Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes (26 page)

Beating? Fritz could scarcely believe his ears. Someone should speak up, he thought. I should speak up. But he was still stunned and could barely gasp, let alone protest.

“But I and Josef and Engelbert are but three pairs of eyes. We need more. If any of you witness these vile practices, though they be indulged in by your dearest friend, you are to tell us, so that we can properly punish the miscreant and guide him back onto the paths of righteousness. Indeed, if you catch yourself in the act, you are honor-bound to turn yourself in.

“Do not make me go to Santa with this. He’s busy enough as it is. But if this behavior persists, I
will
go to him. And his wrath, when he learns what lies beneath the creeping shoddiness of our work, will put mine to shame. Go now. Get to bed. Be good. Be vigilant. Think worthy thoughts. And praise God for the efforts of Gregor and his brothers in policing our noble community.”

With that, the floodlights snapped off.

Fritz took a moment, as they milled about, to go over to Herbert. But Herbert turned away in shame. And that stung far worse than any public humiliation.

Though his bunkmates were polite, they pointedly avoided looking at him as he climbed to the top bunk and buried himself beneath the covers.

* * *

When Michael reached his heavenly abode, he agonized all that night and into the morning about the best course of action. Should he go to God with the problem? No, God had trusted him to rectify his past bumblings on his own. And the smashing success of Santa, Wendy, and the Easter Bunny’s Thanksgiving Eve visits bolstered Michael’s courage. One might say, and be right, that it bolstered his courage a bit more than was strictly proper.

For there sprang into his mind, full blown, plans for a grand annunciation, not just to one or two souls, but the sort that was sometimes performed before a multitude. Yes indeed! He would take great risks, impress the Almighty, succeed on a far grander scale, and thereby expunge all memory of his earlier mistakes. ‘Midst choirs and trumpets would he descend to the North Pole, where he would draw from Santa’s recent mortal visitants, unawares, the essence of their transformations, shaping from them...in a flash, Michael saw how it would go and knew without doubt that his contemplated course of action would repair, nay burnish, his reputation in heaven.

He tore off earthward.

And in the sunlight of a cerulean morn upon the snowy commons, the archangel descended with great fanfare, divine radiance lighting his way. Out of the workshop poured Santa’s helpers, followed by an astonished Santa Claus and Wendy. The elves who tended to the reindeer likewise left the stables, and Santa’s wives their cottage, to greet him.

Hovering shoulder high above them, Michael lifted his hands to the assembled multitude. “Dearly beloved,” he said, “Santa Claus and Wendy have, with your help and support, done wondrous things for one small boy. Now they have requested my aid in extending that support. Heaven blesses their request, made from joyful hearts overflowing with love and generosity.”

Santa took Wendy’s hand. “Good archangel,” he said, “we welcome you to our community and receive with gratitude heaven’s blessing.”

“Your desires are attainable,” said Michael, “but attaining them means a great deal of extra work on Christmas Eve and intimate contact with the hearts of grown-ups, a contact not much to your liking, as I know. But the rewards, if you succeed, are great indeed.”

He gestured to an open patch of commons and a hillock silently rose, the snow upon it melting, the grasses green and lush. Upon the hillock appeared a vision of the four mortals, going about their daily lives.

“These good people,” said the angel, “were by Santa and Wendy’s visits changed. Examine their souls.” At his gesture, their bodies opened to reveal a mortal mixture of squalor and splendor. “Observe the places recently wiped clean of warped doctrine, self-righteousness, fantasies about a great war with a non-existent Satan, and the demonization of those who disagreed with them. It’s one small part, I grant you. But that part is pristine, is it not?”

The archangel’s hands sculpted the air. “From these new virtues in them, I shape a concentrated seed of goodness.” Above the hillock, extractions from the four souls rose and coalesced into an ovoid, no bigger than a child’s fist, the shape and size of an avocado pit, its little end up, its bright-green surface as smooth and transparent as glass. Into Michael’s palm it floated. He raised it to his lips and kissed it, then sent it bobbing in the air toward Santa, who received it into his palms with grace and awe.

“This egg-seed, Santa, you are to carry to each mortal with even a hint of homophobia, even those whose homes you normally do not visit. At your wish shall this egg-seed be cloned. Then you must become one with the heart before you, contemplating without judgment its failings and wonders. Doing so will calibrate each clone to its recipient. You must then insert it, oriented precisely as you are holding it now, into the heart, and move on to the next. In the months that follow, these egg-seeds shall quietly germinate, to burst forth on Easter morn in all their glory. Be sure never to insert it little end down, for doing so, rather than removing their phobias, shall make them far worse. Will you do it, Santa? Will you embrace this task?”

In the instant’s hesitation that followed, Michael read Santa’s uncertainty. But the choice was his, and he made it.

“Wondrous angel,” said Santa, “how can I refuse? To make such a change in humankind would be the ultimate act of generosity. For this shall I gladly extend my stay in magic time, praising God all my days for giving me this opportunity. Fritz, I charge you with the supervision of the workshop in the coming days. Gregor, you and your brothers are to prepare the team for a far grander journey than they are used to. Are you with me, lads?”

At this, the elves raised a shout and lofted their caps, which jingled as they left their hands and again when they were caught.

“How wondrous!” cried an unfamiliar voice. Herbert, the elf who had never spoken in his long life, spoke now. He clapped a hand to his mouth, his wide eyes shifting left, right, and left again.

An astonished Santa said, “Go ahead, Herbert.”

And Herbert smiled to outshine the sun. “Bless you, Santa, and bless us all this day.” Then with a laugh, “I’m thrilled to my toes at the prospects before us, and...merciful heavens, everybody, I can talk!”

“So you can, Herbert,” exclaimed Max, “and quite well at that.” Then all the elves swarmed about to congratulate and back-pat and glad-hand and lift him to their shoulders.

“With my newfound voice,” Herbert shouted from his lofty perch, “I praise this day. We are all blessed, as we have been from the day we were created here to make toys and help Santa. But thrice blessed are we today, for this new task. May God speed Santa on his way, and may his success delight and astonish the world!”

Everyone cheered.

Herbert managed to look bashful and elated all at once.

“May it indeed be so,” said Michael. With a gesture, the mortals vanished and the hillock went flat and reflocculated with snow.

The archangel noted, of course, the Tooth Fairy’s invisible imp on the periphery listening in. But he gave scant thought to Gronk, the general jubilation claiming the lion’s share of his attention. He pronounced a final benediction and rose smiling into the sky, basking in the sweet frenzy of rollick and glee that filled the commons.

This will set things right with the Father, he thought. Soon shall break a glorious Easter morn, and certain triumph.

* * *

Gregor watched openmouthed and dumbstruck. He too joined in the general marvel at the archangel’s sudden appearance in the commons, the bright air atremble with grace, the soothing borne on the wings of each angelic word. How could he not be moved?

At the egg-seed’s creation, he had wept with joy. He rejoiced as well at that rare glimpse of mortals and the inner map of their hearts, the newly purified areas, to be sure, but the rest as well—the giddy joys, the unrealized potential for goodness, and the foul and pestilent stew of unworthy thought and deed. It was humbling, how much of it,
all
of it really, resonated with his elfin heart.

But to hear Herbert burst into words after centuries of muteness! And such glorious words they were. Glorious too the feelings that inspired them and the voice that spoke them, honeyed like sunlight and maple syrup and liquid gold and an infant’s tears rolled into one. Who would have imagined the mute elf’s soul to be so pure, this unassuming creator of cameras who was always toddling after Fritz and had been so recently exposed as an enthusiastic cross-nosepicker. For a time, Gregor found it impossible to reconcile these warring images.

But soon the wonder began to wear off. Gregor hated being one of the boys, the gaggle clustered about Herbert, begging him to say more, and delighting at the gems of benevolence bubbling from his lips. The others, he thought (observing random glances his way), must wonder why the imperious Gregor was suddenly not so stern. Had he forgiven Herbert’s misdeeds? He could not have them think that, lest he lose all advantage. Besides, the mute’s newfound stature cast reflected glory upon his friend Fritz, and Fritz must not be allowed to re-ascend the few pegs down which Gregor had taken him.

And so, at length, after Santa had disappeared with Wendy and his wives into the cottage to marvel at the egg-seed in private, Gregor yanked his brothers from the sycophantic gush and hustled them toward the stables for a powwow and regrouping. In short order, he pressed them back into shape. But all day, his world felt out of kilter.

It made one question one’s entire direction, this dropping in of archangels, this witnessing of miracles. Thank God for the resumption of habit, the hand that, losing control over one’s resolve for a spell, grasps it again with renewed strength.

Gregor stood at the half-door and gazed out in judgment upon his fellow elves as they straggled back to work. Were it not for the glare of his beacon of righteousness upon them, they would devolve into moral chaos. Of that he was certain. His mask of rectitude had, to be sure, momentarily slipped. But that it had so swiftly clambered back onto his face and moored itself there again, reaffirmed its propriety and rightness.

Harrumph, he thought.

“Harrumph,” he said.

It felt good to harrumph with such clarity into the fading chords of false harmony echoing even now upons the commons.

Chapter 26. A Mighty Wind Sown

IN THE WEEK REMAINING BEFORE CHRISTMAS, all the elves hopped to. Even Gregor’s hold on them slipped, they were so single-mindedly focused on the flawless execution of the final round of toymaking, stocking the shelves from which Santa’s pack would be replenished en route and ensuring that the deliveries would go off without a hitch.

Gregor and his brothers put the reindeer through their paces, taking them out for twice as many test runs as usual, with greater speed and around more obstacles, swooping a brick-loaded sleigh up and down and sideways at perilous angles. As usual, Gregor let Josef and Engelbert do that, as he preferred his feet planted firm on the ground; he saw to their sleep and diet, serene and deep the former, fat-poor and protein-rich the latter.

Rachel pitched in everywhere around the workshop and Anya kept coffee pots full and spirits bright with light banter and encouraging pats upon the head. Both women gave Santa deep massages every night, assuaging his doubts as they thumbed stress from his muscles. They hugged him and told him how very much they loved him, keeping their bouts of marital intimacy at just the right length and ardor to avoid sapping his strength.

Everyone had been fired up by the angel’s visit and the task ahead, functioning as one well-oiled engine set to deliver more than the usual payload of presents this Christmas Eve. If they paused for anything, it was to appreciate yet again Herbert’s newfound voice, which spoke nothing but blessings—brief ones throughout the day and a far more elaborate one, extempore, from his bedside before lights out at night.

As for Wendy, she glowed all week, helping at one workbench or another. And each day just before Anya rang the dinner bell, Wendy slipped into her stepfather’s office and enjoyed quiet conversation with him. In the cozy warmth of that inner sanctum, by lantern light, they spoke in wondrous tones about the gift that had fallen into their laps.

“You can do it, Father, I know you can,” she said, gripping his anxious hands.

“To pause before them one by one, to stare into their depths,” he said with a shake of his great head. “I don’t know. I’m so judgmental these days. And they’re all so tainted, far too many of them anyway; if not with homophobia, in other ways. Yet I must observe in minute detail every fallen soul, to insure the egg-seed’s proper fit. One at a time, I’ve got to do it, ignoring wounds to my own sensibilities, or rather acknowledging them and letting them go. I fear it will break my spirit. But if that were true, why would God’s emissary come with such assurance to grant us this gift? And yet, how can it not change me?”

Wendy gazed at him with adoration. “If you change, it can only be for the better. You’re already so wise and kind and generous, those qualities can only grow in you. And I’ll be there most of the night to give moral support.” She told him how proud she was of him, no matter the outcome. “Even if, by some quirk of fate, your efforts come to naught, I will love you all the more for having tried.”

Santa broke down and wept.

Making a finger ghost with a tissue, Wendy dried his cheeks.

“I have to remind myself that they were all once children, free of prejudice and open as the sky. I always feel so small, right about now. Yet, when we return home, I recall in wonder the vast terrain we have crisscrossed, me and my team, and our great dispensation...of goods, yes, but of generosity above all. What, I wonder, will I recall after this trip?”