True Story©… A Very Merry Woodpenis Christmas

 

     “Frenemies”
If you have ever watched Justified on FX as I did when I binged all six seasons and the whole of the spinoff a few months ago, you know what that is.  As you may or not be aware, I have made a bit of one of those in our own local law enforcement here lately.  I promise shit didn’t start out that way, but a strange series of mishaps made that bed for me.

     I recently gained the knowledge that he may be finally cutting me loose in order to move on a little further.  Part of me is glad to have him out of my ass – pun intended – but part of me will miss having a local law man who owes me favors so big that he has to honor requests or perhaps have a conversation with Internal Affairs.
It all started last month with a phone call…

Me: “You know if you keep this up, we are gonna have to sit down and discuss our thing with my wife.”

Woodpenis: “Well if things go to plan, we might not need to have that conversation.”

Me: “Well Detective Woodpenis, what are you telling me?”

Woodpenis: “Damn it.”

Me: “We should get you a superhero name as the foil to my alleged villainy.”

Woodpenis: “Please stop.”

Me: “How does ‘The Redwood Rooster’ sound?”

Woodpenis: “I sincerely wonder if I am capable of missing you.”

Me: “’Miss’ me?  What is happening?”

Woodpenis: “Well, as I tried to start to say, I will hopefully soon be out of your way.”

Me: “Hey, hey…  Suicide is never the answer, detective!”

Woodpenis: “What!?”

Me: “You got some kind of terminal illness?  You calling me to write your eulogy?”

Woodpenis: “What?  No!”

Me: “I’ll freestyle it right here, check it out--…”

Woodpenis: “Please don’t--…”

Me: “Here lies, umm…  You know, I never knew your first name.”

Woodpenis: “It’s ‘Detective’.”

Me: “Weird name…  Anyway, here goes…
Here lies Detective Woodpenis.  A great man of the law who is unafraid to swing low and thrust into a situation, no matter HOW dark or sticky.  A man admired by the community he served and--…”

Woodpenis: “PHILLIP!!!”

Me: “What?”

Woodpenis: “I’m not dying, jackass.”

Me: “Well what the fuck are you telling me?”

Woodpenis: “I’m telling you that I have been applying to federal law enforcement for about a year now and the help you helped me give in snaring that fugitive last month gained me some attention.”

Me: “And you’re calling to arrange the finder’s fee…  The name is spelled P-H-I-Double-L--…”

Woodpenis: “No.  They have given me a list of cold cases to look into, ‘help’ if one might call it that, and if I can do it efficiently then I might be moved along a touch faster and--…”

Me: “And you stop darkening my doorstep, metaphorically.”

Woodpenis: “Unless Moe Phillips branches out into federal crime.”

Me: “WHOAFUCK”

Woodpenis: “Gesundheit”

Me: “Thanks.  So where do I come into this?”

Woodpenis: “Do I go down the list?”

Me: “No, actually no…  You remember a few years ago when they came to my old house thinking I was selling unregulated coal off the books like a heroin trafficker or something?”

Woodpenis: “I remember you yelling at the news like a madman.”

Me: “Whatever happened to that case?”

Woodpenis: “It’s one of them I have to choose from.”

Me: “Well let’s do that one, since it is personal to me.”

Woodpenis: “Fine”

 

     In order to proceed into this without informing this man how much I ACTUALLY knew about this and where the whole situation settled to an end last year, I sat him on ice for a week or so, so as to let him think I was “researching” and gathering information.  No calls, no texts and he already knows he isn’t allowed to come to my house unless I call and need a police officer.
Digitally, I retraced my steps from last year’s slog to the North Pole and crafted out a story to tell Detective Woodpenis to wash my hands of it and hopefully him for good so I can crime in peace again.

     I assembled the shittest dossier one could imagine.  In it, I cited confidential but credible sources, complete with pictures from my OLD old phone I had long since scrubbed of my personal account information.  In it, I chronicled the fact that the coal was coming from Santa Claus and his bag as a punishment for some unnamed jackass in the naughty act of robbing Santa or at least TRYING to rob Santa.  Included were the GPS coordinates to the Santas’ village and explaining that the one Santa was abusing his particular Rudolph by keeping him on drugs and another using his elves as an enslaved workforce.
Inevitably, the phone rang…

Me: “You got what you need?”

Woodpenis: “Santa fucking Claus?”

Me: “Yep!”

Woodpenis: “Do you want me to get fired from this job AND not get the new one?”

Me: “Actually?  Kinda yes!”

Woodpenis: “This isn’t funny.”

Me: “Only ‘kinda’ though…  Look at the pictures, some are from 2018, before this AI shit took over the universe.  The people in them don’t have weird eyes and fingers and shit.”

Woodpenis: “Noted.”

Me: “So that shit is either real-real or real enough to look into.  Either way, get Interpol or whoever you need to do this shit over international jurisdiction and go look into it.  I have done all of this for you so far, I’mma start charging soon!”

Woodpenis: “Fine.”

 

     What happened next was outside of my purview because I am not leaving NC again until spring at least and it is technically none of my business and completely off the books.  What I DO know and remember is that the assembled team of Santas are not to be trifled with and these geniuses have no clue what they are headed into.
Since their travel to this operation is mostly on the books, travel up across and over Canada would take them exponentially less time than it took my dumb ass to hitchhike.  That said, I will have wasted JUST enough time in getting them to see that Santa is actually a plural group while also walking them into a booby trap that might actually just put him and several other federal and/or international law enforcement persons out of my misery.

Naturally, the phone rang…

Me: “How was the North Pole?”

Woodpenis: “COLD!  And what the fuck?”

Me: “He’s real?”

Woodpenis: “THEY are real!”

Me: “Did you meet any of them?”

Woodpenis: “I was tied up for three hours.”

Me: “Did they waterboard you?”

Woodpenis: “No, I came late into the commotion.”

Me: “Commotion?”

Woodpenis: “A team was sent ahead to scout the place, one of them apparently stepped on a candy cane an elf had dropped and the cracking sound startled a reindeer--…”

Me: “… which alerted the Santas.”

Woodpenis: “Yep, so when the shooting starts, we get sent in for an extraction.”

Me: “Not a military unit?”

Woodpenis: “They tried the military first, but they laughed us off the phone.”

Me: “Casualties?”

Woodpenis: “No--…  Well…  yeah, none.”

Me: “There’s more to that and you’re holding out on me.”

Woodpenis: “Do I have to?”

Me: “Fuck yes you do!”

Woodpenis: “Fine…  They tied me to a chair to interrogate me and--…”

Me: “… and you ain’t got no marks on you, so you folded like an accordion.”

Woodpenis: “I told them I was there to investigate some illegal coal dealing in the United States and they stopped me mid sentence.”

Me: “Oh shit.”

Woodpenis: “No, nothing bad…  One of them brought out a bag of coal, as they USED to give bad kids instead of toys.”

Me: “And then?”

Woodpenis: “They explained that a rogue Santa had been beefing with someone they had since been sworn to secrecy with as a means of not letting it out.  They put me on the naughty list and had me start emptying the bag.”

Me: “What happened after that?”

Woodpenis: “Get it…  it just kept filling back up automatically!  They said the guy had used that to his advantage and started selling coal.”

Me: “That’s wild!”

Woodpenis: “Ain’t it!?”

Me: “So you’re still untouched, what happened?”

Woodpenis: “They didn’t keep us, they let us go unharmed, but now I am STUCK on the naughty list!”

Me: “Like permanently?”

Woodpenis: “I am guessing so.”

Me: “So what’s next?  Did you at least get the job you were after?”

Woodpenis: “Funny thing, that…”

Me: “Funny how?”

Woodpenis: “Well…  This undertaking included me and the man who would become my supervising officer, among others.  He was EXTRA not on board with this whole ‘believing in Santa Claus’ thing, but went along with it because the orders came from on high…”

Me: “Mmhmm…”

Woodpenis: “So we get there and his attitude toward it all softened.  It seemed he was against bringing me into the fold based on the absolute ridiculousness of the mission.”

Me: “But when he saw it was real, shit changed?”

Woodpenis: “Bingo.”

Me: “So things are looking up…  How long until you can leave me the fu--…  until you know if you got it or not?”

Woodpenis: “It’ll be some time in the new year here, but I am cautiously optimistic.”

Me: “So aside from the whole naughty list thing, it’s a Christmas Fuckin’ Miracle?”

Woodpenis: “Something like that.”

Me: “So it can be said that I helped you after all.  Merry Christmas, Woodcock.”

Woodpenis: “Thank you…  Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you, Moe.”

     That bastard, he did it again!  I guess if my attempt to get Detective Woodcock and several federal agents smoked for being on Santa’s turf uninvited fell through, the least I can be thankful for in the new year is a very real chance of finally NOT having him local enough to keep fucking with me.
Oh…  and the added pocket Ace of having a federal agent who owes me favors.  Merry Christmas indeed!.