Halloween and Other Seasons (8 page)

I winced, then quickly gave him a grin and the thumbs-up sign as he turned to leave.

And then a strange thing happened. He was halfway out the door when he suddenly froze in mid-step. He stood locked like that for a few seconds. Then, just as suddenly, he unfroze. He turned back to us with a strange, confused look on his face.

“Boys,” he said. But then he shrugged. “Oh, never mind. It was nothing.” He turned and took another step.

Again he froze. Shmitzy and I started toward him to see if he was all right. All of a sudden, he gave an ear-piercing roar and spun around, plucking Shmitzy up off the floor beside me and tossing him through the air. Shmitzy gave a yell and sailed like a shot put about thirty feet, hitting the floor in the corner of the shed with a groan.

Santa turned to me, his hands reaching for my neck. There was a horrible look on his face—his eyes bulged whitely from their sockets, and he was beet red above his beard. “Gustav,” he said, his voice a cold growl.

He opened his mouth in a gaping cartoon grin, grasped my neck with his white-gloved hands, began to squeeze…and then suddenly returned to his old self. It was like someone had flicked a switch. He dropped his hands and looked at me, completely mystified.

“Gustav, what happened?”

I was shaking like a belly dancer, but I managed to open my mouth. “I don’t know, Santa. You…didn’t look so good for a minute.”

There was an expression of helplessness on his normally jolly face. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said. He turned to Shmitzy, who was sitting on the floor across the room, touching his head tenderly. “I’m sorry, Shmitzy. I…just don’t know what happened.”

I took Santa gently by the arm. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Why don’t you go back to the house and lie down. Have Momma fix you something hot to drink. The rush must be getting to you.”

He brightened a bit and let me lead him to the door. “Yes, I suppose I should. Now that I think of it, Momma has seemed a bit irritable today, also.” He paused, trying to think of something. “And I remember something…a long time ago…”

“Well, don’t you worry about it, Santa. Go in and take it easy. You’ve been working too hard.” I smiled and patted his arm, nudging him in the direction of the house. “Leave everything to me.”

“Yes, I will. Thank you, Gustav.” He smiled and patted his belly.

I watched him walk across the snow-covered courtyard to his cottage, open the door, and go in. I thought I saw him freeze again for a moment as he stepped through the doorway, but I couldn’t be sure. He really must be working hard, the poor guy; I’d never seen him get mad before, never mind toss an elf across a room. I considered going over to the cottage and having a talk with him and Momma to make sure everything was all right, but then Smitzy, now recovered, called me over to explain one more time what he was going to do with the front runners on the sleigh, and I soon forgot all about Santa.

That night everybody came marching into the dining room at the usual time for our special Christmas Eve dinner—a little celebration we have every year before all the craziness and last-minute work. They were all there: the wise guys from the Toy Shop, tripping each other and giggling and sticking each other with little tools; the gift-wrappers, lately unionized; the R&D boys with their noses in the air (big deal, so an elf can get a college education), the maintenance men; and assorted others. The dining room was decorated for the occasion: holly and tinsel, and red and green ornaments all over the walls, a “Merry Christmas” sign hung crookedly over the big fireplace behind the head of the table, fat squatty candles hanging from the low-beamed ceiling giving the place a warm, cheery glow. Though I know it sounds mushy, I have to say that getting that dinner organized always left a warm glow in me and was one of the high points of the year.

When everyone finally sat down I rose near the head of the table in my place as chief elf and raised my glass of wine to give the traditional toast to Mr. and Mrs. Claus, just as my father had done before me and his father before him. Every year it was the same thing: a simple toast, Mr. and Mrs. Claus come in, they bow, we bow, everybody drinks the wine, everybody sits down, we eat a great meal prepared by Momma Claus, we all eat too much, we all eat some more, and then we work like crazy getting ready for the big ride. All traditional. Smooth production. End of story.

This time I stood up and made the toast, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus entered, and everybody dropped his wine glass and gasped. Santa and Momma swaggered into the room like a couple of movie gangsters. Santa had a big cigar clamped in his teeth, and that evil grin I’d seen on his face that afternoon was now painted on both of them. I couldn’t believe that the always-sweet, round-faced, bun-haired Momma Claus could ever look like a prune-faced dockworker, but she did. In the glow from the candles, they both looked pretty nasty.

Momma Claus stepped to the head of the table and raised her fist. There was a toy bullwhip in it. “Santa’s going to talk to you now,” she snarled, “and you’d better listen. Anybody who doesn’t gets
this
.” She cracked the whip down the length of the table, over our heads. It knocked Shmitzy’s cap off, revealing the large bump on his head.

Momma stepped aside, and Santa took her place. He pounded on the table with a fist, then looked up, glaring into each of our faces up and down the table. “I like you boys,” he growled, “so I’m going to keep you around.” He opened his mouth in a horrid, toothy smile. “But from now on we’re going to do things a little differently.”

The heavy table shook from all our trembling.

Santa grabbed a full bottle of wine from the table and drank half of it in a gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Come on!” he roared, and, waving the bottle like a banner, he stomped out of the room into the courtyard.

We all sat rooted to our seats, eyes wide with terror; then Momma cracked her whip and we scampered out. As we marched out into the snow, old Doc Fritz, the physician here at the North Pole, a solemn fellow with the body and face of a miniature Sigmund Freud and a professorial manner to match, edged up to me. He leaned over unobtrusively and whispered into my ear.

“I believe I know what is happening,” he said. “This has occurred before.”

“What?” I said.

He nodded slowly and scratched at his beard. “It was a long—”

Just then, Santa came screaming down the line, waving his arms madly in the air. “Everybody to his station!” he shouted.

Fritz opened his mouth to continue, but Santa came charging toward us. We quickly separated. Fritz shambled off toward the infirmary, and I scooted to my office.

I sat drumming my fingers on my desk for a few minutes, and then decided I had to talk to Fritz again to find out what was going on. There was a lot of howling and yelling outside, but I climbed quietly out of my window and made my way to the infirmary, a small, neat cottage at the edge of the village.

The door was locked and the windows dark. As I stepped off the porch I nearly bumped into Santa as he ran wildly around the corner of the building, a wine bottle in his hand. “Gustav!” he yelled. “Come with me!” And, dragging me along behind him, he went on a rampage.

He drank two and a half bottles of wine, and stumbled from building to building, department to department, shouting and breaking things. He started in the maintenance shed, went through the dining room and kitchen, and eventually made his way to the Toy Shop. There he told one of the master craftsmen that he didn’t like the face on two thousand just-completed toy soldiers, lined them up in rows, and stomped them to sawdust.

At that point, one of the apprentices tried to shoot him with a replica Winchester rifle. Santa snatched it, batting the apprentice aside. He stumbled out into the snow.

“Where’s Rudolph!” he roared. “I want to see my Rudolph!” Barely able to stand, laughing drunkenly, he found his way to the stables and threw open the wooden doors. “Rudolph!” he shouted, swaying from side to side. The interior of the stable was illuminated by moonlight. Rudolph, still in his stall, looked up and blinked, his red nose flashing. “Red-nosed bastard,” Santa said, and as I watched in horror he raised the rifle, fumbling for the trigger.

As I leapt for him, he pulled the trigger; but as he did so he fell over backwards, out through the doors. He lay laughing in the snow, kicking his feet and howling, and firing the rifle at the moon and the weather vane on top of the stable. Then suddenly he stopped shooting, gave one long wolf-like howl, and instantly fell asleep.

The moment this happened, I gave a signal, and Shmitzy and a couple of other guys ran and got a long rope. We jumped on Santa and started to tie him up, but just as we got the rope around his waist, Momma Claus burst out of the Toy Shop and came running toward us, swinging a headless doll over her head and shouting, “Get away from him! Get away!” We scattered, and from a safe distance I watched as she dragged Santa’s snoring body across the courtyard and into the house. Apparently he woke up, because a few minutes later all the lights in the house went on and I heard them laughing and breaking things.

I looked for Fritz but couldn’t find him anywhere, so for the next couple of hours I tried to organize clean-up crews and estimate the damage. For all intents and purposes, the North Pole lay in ruins. There wasn’t one building with its shingles and shutters intact, and the infirmary and elves’ quarters were burned to the ground (Momma and Santa had danced around them as they blazed). The only structures left reasonably unscathed were the sleigh shed and the Toy Shop. I had no idea what we were going to do. There didn’t seem to be any way to stop him, and I couldn’t possibly let him make his Christmas Eve ride in his condition. It was almost too late to start, anyway. It looked as if there wouldn’t be any visits from Santa this year.

As I was walking out of the Toy Shop I heard a commotion going on in the courtyard, and was just in time to see a great cheer go up as Santa walked out of his cottage. He looked like the old Santa we all knew and loved. He had a bright clean red suit and cap on, his cheeks were rosy and his beard was brushed and fluffed, his boots were polished to a high gloss and he was rubbing his belly. He even had a sack flung over his shoulder. Tough guy that I am, I almost started to cry for joy; but suddenly my eyes went dry and the cheer died in the middle when he got closer, because the wild look was still in his eyes and that twisted grin was still stuck to his face. When he opened his mouth and growled, we knew nothing had changed. He still looked like a bleached bluebeard.

“Get ready to roll!” he shouted.

We all looked at one another, mystified. Was he going to make his rounds looking like that?

“
I said get ready to roll
!”

Shmitzy stepped meekly out of the crowd. He was trembling like a leaf. “B-but Santa—”

Santa thundered, “Do what I say, or I’ll string you all up like sides of beef!”

Five minutes later I had them buffing up the sled and loading piles of empty toy sacks onto the back of it, as per Santa’s instructions. The Toy Shop remained untouched. The reindeer were groomed, the harness cleaned and rigged.

When all of this was finished, Santa assembled us by the sleigh, which had been pulled out into the courtyard. “Okay, boys,” he said, chuckling sardonically. “It’s time to make our rounds.”

Momma was laughing, too.

Poor little Shmitzy stepped out of the crowd. He was still trembling uncontrollably. He pointed at the Toy Shop and the empty sacks in the sleigh. “S-Santa, we—”

Santa reached out and picked Shmitzy up by his feet, turning him upside-down. He brought him up very close to his face, and opened his mouth wide. For a moment it looked as if he were going to bite Shmitzy’s head off. Then he put him down.

Shmitzy hurried back into the crowd.

“Gustav,” Santa said in a low, mellow voice, rubbing his hands together and smiling evilly, “get your crew into the sleigh.”

I was so scared I hustled the three elves nearest to me into the back with the empty bags. Santa threw his own half-filled sack into the front and climbed in after it. He cracked the reins.

“Ha ha ha,” he said.

The take-off was fairly smooth, given the circumstances. Rudolph was still a bit shaken by almost having his nose blown off, but we got off the ground in one piece. It was a clear night with a bright moon, and I looked down as we made our turn over the North Pole. The jolly, festively painted little village of a few days before now looked like an abandoned amusement park: wreckage and near-wreckage everywhere. None of the Christmas trees along the perimeter had been decorated; none of the remaining decorations had been polished. None of the last-minute work had been done. The scene would have made a disheartening air-photo. I shook my head and put up my collar. It was cold in that sleigh.

Santa laughed diabolically and straightened the sleigh out for the ride south. I was depressed, and the three elves huddled back there with me surrounded by empty sacks didn’t look too cheerful, either. I looked closely at them now: two shivering apprentices, and a third elf bundled up like a mummy with his face covered. I glanced up front; Santa was waving his arms madly, cracking the reins fiercely over the poor reindeer. I wondered what he was going to do.

The bundled-up elf inched over to me and pulled down the muff covering his face. I almost shouted; it was Fritz!

He motioned for me to be quiet, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Don’t raise your voice, my friend,” he said. “If Santa finds me here I’m sure he’ll throw me overboard.” He whispered that we should move carefully to the back of the sleigh, and we did so. We piled up empty canvas sacks to form a sort of wall.

“I’ve been in hiding,” Fritz continued. “I’m the only one who knows what’s wrong with Santa and Momma Claus, and he knows that I know. I concealed myself in the basement of the infirmary, and, after the infirmary burned down, I hid in the Toy Shop trying to puzzle this out and come up with some sort of solution. “Gustav,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “to tell you the truth, I never believed the tale.”