The official case had been closed. Warren was dead, but we had the evidence to justify his death, so Carter never suffered jail time. His family didn't have to see another squad car again. Winter rolled back into my mind like a crazy fucker. Snow was coming down everywhere, but it wasn't the dangerous kind of snow. This was more like the snow you'd want to have on a Christmas morning. Since I still had the insomnia, Kaily asked me to keep an eye out for Santa Clause. I told her I'd try, but that I would soon fall victim to his 'magical sleeping dust'. Needless to say, she was angry at me. We went over to Jen's mother's house for a Christmas Eve dinner. She was a big religious gal, so I kept my mouth shut. In all honesty, I don't have a problem with people who believe that Christmas is supposed to be about the 'Christ' part, but obnoxiousness knows no bounds. The dinner tasted pretty damn good and off we went to prepare for Christmas day.
Christmas morning was more a game of silence than everyone rushing to the tree. I went into the kitchen to grab myself a glass of juice. But then a thought occurred to me. I had been drinking the same juice over and over for the last few years. Maybe a change of pace, at a small scale, wasn't such a bad idea. So, instead of grabbing myself a glass of juice, I got myself a cup of hot coffee. I blew on it to make sure it wasn't too hot for my tastes. Just as I was about to take a sip, Jen walks into the kitchen.
"Mornin'," she whispers to me.
"Hey," I whisper back.
She walks over to grab herself a cup of coffee. "Too excited to sleep?" she smiles.
"Of course," I prepare to take a sip, but Jen caught me again.
"So, what'd you get her?"
"If I tell, doesn't that ruin the gift?"
"Do I look like your girlfriend?"
"Good point," I think for a moment, "got her one of those detailed, tiny, metal horses."
"Why so?" she asked me.
"She's got a thing for those. Took me a hell of a time to find it. What about you?"
"Ugh, Steven is so hard to buy for. With all of the... craziness this year, I bought him a new watch," she sipped her coffee.
"Steven never struck me as the 'watch' kind of guy," I remark.
"How so?"
"Well, the first time I ever met him, he looked like he was about to sock me right in the face."
She laughed. "Yeah, he's got that kind of thing around him, but once you talk to him, there's something strong about him."
"It's because he's black, isn't it?" I joke.
She laughs louder than before. "Jungle fever, am I right?"
Well, shit. Jen might be my new best friend in the whole wide world. We talked a little more about a few useless things, mostly just meaningless shit. "You a big reader?"
"I read, from time to time," she sips more of her coffee.
"Tell me some favorites."
"Why? Are you a book worm?"
"Ha, if I was a book worm, I'd be in a mansion. I just liked to read a while ago."
"Why did you stop?"
"Eh, life just gets in the way, plus I started watching more T.V. than reading."
"Maybe you should go back to reading. T.V. is fine and all, but you're missin' out," she takes another sip, "anyways, what did you ask from before?"
"Favorites. Top three," I take a seat at the table.
"Oh, right... mmm.... Well, I like The Old man and the Sea... let's see.... oh, and 1984... and one more... how about Things Fall Apart?"
"Eh, decent list."
"Oh, Mr. Literary over here. What's yours?"
I had to make this a good one. "Well, I enjoyed Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, Fight Club, and Women."
"Heard of the first two, but not the third."
"Figures, they usually have a special section for Bukowski's stuff."
"Where would that section be?" she asks me.
"In the basement," I blow on my coffee some more.
"Why there?" she asks me again.
"As the FBI put it, 'Because he's a dirty perverted old man'," I take a sip of my coffee. "Holy shit! This thing is hot!"
She begins to laugh at me. Yes, continue to laugh more and more at my pain. That's what I get for being pretentious. Carter walked into the room at that moment.
"Well, I'll be damned. For once, it ain't juice," he notes as he walks in.
"Yeah, well, I'm beginning to regret it. This stuff is hot," I comment.
"Try blowing on it," he pours himself a cup.
"The hell do you think I've been doing?" I retort.
"Not blowing hard enough, that's for sure," he chuckles as he walks to the living room.
Little feet are running up above. Kaily is pulling Amy down the stairs.
"Come on, Amy! Santa was here!" Kaily says, more excited than a juiced up crackhead.
Is it wrong to equalize the excitement of a child to that of a person suffering from an addiction? It might be, but no one is going to stop me.
"Kaily, slow down," Amy giggles.
We all eventually meet up in the living room. The fireplace was going, the Christmas music was on, and we weren't homeless. The perfect white Christmas... and I don't mean that in the racial sense (but it was pretty damn close). We all gathered around in the living room, taking a seat. The news was going on about how the killer, now called the 'Comedic Killer', was killed by an officer. Closest thing to the truth as they'll ever get. Kaily opened her presents and, like any kid, is over static with joy and wants to play with the toys right away. It's the adult's turn to open their presents. We each had three, I think. Hell if I know, I was losing my mind on this coffee. Seriously, hadn't had the stuff in years and it tasted like the nectar of from the gardens of Zeus. It was that good. Amy goes first, opening her present from Jen. Jen got Amy a new silver necklace.
"It's beautiful, Jen," she smiles at Jen. The second present was from Carter. It was a small pocketknife.
"I hope that's not for me," I comment.
"Just a little on the safe side, that's all," Carter explains.
"Either way, thank you, Steven," Amy says. The last present is mine. She opens it and is amazed. Ya did good kid, ya did good.
"Edgar! Where did you find this?" she asks me.
I lean in to give her a little kiss. "Everywhere, for you." Someone take away the coffee and smash the cup on my head. Jesus, that was bad.
She returns the kiss. "You're so cute when you get cheesy."
Jen was the next one to open her gifts.
"They're all from me, honey. I told them to worry about each other this year," Carter remarked.
Jen smiled and tore into her gifts. When she opened all three, she began to cry. Carter got her three framed photos of Jen's part of the family. One photo was of her grandmother's family. The next was a photo of her mother's family. And the third was a picture of her, Carter, and Kaily. She didn't say a word. Instead, she stood up and walked over to hug Carter. At that point, I could tell that was Carter's moment. As I had had mine, I could see his clearly. He held onto Jen as gentle, yet as strong as he could. Call it a guy thing, but I could see quite clearly that he loved Jen and Kaily more than anything in the world. I envied him, in a way.
Next was Carter's gifts. Even though he said not to get him anything, that was code for 'you better not get me anything stupid'. He opened the first one to find a brand new coffee mug. On of the side of it, the mug said "I ain't the boss, I'm the Commissioner".
He laughed when he saw it. "Thank you very much, Kaily." She was too busy playing with her new toys to notice.
The second gift was from Amy and I. We were running low on cash and I wasn't prepared to ask the man, who I lived in his house, for any money. I'm not a freeloadin' asshole. With all the money we had left, we bought him a personalized name tag. Printed on it, was his name and his new title, but under it, it said "son of the fallen Alex Carter: a true hero". He looked at it and smiled wide at Amy and I.
"Thank you... thank you, you guys," Carter says to us.
"Damn," I said out loud, pulling out my last five bucks and handing it to Amy.
"Wait, what?" Carter asked.
"I bet him that he couldn't make you cry," Amy says, smiling at me in a sarcastic manner.
"Ya just lost me money, Carter," I say, pretending to be annoyed.
He laughs. "Well, I didn't mean to!" Carter goes back to opening his presents and his face is shocked to see his new watch. He holds it up for us to see.
I notice something odd about it. "Is that... Mickey Mouse?"
"He's a Disney fan," Jen comments.
"Have been, am, and always will be," Carter says with a big smile.
It's finally my turn to open my gifts. I got three in total. I open the first to find two cartons of juice and one container of coffee.
"Threw in the coffee last minute. Figured you'd like it," Jen says to me.
"Shoot, I'll take it!" I say excited that I got myself some more coffee. The second gift was actually some well needed good news. It was a slip of paper from the insurance company about the fire. It said that the police ruled it an attempted murder, making it so I didn't have to pay for any spikes in premiums. The entire building would be rebuilt.
"They said it's going to be a lot bigger and better," Carter comments.
"This is... fantastic news!" I say. The last gift is something I don't think anyone saw coming. I pulled out a shiny piece of metal and looked at it closely. Took me a second to realize. I was staring at a badge... with my name on it. I look up at Carter, trying to see if this thing was real. "Is... this..."
Carter smiled at me. "I'd like to keep you on as a private consultant of mine."
I look back down at the badge. "Steven... I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to. Just be willing to give helping hand when I need it," he takes a sip of his coffee.
All I can do is simply smile and say as many thanks I could think of. From there, we watched a Christmas movie, or two, and we went into the kitchen to have a big breakfast. I went out onto the porch to let out a good smoke. Carter joined me.
"Thanks for the gift," he says to me.
"No problem," I say to him.
He looks out on the snow in front of us. "Something, ain't it?"
"Yeah... it's something. Gotta ask you somethin'."
"Mhm?"
"Why did you listen to me and have me work with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you believe me?"
Carter looks down and back up at me. "I was told that I should always give people a chance, because you never know how much someone can help, until you let them."
"So, you believed a guy who said he dreams about getting killed every night... just on the off chance that he'd be able to help you?" I ask.
"Well, you had a little truth to your statement. You weren't entirely crazy," he pats me on the back.
Before he turns and walks away. "Steven."
"Yeah?" he asks.
"Thank you... for giving me something new in my life," I tell him. I put out a hand for his.
He takes it. "No problem, Ed." He heads back inside.
I sit out there for a little while longer. I take out the badge that Carter gave me. He must really see something in me. And you know what, so do I. But then a memory comes back to me. I begin to remember Bill's last words to me. Something about the badges and putting them in a specific order to find Shakespeare. I'd get right on that... after I get myself a cup of coffee. It was cold as shit out there.