Manx- Bing's Dream

  NINE HOURS LATER BING CAME AWAKE IN HIS BED TO THE TREMULOUS sound of violins and then a man singing in a voice as smooth and creamy as vanilla cake frosting. It was his namesake, Bing Crosby. Mr. Crosby was dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones he used to know.
...

  Bing’s parents were dancing in the living room. His father had his back to him and was dressed in his mustard-colored fatigues. His mother rested her head on John’s shoulder, her eyes shut, her mouth open, as if she were dancing in her sleep.

  The presents waited under the squat, homely, tinsel-smothered tree: three
big green dented tanks of sevoflurane, decorated with crimson bows.

  His parents turned in their slow circle, and as they did, Bing saw that his father was wearing a gasmask and his mother was naked. She really was asleep, too. Her feet dragged across the boards. His father clutched her around the waist, his gloved hands on the curve of her white buttocks. His mother’s bare white can was as luminous as a celestial object, as pale as the moon.

  “Dad?” Bing asked.

  His father kept dancing, turning away, and taking Bing’s mother with him.

  “COME ON DOWN, BING!” cried a deep, booming voice, a voice so loud that the china chattered in the armoire. Bing lurched in surprise, his heart misfiring in his chest. The needle on the record jumped, came back down close to the end of the song. “COME ON DOWN! LOOKS LIKE CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY THIS YEAR, DOESN’T IT! HO, HO, HO!”

  A part of Bing wanted to run back to his room and slam the door. He wanted to cover his eyes and his ears at the same time but couldn’t find the willpower to do either. He quailed at the thought of taking another step, yet his feet carried him forward, past the tree and the tanks of sevoflurane, past his father and mother, down the hall, and to the front door. It swung open even before he put his hand on the knob.
...

  Christmasland waited beyond the yard. The Sleighcoaster rumbled and crashed, and the children in the karts screamed and lifted their hands to the frozen night. The great Ferris wheel, the Arctic Eye, revolved against a backdrop of unfamiliar stars. All the candles were lit in a Christmas tree as tall as a ten-story building and as wide across as Bing’s own house.

  “MERRY GODDAMN CHRISTMAS, BING, YOU CRAZY THING!” hollered that great booming voice, and when Bing looked into the sky, he saw that the moon had a face. A single bulging bloodshot eye gaped from that starved skullface, a landscape of crater and bone. It grinned. “BING, YOU CRAZY MOTHERFUCKER, ARE YOU READY FOR THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE?!?”

  Bing sat up in bed, his heart pistoning in his chest—waking for real this time. He was so slicked with sweat that his G.I. Joe pajamas were sticking to his skin.

- Spicy Menace: Sugarcreek, Pennsylvania