But the ultimate horror came in what he saw next. While Santa made his rounds the following Christmas Eve, he had hopped to the door of Santa’s cottage, knocked, and tried to seduce his wives with the quincunxial egg which was to have remained in place until the final trump. When that attempt failed—God forgive him—he had attacked them, doing harsh but immediately healed damage to the immortal Anya, then forcing his way into the mortal wife Rachel and wounding her nearly to the point of death, before Anya groin-kicked him gone and applied her healing tongue to the dying woman’s body.
The Easter Bunny froze at the magnitude of his misdeeds. For an eternity, he could not breathe.
Then, at last, the clearing returned, sunny but sinister now, his innocence gone. Santa’s goads had been sufficient to unlock his memory of those times, kidnapping Snowball, wiring her down in the burrow, and Santa’s rescue of her when Lucifer’s hooves and antlers had drawn his blood. He even recalled God’s visit to the burrow, his revelation of the Easter Bunny’s origins, and being neutered in his soft, vast, all-forgiving palm.
“I did that?” he said, choked with revulsion.
“Yes,” said Santa.
“So that’s why—”
“Yes, why you’re not welcome at the North Pole. And why I will never forgive you; nor should you ever ask to be forgiven. Truth be told,” admitted Santa, “it’s all I can do to keep from attacking you right now. But I must remind myself, I am the soul of generosity, you have been altered, and if we do not make at least half-hearted attempts at reconciliation, our hatred for past wrongs is bound to eat us up.”
When Santa got to his feet, the Easter Bunny flinched. “No, I won’t attack you, though a good bloodletting would probably benefit us both. You needed to know what prompted my behavior. I needed to tell you. May that knowledge fester in you. May the guilt of having committed the ultimate sin against a mortal eat at your soul. No, that’s not mine to say, though I’ve just said it. It’s the punisher in me that wants you to suffer.”
The Easter Bunny felt numb.
Lucifer came at Santa’s whistle. His sturdy back took the elf’s weight. “Sit with it. Let it sting. Think on what you have done. Think on it for all eternity.” He gripped the reins. Lucifer’s hooves tore at the turf. “There’s no call for us to meet again. You will not attempt it, nor shall I.” With that, Santa dug his heels lightly into Lucifer’s sides. Instantly they bounded into the air, dashed up over the treetops, and vanished from sight.
In the clearing, all was calm. But inside the Easter Bunny’s heart, nothing lived for a time but agitation and shame, shock and sorrow, misery and memory intermixed in a tale of unending woe. Yet even as he replayed those memories, they began to fade. For that was the way God had reshaped him, knowing that he could not long function with the knowledge of his great shame.
Did Santa just visit me? he wondered. Why yes. And we had the most pleasant time together. Or did we?
* * *
One night not long after, Santa and his wives were sitting up in bed reading.
“Did you hear something?” asked Rachel.
Santa closed his book about one finger and raised his head. The soft weeping that came to his ears withered his heart.
“Is that Wendy?” asked Anya, dumbfounded.
“It is,” said Rachel, throwing off the covers.
Santa and Anya shrugged into terrycloth robes over their flannel nightwear as Rachel drew her blue silk robe from the closet and cinched it tight about her nakedness. When she opened their bedroom door, her daughter’s sobs sounded with greater clarity.
Rachel rushed down the hall, Santa and Anya close behind. Her knock was light and quick and perfunctory. She turned the knob and they went inside.
Wendy sat trembling in bed. Overlapping scenes filled the room, scenes of violence and rejection, of parental love refused in God’s name, of taunting and baiting, of making boys and girls feel small, inconsequential, less than human. Santa witnessed men and women executed for homosexual acts in the savage nations of Iran, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. A Jewish mother and father sat Shiva for their lesbian daughter, proclaiming in public that she was dead to them. From the walls babbled many tongues, but the universal tongue was intolerance.
Before Wendy spoke, Santa recalled Anya’s comment that she was so good-hearted, she wouldn’t be content with saving just one gay child.
“Oh, Daddy,” she said, choking back her tears, “we’ve got to do something about this.”
Santa stood appalled in the midst of a vast outpouring of human misery. How could he have any truck with these distasteful grown-ups? His rage tugged so fiercely at the Pan inside him that he feared its revival, even as he determined to ease Wendy’s sorrow. “How can once-innocent children,” he said, “grow so monstrous? Is there no justice in heaven? No, I will not blaspheme, no matter how strong the temptation. And I will not give vent to my anger, I swear I won’t.”
Rachel touched his arm. Santa turned and hugged her, then drew Anya into their embrace. He sobbed as scene after scene assaulted them, the misguided who put words into the Father’s mouth; confused kids trying to understand themselves; adults who denied even the slightest hint that they might harbor one iota of attraction to anybody of the same gender, even those who, with regular zest, masturbated and made no connection between touching their own divine organs and those similarly constituted on the body of another.
“But Wendy, what can I—?” said Santa in a panic. “How can I possibly do anything to...”
Wendy simply repeated softly, “We’ve got to do something about this.” But her meaning was clear. This was a plea to her stepfather, who stood helpless in the face of it all.
“Sweetheart,” said Rachel, “please remove these horrors.”
The glut of snide voices, the outpouring of fear and hatred and moral superiority in communities large and small, in cultures backward and advanced, in schools and churches and families—all of it ceased, the bedroom thrown abruptly into moonlight and silence.
Rachel swept Wendy up in her arms. “You mustn’t expect the impossible of your stepfather. He can only do so much. What we all must do,” she said, as Wendy sniffed back her tears, “is to bear witness, be kind, and speak out when the chance arises.”
Santa could tell Rachel was just being the comforting parent, helpless, seeming wise, but feeling far from comforted inside, the situation beyond her control.
Then he and Anya joined them, and oh dear God, he found himself saying, out of innocent desperation, “I’ll think of something. I will, Wendy. Your daddy will think of something. You’ll see.”
He wanted to stop talking, but he kept babbling away. His wives sat on the bed stunned. Wendy gazed at him with renewed hope in her eyes. And panic rose in his heart and joy too, and on he babbled like the perfect fool he was.
Chapter 24. Might the World Be
Utterly Transformed?
AS TIME WENT ON, GREGOR FELT THINGS start to bend to his control. He and his brothers had observed fewer incidents of nosepicking. He suspected, of course, that the practice had gone underground, that the perpetrators of this outrage against respectability had become far more savvy about who might be watching. Eliminating the filthy habit must remain his goal. But dampening that peculiar pleasure by fear of exposure, keeping his fellow elves on tenterhooks, was a beginning.
Imagine, then, Gregor’s shock and dismay when the fates gave him the chance to observe Fritz and Herbert engaged together.
Thuswise did it happen.
Across the commons from the stables, past the skating pond, lies a stretch of woods especially thick with trees. Gregor had taken to making his circuitous way there, not beelining, for he did not want his prints in the snow to reveal his destination. So he proceeded roundabout. If the curious cared at all, they most likely suspected he headed toward the Chapel.
Thus it was that, perched upon his favorite boulder and concealed by generous pine boughs thick with needles, Gregor cogitated over power,
how it could be extended, how he might claim still more of Santa’s unexercised authority—all the while picking his nose and meticulously cleaning his fingers with tongue and teeth. It was an utterly private exercise. No one need ever know. Besides, his mucus tasted good. And though he would never confess it to a soul, transgressing in secret was a thrill and a half.
Far off, a branch snapped underfoot.
Gregor froze. His busy hand shot to his lap. The sounds grew closer, softer sounds coming into his hearing as well, a voice, a throat being cleared. Then moving patches of green, exposed, hidden, exposed. There were two of them, not yet near enough to identify. He vowed not to move a muscle, lest he compromise his concealment. The approaching elves, after all, had sharp eyes too. And Gregor had no desire to be discovered.
“Nearer,” he mouthed. A face glimpsed, a turn of the head, and Gregor recognized Fritz and Herbert. Fritz, Santa’s favorite, who for no reason at all enjoyed the respect a leader deserves. They’re here to badmouth me, he thought. That’s what happens to the powerful. The envious tear us down. They rant and rave against us in the safety of backbiting isolation. What else would bring these two out here?
A snowball’s throw away, they stopped. Fritz glanced about nervously. Gregor could only discern part of him, so thick was the foliage. “It’s all right, Herbert,” he said. “No one can see us. Relax, okay? Good. You go first.” Then Herbert moved smack into his line of sight.
What Gregor observed next disgusted him.
Was there no end to the debauchery of these creatures? His gaze riveted on activities Fritz and Herbert had meant to hide from condemnatory eyes. As well they might. He was appalled and elated. God had set him here to sit in judgment on these elves. And judge them he would, Santa’s favorite and his mute companion in sin. Right here and now, unbeknownst to them, would he judge them; and then publicly, shaming them before their brethren.
Scarcely did Gregor breathe, so intently did he observe the unholy acts in which they engaged. Not a day would pass before he exposed them to public ridicule. He had always suspected Fritz of sowing dissension, of undercutting his efforts. Now the dissenter’s voice would be stilled, Fritz shamed into the silence his friend had been steeped in from birth.
When at last the two miscreants straightened their clothing and headed home, Gregory dared lift a finger to one nostril and cogitate with brutish ferocity, picking and tasting and cobbling together the withering remarks he would make on the morrow.
Upon the destruction of Fritz’s reputation would he build his own. Santa’s favorite would fall, and he, Gregor, would rise.
* * *
All that day, Santa felt miserable. He covered it convincingly, his workers too caught up in toy making to notice how many Cokes he downed, how ever-so-slightly-off his rhythms were.
Wendy had given plenty of help to Heinrich, the identical sextuplets who specialized in porcelain dolls. Since the night before, she and Santa had confined themselves to the most trivial of interactions. He sensed her discomfort with everyone’s jollity. He knew also that she wasn’t fooled by his festive mood.
Now he sat, late at night, in his unlit office in the workshop. Unable to sleep, he had crept out of bed and strode across the commons past the elves’ quarters and the stables to the workshop. The place was vast and idle, though shortly before dawn his helpers would throw the light switch and dive with glee into their tasks. He had retired to his office, shut the door, and church-keyed the cap off one more Coke bottle, smoking with mist as he raised it to his lips.
Perched on the stool at his workbench, he stared past a clutter of folders and papers and ran his fingers through his hair. “What can I do?” he murmured. Chills of helplessness bristled along his spine. “The great and benevolent Saint Nick, stymied.”
Why was it, he wondered, that one could accomplish so much, yet feel a failure? There was never enough time to do all the good you were capable of. And sometimes, you couldn’t even see your way clear to righting a wrong, not though it sat up on its filthy haunches and stared you down in defiance. Why ever had he told Wendy he would do something? The problem was too vast. He couldn’t begin to think how he might tackle this, even were his annual Christmas tasks lifted from his shoulders. How could he possibly visit and divest of prejudice every last bigoted mortal on earth? Given how judgmentally inept he had been with four mortals, the prospect of transforming millions of them made him blanch. He was sure to bring misery upon himself and his little girl, raise defensive barriers in the homophobic masses, and fail miserably.
Santa took another swig of Coke.
He mocked himself. Oh, what a poor sad bloke am I!
Anxiously stroking his beard, he propped his head upon his fist, his elbow planted on his workbench's hard, scored oak. Michael. What had the archangel said as he ascended? If you need my aid and comfort, you have merely to summon me. “I do then,” he murmured. “I summon you.”
“Indeed you do.”
Santa ought to have been startled at the voice, at the being who hovered there, the redemptive light of heaven emanating from him. But it seemed as though he had been ever-present. His manifestation to eye and ear merely extended the power of those organs to detect one who had never left.
“Oh, Michael,” said Santa, wondering if he ought to fall to his knees, “I would not dare ask for what I desire. My daughter has shown me overwhelming instances of the misery non-heterosexual human beings suffer from childhood on. She has pleaded with me to do something to stop it. And I have assured her, with too much haste, that I would somehow set it right. But sometimes one makes promises in the heat of the moment and lives to regret them later. We have saved a good little boy from suicide. But even he is fated to suffer ridicule and rejection. And there are vast multitudes of boys and girls out there who are doomed to stagger beneath the yoke of bigotry as they mature, living every day in a world that belittles them and rejects their expressions of love. And all of it carried out in God’s name, a profanation the prejudiced regard as the duty of the righteous.”
Santa clasped his hands in prayer. “Help me, I beg you. Teach me how to ease Wendy’s disappointment, to let her down gently and keep her from despising her stepfather too much. Or if there is indeed a way to ease the heartache of the world entire, show me that way. I do not presume to ask the impossible. Yet I fear I have already presumed in my heart.”
Michael’s face was unreadable.
Was he stunned? Bemused? On the verge of tears? Angered at the jolly old elf’s temerity? All Santa knew for sure was that the archangel was utterly present, listening with every fiber of his being to Santa’s plea.
At last he spoke: “Dearly beloved, be not dismayed. The world is as it is, joyous and sorrowful, broken and whole, an imperfect yet perfectible perfection. You have asked the impossible.” His brow furrowed. “Indeed you have.” Again, he lapsed into a silence whose import could not be known. “But to God,” he continued, “all things are possible. I shall return on the morrow. Meantime, take heart, apply yourself diligently to your tasks, say neither yea nor nay to Wendy, and do this only: Embrace the comfort that surrounds you.”
A smile of compassion lit his boyish face, though it was tinged with a hint of exasperation. Then he was gone. As before, Santa was heartstruck at his departure, even as he basked in a golden afterglow.
He sat for the longest time, buoyant, bubbly, blessed.
“How about that?” he said, laughing uproariously.
At length, he poured the flat Coke down the sink, recycled the bottle, and traipsed across the commons to bed, marveling as he went.
* * *
As Michael began his ascent, he was surprised to find himself yanked back to the North Pole, this time to Wendy’s bedroom. She had lit a candle on her nightstand and sat, propped up against her pillow, in a flannel nightgown decorated pink and lavender with a small pale-green bow at the neck.
“Oh, goody,” said Wendy, unclasping her hands and clapping them with glee. “You’v
e come.”
“I have indeed,” said Michael, feeling peeved with himself for giving these two carte blanche. “Angels do not make promises lightly.”
“Okay, so listen up, please. That’s not a command, of course, only a request, I’m excited is all. I mean, I’m in awe, that’s for sure, but I won’t let it bowl me over or tie my tongue. If anything, it loosens it. But to the point. Santa’s fretting. I know he is, and it’s all on account of me and my stupid wish to prevent all these boys and girls from suffering over some dumb prejudice. Take a look. Oh but never mind, I’m sure you can read minds and see everything that ever was or will be on earth, so you already know all of that. Well anyway, I showed my parents and blurted out to Santa that we needed to save every last one of them somehow. I could tell he was distraught, but his heart’s so pure, he said he’d think of something. But there’s really nothing he can do, is there? It’s out of his hands, the sheer vastness of human suffering. He already acts from a place of such overwhelming generosity. Even if it were possible, how could he take on more?
“So what I’m asking, and this is in the strictest confidence, is for you to ease his heart. I wish I hadn’t brought it up. If I could take it back, I would. He’s upset. It’s my fault. And I wanted you to remove his upset, or help me figure out how to reverse what I said and restore him to his cheery self. Can you? Could you? It seems like you can do anything you set your mind to. I mean, aren’t angels all powerful, as long as it fits into God’s plan?”
She gazed at Michael with a wide-eyed look of anticipation that barely masked a grown-up sensibility inside. Her love for Santa filled him with delight. And her appeal to his pride, it must be admitted, struck a chord. Might he do something grand? Something that would please the Almighty greatly, and erase all the embarrassment his Hermes side had caused a while back? This called for serious thought.
Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes Page 19
