Chapter 15: Oi To The World
If
God came down to Earth today
I'd know exactly what he'd say
He'd say, Oi, to the punks
And Oi to the skins
But Oi, to the world
So everybody wins
Everyone down at the station thought Santa was the funniest thing they had ever seen. It was made even more comical by the fact that it was gruff, bad ass, Black Dog, that brought Ôem in. "What are you trying out for a buddy cop picture?" one of the guys ribbed Jet good-naturedly. "What do you get when you take a jaded street cop, a cute kid, a cuter dog and Santa?" he imitated a movie preview announcer. "Find out this Friday, when Book ÔEm, Santo opens at a theatre near you!"
"All right, all right," Jet rolled his eyes. "Ed! Stop that! That's not a toy!"
Ed had already gotten into the fingerprint blotter, as evidenced by Ein's new war paint, and was currently investigating a can of mace. "So what, should we call his boss?" another officer asked as he shielded his face from a cloud of pepper spray just shot in his direction. "Jet, control your ward!" he snapped.
Ed was about to spray some pepper spray in her mouth, thinking it might be kind of tangy, when Jet grabbed her by the waist and cuffed her to a coat rack. "Knock it off," he intoned before he rejoined his ex-comrades at the desk.
"You know the freaks always come out on Christmas," another officer sighed as he leaned up on the counter. "I got a call in from the 36th saying they picked up a guy with like... a sword wound or something. Barely even fazed him, too."
Jet raised his eyebrow. "Sword?"
"Yeah, isn't that weird? Like this is feudal Japan or some shit," he scratched his head.
"This guy... he didn't happen to have brown eyes, green hair and was about 10 feet tall, 70 pounds, was he?"
The other officer looked at him strangely. "I think that kinda fits the description."
Jet pounded his forehead on the table before asking, "Who's got him?"
"Statler. Why?"
"That's my damned partner," Jet grumbled as he dialed the precinct on his comm.
"Are you sure?" the younger officer asked him.
"Of course I'm sure. Who the hell else would have a sword wound on Christmas Eve?" Jet paused, not entirely sure if he was amused or pissed, before he asked, "What do they have him for, anyway? Did they blow up a bus load of nuns or something?"
The officer shook his head. "Nah, they must've ditched their... swords or... whatever. They just got him on assault."
"Son of a bitch," Jet grumbled and then snapped angrily at the receptionist at the 36th by accident. That was rude. He didn't really mean it.
"Jet person mad?" Ed asked.
"Hell yeah, I'm mad!" he said. "Half my crew is in jail! And you might as well keep the TV on ISSP's Most Wanted cause I still got a third one unaccounted for."
***
Jet knew Statler from back in the day so finagling Spike out of custody was pretty easy. It was just the principle of the thing. That he had to finagle not one but two partners out of the slammer on Christmas Eve.
There was that Christmas Eve thing again. Jet rolled his eyes inwardly at himself, almost ashamed he let himself get wrapped up in this overly commercialized mess. Who cared if it was Christmas Eve? Are things somehow more significant if greeting cards are involved? Of course not! He was smarter than that, and certainly more jaded. It shouldn't matter what day of the year he had to bail two roommates out of prison, it should warrant the same amount of irritation whether it was his birthday, Arbor Day or Interplanetary Pancake Week. Christmas Eve was no different. Suddenly, as if Ed could read his mind, she asked, "What's the big deal, anyway?" Jet was pretty sure he knew what she meant but asked for clarification anyway. "With this day," she said as she kicked a rock along the snow with her over-sized boot. "Why does this day make persons act so funny?"
"Well... I guess that depends on who you ask," Jet shrugged.
"So, Ed's asking you," Ed pointed out. Jet shot her a look he usually reserved for his senior partners before he sighed and attempted to organize some train of thought. It had been years since he had been to church and he wasn't even sure he could tell the story properly. "Ok. Well, see... thousands of years ago, this kid was born. And everyone was so happy about it they all got together and bought presents and traveled for miles just to see him. Just to drop in and pay respects and get together and sing Hosannas or whatever it was that they did. Maybe there was dessert. I don't know."
"How come?"
"Well, again, that depends on who you ask. But someone thought it was a good idea cause now everyone does it. You know. Get together once a year to have dessert and exchange presents and do the Hosanna thing."
"Hosanna?" Ed scrunched her nose up at the unfamiliar word.
"Yeah," Jet shrugged. He had vague memories of the word popping up in the chorus of several songs his mother made him sing during the services. "It's some Biblical-type thing. I think it's some holy rollin' way of saying hooray. Hooray for... life, I guess. Which is why people freak out, I think. Sometimes it's hard to find stuff to yell Hosanna about and the pressure's kind of on to come up with something. It looks bad if you can't."
Ed nodded. "Spike Person is OK," she reminded him.
"I know."
"And Faye-Faye will come back."
"She always does," he muttered disdainfully.
"So..." Ed prompted her roommate.
Jet was not following. "So... so what?"
"So... Hosanna!" she said with a little leap into the air.
Jet stared at her for a moment before chuckling and rubbing his head. "Hosanna," he admitted reluctantly. And maybe that was it. Maybe that was everyone's problem. People treat this day like some sort of emotional balance sheet. A statistical snapshot of the current state of affairs that will predict the outcome of the rest of the year. If you couldn't get it together on one measly day, and on cue, what shot did the rest of the year have?
Truth was, he had no way of knowing what lay ahead. And whatever it was that happened, it certainly wouldn't rest on whether or not they had a proper dinner. The only thing he was certain of was that this past year had been the craziest, weirdest, most screwed up, unpredictable, laugh a minute, never a dull moment, buckle up, batten down the hatches and alert the next of kin year he had ever had in his whole life. And how many people could say that? None. No one could have possibly have witnessed the exact combination of bad experiences, strange phenomenon and cataclysmic combustion of personalities that he did. And he somehow survived it.
And if whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, than he was living to be 200. So Hosanna. Hosanna in the friggen' highest.