A Filthy Old Dad Christmas Carol

This is something I wrote about 2 years ago and is part of a trilogy. Sorry, it's a bit long for the blog, but maybe you'll get a laugh...

It was a deathly cold Christmas Eve in the Small Town and Filthy Old Dad was making his way down Elm Street, cursing and punching virgins and laughing at mental defectives and cripples, and tripping blind men and heaping abuse on every living thing, as was his habit. He was dressed in his usual old brown shoes and brown leisure suit, heavily stained with beer and the remains of Little Debbie snack cakes. He had no hat or gloves, and his unshaven face was bright red, as were his drunken eyes. The eyes…those evil eyes! They darted this way and that, glittering with hatred, condemning the world and everyone in it with each machine gun glance.

“I’ll see you in hell!” he screamed at a group of children helping a little old lady across the street.

“That man!” exclaimed Emma Gondwallow. She stared at Filthy Old Dad from the front window of Emma’s Beauty Salon and Facial Repair Shop. “What did anyone ever do to him?”
“Hah!” cackled Sally Thrushbottom. She shifted her massive frame in the chair. It was hard to get comfortable in that chair, for it was plastic and small, and Sally was not. She was getting another perm, a virulently ugly shade of purple. She averaged about one a month. Her hair positively crackled in anything more than a slight breeze.
“He’s a bad one, a devil’s seed! He killed my neighbor’s dog last Christmas, just breathed on it and it dropped dead! He’s not been worth a damn since his wife died. Just taking up space is all he’s doing.”

Emma watched as Old Dad stumbled and pitched into the gutter, his ragged clothes instantly soaked with the salty, melted slush collecting there.
“Well,” said Emma, closing the curtains and turning her attention to the mountain of reeking flesh who helped pay her bills, “I wish he would die and go to hell, he’s a curse on this town, especially at Christmas time. That drunken fool wouldn’t know a Merry Christmas if it charged up his ass and stapled jingle bells to his tongue.”
Sally jiggled with laughter, suffering a mild heart attack that she passed off as indigestion. “You are a caution, Emma, a real caution.”

Filthy Old Dad shook like a dog, sending dirty salted water flying in every direction. He lurched against the brick front of Tim’s Liquor Emporium and felt his way to the door. Christmas bells chimed as he entered.
“Merry Christmas, Old Dad.” Tim was wrapping a bottle of wine for a customer.
“I got your Merry Christmas right here,” sneered Filthy Old Dad, clutching his groin with a dirty hand.
Tim looked bored. Most of the liquor stores in town wouldn’t serve the old man anymore. There had been some incidents. Tim had a soft spot for drunks, though; his own father had been one. So he continued to allow him in the store, although most of the time he felt like punching him in the face.
“Great,” he said. “Hilarious. What can I get you?” He already knew the old man’s poison, but asked just to piss him off. It was easy to do.

Filthy Old Dad had a temper like a rat with gonorrhea.

“Thunderbird!” screamed Filthy Old Dad. “Thunderbird, you fairy faggot! How many times I gotta tell you? Stupid fu—“
“Hey,” Tim warned, “you want I should kick you out? It’s Christmas for God’s sake. Show some freaking respect, Old Dad.” Tim gave him his best stare, forcing the old man to drop his eyes.
“Yea,” Filthy Old Dad mumbled, clutching the thin brown paper bag containing his precious Thunderbird wine, “merry freaking Christmas.” He grabbed his change and darted out of the store, back into the wind and the coming dark and his own confused thoughts.

He made his way slowly down the street in the growing gloom. Tiny crystals of snow started to fall and stung his eyes. He brushed against Tad Lowell, star quarterback at Small Town High, and almost fell down.
“Watch where you’re going, old man!”
“Eat dog shit and die,” suggested Old Dad as he ripped a tremendous, wine-flavored belch.
“Stinkin’ wino, I oughta…”
“How’s your Mom?” Old Dad said suddenly, a knowing leer spreading across his face, “I see her at the Prarieview Motel a lot.”
“What do you mean?” Tad said suspiciously.
“Nothing.” Filthy Old Dad unscrewed the cap and took a swallow. “Forget it.”
Tad watched him as he headed down the street toward Jefferson Park. Just before he disappeared, he turned and shouted “Hey, you look a lot like the Sheriff! Maybe you’ll be a cop someday!” He laughed like a hyena as the night swallowed him.
Tad shook his head, baffled and angry. “Old drunk. Don’t make any sense, talkin’ about my mom…”

Tad did very poorly on his SAT’s that spring and never made it to college. He got syphilis at a drunken graduation party and died in a car accident the next year without finding out about his hideous disease, though he did manage to pass it on to a couple of whores first.

Filthy Old Dad headed for his secret place in the center of the park. He was the only one who knew about it and he guarded it jealously from other drunks. It was a shed of weathered wood planks overgrown with vines and surrounded by saplings, formally an equipment shed used by the Small Town for storing lawnmowers and grass seed, and the bases and lime for the softball field. He had another half-bottle of Thunderbird hidden there. He planned to drink fast and pass out; wrapping himself in old blankets he had stolen from clotheslines in unguarded backyards.

He went inside and lit his candle. It was damn cold and he got serious with the half-bottle of wine. “Ah, shit,” he said, feeling better. He was numb now and stumbled outside to take a piss. Watching the yellow steaming flow he shivered, knowing he didn’t have long to live. His liver was shot to hell and he didn’t care. Old Dad turned his face to the heavens as he shook off the last few drops.

“Hey God, you up there?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but passed out right there in the snow.