Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes Page 16

  Mommy will tear me to pieces, thought Gronk.

  The miles flew by. Over and through cloudbanks he passed on his way home. At the last minute, he cursed himself for not bringing with him, in propitiation, the bones of a hapless child.

  He spied his brothers sprawled idly on the shore, Chuff moping alone near the dunes. Further on, there was his mother, scanning the skies in a squat, palms upturned in supplication to an unholy god.

  He touched down badly, tumbling in a heap before her.

  “Well?”

  “Pan and his brat had quite a time of it.”

  “And they failed.”

  “One might ever wish for such failure.”

  Her lids tightened. “I don’t like the way you said that.”

  “What I mean is, one who attempts to reverse the effect of nightmares might ever wish for such failure, for it looks and feels and tastes, in every respect, like success.”

  “To the point.”

  “They enlisted the Easter Bunny. He appealed to the mortals' childhood innocence. Our dreamscape invasion had no lasting effect. They've been turned. Please don’t shoot the messenger.”

  But she leaped upon him, flaying his cheeks, gripping his great gray testicles and squeezing until he cried and beat the sand with his fists. “Their visits are over? You stupid little shit, you should have reported back at once. I might have tainted the still-to-be-visited mortals’ image of the Easter Bunny, whose seeming innocence masks a history of unspeakable acts in past service to me and to his own unworthiness.”

  Thus did she rant and thus did Gronk suffer, broken and healed and broken anew, until the Tooth Fairy’s wrath was spent and she left him there in great pain, plotting afresh as she paced the sand.

  * * *

  “Oh, don’t bother, I’ll find my own way home,” he had told them, hopping close to the sleigh’s right runner and setting one paw on the black lacquer of its scrollwork.

  “You’re sure?” said Santa.

  Wendy looked disappointed, but said, “We did good, didn’t we?” stroking his paw and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Your whiskers are super-soft, my good friend bunny.”

  At which he blushed, averted his eyes, and aw-shucks’d his way toward again begging off a ride home. “I’m too excited to sit still,” he insisted.

  Which, though true, was not the whole story.

  Santa offered a hesitant but hearty, “Thank you,” meaning it but still with that undercurrent of bad blood between them. Then Lucifer’s antlers lit up and the reindeer lofted the sleigh skyward, thundering soundlessly into the night. Wendy waved and Santa too, smears of green and red against black. The Easter Bunny raised a paw in farewell, but they were already too far distant to see it.

  Being on his own gave him the chance to drop in on little Jamie. He gazed in fondness at the sleeping boy whose death they had postponed. Jamie lay fast asleep, his tousled hair careless on the pillow. The Easter Bunny blessed him and leaped through the window, flying swiftly away from Colorado Springs toward his far-flung burrow. Lights twinkled below, then abruptly yielded to expanses of darkness and seascape and wooded lands.

  But his thoughts dwelt upon joy and vexation. Joy at having spoken with mortals, at having seen them touched by glimpses of their childhood and then transformed. Thrilled to the heart, he chittered with delight as he sped along, ears pressed back against his scalp. Yet he remained vexed at Santa’s demeanor and his own hesitancy and shame. Santa had softened as they triumphed, but only a little. At Wendy’s kiss, the Easter Bunny tensed for Santa’s roar of objection. But it hadn’t come.

  Delayed perhaps?

  Would Santa drop Wendy off and return to chastise him, or worse?

  He hoped not. But perhaps having it out was necessary.

  Sighing, he sped on, eager to regain his living quarters and bask in memories of mortal contact.

  * * *

  Finished her pacing, the Tooth Fairy grabbed her imps and rushed them into the dreamscape. The mortals were seated at a tea party. Delicate bone china graced a damask tablecloth on a balmy beachfront, a lazy sway of palm leaves overhead.

  Their souls had been washed clean. Their garments were colorful now, comfortable, and reflective of spiritual renewal.

  She and her brood dropped down about them. With a sweep of her hand, the crockery shattered and the table collapsed. Scalding liquid splashed everywhere. The sudden attack, the burns they suffered, the lurch from paradise—these infuriating dreamers took it all in stride.

  “Idiots,” she said. “Have you forgotten our last meeting? The satanic nature of this Santa and Wendy? Their mission to turn you from God’s truth?”

  The boy leaped to his feet. “You’re a liar!”

  “Pay her no mind, Matt,” said Kathy Stratton.

  Her husband said, “She has no power over us.”

  “Go,” commanded the preacher, standing behind the seated couple, his hands on their shoulders. “Leave us in peace.”

  “Foolish man,” said the Tooth Fairy, “you’ve been duped as well, I see.” She rose into the air and dissolved the broken table with a glance. A pool of steam-hung water took its place. “Gronk tells me they brought in the so-called Easter Bunny. Let me show you what this dark spirit did.” The steam swirled aside to reveal glimpses of the creature’s past. “He stared in at bedroom windows. With jets of invisible seed, he befouled siding. Here you see him tricking a coed, spaced out on drugs, into coupling with him before she realizes that her boyfriend is pounding on the door and now the saintly Easter Bunny loses hold of his invisibility. Look at the creature’s mad red eyes.” Mist swept in and swirled the scene away. “This is the innocent bunny whose guileful ways have lured you into the satanic camp of those who embrace sin.”

  Kathy Stratton said, “You're lying to us. We’ve seen the Easter Bunny. To his soul we have seen him. He’s nothing like that.”

  “What you’ve shown,” said Ty Taylor, “are the perversions of your own sick mind. We’ll have none of it.”

  “Get lost,” said the bully. “You don’t belong in our dreams.”

  The Tooth Fairy swirled up in fury. “Doltish mortals. I show you the truth, and you reject it. Boys, have at them!”

  Then her imps, Chuff lagging more than usual, swept in to attack the dreamers. Limbs were lost, only to regrow. Wounds bled and healed, blood unspilling back inside them as torn skin restitched and smoothed. But the dreamers in their unruffled defiance transcended the pain, or felt it not at all.

  Though she raised a volcano and made it spill rivers of lava, caused the sea to roar and waves to fall heavy upon them, fissured the ground, then fissured those fissures, blasted their bodies apart—yet those bodies unblasted, the ground regained firmness beneath their feet, the ocean receded and relaxed into placidity, molten rock upflowed back inside the volcano, which eased into gentle hills rich with greenery.

  “Retreat,” she screamed, feeling foolish and defeated and tenfold defiant.

  When they regained the island, she thrashed her boys, casting her impotence upon them. “Leave me,” she shouted, and they scattered, but, “Not you, Gronk.”

  * * *

  The others hustled Chuff along the beach until Gronk and their mother were two distant dots. There, to the slap of waves, they sailed into him.

  Clunch gouged his eyes with the fat stubby knuckles of both hands. Bunner pistoned his fists into Chuff’s back, bruising the skin and battering the spine until it broke, healed, and broke again. Zylo and Faddle wrenched his arms, violating with torque and torment the integrity of muscle and bone. Quint, Zest, and Cagger razored their claws along every inch of skin, ribboning the flesh and drawing blood. “Too good to hurt a mortal, eh? Leave us all the work? Mommy oughta toss you off this island. You’re a freak. There ain’t enough hate in you. Whatsa matter, boy? You prefer receiving pain to giving it? No problem.”

  Beneath their torment, Chuff kept up his spirits. For he held in his heart a small secret pride in being unl
ike them. Only Mommy could shame him for being different, not them. He was better than they were. It didn’t swell his noggin, but it kept him from tumbling into despair. Despite this pride, Mommy could make him feel awful with just a look.

  His brothers had thrashed him before. But this time they were more vicious than ever. They weren’t used to defeat. They bullied bad boys and girls at Christmas, played foul pranks on hapless mortals, instantly gratified mean desires. Chuff could tell through his agony that his brothers disliked being bested by Santa and Wendy and the Easter Bunny.

  He, oddly enough, liked it a lot. Though he had never met them, they sounded appealing. And through the meting out of pain, the idea occurred to him—and at once took wing—to pray no longer to the indifferent moon, but to this immortal triumvirate.

  They would rescue him from this hell, as surely as they had rescued the little boy.

  To that hope, Chuff clung.

  * * *

  The Tooth Fairy’s eldest imp cowered in the sand. “You’re stuck with me,” he said. “I made bad choices, but I did my best. The rest is hindsight. They’ve got greater powers on their side, is all.”

  She clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. “Never say that.” He tore at it without effect. “Pan will overstep. It’s the nature of triumph. It comes with the territory.” Gronk’s eyes filled with panic. His claws dug into his mother’s arms, shredded skin, bloodied muscle. “You’re radiant in triumph, your head swells, you want to win again but more decisively, you crave more toys, greater jolts of adrenaline coursing in your veins.”

  Abruptly, she turned from him. He gulped air. “The proud Pan will try to impress little Wendy further. He’ll overstep. Change a tiny patch of the world, you want to change the whole damned thing.” She wheeled. “Gronk!”

  He scuttled away.

  “You want to redeem yourself? Spy on that bastard at the North Pole. Can you do that for Mommy? Of course you can. We’ll catch them this time. We’ll skewer the fat little fuck. Report every day, without fail. Listen in on the daughter. On the polar creep. On his wives and helpers. Be all ears. Can you do that, boy?”

  He brightened. “Yes, Mother,” he said. Behind him, the waves slapped at the shore and receded.

  “We’ll probe for his weaknesses. Pan won’t be content with saving one small boy. His suppressed appetites are far grander than that. By sanctioning these visits, Zeus has overstepped. Pan shall, in turn, overstep. Then we’ll sweep in and shatter their plans, undo their kindnesses, and visit misery unending upon the earth. Watch and wait. That’s all we need to do. By their power grab shall they be brought down.”

  The Tooth Fairy felt elated, sure of her purpose now.

  “Be gone,” she said. When he held back from leaving, she hurled him northward off the island.

  Away flew her eldest, a rude blot upon the sky, shrinking until he was a smudge, a pinprick of gray distaste, and then nothing at all.

  Chapter 21. Being Grateful, Being Scorned

  THANKSGIVING DAY DAWNED LIKE THE FIRST DAY of creation, tremulous with anticipation, the air clear and crisp. All mortals that woke that morning, indeed all living beings poking their heads up out of slumber, felt at once vibrant with possibility.

  For one wondrous instant, the scent of celebration hung upon the air—the steam of mashed potatoes, the aroma of sliced turkey, the tang of fresh cranberry. And this was true the world over, even in cultures for which Thanksgiving Day held no particular significance.

  Such moments occur whenever the immortal world touches ours with benign intent. A boy’s life had been saved, four other lives changed, and ripples were about to move out from those lives into the world as a whole. But the simple presence of Santa, Wendy, and the Easter Bunny thrice in those three bedrooms in one modest-sized city, so intensely benevolent, touched for an instant every soul on earth. The goodness in everyone shown more brightly, a tremolo of generosity, before reverting to its modest glow or dim-bulb obscurity.

  Santa felt it as a jubilant shout. In spite of his feelings of inadequacy in confronting mortal grown-ups, he remained grateful for having had the chance to save a child. The Easter Bunny, leaping and chittering in absolute delight, experienced it as a caress and a smile. To the Tooth Fairy and her imps, it seemed more a goad, a pinch, a poke, a sharp jab to the bowels, heart, lungs, to the innards entire, a pain that left them uneasy and humiliated.

  As for the visitants, who had lived through a night of extremes and forgotten every particular, they woke to a world of radical change. Its balm spread everywhere in them, even as they understood with sober clarity that their lives had uplifted onto a new plane entirely. For they recalled yesterday’s sorry tinct upon their souls, how it had developed and deepened to color every thought, word, and deed; and they felt the contrast between that tinct and their new acceptance and embrace of the homosexual impulse in themselves and others. They knew, as sure as they knew the gentle necessity of breathing, that they must act in accord with this unbesmirched vision. That old friends would drop away, or be dropped, because of this small significant shift. That new friends would take their place. That a sea change, long overdue, would transform their lives.

  Take Matt Beluzzo for instance, twelve and tough, hardened by a life of parental neglect, gravitation toward nasty peers, and grudges sufficient to spark riots. That morning, he woke in wide-eyed wonder. His pained squint was gone. Feeling more adult than ever, he surveyed his lop-drawered dresser, the faded wallpaper, a never-cleaned window hiding its streaks behind bent blinds. His bedroom bore the marks of neglect, the funds not spent on upkeep because Mom supplied herself with beer and cigarettes first, and there was never enough for what came second. To Matt’s astonishment, all of that was okay with him. He tried to hate his mother; he invited the old resentments in, but they would not come. Like spirits before an exorcist, they had fled forever.

  Matt showered and dressed. The ever unreliable thermometer outside the kitchen window read thirty-eight, so he knew it was around freezing and dressed accordingly. He had no goal in mind, other than to survey a changed world. As it happened, he walked a wide circle around the neighborhood, which still slept but for grown-up walkers in ones and twos. Whereas before, he would have thought nasty thoughts and avoided their eyes, today he acknowledged each one with a nod and a “Morning, ma’am,” or “Morning, sir.” And they, sensing his new maturity, his directness and generosity of spirit, responded in kind.

  He tried to hate his father languishing in jail, his fists far from Matt and his mother. But again he failed. I’m turning into a softy, he thought.

  A sissy.

  How odd the word, how ridiculous the concept. Name-calling was childish, particularly when you directed it at yourself.

  Maybe he should knock on Robbie Stover’s window.

  No. There'd be time enough to test himself against these sad little boys he had called friends once upon a time, yesterday, long ago.

  * * *

  Ty Taylor’s first emotion upon waking was a twinge of unease and panic. He had finished his Thanksgiving Day sermon the day before, but it was a sermon he could no longer deliver.

  Then he relaxed into a laugh. The generosity now coursing through his veins was strong and articulate. He had been spontaneous before. He would be spontaneous this morning. “A Thankful Heart in a Thankless World” had been his announced sermon topic. It would remain so. But certain sections, certain thunderous ridings of his usual hobbyhorses, would be excised.

  Something miraculous had occurred during the night. What it was it was impossible to say. Still, he bowed his head. “Thank you, Father,” he said, “for...well, I’m not sure what. I suppose for everything!”

  He prayed for strength, and courage, and God’s healing hand upon an ailing world. Then he tossed off the covers, made his ablutions, prepared and ate a bowl of oatmeal, and marveled at the freshness of the world and the freshness of his spirit this fine morning.

  When he arrived at the church parking lot, he
greeted Nora Blue, his choir director and organist, on the way to the rectory. There he robed himself and prayed again, this time for humility, forgiveness, and charity toward everyone. But unlike all such previous prayers, this time he did not secretly believe his plea for humility was, at heart, unnecessary. For once, his contrition was genuine.

  The pews overflowed with worshipers. Three rows back, in their usual place, sat George and Vera Stupplebeen, proud, upright, and ready to be fortified. Over yonder, the Pyne family; and beside them, Becky Harmon and seven-year-old Cully. Halfway down the aisle, Ty spotted the Stratton clan, Walter, Kathy, Kurt, and Jamie. His gaze lingered upon them, as Nora Blue played a majestic organ prelude. A sudden sob of joy caught in Ty’s throat. What was it? Some precious bond existed between him and them. Odd.

  The community of believers had turned out in full force, dressed in their Sunday best. But today, his love for them felt a hundredfold more intense than ever. They were his flock, he their shepherd. They had honored him with the role of leading them into the paths of righteousness.

  And he had failed them.

  But no guilt tinged that recognition. However unworthy, he had done his best. Today, by God’s grace, he would do better. He would strive to live up to his calling, to step out of the way of the still small voice inside.

  He gave the invocation and intoned the opening verses (“Give thanks unto the Lord, all ye lands...”), then led the congregation in the singing of the first hymn. Brief announcements followed: the ladies’ auxiliary’s silent auction, preparations and a need for volunteers for the upcoming Christmas pageant. Then the choir mounted a spirited assault upon “Oh bounteous is Thy loving hand,” the second hymn rolled out, and Ty made his way to the pulpit without his usual leather-bound folder, arms swinging free, growing a touch nervous (one never really overcame stage fright). There, Ty set his kind gaze upon on one parishioner after another as Nora Blue brought the hymn’s soaring melody to its tonic and the final chord rolled up into an echo of itself. The usual round of coughing and shuffling of bulletins ensued as Nora slid off her bench into a folding chair beside the choir.