Chapter 6

Elf brains splattered, like modern art. Fucking Jackson Pollack performance pieces over the white walls of that lab.

Santa put the pedal to the metal. The speedometer reaching 106 MPH. And, silently, he remembered when he used to impersonate Jesus, back when he had a series of slapfights with African cabdrivers. Then Santa recalled his stint as a fortune teller in a bus station bathroom, over in Hoboken. Santa’s always believed in tarot and circumstance.

The pangolin cast a puzzled, sideways glance at Santa as the Caddy passed by a blank highway sign. The blank sign bent, slanting like the spine of an old man. A flickering streetlight silhouetted and lit up Santa’s fat face like a strobe light.

Santa stuck a forefinger to his chin, nodded, and unloosed something between a laugh and a growl.

“The death of one ... The death of one...”

Santa again swallowed what was left of the blunt and reached into his red coat’s front pocket. Pulled out a baseball-sized snowball of cocaine. Licking his lips, he raised his eyebrows like he’d solved a riddle, and proceeded to smack the white ball to his face and snort as much as he could. Then he slurped up the rest and screamed loud as an opera singer.

“I told you a thousand times. It was a popcorn bomb plot. A hijacking of public trust. A switchblade to Mother Nature’s throat. But the research went astray. Fauci ignored the fireball in Tianjin. And worse yet, he played with the fire.

“Yessir, the Snake-charmers wore their underwear outside their pants. They pulled out their yogurt-slingers and played Russian Roulette. And after they finished, elf brains were blasted, oozing trails of yellow and red sludge, the elf brains splattered, like modern art. Fucking Jackson Pollack performance pieces over the white walls of that lab. It wasn’t as if the French could have built it any better. It took almost two decades for a reason.

“Then we discovered the truth about Nicki Minaj having swollen testicles, an impotent penis, and a sex offender husband. But it was too late.

“I too fear, loathe, love, and ultimately believe in the power of the internet.”

The pangolin chewed on a tablet of children’s strength LSD. Then Santa ducked down, dug under the driver’s seat, and broke out a blood-stained bottle of Laotian rice whiskey. Brushing his long white beard to the side, Santa twisted open the bottle cap with his teeth, spit out the cap, then flipped the whiskey bottle upside down, cradled and chugged it, all whilst steering the Caddy, carefully, with his bare left foot. His chubby, prehensile toes curling over the steering wheel.

With his right foot, Santa was pushing the Caddy hard, ragging on it, throttling the gears, like a racecar driver.

The Clay and Buck Show faded, and Warrant’s “Down Boys” came on the bass-heavy stereo, the car filling with rock guitars and heavy sounds. Santa bobbed his scruffy face, slapped at the dashboard as if he had a winning hand of Blackjack. Then he rolled down all the car’s windows.

Santa shifted his gaze, saw there were zoo animals, lions, tigers, elephants, gorillas and kangaroos, along with the comedian Jim Breuer, the comedian running on all fours, groaning and making goat sounds ... The escaped animals in the breakdown lane. The animals pushing forward at varying speeds...

Further on the horizon, another runaway elf had doubled over, was writhing and convulsing in the breakdown lane. A centaur soon parachuted in, sputtering and wheezing, and it pounced, commenced to grind its hooves at the elf’s green, puckered face.

“Certain things you do really make me mad...” Santa sang along and then flung the empty whiskey bottle out an open window. The Caddy’s four windows sucking in wide columns of cold air. The air taking on a metallic, sulfuric tinge.

The pangolin glanced at the open car windows as if they were the empty eye sockets of human remains.

“Jani Lane was underrated. The man was a genius. The Tarzan of butt rock.”

“Whoa, can we rewind to where we been...”

The pangolin squeaked on the leather as it rolled on its side and pawed at the air, like a playful kitten.

“Yessir, there’s nothing wrong with a sissy.”