Down the hill was the kind of stillness that came only in the wake of a horrible scare. The white dog whimpered squeakily nearby, cowering by the post it was chained to. It wasn’t going anywhere! And it was unscathed—he must have missed it and struck the girl instead.

After a while, dogs barked neurotically behind fences. The sirens he’d been waiting for finally faded in. Then came the buzzing of a chopper’s blades—which, like a fire truck’s siren, could be heard for miles before it entered the frame. A thick cloud of gray smoke crawled up the hill toward him, against the pitch-black sky. Intermittently, the gaudy crackles of a large bonfire. Yet the accompanying scents were not the woodsy, wholesome smells of burning brush. Raymond detected the melting of civilization. Television cinders, crisped box springs, disintegrating linoleum.

From the shadows of the cloud, a man appeared. No, Raymond adjusted his eyes, it was only a skinny young boy in a black T-shirt with a screen-printed Day-Glo skull. the misfits, it said. The boy marched uphill with his hands shoved into his pockets, the only other person on the street. As he neared Raymond, his bruises became visible—there was a violet hemorrhoid under his left eye and the lid was swollen and droopy. The deadened expression on his face did not match the ferocity of his words: “You fucking homo perv!”

The boy took his hands out of his pockets long enough to shove Raymond onto the grass, then he picked up his pace and ran the rest of the way uphill, yelling: “You sick old fuck!”

Seconds passed in shock. He was shaking all over, but he was in no way damaged. The red on his hands, he realized, came not from blood but from sweat leaching the cheap dye off the Santa suit. He staggered to the sidewalk and sat down on the curb to take in the unfolding drama down the hill.

He heard something collapse, like an avalanche, followed by a (euphoric?) wave of bystander exclamation. Over the roofs, he glimpsed embers fluttering like fireflies and the occasional shot of brilliant orange flame. Except for the aberrant, acrid smells, it was really kind of wonderful.

An ambulance slowed down as it approached him, its siren so unnaturally loud that he barely heard it.

“Are you hurt, sir?” a young man yelled out the window. Raymond shook his head and the driver instantly hit the gas.

Too late to request a free ride. He pulled himself off the ground and hobbled down toward Santa Claus Lane, toward home.