The air nipped at The Man’s uncovered face. It was deep in December, though The Man wore nothing more than a worn out, hole infested flannel. The Man didn’t even feel his heart beat drop or the flecks of water on his beard crystallizing into ice. He was too worried about what he needed to do to notice his high chance of hypothermia.
The bank was the most elegant mess in The Man’s little town. Beautiful details from the 1800s etched into the stone right next to bright colors of grafitti. It always pained The Man to see such a beautiful building being destroyed by ignorant teenagers. He wished that he could spend the whole day tracing the handiwork of the etchings with his fingers, but today the stone wasn’t enough to keep him from doing what had to be done.
The Man breathed out a slow breath that was visible as a white cloud and pulled on the motorcycle helmet he had under his arm. As if in a dream The Man’s feet began to move towards the beautiful bank. He could see himself getting closer and closer to the building but felt nothing. He was a hollow body.

His hand gripped the bronze handle and he let out one more deep breath he didn’t even know he was holding in. He then opened the door, got into character and started the show.

“All right, Everybody down!” He yelled, with more confidence then he felt.

The patrons in the bank looked stunned, but no one made a move towards the ground. The Man rolled his shoulders back and reached into his jacket. The small handgun he held was the final push the people needed to realize that he was a threat and their lives were actually in danger. Everyone simultaneously shrank down to the floor. Somewhere a little kid was crying but The Man forced himself to only focus on the clerk behind the desk. He stalked over to her, his hand still outstretched with the cocked gun, and pointed it at her. The young clerk looked like she was going to faint.

“Couple hundred will do,” The Man spoke low.

The clerk swallowed and nodded. She reached from behind the desk and pulled out a stack of twenties and began to count without taking her wide eyes off of The Man. He stopped her after ten bills.

“Come on buddy,” a voice spoke from behind The Man, “Let’s take a walk outside”.
The Man slowly turned around to see a big burly guy of about thirty, inked arms folded across his dark blue uniform. His cold black eyes regarded him with an intensity so fierce The Man had to look away. The security guard opened the door and held it open while The Man calmly left the crime scene.
The guard led The Man deep into the alleyway on the side of the bank. When they nearly reached the end he grabbed The Man by the shoulders and whirled him around, face to face,  his eyes looking all over the place.
“ I missed it.” His voice was fast and full of concern, “Did you do what I told you to? Any scratches? Take off your helmet so I can see. Did you disguise your voice? Did you make it high or low? Didn’t I tell you to take off your helmet? Come on, man if you’re bleeding I took a class-”
“Max, Max! Calm down, okay?” The Man took off his helmet and lowered his voice, “I’m fine, and yes, I disguised my voice. Nobody thought it was me.”
That seemed to calm Max down a little, though he still reminded The Man of a dog during a thunderstorm: all kinetic energy and concern.
“I disabled the cameras,” He spoke in a more subdued voice, “So that’s a good thing. And the money- The money!” Max’s suppressed voice suddenly exploded in worry. “How much did you take? You know more than a thousand will make the police-”
“Shhhhh!” The Man clamped his hand on Max’s mouth, “Shut up, will you? You get any louder and we’re both in trouble. You going to be quiet now?” Max nodded under The Man’s hand and The Man removed it.
“So what are you going to do now?” Max spoke quietly, in almost a whisper.
“The Commander needs a feast for tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well you can’t say no to him.”
“Yeah, I know.” The Man looked into Max’s eyes, “I can’t deal with that look he gave me the last time I let him down.”
Max stared back with emotions so high and jumbled The Man couldn’t quite pinpoint any of them, then looked away, his jaw working. “Have you been looking for a new job?”
“Every day. People hire middle age men, not men in their mid twenties,” The Man spoke bitterly.
“Jessica?”
“Still no idea where she is.”
There was a long pause as both men looked at their shoes. At last Max spoke.
“I’ll go back and clear up what’s going on with the bank.”
The Man nodded, still looking at his shoes. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Max started towards the opening of the alley way “You’re a good man Thomas.”
The Man winced and looked up at Max, “Don’t call me that. Besides, someone could hear you and it’ll blow my cover.”
Max looked like he wanted to say a million things to The Man but all he said was “Give my regards to The Commander and... good luck with him.”

The small ham was just heavy enough to tear through the plastic bag. The Man sighed as he watched the ham roll down the hard concrete sidewalk. Hopefully The Commander wouldn’t mind bruised meat.
It was easy to steal the meat from the grocery store. Distracting the pimpled face cashier for one of his bags and tearing the tag off the ham was so simple to do. So simple that it scared The Man that he could do it with no worry at all.
He walked with the ham in one hand and the motorcycle helmet in the other for close to an hour until he got to a small apartment complex. It was an ugly building, gray stone with no artistic sense to it and a rotting yellow roof. It reminded The Man of art class as an example of what not to do.

The Man remembered when he first laid eyes on the complex. He was with the most beautiful woman he had ever met. They were young, only eighteen, and shouldn’t have had to find their own place. The Man wished he could go to college but based on how his life was going he knew it was impossible.
“This is it.” She smiled and pushed away her bangs impatiently, “It’s the perfect price.”
“It looks like a rotting banana, Jessica.” The Man huffed. “Do you really want to live in a place referred to as the rotting banana?”
Jessica laughed and punched The Man’s arm. “You are such an art student! No normal person will notice.”
“No normal person will want to live in this dump.”
Jessica looked up at him and grinned, “It’s a place to have an abnormal life. What’s wrong with that?”
It was a rare moment of The Man’s life that was pleasant to look back upon. It was also the only reason why he still lived there. That and because of The Commander.

He looked away from the building and flipped open his phone after he put the helmet and ham on the ground. L.K Hernandez answered on the third ring.
“Electri-city,” A silky voice spoke, “Hernandez speaking.”
“I need the lights on for tomorrow.” The Man spoke without preamble.
There was a pause, then a gruff laugh sounded, all the slickness of his voice replaced by a thick new york accent “You kiddin’ me?”
The Man winced and shook his head. “No...No, I mean it’s just for one day-”
“Yeah, I got that,” Hernandez snapped. “You thinkin’ this is a charity? D’you think you can just ask afta not payin’ for weeks? Don’t work that way, Mr. I’m-better-then-rules.”
“I’ve got money!” The Man yelled, exasperated. He was so close to getting everything. This was the last thing, the last thing, he needed for The Commander. “Come on, Hernandez, it’s for The Commander.”
Hernandez took a while to respond but when he did The Man could hear a spark of interest in his voice. “How much we talkin’ ‘bout, eh?”
“Two hundred.”
“Two double zeros?”
“Yeah that’s all I have.”
There was a pause long enough for The Man to think that Hernandez had hung up on him. When he spoke at last The Man almost jumped.
“Alright, fine! But I’m lettin’ you know this is for The Commander, not your slimey butt.”
“It’s never for me, It’s always for The Commander.”
The Man could almost picture Hernandez nodding his head in agreement. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”
The Man went silent. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he failed The Commander. It was one of his biggest fears.
“Yeah, alright I get it. Don’t wanna have that in your brain. Good luck Tommy boy.”
“Don’t call me that. Not right now.”
“Whatever.”
The Man was in the middle of saying thank you when his phone beeped: Hernandez had hung up.

The birds sang as loud as they could. The tune fluttered around Thomas’s head. He groaned and pulled a throw pillow over his eyes. Sunshine was beautiful after nine, not before.

Thomas tried with all his might to go back to sleep. He was just about to succeed when he heard faint little footsteps running, gradually growing louder. Before his mind could even grasp it his throw pillow was on the ground and chubby hands were pulling at his right arm to get up.

“Come on you maggot! Rise and shine!” a high voice yelled.
Thomas smiled and moved his head to get a better look at the cute little blue eyed boy, grinning from ear to ear. He pulled harder at Thomas’s arm.
“Daddy, get up. Up, up, up!”
Thomas grinned and slowly sat up from the couch. The lamp in the corner shed extra light into the living room, light that Thomas wasn’t used to. He squinted and yawned. “Why do I have to get up?”
The boy giggled. “Daddy, It’s Christmas!”
“It is isn’t it? So that’s why we have a ham in the fridge?”
The boy’s eyes were as large as saucers. “Really?”
Thomas bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, and the little elves came by and turned on our lights.”
The boy was almost vibrating in excitement. “Ham’s my favorist! And Mommy’s!”
Thomas bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, and Mommy’s. Right now I bet she’s wishing you a wonderful Christmas.”
The boy smiled, then his face showed sudden remembrance. “Santa! Did he bring presents? Where are the presents? Daddy!”

Thomas laughed at the boys anxiousness “Oh yeah, presents. Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I do see something over there by the tree.”

The boy gasped and whipped his head over to the small tree in the middle of the room. A medium sized present lay right underneath it. Before Thomas could even blink the wrapping paper was a crumpled ball on the floor and the boy was looking at the slick, black military hat that was in the box. His face was full of awe. He then looked at Thomas with the biggest smile the world had ever known. It was then that Thomas knew the hat was worth the fifty bucks.

“Santa knew!” He giggled.
“Santa knew.” Thomas agreed.
The boy hastily put on the hat, which was three sizes too big, and looked back at Thomas.
“How do I look?”
Thomas smiled and pulled the boy on to his lap.
“Perfect,” He kissed him on the cheek, “My little Commander”.