire room of people silently stare and point. 

I feel my head getting hot and light. I chew, with purpose, and time almost stops.  It’s like one of those movies where they slow the action down so slow you can see the point where a bullet enters its intended target.

TBC

(Part III Coming Soon)