Steve Hockensmith - Naughty-Nine Tales of Christmas

Diesel just shook his head, seemingly unconvinced. Independent thinking wasn't something the Reptile witnessed in his friend very often, and it threw him. He thought about his plan for the night, the Napoleon in him clamoring atop a tall steed to survey the field of battle. And he had to admit it. It didn't look very impressive.

They'd never had much luck with hot goods. The most valuable item they'd ever had their hands on (aside from the Weinermobile) was a mint-condition copy of Amazing Spider-Man #5, which was supposedly worth nearly $3,000. When they took it to the owner of a local comic book shop, he told them he knew exactly where they'd stolen it from and he wouldn't call the cops if they sold the comic to him for twenty bucks… in store credit. Their track record with electronics wasn't much better, and there was a very real chance that they wouldn't make enough from the loot in Arlo's house to order a decent pizza.

Diesel was right, the Reptile thought. Stealing stuff was hardly worth the trouble. They needed to give themselves the gift that keeps on giving.

Cash.

It was Christmas Eve, and a Saturday night to boot. There'd be piles of money just lying around till the banks opened Monday morning. All they had to do was find one of those piles and rake it into a bag.

It was almost ten. What would still be open? Who wouldn't have guards and alarms? Where could they find lambs ready for the slaughter-preferably a whole flock?

And then, like a star going super-nova, a bright idea blazed to life in the Reptile's mind, and a not-so-heavenly choir belted out the Hallelujah Chorus.

When the Peanuts gang began "too-loo-loo"-ing their way through "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," signaling the impending ending of A Charlie Brown Christmas , Diesel finally glanced over at the Reptile, who'd been unnaturally quiet the last ten minutes. What he saw popped his eyes as wide as anything he'd ever seen on TV.

The Reptile was staring off into space, the stubby butt of a long-dead cigarette still in his mouth, his lips stretching toward his ears in a grin so intense it seemed to curl in on itself in pinwheeling spirals.

"Jeez, dude," Diesel said. "You look like the Grinch."

The Reptile hopped to his feet as fast as a man can from a La-Z-Boy at full recline. "Come on, D." Impossibly, his grin grew even bigger. "We're going to church."

The Reptile explained his plan as they raided closets in search of appropriate worship-wear. (The Reptile's AC/DC T and frayed jeans would surely raise eyebrows in even the most liberal church, while Diesel's camo gear and combat boots made him look like Sasquatch trick-or-treating as a Latin American death squad comandante.) Arlo's father apparently shared the Reptile's scrawny build and questionable taste, and a white linen suit from the Don Johnson/ Miami Vice school of fashion was quickly drafted into service. Outfitting Diesel proved to be more of a challenge until the Reptile caught sight of a family portrait. Arlo's mother, it turned out, was what the marketing department at Lane Bryant calls "a real woman." Very, very real. Which is how her closet could produce a black "bigshirt" and an electric blue pantsuit large enough to contain almost all of Diesel's heft. The pant legs came to an end a full half-foot above the ground, but other than that the Reptile considered the ensemble a complete success.

"I don't know," Diesel said as he examined himself unhappily in a full-length mirror. "I guess it looks alright. But, dude… I'm wearing ladies clothes. It makes me feel weird."

"Don't worry. Long as you're not wearing a girdle you're still one hundred percent man." The Reptile tossed Diesel a tie emblazoned with the faces of the Three Stooges, no doubt a Father's Day gift from Arlo or one of his siblings. "Put this on. It oughta make you feel more manly."

Diesel did as he was told, but the tie didn't seem to reassure him. He was subdued bordering on glum as they left the house. The Reptile tried to buck him up by giving him a spliff the size and shape of a kosher dill. But after firing it up and toking it down, Diesel wasn't just glum, he was downright morose. That hardly struck the Reptile as strange, though, since morose seemed like an entirely appropriate attitude for anyone going to church.

Just which one they were going to remained undecided. They'd seen two churches as they turned into Arlo's subdivision, a Methodist and a United Church of Christ that stared at each other across Nicholas Road like the Sharks and the Jets daring each other to step across a crack in the pavement. The Reptile didn't prefer one over the other. As far as he knew, Methodists and whatever the United Church of Christ people called themselves (United Church of Christians?) were equally blessed, socio-economically. So ultimately it was location and timing that determined which house of worship they were going to invade: They came to the Shepherd of the Hills Methodist Church first, and its ten o'clock service was beginning just as they arrived.

Diesel and the Reptile sauntered in, picked up hymnals and lifted their voices up to God.

Their singing was something of a burnt offering in the Reptile's case, as his voice had been so ravaged by Kools his attempts at harmonizing sounded more like gargling. Diesel, on the other hand, belted out the first hymn of the evening ("O Come, All Ye Faithful") with such a rich, pitch-perfect baritone the little old lady standing beside him turned to ask why he wasn't in the choir.

"I don't know," Diesel said with a shrug as the organ's last bombastic blasts faded and the congregation sat back down. "Nobody ever asked me."

A moment later, the Reptile leaned over and pretended to point to something in the program he'd been handed as they strolled into the chapel.

"Hey, Sinatra-knock off the crooning," he whispered. "We don't want to be noticed, right?"

Diesel glanced down at the wardrobe the Reptile had picked out for him. Larry, Moe and Curly stared back up at him.

"Right," he said.

A black-robed, gray-haired white guy stepped up to the microphone in the pulpit.

"Friends… welcome," he intoned, giving the greeting an impressively Charlton Heston-ish gravitas.

For all the Reptile knew, the guy was Charlton Heston. All he saw was a multicolored blur with exceptionally good posture. The Reptile's vision wasn't what it used to be-ironic, perhaps, given that he made his living selling a folk remedy for glaucoma. He was in no hurry to have his eyes checked, however, since he had the same health care plan as most men in his profession, which is to say none.

"Let us pray," the Heston-blur said.

"God," the Reptile sighed, settling back and rolling his eyes heavenward. "Here we go."

The service that followed lasted approximately two weeks. Or so it seemed to the Reptile. He was a Lutheran by upbringing, if not inclination or practice, and he was disappointed (though not terribly surprised) to learn that Methodists don't sex up their services any more than the church he'd stopped attending at the age of fifteen, when his weary mother finally started letting him sleep off his Saturday night buzz in peace.

The Methodists sang the same songs he remembered. They did droning, call-and-response zombie chants just like he remembered. They did the irritating down-up-down sit-stand-sit low-impact aerobics he remembered. And they furnished their chapel with the same butt-numbing, back-gouging pews he remembered, which were designed not for comfort, he theorized, but for torture. After all, the church elders wouldn't want anyone napping when the collection plate came around, would they?

For the Reptile, no such torture was necessary. Waiting for the offertory was the only thing keeping him awake. His battle plan was this: See where the deacons take the money, slip into the john or a closet or an empty meeting room, chill for a while, sneak back out, grab the cash, then return to Arlo's house to toast their success with Chivas Regal and Bud Lite. It was a scheme so simple, so foolproof, it made the Reptile truly sad that Christmas comes but once a year.