The Christmas Planet and Other Stories (Beta Version) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Request for Reviews

  Book Offer Page

  Also By

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Christmas Planet and Other Stories (Beta Version)

  A Collection of Four Short Stories

  By Al Macy

  AlMacyAuthor.com

  Copyright © 2018 Al Macy

  All Rights Reserved.

  Version: 2018/07/27 9:14 B07

  CHAPTER ONE

  When I was about to get a vasectomy, I was so discombobulated that I lay face down on the operating table. That was years ago, but I’m still embarrassed about it. Why do I bring this up when introducing a Christmas story? Well, because the doc prescribed Vicodin for after the procedure.

  When I took the pills, I got an intense Christmasy feeling, even though it was July. I got more into the Christmas spirit than I ever had before. I had visions of long-needled pine boughs sparkling with snow and presents with red wrapping paper and gold ribbons. Sugar plums would have danced in my head, but I had no idea what a sugar plum looked like.

  I thought these visions were caused by some random misfiring of the drugged-up neurons in my brain plus the pain that comes from having your private parts attacked with sharp instruments. My jaw dropped, however, when I saw Rosy Perez talk about Vicodin on a talk show. She described the cozy, Christmas feeling it gave her. I wasn’t the only one!

  My wife told me maybe I should take Vicodin whenever I want to write a Christmas story. I wonder if the FDA would approve that.

  I enjoyed writing A Mind Reader’s Christmas, so I decided to write another Christmas story, this one in the Jake Corby universe—or multiverse, I should say.

  I think you’ll enjoy this silly story even if you aren’t stoned. If not, take two Vicodin and read it again [My lawyer said to tell you that this is just a joke.]

  * * *

  Gordon Guccio pushed his plate away and pulled his unlit cigar from his mouth. “So there I am, running down the ramp, buck naked, and my willy falls off.”

  We’d just finished a delicious meat loaf dinner. The woodsmoke scent from our fire had long since surrendered to the eau-de-tobacco aroma Guccio always brought with him—even when he wasn’t smoking. Would the pine paneling absorb it?

  My wife, Charli, laughed, and she and I both glanced at our eight-year-old daughter. Sophia got off her chair and came over to mine. She tugged on my shirtsleeve. I leaned down, and she whispered in my ear.

  I nodded. She had the question I’d expected. I whispered back, “Why don’t you ask him?”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Would you like me to ask him?” I spoke quietly so only she would hear.

  She glanced at Guccio and nodded. He’d visited enough that she wasn’t shy with him, but she’d sensed there was something different about this subject. Perhaps his mentioning he was naked clued her in.

  I cleared my throat. “As you might guess, Gordon, Sophia would like to know what a willy is.”

  “Ah, jeez, Jake, I’m sorry,” he said. “I—”

  “It’s okay, Gordon.” Charli laughed her musical laugh again. “You’re blushing.”

  Charli and I have been married a few years, but I still shake my head when I think of my good fortune. I’d given up and dropped out of the world after my first wife died. Charli found me and pulled me out of my hole. I’m forty seven and look as weathered as an old hammer. One left out in the rain a lot. At thirty eight, Charli still looks like a miniature supermodel. She’s about five two in heels—a foot shorter than me. My salt and pepper hair is barely hanging in there while her hair is blonde and thick—no coloring necessary. That night, she had it tied in a ponytail.

  Guccio rubbed the back of his neck. “Jeez, Sophia, I’m sorry. I’m not used to being around kids.” He has a strong Bronx accent, sounding like a mobster. He’d been grossly overweight and headed for a coronary but lost seventy pounds thanks to a new technology we’d acquired as part of our entry into the Galactic Association. Despite the weight loss, he still looked like a slob—stains on his shirt, messy hair, and a day’s growth of beard.

  He continued, “A willy is … uh … a—”

  “Just say it, Gordon.” I picked Sophia up and put her on my lap.

  “Penis,” he said. “‘Willy’ is another name for penis.”

  Sophia turned to me, frowning. “Does it—?”

  “You can ask Gordon yourself.” I nodded toward him.

  In a small voice, she asked him, “Does it … fall off?”

  Guccio scratched his cheek. “Only in your dreams.”

  Since we’d recently watched the old movie, Pinocchio, Sophia was undoubtedly interpreting that as a dreams-come-true type of thing.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, “Gordon was just describing his dream. Weird, impossible things happen in dreams—”

  “Especially in Gordon’s dreams.” Charli took a sip of wine.

  “Right.” I find other people’s dreams boring, but Guccio’s were different. Weird, but fun and exciting. “So, when he said, ‘In your dreams,’ he meant it’s something that doesn’t happen in real life.” I turned to him. “What happened next?”

  He cleared his throat. “So, then I have to decide, go back and get it or keep running? I look over my shoulder, and the creatures are swarming out of the spaceship. They looked like penguins, but they all had artificial legs, those springy, blade things, and they could run faster than me. Each one had a machete light saber, and they were making angry honking noises, like pissed-off geese. So, going back wasn’t an option. I keep running, and suddenly, I’m in this jungle, but it’s all underwater. I can breathe fine though.”

  He continued until he’d recounted the entire dream, one guaranteed to give Sophia nightmares.

  After putting our daughter to bed, Charli and I joined Guccio in our living room. The room, and our house in general, felt like an upscale cabin in the forest. There was a braided rug in front of the woodstove and a rustic chandelier hanging from the cathedral ceiling. I stoked up the fire and poured us each some brandy. Guccio had cut himself another slice of lemon meringue pie and had a crumb on his chin.

  “So, Gordon, how are you enjoying retirement?” Charli took a napkin, reached over, and brushed the crumb away.

  Guccio had been the country’s Secretary of Defense. Charli had been a presidential advisor, and the two had worked together for years. He and I had had adventures of our own. He had resigned a year ago, in 2021.

  “I’m not,” he said. Years of drinking and smoking had given him a whiskey baritone. “Enjoying it, that is. I don’t have enough to do.”

  I swirled my brandy. “How about the dating? Doesn’t that give you enough to do? Found anybody interested in a fixer-upper project?”

  Guccio had never married. He’d devoted all his energies to serving his country. With his new situation, he’d been working on filling the hole in his life.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t remind me. Those dating sites are—wait, let me show you this.” He patted each of his pockets then found and extracted a folded-up brochure. He handed it to me. “Check this out.”

  Charli had her legs tucked beneath her on the couch. I snuggled close, and we looked at it together. It was a glossy pamphlet—an advertisement—for “The Christmas Planet.” Earth was one of the few members of the Galactic Association still printing things on vegetable matter, and the civilization behind the pamphlet was hu
moring our backwardness.

  “Come spend Christmas on the yule-iest planet in the galaxy!” the banner headline read. It was filled with photos right out of the Norman Rockwell universe: kids sledding, Christmas trees, couples walking hand-in-hand along a quaint village street.

  Interstellar travel was accomplished by jumping into a parallel universe then back again. It avoided the impossibility of faster-than-light (FTL) transit but accomplished the same thing. The stars were now within reach, and this civilization seemed ready to capitalize on the newest members of the association.

  I finished reading it and said, “This is wild. So, this civilization, the …”

  “The Kikmots,” Guccio said.

  “Kikmots? Okay. So, these Kikmots turned their whole planet into a Christmas-themed amusement park in only a year?”

  Guccio shook his head. “No. Only a part of it. This planet is like a galactic Disneyland. They have areas devoted to particular cultures. They’ve jumped on the interstellar-travel bandwagon big time, basing their whole economy on it.”

  Charli asked, “This doesn’t seem like your thing, Gordon. I don’t ever remember you getting in the holiday spirit. Ever. And what does this have to do with dating?”

  Guccio leaned forward, turned the brochure to the third page, and tapped on it. “Right here. They have a singles package.”

  “Just for humans, right? I know you’re desperate, but—”

  Guccio sat back and poured himself more brandy. “Hey, come on. I’m not that desperate. But I need a change. Doesn’t it look interesting? Maybe you guys would like to go.”

  “Well, Gordon,” Charli poured him more brandy. “If you want to boldly go on dates, I think that’s something you should do on your own.”

  Guccio shrugged. “We’d be in different parts of the village. When’s the last time you had a white Christmas?”

  We lived in the redwood forest on California’s north coast, near Eureka. We rarely got even a dusting of snow, but if we felt snow-deprived, we could always drive to the mountains.

  “Pass,” I said. “But you might want to investigate this further, Gordon. Something seems off.”

  “Such as?”

  “The cost is too low, for example. I don’t see how they could profit much on this kind of tourism.”

  “I think they’re experimenting. This is a loss leader,” he said. “I think they’re hoping for a major expansion in future years.”

  “Is the theme park approved by the Galactic Association?”

  “Absolutely.” He showed me the back of the brochure and pointed to the purple star.

  * * *

  The next morning, I was still in la-la land when something tickled my ear.

  “Daddy are you awake can we go to The Christmas Planet?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and dragged myself back to Earth. I glanced at the clock. 7:15. Dawn. Oof! Too much brandy last night. The robins were performing their morning concert, competing with the raucous crows and jays. Charli and I always kept the windows open, and the forest scents made it feel as if we were camping.

  Sophia climbed into the bed, stepping on my stomach then squeezing herself between Charli and me. Our German shepherd nuzzled his wet nose into my ear. I shivered and patted him on the head. “Morning, Boonie.”

  “Daddy, can we go to The Christmas Planet?” Sophia held the brochure inches from my face. Guccio must have left it in the living room.

  Charli was certainly awake, but I whispered anyway, my mouth up next to Sophia’s ear. “Why do you want to go to The Christmas Planet?”

  She giggled. “That tickles.”

  “Don’t we have nice Christmases here? Grandma Marie could come visit.”

  “But we don’t have snow here. I can’t make a snowman.”

  “We could go to Grandma Marie’s in Maine.” I didn’t want to travel to Maine. Like any self-respecting introvert, I preferred staying home. But I really, really didn’t want to travel light years to some strange planet inhabited by weird creatures.

  Sophia turned away from me. “Mommy, can we go to The Christmas Planet?”

  Charli switched on her bedside lamp. “Where?” She yawned.

  “The Christmas Planet. Look.” Sophia held the brochure out. “They have puppies.”

  Puppies? I put on my reading glasses and reached for the brochure. Those weren’t puppies. They were soft and furry and cute, but they weren’t any species I’d seen. Two tails each. Nothing from Earth. I shuddered.

  Charli kissed Sophia’s cheek and hopped out of bed. She’s more of a morning person than I am. As she went to the closet, she squeezed my toe and sent me a little cocked-head frown. I took it to mean “Why did you leave the brochure out?” Or maybe “Why the hell didn’t you hide that brochure?”

  Charli pulled on a pair of Jeggings. They looked like jeans, but molded to her body as if applied with spray paint. “I don’t think so, Sophia. Let’s talk about it at breakfast. Why don’t you feed Boonie, and Daddy and I will be in soon?”

  Boonie had been lying on the braided rug, but when Charli mentioned feeding, he jumped up and trotted to the door. He sat watching Sophia and wagged his tail. Sometimes I swear that dog understands every word we say.

  Sophia followed Boonie out of the room.

  Charli sat on the bed, buttoning her blouse. “Darn that Gordon. He shouldn’t have left that brochure out. Did he do that on purpose?”

  Phew. I wasn’t in the doghouse. “You mean so Sophia would see it and want to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nah. No way. He’s just not used to having kids around.”

  In the kitchen, we found Sophia at the table, quietly crayoning a page in the back of the brochure. The pamphlet had a kid’s page with puzzles and a drawing of Santa’s Ranch, ready for coloring. Santa was driving a tractor which Sophia was filling with red. A snowman in a cowboy hat was lassoing a reindeer.

  Our kitchen had a picture window that looked out onto our backyard. It wasn’t a yard in the normal sense, but simply a part of the redwood forest. Brown needles and twigs covered the ground with sword ferns growing here and there. The tree trunks were massive, and rays of sunlight spread their fingers through the perpetual mist.

  I scrambled eggs with bits of bacon, cheese, and avocado. Charli leaned back against the counter, watching our daughter concentrate on her work. Sophia had been through a lot. Four years ago, she’d been kidnapped, and soon after that, her biological mother had died.

  Charli leaned in to me and whispered the terrible words that caused my heart to skip a beat. “Maybe it could be a fun family adventure.”

  Aargh! No. I turned to her so quickly a pain flashed down my neck. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She shook her head, no impish smile. So: not kidding.

  I’d just lost my main ally, and it was about to become a two-against-one war of wills.

  I took the pan and divided the eggs between the three plates Charli had set out.

  “Look, Daddy. Did I do a good job?”

  I sat and took the brochure.

  Sophia climbed onto my lap.

  “Nice job. You—”

  “I stayed inside the lines, see?”

  I nodded. “Yes, you did. Hey, how did you know tractors are usually red?”

  “Grandma Marie has a red tractor.”

  “You’re right. You remembered that. The Christmas tree is orange, did you make that up?”

  “No! Look.” She turned a page. “See? Orange.”

  “Huh. You’re right. You did an excellent job on this, Sophia. I’m proud of you.”

  “Daddy, because I did a good job, can we go to The Christmas Planet? You said we couldn’t get a puppy—”

  “What about Boonie?”

  “Oh, Daddy. Boonie’s not a puppy. If we can go to the Christmas planet, I promise I won’t beg for a puppy anymore. Please.”

  Charli broke her silence. “Sophia, Daddy and I will discuss it, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up,
okay?”

  Sophia jumped off my lap and skipped to her own chair. “Yay!”

  Was it just me? “Yay” didn’t sound like a word associated with not getting one’s hopes up.

  After breakfast, we dropped Sophia off at her best friend’s house for a play date.

  I’d just pulled out of the friend’s driveway, heading home, when Charli put her hand on my knee. “Jake.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  She laughed. “What?”

  “I don’t like that tone of voice.”

  “No, it’s okay. I just wanted to say you’ve done a good job at controlling your introvert … tendencies, and I appreciate that.”

  “I’ve done an excellent job, I’d say.”

  She waggled her hand, tilting it right and left. “I wouldn’t go that far. A good job.”

  “But?” I stopped at a traffic light and raised my eyebrows at her.

  “Uh—”

  “Were you going to say I won’t okay a trip to this weird Christmas Planet because I’m too introverted?”

  “No, not at all. I was just going to say I know you’ve had to deal with a lot of bad people, when you were with the FBI for example. Perhaps you’re becoming a little too suspicious of things in your—”

  “In my old age? Thanks.” I smiled.

  “Do you think people are basically good?”

  I turned onto our street. “I don’t think that’s a useful concept. First, even if people are good, there are bad dudes out there. Second, we aren’t talking about people here. The creatures that run that damned Christmas Planet aren’t human.”

  “They’ve been admitted to the Association, which is more than can be said for us.”

  Earth was still on the provisional-member status list.

  I pulled our car into the garage and switched it off. “Do you really think we should travel to another planet to have a cozy Christmas experience? One with orange Christmas trees and dogs with multiple tails?”

  “I agree it’s a little crazy, but Sophia would enjoy it, and I’d appreciate the change of pace. You like hanging out with Gordon.”

  “Let’s talk about it more after lunch.”

  The whole concept of traveling light years to visit a pretend version of Christmas put on by non-humans was so misguided and ridiculous, I had no doubt I could talk them down. Right?