A Fire for Christmas

By William R. Hincy

IT'S CHRISTMAS 2020—be careful what you wish for! After meeting at a pre-pandemic writers conference, struggling sci-fi novelist Jeffrey Dahl attempts to rekindle a romance with renowned holiday erotica author Lourdes D.P. Ivy. But stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and communication gaffes lead to a series of old-fashioned letters as the would-be lovers exchange Christmas stories.

From award-winning author William R. Hincy, A Fire for Christmas takes a satirical blowtorch to our most cherished holiday stories, then invites the reader to make snow angels in the ashes.

Will Jeff and Lourdes catch fire? In 2020, nothing is certain.

Featured in the collection:

A FIRE FOR CHRISTMAS: Afternoon cartoons-obsessed Billy Lynus has one item on his wish list—a Navy Stan action figure. But if past disappointment is kindling for future humiliation, Billy is primed to ignite a Yule log that’ll burn for Christmases to come.

THE COAL TRAIN: After being naughty on Christmas Eve, Moya and her brother Aden awake to find coal in their stockings and a train in their suburban front yard. The duo stowaway on a madcap adventure, but there are no kindred spirits, kindly ghosts or quirky conductors to guide them. And this train isn’t going to the North Pole.

DUNGEONS AND SANTA: A lonely teenager devises a plan to make his Christmas wish come true. The catch—Santa.

HALL-MARKED AT CHRISTMAS: Climatologist Moya Hoffman aims to reverse climate change by making it snow across the globe on, you guessed it, Christmas. But matters are complicated when the tiny hamlet of Christmas Village faces stay at home orders after a nefarious stranger goes scrambling through the local mall, maskless and coughing all the way. Throw in a burgeoning romance with new-to-town mechanic Bill Lynus, a desperate desire for human contact after months of isolation, and the potential sale of the family’s antique car museum, and there are all the trimmings for a Christmas romance unfit for cable TV.

IT ISN'T, ACTUALLY: After a suicide attempt goes awry, former city councilman Jorge Sanchez finds himself pulling his guardian angel from the river. Granted a glimpse of what the town would be like if he was never born, Jorge is left questioning if it’s really a wonderful life. At Christmas!

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR A FIRE FOR CHRISTMAS
"A book you can read. There are a lot of words here... probably too much." - Cousin Elroy

"A riot! The best book ever written!!" - Mom

"In A Fire for Christmas, William R. Hincy once again proves he is the writer most likely to have multiple personality disorder." - Hincy's therapist (who really doesn't pay that much attention so, like, what does she know?!?)

"A MUST READ for anyone who's a masochist." - @DonnaTheDom6969

"I think it's quite good, actually." - the author

• Language: English
• Publisher: William R. Hincy
• Release date: Nov 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781732757943

William R. Hincy

“Some people run from their demons; others sit down and have cocktails with theirs.”William R. Hincy is a man who does and writes about the latter. Having become a writer after deciding it was the only sensible thing for a problem drinker to do, Hincy aspires to use literature to connect society on an emotional level through characters who no longer create messes but have instead become the mess. Hincy has won the American Fiction Award and been named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award and two International Book Awards. Without Expiration, his personal anthology of short fiction, was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews. He now lives outside Los Angeles with his wife and kids, having found solace in the notion that the only things sacred are self and spiced rum.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by William R. Hincy. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. The characters in this book come from the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Book Design: Dario Ciriello

Cover Art: Ann Ho and Anastasia Kisialiova

Editing: Dario Ciriello

Library of Congress Control Number:  2021916867

ISBN 978-1-7327579-3-6 (print)

ISBN 978-1-7327579-4-3 (ebook)

Whiskey-Winged Lit

First paperback edition: October 2021

Los Angeles, California

Query by email to

[e-mail]

Learn more at williamrhincy.com

To being your own grandpa, generational games of telephone, the tractors that plowed these scenes, and all the stories found and lost along the way

—WRH

CONTENTS

Beginning

A Fire for Christmas

The Coal Train

Dungeons and Santa

Hall-Marked at Christmas

It Isn’t, Actually

A Word from the Author

Preview: Pirates of Appalachia

Other Books by William R. Hincy

About the Author

Dear Lourdes,

With the physical distancing and shelter-in-place orders, everyone seems to be using social media and video chats to stay connected. Well, I thought it would be keen to communicate like Hamilton during the Revolutionary War. I realize letter writing is quite quaint indeed, but I’ve always thought there was something romantic about it. My apologies—I don’t mean to be forward. One of the disadvantages of writing on a typewriter is it’s much harder to cut-and-paste, without doing it literally, that is! LOL. (As a side note, it feels exceedingly strange to type LOL on a typewriter LMAO)

The other night I awoke smiling to the memory of our meeting at the writers conference in February. What a different world that feels like now! Seriously, a plague in this day and age? It doesn’t seem plausible. But I suppose the worst fiction is the best nonfiction, so here we are, a global pandemic, murder hornets, and a Tiger King later! But I digress, the memory that brought a smile to my face was when I first saw you in that red outfit during the panel on Writing BDSM: There Are NO Safe Words. You looked like the most decadent red velvet cake I’d ever seen! I was late and missed your bio, so little did I know when I asked you out for a drink that you were THE queen of holiday erotica. What a night of pleasant surprises for me! We hit it off, didn’t we?? I don’t know what was more intoxicating, the smell of your lavender perfume or the Moscow Mules. I had to look up the name later, but if I may be so forward—that was THE BEST Tim Allen I’ve ever experienced! I just wish you’d been done with your panels so we could have made it upstairs, though you made masterful work of the supply closet.

I must confess, our meeting was the ONE good thing to come out of that conference. My latest anthology, QUANTUM PANTOMIME, while hailed by one critic as complicated, has been broadly ignored, and when not ignored, described as meandering, tone-deaf, and as purple as a frostbit nipple. Being the first volume in a planned twelve-book trilogy, its reception dealt a damaging blow to my confidence. I couldn’t bear to brave the blank page for weeks, and then the most marvelous thing happened. As I lay in bed thinking of our time together, I decided to download one of the ebooks in your extensive catalog, TWO IN THE STOCKING FOR MRS. CLAUSE THIS CHRISTMAS. And can I just say—WOWSERS! Besides being so steamy I could only wear a towel while reading it {red face emoji}, it was a veritable masterpiece in both the explicit and implicit senses. Reading it felt illegal—like smuggling contraband while peeping through the shutters of a couple’s most illicit fantasies. I especially enjoyed the way you used a devil’s three-way as an allegory for the precariousness of sanity. Brilliant! It inspired me to break out of my box, check my privilege, and attempt to write an unconventional Christmas story. And with school being taught remotely for the foreseeable future and my students content to gaze glassy-eyed at their laptops, I’ve had a lot of time to write!

The story I came up with is based on an event from my childhood, a harrowing experience with a Christmas present and my incendiary older brother. Writing it gave me penetrating insight into what a diabolical turd my brother truly was. Unfortunately, he died last year after slipping on personal lubricant and tumbling down a flight of stairs, a feat which resulted in him being given a Darwin Award post-HUMOROUSLY =)~ But if he were alive and could read those events from my POV, I expect he’d recognize the horror of his ways and make reparations, which I think we can both agree are long overdue. #woke

As an award-winning writer, not to mention number one trending on Amazon for Hanukkah smut and Christmas perversion, I wonder if you’d be obliged to read my humble tale and give me your HONEST critique. I could never imagine being as celebrated and talented as you, so I fear my story may be amateurish to your refined palate, but it would be a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience for me, much like our evening in February!! {winking emoji, blushing emoji, winking emoji x2}

Will you do me the honor of reading my work? Please say you will…

Sincerely yours,

Jeff Dahl

April 12, 2020

{heart-eyes emoji LOLOL}

MOST PEOPLE FORGET the Christmas presents they receive as children; tragically, I’m not one of them. I remember every gift ever plopped beneath the tree—each with as much care and thoughtfulness as the droppings left by a Chihuahua with bowel control issues. The horror show started in earnest when I was four. The present—a pair of pink hoofed slipper socks that oinked when you wiggled your toes. Upon seeing them, my mom instituted the now-infamous try them on tradition, which turned perilous when I tripped on a hoof and nosedived into our artificial tree. It was then I learned all of my clothes were given to me at least four sizes too big. The next present was a Flare Bear fanny pack, complete with articulable Sir Shares A Lot Bear front and center, his arms wide for a hug, which, positioned as he was at the crotch, came across as too risqué even for my adolescent mind.

I’m not sure if you can say things got worse from there, but the things I received definitely didn’t get any better. The following Christmas brought two articles of what can loosely be described as clothing but could never be described as tasteful. The first was a red toboggan shaped like Giggly Mo’s head. The demented designers, in what I can only assume was a stroke of wicked ingenuity, fashioned it with googly eyes that wobbled and stuck in odd positions whenever you moved, a highlight that brought squeals of glee from my mom, who ordered me to keep wearing it as I opened the rest of my presents. If there was one thing Ma had an aptitude for, it was torture. Next up, a Yellow Bird coat decorated with glittery feathers and wings—yes, wings! Giant wings that flapped when you raised your arms and made you look like a condor with jaundice. To cap the spectacle, Santa favored me with a pair of Gimpy the Poo Bear shorts, which read Gimpy on the front and Poo on the back in bold, brown letters. As if the exception proving the rule, the shorts were two sizes too small. Suddenly I could sympathize with how the Grinch’s butt crack felt. In fact, the pain in my crack left me questioning what had happened to the notorious lump of coal my mom promised would be bestowed upon the naughty? It at least would’ve been useful (I could’ve pummeled my coat to soot with it).

Suffice it to say, these gifts kept on giving, snicker after snicker, noogie after noogie, wedgie after wedgie, and hey everybody look at him after hey everybody look at him! (I can still hear my mom’s voice echoing off the trailer’s aluminum walls: "Oh, stop being a baby—those are cute shorts!") But as I rounded the corner to six years old, I was becoming a kid, not just the oversized toddler my parents dressed like a rodeo clown with arrested development. Moreover, I was watching Navy Stan, and with Christmas approaching, my aim was set on something more fitting than wardrobe malfunctions.

The object that caused me to lose my Poo shorts every weekday afternoon at 3:00 P.M. was an action figure named Mamba Psi, a soldier who was part snake, part commando, part ninja, part bodybuilder, and all cool. Dressed in black scales from head-to-toe (he had black goggles even—black goggles!), he came equipped with star-shaped grenades strapped across his chest, an Uzi submachine gun, and a samurai sword. He never spoke—not even a single grunt, huff, or hiya! He just punched, kicked, and blew frak up with a mystical fury and his signature move, the Venom Smack, a side-armed slap across the chest that instantly vaporized his enemies. I had never seen anyone obliterate the machines of war with less fuss or more pizzazz.

I begged and begged for Mamba Psi, writing letters to Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, elves, even Santa’s reindeer (I didn’t include Rudolph; he seemed a little too green to have much sway on the list). I went as far as hinting to my parents, the ultimate longshot as my mom steadfastly insisted that anyone with shoes and a family had no need for toys.

Put them on, Ma insisted that fateful Christmas morn. She was referring to the garb of Christmas past, which she’d fiendishly laid out before the tree.

We had a new family tradition.

I did as told, not wanting to spoil any Christmas mojo that may be leaning my way (though nothing was leaning any direction the second I squirmed into my ever-shrinking Poo shorts). With my Yellow Bird wings flapping, I held the first present to my ear and shook it, convinced that if I rattled it right, Santa would transform it into the Mamba Psi action figure of my dreams. Although perhaps Santa was the wrong word since my older brother had already informed me the night before, by way of waking me to help him put the presents beneath the tree, that Santa was nothing more than my parent’s meager checkbook. Still, the pain was too new, the knowledge too fresh, to extinguish my belief in Christmas magic, and after a hearty shake, I ripped open my first present…

A Grumpy-Cat-Eating-Lasagna sweater. Yup—that was enough to douse the Christmas spirit. The deranged manufacturers had even depicted Grumpy Cat from behind, leaving a colossal, anatomically correct cat-butt on my back. For the first time I was grateful for my Yellow Bird coat, though the Christmas past and present marriage was a combo even a pimp would have taken offense to.

Clapping her hands, Ma cheered, That sweater’s going to keep you warm through high school!

Dad, though, in an expression of resigned exasperation I’d come to know well, lifted his bifocals and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his palm. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the sweater. Ohuhhumug… he… said, maybe; or maybe muttered is the right word. I can’t say for certain to this day. The grumbling gibberish Dad spoke sounded like the murmurs of a drunken hillbilly who was too exhausted to muster full words, so he resorted to mumbling random unstressed syllables from the words he intended to say.

"Well—shit! Ma threw her hands in the air, a movement that sent her dentures sliding out of her mouth. Somehow over the years she had come to decipher Dad’s grumbolingo, and more often than not it served to set her off. I can’t wait until the holidays are over. Every year I do everything and yinz sit around complainin’."

Ohshauh…

Another hand-throw, this time she connected with Dad’s chin. Go on, she spat at me toothlessly, fumbling for her dentures. Finish openin’ yer presents. Never mind how stressed out your mother is.

Wary of Ma’s gummy agitation, I tried to pretend I was happy as I unwrapped the next box. But my mind was engulfed in questions. I mean, now that there was no Santa Claus, what was next? Was there no Ozone Layer? No Hands Across America? No Patty the Mischievous Leprechaun who beat kids senseless in their sleep for tattling (I was assured that there was, though, because I’d been visited by his wrath a few nights before)? And where in the world were my letters going? All these questions roller-skated through my mind like a Galder Sister wreaking havoc in the Roller Dome.

And then came the hip check that sent me flailing over the railing…

I opened the last present.

Strawberry Babycakes socks.

Strawberry Babycakes pink socks featuring scratch-and-sniff padding on the heel that smelled of pineapple and something musky (babycakes?)…

I couldn’t suppress a groan. It was so visceral it surprised me, as did the four-letter word that followed. I barely had time to brace myself before Ma smacked me upside the noggin.

Quit your fussin’! She smacked me again. There are starving kids in Appalachia who would love to wear them socks!

Rubbing my head, I looked up to see Dad with his palm dug into his forehead, but this time he was wily enough to lean back out of Ma’s sight. It didn’t help…

Now it’s your turn, Bill, she said, reaching under the couch and withdrawing a white box. The type of box clothes are wrapped in. The type of box that invited scorn and ridicule and wedgies. For the first time I saw fear in my dad’s eyes. He bent open an edge, just a quarter-inch, and, grinding his teeth so furiously I could hear it across the room, peeped inside.

Dahgnomit… he said, pulling his hand away like he’d seen a spider. He was so pale either he’d been visited by the ghosts of Christmas, or he’d received matching Poo shorts.

I looked under the tree again, my last ray of hope flickering away. There was nothing there. No Santa Claus. No Mamba Psi. Not a glimmer of Christmas cheer. At that moment I knew how the boys from Weird Science must have felt—someone had forgotten the doll.

Ma stood up with a huff. Okay, time for breakfast. There’s cereal in the cupboard. Water in the faucet. Help yourselves!

Cereal and water? Cereal and water!?! Of all the Christmas atrocities, that was the vilest. Out of fear of inducing a post-traumatic stress bellyache, I can’t relate the events to follow. Needless to say, with holiday mushiness squishing back and forth in my gut, I trudged back to my room to remove my holiday booty. But Ma heard the oinking of my piggy slipper socks and hollered after me—Leave them on!

A couple hours later while I was trying to burn a hole in Grumpy Cat by rubbing my slippers together like kindling sticks, Dad’s voice grumbled through the trailer—Cumahenereow…

I walked towards his voice like a near-death person on Unsolved Mysteries wandering into The Light. Inside, I could hear Robert Stack stop mid-narration and implore: Turn back, you fool!

Hurry up, Ma yelled, rattling the trailer. Her tone was a mix of hysteria and whimsy, which could either mean I was in trouble or the rapture was about to occur. "You forgot a present—oh come on already!"

I felt a start, an instant of unbridled hope, but it was quickly blunted by my budding nihilism. No, it couldn’t be Mamba Psi. It was just another article of merry sadism I’d be forced to parade about the living room. It had to be. Thank God Christmas only came once a year.

But the package was the wrong shape. Too small to conceal any clothing my parents would buy me. Too many blunt angels to be a balled garment. And when I shook it, it didn’t make a sound.

Still, it had to be a shirt, or shorts, or a sweater—oh God, could it be a belt? What would a Christmas belt even resemble? Would it be made of tinsel? Would the buckle be fashioned like two reindeer kissing? I trembled at the possibilities. I could feel my parents’ eyes burning into the back of my neck like hoofs being feverishly rubbed together, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was a kid. Opening presents was my crack. And before I knew it, the wrapping paper was gone, and I was holding it in my hands.

Navy Stan.

Sweet Mother of Gimpy Mo toboggans—it was Navy Stan!

And not just any Navy Stan—it was Mamba Psi, the silent but deadly ninja of my dreams!

My body gyrated into histrionics. I jumped and kicked and high-fived the air, my yellow wings flapping gloriously and my piggy socks cheering, oink-oink, oink-oink! The scent of pineapple and musk bloomed around me, and I was sure that that’s what heaven smelled like.

Cahmahown… Dad said.

But I couldn’t calm down! (I understood him—in my euphoria I was able to understand my dad! It never happened again.)

Ripping Mamba Psi out of his cryogenic chamber, I stuck him in Sir Share’s A Lot’s arms and hoisted one fist into the air as if I’d survived Saturday detention. Cereal and water! I cheered. Cereal and water!

I played with my newfound best friend… and my clothes… for the rest of the afternoon. Mamba Psi beat Strawberry Babycake into a bloody lump, but only after she and her wicked cloned sisters had seduced him—Yo Stan! I talked to Mamba Psi like I’d never spoken to anyone before. I told him about the kids at school who beat me like a frilly tetherball because of my misanthropic wardrobe. I complained about Ma not making breakfast and about how I never understood anything Dad said. The grizzled war vet just listened until I was forced to acknowledge that there were starving kids in the Appalachian Mountains and I could try harder to understand where my dad was coming from.

Our marathon conversation was interrupted by the sound of my brother and one of his friends banging into the kitchen like Lost Boys returning to their favorite hang.

You should meet my brother, I told Mamba—we were on a first-name basis now. You’ll love him!

In the kitchen, my brother and his friend were laughing about a kid they had put on Christmas Vacation, which I knew from experience was code for wrapping some poor sap to a tree with more lights than were on the house in the movie. My brother, who had confided in me that he was a Russian spy sent here to uncover the secret behind America’s thriving dairy industry, was wearing nylon pants decorated with a patchwork of pastel boxes—pinks, blues, greens, and purples—and more zippers than I could count. To top it off, he wore a matching insulated vest. It was an outfit fit to be under the tree, but curiously he had chosen to wear it.

What do you want, twerp? Mad Cow (that was his code name) said without turning to me.

Before I could respond, his friend, who I knew as Oz of the Galactic Empire of Tight-Fitting Pants (even I thought there was something suspicious about that name), sucked up his Capri Sun until the pouch crumbled in his hand. Clad in ripped jeans, a red bomber jacket, and one bedazzled glove, he was the closest thing we had to a celebrity in these parts, having visited Action Park the summer prior and been seen in the audience of Yo! MTV Raps. Leave before someone drops a house on you, he said, his wispy, effeminate voice making the words sound like both a threat and a party game.

I got my first toy, I announced, pulling Mamba Psi out of Sir Shares A Lot’s arms. Like, for Christmas!

You like Navy Stan? Oz said, adjusting a plastic rhinestone on his glove. ‘Knowing every seaman is half the fun?’

So cool, I said, lost in remembrance of the Navy Stan post-credits lesson about never wearing a headdress after Columbus Day.

So you got a toy… My brother slapped Oz on the arm and wiggled his eyebrows. "That’s awesome for you, Americana bro. Let’s play together."

Holy Mother of Mad Cow—my brother had never offered to play with me before! I hadn’t told Mamba Psi about their occupations; he was Navy Stan 100% U.S. Seaman after all, and he might have objected on behalf of national security. But he didn’t say anything, so either he didn’t know, or he was willing for the sake of diplomatic relations to set aside their differences.

First things first, a little thing I was taught in Mother… my brother trailed off and gave me a foreboding glance. He had almost broken cover. If we weren’t careful his Soviet plant would find out, and we’d both be potted. "Never mind where I was taught it. Open Fly—"

Mamba Psi, I corrected.

Close Your Fly, he continued—I didn’t bother this time—needs to undertake Covert Operations training.

Covert!—images of a naked Mamba slathered in sugar and riding a My Kinky Pony shot through my mind! (The distinction between covert