SHORT FICTION

Jolly Saint Nick Is Dead, Alas

A clatter on the rooftop may not bring glad tidings to those on Santa’s naughty list. This yuletide potboiler puts the sour in sugar plum candy and the bitter in hot buttered rum.

I’m not sure quite what to say about Perry Slaughter, the type of unrepentant hack who never met a pulp cliché he didn’t ply with liquor and woo back to his place with ill intent. My association with him began in 2004 when, to my discomfort, I helped him place his short story “Optical Allusions” in the fall issue of Electric Velocipede.

I thought I’d washed my hands of him after that, but in 2007 he somehow strongarmed me into airing the story below on my late, not-so-lamented podcast, William Shunn’s ShunnCast — where, bizarrely, it ended up finding its way into a few (obviously dysfunctional) families’ Christmas Eve traditions.

What on earth would induce me to share it again now? Er, let’s just say Mr. Slaughter knows where I live, and I find it prudent to keep certain yuletide spirits well-propitiated. Merry cockamamie Christmas!