Sammy jumped up, grabbed the shopkeeper’s head between his legs, spun and then jackknifed him into the ground. The register was already open. He took out all of the bigger bills and shoved them into his pockets as he heard sirens coming from the distance. He ran outside.
He wiped a tear and wrote his customary “I’m sorry” note and stuck it to the broken, shell of a window the small bodega used to have. His scarf flapped in the wind the same way his dirty, gray, unkempt beard did. In another world, he would be a great Santa Claus.
See it was Christmastime and Sammy’s favorite time of year. He loved to see the kids having fun and skating on the ponds in Central Park and see the young couples kiss under the mistletoe. It gave him so much joy to see what those who didn’t have to worry about little things were doing with their freedom.
But Sammy also hated Christmastime. He was an incredibly generous person, always sharing his food and his money with the other people at the soup kitchen. He loved to see the toothless smiles from the other people who could probably play Santa in a homeless shelter. He always tried to earn just a little extra money to feed the neighborhood stray dogs. But every Christmas, something had to change.
See Sammy was always extremely good throughout the year. So good, that Santa (the real one, not the toothless homeless men at the soup kitchen) would always bring him the best, but useless, gifts. The unopened metal train sets and stuffed animals and red wagons just piled up in the corner of Sammy’s small hotel above a Jewish Deli, where he lived rent-free by doing janitorial work there at night. He tried to give all of the gifts to charity but, those at Goodwill, upon seeing how destitute poor Sammy was, would not take anything he gave them. The true poor man’s dilemma.
About five years ago, Sammy had a revelation, “maybe if I’m bad… Santa will bring me coal so I can heat my home!” A brilliant idea, Sammy thought. And that’s when he started his reign of debauchery on his small neighborhood.
Unfortunately, that first year, he started too small. As he walked down Broadway one day, he shoved another homeless man, but out of habit, he still said sorry. That year, he got a new iPhone. But without any outlets or computers or anything like that, well, let’s just say the flames were a nice shade of green.
That second year he shoved someone, a little more forcefully, and did not say sorry. Though it absolutely killed him not to do so. But still, it did not make up for the entire year of helping to deliver and nurse premature babies at the battered women’s shelter. He got a brand new XBOX. And when the people at Goodwill wouldn’t take it, he got some pretty expensive kindling.
The third year, he decided to change it up. To help his conscience, he starting writing “I’m sorry” notes and leaving them where he committed his acts of debauchery. This year, he slashed the tires on an ambulance, left his note, and then out of sheer habit, helped the paramedics (who he knew personally from his many hours volunteering at the hospital) replace the tires. Santa brought him a brand new Lexus… Which he gave to the owners of the deli as a last-day-of-Hannukah present.
The fourth year, he really thought he had Santa’s nice list beat. He learned Jiu-jitsu (which was very impressive considering Sammy was in his early sixties and sporting a bad hip) and worked that into his many debaucherous schemes. He started fights with Wall Street bankers outside of the New York Stock Exchange. He would kick them in the face, steal their most recent paycheck and then give it to the local orphanage. That Christmas morning, he woke up to two things: an article in the New York Times talking about the new “Robin Hood” making his way through the Financial District, and a young man wrapped in a bow, with a note on him that said, “He’s your new publicist, from Santa Claus.”
After showing Greg, the publicist, the homeless shelter, Greg decided that this is where his talents were going to be best used. He resigned respectfully from Sammy’s service and went to work full time with spreading awareness about the plight of the homeless in New York City.
Something had to change for that fifth year. It was going to be one of the coldest winters on record… Sammy in his old age was not going to be able to survive… He sat on his bed, a flea-ridden mattress on the floor, and cried. He looked up in his mirror and stared back at himself. “Carnage,” he whispered to himself.
And carnage it was. Starting on December first, he began to graffiti every daycare within a ten block radius. The next thing on his list were dumpster fires. Everywhere. He bought kerosene with the small amount of money he had and set ablaze every dumpster he could find. Then he started to rob stores. He would run at the window, curl up in a ball, and smash through. Then he would take out a knife he stole when he was helping make Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless and told the shopkeeper to give him all of the money in the register. If they didn’t comply right away, they got jackknifed…
Sammy stood outside that small bodega, laying down the note and picking glass out of his beard. He shed a tear. He loved this shop. Whenever he came into a small amount of money, he would go to this store, chat with the owner, and buy himself some coffee. But that was over… And his own life depended on it.
He jogged away from the store, past burning trash cans and boarded up daycares. He got back into his small apartment and just thought about how warm he was going to be that next day when Santa brought him coal on Christmas.
Sammy awoke to the smell of Carbon Monoxide. Which is to say, he woke up with no smell. The large sack of coal sat in the corner of the room by the furnace. Sammy had done it. He had finally been bad enough to deserve coal.
There was a note affixed to the top of the bag, with “SAMMY” written on the top.
“Dear Sammy,
Whoops… now I get it.
Warm regards,
S.C”
“Christ, took him long enough,” Sammy sighed with relief. He knelt down and threw in a small piece of coal into the furnace and wrapped himself in a blanket. He was safe. The fires outside had all stopped. The daycares were clean and back open. The windows and money from the stores were back where they belonged. And from that year on, Sammy didn’t have to be bad anymore for Santa to bring him what he really needed: Coal.