Yuletide Immortal (The Immortal Chronicles Book 4) by Gene Doucette Read Free Book Online Page B

purchasing it in a store is taken away.  I was a farmer on several occasions, and spent most of my waking hours either tending to the food I was growing for myself or eating that food.  I had no time to do anything else. 
    If you want to know why the great works of art and philosophy and science and history and religious thought were performed by the wealthy classes of the world, it was because they were the only ones with the requisite leisure time.
    We were in one such diner as Davey attempted to defend himself.
    “Aw c’mon, guys, it was just a joke,” he said, between bites of food.  Santa thought it would be best to ply the young man with the bribe of a full stomach, which was a better idea than mine, which was to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and drag him someplace where the lighting was worse.  Admittedly, my approach didn’t differ much from the one of the fellow in the alley, but moral equivocation wasn’t something I had the patience for at this point in the evening.
    “If you would just explain yourself, that would be most satisfying,” Santa said.
    “I can explain it,” I said.  “He heard us talking in the bar and decided it would be fun to play a little prank.”
    The kid nodded.  “Yeah, pretty much.  I can hear most everything under that floor, you know.  And the walls are thin too.”
    Santa continued to look befuddled.  “But you knew so much about the boy and the vase and—”
    “Because he stole the vase himself,” I said.  “Would have worked better if you’d used the dead boy’s name.”
    “I know!  Trouble was, never knew that kid’s name.  Never met him.  When he was alive I mean.  I saw the stiff when I nicked the jar.”
    “You stole from the dead?” Santa said.
    “Naw, I stole from his family.  Plus I felt bad about it, okay?  But then I heard you guys.  You think you’re Santa Claus, and this guy thinks he’s on his thousandth birthday, and both’a you were looking for someone to make happy so I figured, I know someone who could use some’a that.  Right?”
    I had no reason to think there was anything remotely altruistic about his intentions, but my friend was swallowing it whole.
    “Why didn’t you just tell us the truth?” I asked.
    “How many reasons you want, champ?  You’d be askin’ about my parents in a hot minute, and next thing I’m getting walked down to Our Lady of the Wooden Rulers so you can feel better about yourselves.  Everybody who sees a kid on the street looks for the easiest story they can find to get out of worryin’ about him, and I gave you one.”
    “And so instead of the truth you told the story that would best convince us to return the ill-gotten family heirloom,” Santa said.
    “Yeah.  That sounds right, sure.  You guys seemed wacky enough to fall for it, so yeah.”
    “I’d stick with the ghost story if I were you, Santa” I said.  “When you retell this one.”
    “Oh no, you’re wrong, my friend.  This is a much better story.  A little thief, haunted by the memory of his crime, concocts a brilliant solution!”  He shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.  “Nearly perfect.  All it’s missing is the right ending.”
    “Geez,” the kid said, looking at me.  “He always like this?”
    “More or less.”
    “Head injury or something?”
    “It’s in his nature.”  To Santa I asked, “What kind of ending did you have in mind?”
    “Orphan stories can only have one kind, Stanley.  The boy must be reunited with his family or adopted into a loving household.”
    “No thanks, buddy,” Davey said.
    “But you are an orphan.”
    “No, I’m a freakin’ Martian.  The sisters said they found me on the steps of the place, that’s all I know.  If you’re lookin’ for me to shed a tear about how nobody loved me and I’m all alone and all that, you better just keep lookin’.  I got past it a long time ago.”
    This was a rather worldly statement from a boy his age, but living on