Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes (43 page)

“No, no, Chuff,” he laughed, “that isn’t necessary. Sit there, lad, and tell me how things are going.”

He gave the imp an extra hour, delighting in what he had to say and how he said it. “Chuff’s little friends are so good to him,” said Chuff. “His skull fills more every day with smarts and barrels of joy. Might be the air, I betcha.”

“Any regrets?”

At first, Chuff shook his head. Then he managed through tears, “I miss my mommy. I wish I could make her and my brothers as happy as I am.” At Santa’s invitation, he pillowed his ungainly head on Santa’s belly, his tears as wet and slobbery as the dewlap drool of a purebred boxer.

“There, there,” said Santa.

At last the imp composed himself and regained the stool.

“Chuff, I hate to bring this up. But I’ve recently learned to accept, and so diminish, the power of my naughty side. We’ve both undergone a transformation recently, though yours was the more extreme. I know your former self was very nasty to bad little boys and girls, even to the point of ending their lives. But eating the Divine Mother’s chocolate egg has utterly changed you. Of that I have no doubt. Still, I wonder how you feel about your past deeds.”

There was a knowing look in the imp’s eye. Santa was pleased to see it there. Better a well-rounded helper than one acquainted only with his own veneer. “They were very bad. But Chuff has waked from the bad dream. I was the best of my mommy’s sons, but that’s no help. The pain I put on rotten kids I carry inside me, here.” He thumped his chest. “They cry. I see them and my new eyes cry too, though their pain cannot be cried away. Then I turn to my present joys and hug them tight. I could never turn my back on those. Not when I feel your heart and my elf sibs’ hearts go thump like mine.”

“Good, Chuff,” said Santa. “Carry on then, and know that everyone here loves you without reserve.”

Chuff left all aglow.

Santa made a point to bring in Gregor early too. To the gruff fellow, who huffed and grunted his way onto the tall wooden stool opposite, Santa said, “Let’s get to the point, Gregor. I don’t ask you to stop being judgmental. As well ask the sun to douse its fire. Being judgmental gives you your charm. But I do ask that you refrain from amplifying your prejudices, and that you do nothing to prevent consenting elves from expressing their love and affection in whatever way they choose. And that goes for you too.”

“Disgusting,” muttered Gregor.

“I could barely hear that. Good. Now try it without moving your lips.”

Gregor scowled.

“Perfect! Well, I believe we’re done.”

Santa was pleased to see that his elves bore no ill will toward Gregor and his brothers. Indeed, Josef and Engelbert had decided to continue bedding down in the dorm. Though Gregor huffed that that was perfectly fine with him, his loneliness was palpable. Santa prudently left that tender subject alone.

Into weeks of magic time the queue of helpers stretched. Santa saved his favorite elf for last. Red-haired, gap-toothed Fritz took to the stool with gusto, a broad grin carved into his face.

“Why so happy?” asked Santa, basking in Fritz’s joy.

“Life is grand. Our once-compromised craftsmanship is as precise as before. You’re alive again, and more astounding than ever. For the past eight years, something’s been distracting you. I could feel it. But since your brush with death, you seem, I don’t know, more complete, more yourself, than you’ve been in a long time.”

“Very observant, Fritz. Someday, you and I will speak of that, how things have shifted for me in the best possible way. But today, I’m taking a sounding of each of you to confirm that no sour notes, no strident chords, are being struck just out of earshot.”

“None that I’m aware of, Santa,” said Fritz thoughtfully.

“Good. As for Gregor, he well deserved what all of you have had of him—a good-natured ribbing. I wanted to make sure that the ribbing has stopped. You nod. That’s good. For our recent fall-off in toy manufacture, instead of blaming his own browbeating, Gregor scapegoated the nosepickers among us. He has, in his own gruff way, repented. He mustn’t be scapegoated in return, not even years in the future, through festering resentment.”

Fritz waved it away. “I truly believe we have put that behind us. Gregor’s Gregor. He got a little bit out of hand. But now he’s back to being a simple grump, and everyone accepts and loves him for that.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “By the way, sir. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“My promotion?”

“You know. The thing with you and Wendy and the night before Thanksgivings to come. I think that’s grand.”

Santa laughed uproariously. “It will do us good, me and Wendy. May it do humankind some good as well.”

“Amen to that.”

“Oh and one more thing. I shamed you and your bunkmates at the replicas last November. Please accept my apologies. I’ve spoken to Max and Karlheinz already.”

“Apology unnecessary, but gratefully accepted!”

“Wonderful,” said Santa. He placed his hands on his favorite’s shoulders, then gathered him into a warm embrace. “Had I a son, Fritz, I could wish for no better son than you.”

“And you, a father, to me.”

Arm in arm, they walked out into the workshop. With the lift of his hand, Santa halted the workbench racket and clatter. “Lads, a wondrous consult all. It draws us closer. I’m proud to work side-by-side with each one of you and pleased to observe the restored integrity of your toymaking. Industry in a worthy cause does a body good. And what cause more worthy than bringing a smile to the lips of a child? Happy little boys and girls, given the proper mix of responsibility and pride in their endeavors, become happy grown-ups. But you know that, and I’ll keep you no longer from your nimble-fingered handiwork. Carry on!”

And so they did, but not before they rose and cheered and clapped so vociferously that Santa jollied up a shake-belly of laughter, coyly curled his snow-white mustaches, and winked in genial conspiracy. At length, he waved away their applause and regained his office, closing the door to mute the joyful noise outside. When it died down, he gave a contented sigh and sat at his desk with an exceedingly warm glow in his heart.

* * *

Shortly before dusk, Gregor brushed Galatea down, the burnished sunlight splashing odd-angled slats and rhomboids on the stable walls. His brothers, though their spying had ended with Gregor’s humiliation in the Chapel, had retired to the dorm, where they had elected to keep their beds.

“Just as well,” he said to the doe. “It lets me give full voice to my thoughts when they’re not by, my expendable brothers, the lack of whose company I could give half a withered sugarplum about. Not that I mind audiences. They amplify my grumpiness. But there’s plenty to be grumpy about
without
amplification, even in this demi-paradise. I’ll tell you something, Galatea. They’re too happy, this lot. Is there not one burr up their scrawny little butts? Make toys, adulate Santa Claus, take Christmas Day off every year to indulge in skating and snowball fights. Bah! There’s no depth to them.”

Galatea’s nose cast its limelight everywhere. If she had been a cat, she would have purred. “Take my railings. I admit I may have overstepped, even veered into hypocrisy, I confess it. But they came alive then, those I tormented and lorded it over, more alive than I’ve seen them in ages. Chastise me as they might, it takes
conflict
to bring out the high and low terrain in every creature’s soul. And I gave it to them in spades. Nosepicking is wrong, no two ways about it. I don’t give a good goddamn that I too indulge in the filthy habit from time to time. Had it no allure, it wouldn’t deserve the name of sin.

“But I’ll bide my time, little doe. Keep you eye on that imp, that Chuff fellow. There’s a heap of bone-dry tinder lying about that one’s heart. He’ll flare up one day. And there are plenty of leaks waiting to be sprung in this community’s supposedly tight-caulked hull. Santa admitted there are many things in our past that we’ve forgotten. Well, I mean to probe into those things. Not content with ignorance shall Gregor live out his days.” Damned if he would!

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Galatea. This ferret-eyed old grouch believes in inertia. Elasticity has its limits. Stretch a rubber band and it eventually snaps back. Consider the mortals whose image the archangel showed us, whose altered hearts led to the egg-seed. Impressed was I, and impressed I remain. I was sure that Santa and Wendy would find it impossible to pull humankind free of the muck of their antediluvian prejudices. And they proved me wrong. Ah, but time works deterioration, even upon what seems an irreversible success. Here’s another secret, my white-furred doe, just between you and me. A near blasphemy. I don’t even put much store in the Divine Mother’s chocolate eggs. Mortals are far too nasty to embrace goodness in one area of behavior but resist their natural impulse toward wickedness in every other arena they enter. I doubt this change will hold. And when things revert, look out for the wrath of the Almighty. He’s taken a huge gamble up there. Muck with creation, and it’ll bite you on your divine posterior every time. That’s Gregor’s credo.

“But no one listens to me. They hear what they want to hear. They laugh me off. Well, Gregor will have the last laugh, see if he doesn’t. By hook or by crook, Gregor will whip his elfin brethren into shape, relieve Santa of his burden of command, and restore our memories of times past. You can bet your glowing nose on that!”

Galatea whinnied a soft protest.

“Am I bearing down too hard? I’ll lighten my stroke.”

And on Gregor babbled as daylight waned, scowling and muttering, brooding upon Chuff and how malleable he might prove. There was depth there, and nastiness not all that far from the surface.

Chuff.

Much might be made of him.

* * *

Just before bedtime, Wendy sat on Santa’s lap in the living room by the cozy narrative glow of a floor lamp. From a great old book of tales bound in cracked leather and redolent of ancient times, he read stories about werewolves, and mutilation, and dark woods filled with creepy ghosts, but always eventual redemption and turnabout, the bad folks punished, the good rewarded. His belly provided a soft cushion. His low baritone boomed out terror, and fear, and the assurance, at long last, of a happy ending.

Then they went hand in hand to her bedroom. Secure about her he tucked the covers, the oil lamp by her bedside casting great bird-wing shadows everywhere.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said.

“I love you too, Wendy. More than words can say.”

She patted his hand where it rested on the coverlets and looked concerned. “Do you think, in the grand scheme of things, we’ll really make much of a difference?” She tried to keep disappointment out of her voice, but she was determined to be realistic about their new task and three was such a small number of households to visit.

“It’s good you’re not letting hope run away with you. It helps keep me in check too. On the other hand, to hit a far target—”

“One must aim one’s arrow high.”

“Forty-five degrees, to be exact. You and I, young lady, should aim high. Take me, for instance. Let’s see if I can walk the talk. I feel such depths of generosity toward my beloved boys and girls. Year after year, I have dedicated my life to abundant giving. Well, I vow right here and now, on my honor, to extend that generosity to grown-ups too. Go back far enough and all of them have a worthy child buried in their souls. It’s our task to revive and strengthen and put that child in charge of their lives. Many manage to keep it alive themselves, to nurture it, to be generous toward themselves and others. They’re the ones who honor the spirit of Christ, of Buddha, of all divine avatars. Good grown-ups abound. But alas, there are far fewer among the rich and powerful, who climb ladders, adopt warped credos, lie, cheat, and steal, scratch, claw, and scrabble for advantage, rattle sabers, appeal to baser instincts, monger war, the list goes on and on. It would be easy to grow cynical and lose ourselves in despair. But you and I are going to focus on their worthiest ideals and how those ideals might be strengthened and encouraged in the mortals we visit. Those few, we will pick with care.”

“Indeed we will,” said Wendy, beaming.

“Consider Nelson Mandela. Now there’s an extraordinary fellow. Were it not for him, South Africa would have devolved into factionalism and mass murder. Instead, despite the years stolen from him in prison, he preached peace. Preach it? He practiced it.

“But let me not babble on endlessly into the night. We both need our rest. Next Thanksgiving, with luck, we’ll set a few mortals on the path to goodness. We must be patient. Change the right man or woman and it makes all the difference. But whether they stick to that path and change the world will be up to them.”

“I can’t wait,” she said.

“Sleep tight, darling Wendy. I’ll let my two yum-bunnies know you’re ready for your goodnight hug.”

“G’night, Daddy,” she said, her eyelids heavy. Snowball and Nightwind padded in then (from the catch on the carpet, they clearly needed their claws trimmed) and leaped upon the bed, circling nests into her comforter and flopping down to either side of her.

It had been a full day. But she vowed to stay awake long enough to feel the warmth of Mommy’s kiss and Anya’s granny-lips on her cheek.

It was a struggle, yet she managed it. Just barely. But by the time they rose from her bed and reached the door, Wendy had utterly and blissfully entered the land of dreams.

Chapter 45. A Small Significant Shift

FROM THAT DAY FORWARD, Santa looked in on the human race to gauge its progress. In that one small area of interaction, they had of course enjoyed instant improvement. Day by day, its effects rippled throughout the world, although spillover into other attitudes and behaviors was hard to discern.

One day in June on their walk to the Chapel, Wendy said, “It’s frustrating, I agree, to watch them one day at a time. That’s why I prefer to project their futures.”