The stupidest angel: a heartwarming tale of Christmas terror

of Jim Beam. Front and center is six-year-old Molly Achevski (she would change her last name to Michon at nineteen on the advice of an agent "because it sounds fucking French, people love that"). Molly is wearing a red sequined ballerina outfit, red galoshes that hit her bare legs about midcalf, and a giant, cheeky grin with a hole in the middle where her front teeth used to be. She has one foot propped up on a large Tonka dump truck as if she has just conquered it in a grudge match, and her younger brother Mike, four, is trying to pry the truck out from under her. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. Molly's other brother, Tony, five, is looking up to his sister like she is the princess of all things good. She has already poured him a bowl of Lucky Charms this morning, as she does for both her brothers every morning.
    In the background, we see a woman in a bathrobe lying on the couch, one hand hanging to the floor holding a cigarette that has burned itself out hours before. The silvery ash has left a streak on the carpet.

    No one has any idea who took this picture.
    Dale Pearson
    This one was taken only a few years ago, when Dale was still married to Lena. It's the Caribou Lodge Christmas party, and Dale is, once again, dressed as Santa, sitting on a makeshift throne. He is surrounded by drunken revelers, all laughing, all holding the various joke gifts that Dale has passed out to them earlier that night. Dale is brandishing his own present, a fourteen-inch-long rubber penis, as big around as a soup can. He's waving it at Lena with a leer, and she, dressed in a black cocktail dress and a single string of pearls, looks quite horrified at what he's saying, which is: "We'll put this rascal to good use later tonight, huh, baby?"
    The irony of it is that later that night, he will don one of his vintage German SS uniforms – everything but the jodhpurs, anyway – and what he asks Lena to do with his new present is exactly what she told him he could do with it at the party. She will never know if it was she who gave him the idea, but it will be a milestone in her move toward divorce proceedings.
    Theophilus Crowe
    At thirteen, Theo Crowe is already six feet four inches tall, and weighs a little over a hundred pounds. It is a classic scene of the three kings following the star. The seventh-grade music class is performing Amahl and the Night Visitors. Originally cast as one of the three kings, Theo is now dressed as a camel. His ears are the only parts of his body that are in proportion, and he looks very much like a camel fashioned out of wire by Salvador Dalн. His chance to play Balthazar, the Ethiopian king, was lost when he announced that the Magi had arrived bearing gold, Frankenstein, and myrrh. Later, he, the two other camels, and a sheep will be suspended for smoking the myrrh. (They would have never been caught had the sheep not suggested that they play a quick game of "Kill the Man with the Baby Jesus" out behind the theater. Evidently the myrrh was "prime smokage.")
    Gabe Fenton
    This one was taken just last year, at the lighthouse where Gabe has his cabin. You can see the lighthouse in the background, and windblown whitecaps out to sea. You can tell it's a windy day because the Santa hat that Gabe is wearing is streaming out to the side, and he's holding the reindeer antlers on Skinner's head. Crouched next to them, in a thousand-dollar St. John knit, red and cut in the style of a Napoleonic soldier, with brass buttons and gold braid on the shoulders, is Dr. Valerie Riordan. Her auburn hair is styled to curl behind her ears and accentuate her diamond hoop earrings. She's done up in Headline News Prompter Puppet makeup, as if her face has been completely sanded off, and then painted back on by a crack team of special-effects people – brighter, better, faster than a real human face. She's trying, really trying, to smile for the camera. She is holding her hair in one hand, and appears to be petting Skinner, but is, upon closer examination, holding him at bay. A racing stripe across the knee of her nylons betrays an earlier attempt by Skinner to share a holiday leg hump with the Food Guy's female.
    Gabe is scruffy in khakis and hiking boots. There's a fine coating of sand on his pants and boots from where he was sitting astride elephant seals that morning, gluing satellite-tracking devices on their backs. He has a great, hopeful smile, and not a clue that anything might be wrong with this picture.
    Roberto