Christmas on Crack (16 page)

too.

“Well,
they’re certainly ugly,” said her husband, Gerald.

“Yeah,”
everyone agreed.

They
all put the crabs down after a while.

Rudy
said, “Hey, kids, why don’t you each open another present?” He knew there was
much more than crabs under the tree.

Skipp
reached for the box containing his swimsuit. Staci held either a hockey mask or
that red crystal ball she’d been talking about for months.

But
when they opened them, inside there were gray

stone
crabs. Just like the ones everyone had opened before.

“What’s
going on?” Staci asked. She searched the inside of the box and found a slip of
paper at the bottom. On it was written,
Add water.
“Did anyone see this?” She held up
the paper.

Everyone
searched their boxes and found identical notes.

“Open
more,” said Rainey.

They
did.

Everyone
reached for a gift and tore it open. Everyone came up with more crabs.

They
piled them on the floor in the center of the room.

“This
is a joke,” said Rainey.

Rudy
was confused and growing angry. The coffee in his mug was cold. “Crabs?”

The
kids each opened another gift. Crabs.

Panicked,
everyone tore open more packages.

No
matter the size of the box, inside it was a stone crab. The biggest was
football-sized, and the smallest was about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
The pile on the floor grew.

“What
does this mean?” asked
Lydia
.

“Everyone’s
gettin’ crabs for Christmas,” said Skipp.

“The
Assholes!” yelled Rudy. He ran for the door, pulling on boots and a coat on his
way out.

“What?”
the grandparents asked.

“The
neighbors,” Rainey explained, following her husband outside. She bumped into
Staci’s friend Belinda, who was coming up the steps.

“What’s
up?” Belinda asked Staci, who came hopping out the door, putting on shoes.

“Crabs.”

“What?”
Belinda followed.

Skipp
joined them as they trudged to the neighbor’s house, where Rudy was pounding on
the door and yelling for Brian and Marissa to come outside. Rainey stood
shivering beside her husband.

They
made it there just as Marissa opened the door.

“What?”
she demanded. She was wearing sunglasses and a black kimono.

Brian
appeared behind her, dressed exactly the same. Only his kimono was too short.

“Crabs!”
Rudy yelled.

“What?”
Brian shoved his way out the door, his kimono flapping in the wind and showing
(hopefully) just how cold it was outside.

“You
switched all our gifts with a bunch of crabs!”

“Look,”
the Asshole began.

“No,
you look! I’m sick of you and your anti-Christmas campaign. You’ve been nothing
but a Scrooge and Grinch since you moved in, and I will not stand for another
moment of it. I don’t know what you’ve got against Christmas Cheer, but I
demand my family’s gifts back. And you can come haul your pile of crabs home!”
Rudy grew louder and louder.

Doors
opened up and down the street. People poked their heads out.

Marissa
came outside. She was holding a football-sized stone crab. “Is this what you’re
talking about?”

“Yes!”
Rainey said. She reached for the crab.

“Have
it.” Marissa gave it to her. “We’ve got a pile of them too. Just unwrapped
them. We were blaming each other until it degenerated into sex. Brian was about
to put them in the tub and add water, like the notes say.”

“What?”
Rudy took the crab from his wife.

“Yeah,”
said Brian. “Every gift was replaced with a crab. I thought she did it. You
thought
we
did it to you?” He snatched the crab
from Rudy.

Rudy
said, “I, uh, well. I thought. Yeah. I thought you were messing with us.”

“Well
we weren’t. Come on, how and
why
would we do that?”

Marissa
snorted.

“Rudy,”
Rainey said, pulling on his arm.

Martin
and Brad from across the street came over.

Brad
said, “Are you guys talking about getting crabs?”

“Yeah,”
Rudy answered.

Brian
handed the crab to Martin.

Martin
showed it to Brad.

Brad
gave it back to Brian and said, “We got these too. About ten of ‘em.”

From
down the street, Mr. Jameson yelled, “Did you people get crabs for Christmas?”

Martin
and Brad headed over to his house.

“Sorry,”
Rudy said.

“Whatever,
Olen,” Brian answered. He went back inside his house, pulling the kimono over
his butt cheeks. He said,
“You’re
the asshole.”

Marissa
agreed and sauntered inside behind her husband.

Rudy
and his family went home.

The
grandparents were cooking breakfast.

“Well?”
Gerald asked.

“It
wasn’t the neighbors,” answered Rudy. He sat on the couch. Even the smell of
bacon wasn’t rousing him from the funk he was falling into. He stared at the
pile of crabs.

Belinda
picked one up. “They’re really detailed. Look at those eye-stalks. And even
though the claws and stuff are all smooshed up, they look real. These are cool.
I wonder if I got crabs.”

“You
didn’t open your gifts, yet?” Rainey asked her.

She
shook her bald head. “Naw, my folks won’t even be awake ‘til noon. We’ll open
gifts later.”

“Breakfast!”
Lydia
called from the kitchen. She and Julette started putting plates of steaming
food on the table.

Rudy
stayed on the couch, staring at the pile of crabs as everyone went to eat.
Rainey came and sat beside him.

“What
the hell?” he asked her.

“I
don’t know, Pookie. But come eat some breakfast. You know, mom’s traditional
squirrel cakes with marmalade.”

“Yeah.
Okay.” Rudy decided that no pile of crabs was going to ruin Christmas. Maybe after
some food he’d be able to figure the whole thing out. He joined the table.

Staci
and Belinda were eating figs and oats at the kitchen bar. Rudy wondered if they
had anything to do with the crabs. He watched them as he forked bacon and
squirrel cakes. They did not watch him.

“Rudy,
what are your plans for today?” Rainey asked, brushing a strand of hair off her
forehead.

He
looked around at everyone who was looking at him. “Well. I. Well, there were
things to do that were gifts. I had. There were clues. There were.. .you know,
those crabs have kind of screwed things up.” He ate bacon.

After
a while Rudy said, “We’re going to make snowmen in the backyard, maybe have a
snowball fight, make snow angels, and then drink hot chocolate. With rum. And
eat cookies. Then we’re going to sing songs together, and roast chestnuts.”

Everyone
nodded and murmured agreement.

“What
about the crabs?” Skipp asked.

His
father answered, “We’ll deal with them later.”

Outside
they made magnificent snowmen. Staci and Belinda made a glorious snowwoman.
Even the grandparents got in on the action.

Rudy
thought about the crabs, but wasn’t upset by them. He figured he’d get to the
bottom of the mystery soon enough. He planned to search the house for the
missing gifts. And even if they were never found, the big gift couldn’t be
switched out for crab sculptures. The limo would arrive at six. That was in—he
checked his watch— nine hours. A snowball hit him in the back of the head.

Inside,
over hot chocolate, everyone wondered about the crabs. Rudy poured extra rum in
his drink. Rainey took her mug to the bath with her.

“I
think we should add water,” Staci said.

Skipp
and Belinda agreed. Hector coughed up something and swallowed it.
Lydia
made a
face and tried to swallow her hot chocolate. Gerald wanted to add water to the
crabs. So did Julette.
Lydia
agreed once she got the drink down.

Rudy
didn’t want to. He stared at the pile of crabs.

The
cat slid past the pile and hissed at it.

Rudy
said, “Let’s all relax for a minute, put on some Christmas music and chill out,
okay? I have to check on something upstairs.”

He
went and checked his email. No word. Rudy played three games of solitaire,
listened to some Sheila E., and went back downstairs. He slipped past the
grandparents, who sat snacking in the living room. Hector snored loudly.
Gerald was talking over him to the women about ham-radio operators who
disappeared after hearing some strange sound.
Lydia
rolled pie crust and whistled
Christmas tunes. Julette ate a cookie sandwich.

Rudy
slipped through the side door and found Skipp and Staci in the garage. Skipp
was smoking.

“What
the hell, Skipp?” Rudy took the cigarette from him.

“What,
Dad? I smoke sometimes. Like when the grandparents are here. Or we all get
crabs for Christmas.”

“Yeah,”
Staci said, “So do I.” She snatched at the cigarette.

Rudy
held it over his head. He said, “Well that’s bullshit, kids. You’re too young
to smoke.” He took a drag and held it for a long time, finally letting a thick
cloud of smoke crawl from his nostrils.

He
hit the button to open the garage and strolled out, smoking. Staci and Skipp
watched their dad walk away.

“Huh,”
Staci said. She dug in her purse for another cigarette.

Rudy
walked across the street and down the path between two houses to the community
park. He flipped the cigarette butt into the frozen fountain. He gazed at the
houses across the skating pond, wondering how many families awoke to holiday
adversity in the form of stone crabs. A few kids glided across the ice. Rudy
thought he heard sleigh bells. He shook himself off, repeating his Merry
Christmas Mantra out in the clean snowy air. Then he went home to get the
celebrating back in swing.

He
walked in the front door to find everyone but Rainey gathered in the living
room watching
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
on cable. Hector was snoring. There were snacks piled on
the coffee table.

As
Rudy closed the door, a deep boom shook the house. Everything rattled. The
sound rumbled and passed.

“What
the hell was that?” Staci shouted.

Car
alarms went off outside.

“Turn
on the news,” Julette said. She stuffed a chocolate muffin in her mouth.

Skipp
changed the channel.

...me
just repeat, this seems to be a global situation. Everyone got crabs for Christmas
this morning. We don’t have many details, but similar stories are coming in
from everywhere.

He
changed the channel to a local one.

...was
actually the third in a series of explosions that are rocking the metro area.
Police and emergency personnel are advising everyone to stay home, and stay
indoors. There is little information to be gathered at this time. We have crews
attempting to make it to the sites, but they have so far been turned away.
We’ll bring you live coverage as it develops. Jennifer, back to you.