Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  “What’s all this about?” she asked angrily. “What’s this noise? Why the commotion?”

  The old man who had brought the original message took his cap off and rolled it nervously in his hands. “Sister Florence,” he said diffidently, “I ain’t touched a drop since last Thursday and that’s the gospel truth! But I swear to you right now, on account of I seen him with my own eyes—Santa Claus is comin’ up the street headin’ this way and he’s givin’ everybody their heart’s desire!”

  There were mumbled exclamations from the other old men. Dull and saddened eyes turned bright. Tired old faces became animated, and their voices punctuated the room.

  “Santa Claus!”

  “He’s comin’ here!”

  ‘‘And he’s bringing us whatever we like!”

  The door leading to the street burst open and in walked Henry Corwin, his face red, his eyes shining, and over his shoulder he carried the bag, brightly wrapped packages protruding from its top.

  Corwin put the bag down on the floor, looked up, twinkling, and made a Santa Claus gesture of a finger to nose tip. He looked around the room, smiling—his voice absolutely gurgling with excitement.

  “It’s Christmas Eve, gentlemen, and I’m in business to make it a merry one.” He pointed to one of the old men. “What’ll be your pleasure?”

  The scrawny little old man pointed to himself, amazed. “Me?” he asked in a toothless wheeze, then he wet his lips. “I fancy a new pipe.” He almost held his breath as he said it.

  Corwin reached into the bag without even looking. He withdrew a curved Meerschaum. There were “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” as the old man took the pipe in trembling fingers and stared at it numbly.

  Corwin pointed to another old man. “How about you?” he asked. This little old man opened and closed his mouth several times before a sound came out. “Maybe,” he croaked, “maybe a woolen sweater?”

  Corwin made a sweeping theatrical gesture. “A woolen sweater you shall have,” he trumpeted. He stopped as he reached into the bag and looked up again. “Size?”

  The old man held out two thin blue-veined hands. “Who cares?”

  Out of the bag came a. turtleneck cashmere, and at this point the old men crowded around Corwin, their frail voices filled with hope.

  “Another sweater maybe?”

  “How about some pipe tobacco?”

  “A carton of cigarettes?”

  “New shoes?”

  “Smoking jacket?”

  And at each request, Corwin produced the desired item by simply reaching into the bag. He was unaware of Sister Florence looking at him angrily from the fringe of the crowd. Finally she pushed her way through to stand over Corwin.

  “Now, what’s this all about?” she asked acidly. “What’s the idea of coming in here and disrupting the Christmas Eve music service?”

  Corwin laughed aloud and slapped his hands together. “My dear Sister Florence,” he bubbled, “Don’t ask me to explain. I can’t explain. I’m as much in the dark as everybody else, but I’ve got a Santa Claus bag here that gives everybody just what they want for Christmas. And as long as it’s puttin’ out...I’m puttin’ in!”

  His eyes were wet as he reached into the bag again. “How about a new dress, Sister Florence?”

  The thin bony woman turned on her heel disapprovingly, but not before she caught a flash of a huge beribboned box that Corwin pulled out of the sack.

  Again came the voices of the old men, gentle, plaintive, persistent’ and Corwin spent the next five minutes taking things out of the bag, until the room looked like the aftermath of an inventory in a department store.

  Corwin was unaware of Sister Florence bringing the policeman in. She pointed to Corwin from the door and the cop made his way over to him. He reached Corwin and hovered over him like a symbol of all the law and order in the world. He put his hand on Corwin’s shoulder. “It’s Corwin, ain’t it?” he asked.

  Corwin got to his feet, the grin so broad that his jaw ached. “Henry Corwin, officer,” he announced, and then laughed in a spasm of delight. “At least it was Henry Corwin. Maybe now it’s Santa Claus or Kris Kringle—I don’t know.”

  The policeman regarded him blankly and then sniffed the air. “You’re drunk, ain’t yuh, Corwin?”

  Corwin laughed again and the laugh was so marvelously rich and winning and infectious that all the old men joined in. “Drunk?” Corwin shouted.”Of course I’m drunk! Naturally I’m drunk! I’m drunk with the spirit of Yule! I’m intoxicated with the wonder of Christmas Eve! I’m inebriated with joy and with delight! Yes, officer—by God, I’m drunk!”

  A toothless old man looked around bewilderedly. “What was them things he was drinking?”

  The policeman held up his hands again for quiet and kicked at the burlap bag meaningfully. “We can settle this one in a hurry, Corwin,” he said. “You just show me the receipt for all this stuff.”

  Corwin’s smile became frayed at the edges. “The receipt?” he gulped.

  “The receipt!”

  The old men smiled among themselves, nodded and winked, and turned, smilingly confident, toward Santa Claus.

  Corwin didn’t nod. He simply swallowed hard and shook his head.

  “No receipt, huh?” the policeman asked.

  “No receipt,” Corwin whispered.

  The policeman let out a single snort and kicked at the bag again. “All right,” he announced, “collect all the stolen goods and put them in a pile over here. I’ll see that they get claimed after I find out where he took the stuff from.” He turned to Corwin. “All right, Santa, let’s you and me take a little trip down to the precinct.” He grabbed Corwin’s elbow and started to push him toward the door.

  Over his shoulder, Corwin got a last look at the old men. Each was depositing his gift on a pile on the floor. They did it quietly, with no complaints and no sign of disappointment. It was as if they were quite accustomed to miracles being fragile, breakable things. They had spent their lives trying to hold onto illusions, and this was no different.

  Sister Florence went back to the platform and shouted out the name of the next carol. “A one, a two, a three,” she screeched, and then gave mortal combat to the music while the old men began to sing in sad, cracked little voices. Every now and then one of them would cast a wishful look over his shoulder at a Meerschaum pipe or a cashmere sweater on the pile of gifts that sat a million miles away from them.

  * * *

  In the small detention room at the station house, Officer Flaherty guarded the burlap bag and his prisoner, who sat despondently on a bench, his eyes staring at the floor. The brisk footsteps from outside sounded familiar to Corwin. He knew who they belonged to, and sure enough it was Walter Dundee who was ushered into the room.

  Dundee wore a look of contented ferocity. He rubbed his hands together briskly, like a happy executioner. ‘‘Aah,’’ he murmured, “here he is.” He pointed toward Corwin. “And here we are.” He made a gesture encompassing the room, and then pointed to the bag. “And there that is! And you, Mr. Corwin, my wistful St. Nicholas, are soon going up the river!” He turned toward Officer Flaherty, his voice hopeful. “Do you suppose he could get as much as ten years?”

  The officer looked somber. “It don’t look good, Corwin,” he said. “Of course they might lop off a few months if you was to tell us where the rest of the loot was.” He looked at Dundee and jerked his head in Corwin’s direction. “He’s been givin’ away stuff for two and a half hours. He must have a warehouse full of it.”

  Corwin looked first toward Dundee, then at the policeman, and then at the burlap bag. “I’m glad you brought that up,” he, said quietly. “There’s a little discrepancy here.”

  Dundee’s lips twitched. “Listen, you moth-eaten Robin Hood—the wholesale theft of thousands of dollars’ worth of goods is not a ‘little discrepancy’!” He moved over to the bag and started to open it. “Though I can tell you right now, Corwin, that this whole affair has come as no sur
prise to me! I happen to be a practical judge of ,human nature.”

  He dipped into the bag and started to remove things—garbage bags, tin cans, broken bottles, and a large black cat that leaped out, squalling, and ran out of the room.

  “I perceived that criminal glint in your eyes,” Dundee continued, as he wiped some catsup off his cuff, “the very first moment I laid eyes on you! I’m not a student of human misbehavior for nothing. And I can assure you—”

  Suddenly, Dundee stopped talking and gaped at the pile of garbage he had heaped on the floor. Quite abruptly he realized what he had been removing. He stared at the bag, incredulous. Officer Flaherty did the same.

  Corwin smiled ever so slightly. He waggled a finger at the bag. “Mr. Dundee,” he said softly, ‘‘you’ve kind of put your finger on the problem!” He waggled his finger at the bag again. “It can’t seem to make up its mind whether to give out garbage or gifts.”

  Flaherty’s face turned white and his mouth worked before any sound came out. “Well…well...” he spluttered, “it was givin’ out gifts when I seen it.” He turned to Dundee. “Whatever they wanted, Corwin was supplying it, and it wasn’t tin cans neither! It was gifts. Toys. All kinds of expensive stuff. You might as well admit it, Corwin.”

  Corwin smiled. “Oh, I admit it all right. When I put in—it put out.” He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “But I believe the essence of our problem here is that we’re dealing with a most unusual bag—”

  Dundee waved him quiet. “My advice to you, Corwin, is to clean this mess up and get out of here.”

  Corwin shrugged, went over to the bag, and started to put the debris back inside.

  In the meantime Dundee turned to the policeman. ‘‘And you, Officer Flaherty,” he said devastatingly, “call yourself a policeman! Well, I suppose it’s a demanding task to distinguish between a bag full of garbage and an inventory of expensive stolen gifts.”

  The policeman’s lower lip sagged. “You can believe me, Mr. Dundee,” he said plaintively, “it’s just like Corwin says—we’re dealing with somethin’...somethin’ supernatural here.”

  Dundee shook his head. “You know...you amaze me, Officer Flaherty. You really amaze me. In other words, all we need to do is ask Mr. Corwin to make a little abracadabra for us and no sooner said—done!” He looked up toward the ceiling. “Well, go ahead, Corwin. I fancy a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage nineteen-o-three.” He threw up his hands in disgust and shut his eyes.

  Corwin was halfway to the door. He paused, smiled a little thoughtfully, and then nodded. “Nineteen-o-three. A good year.” He reached into the bag for a gift-wrapped package which he placed on the bench. Then he hoisted the bag over his shoulder and walked out of the room.

  Dundee opened his eyes, took out a cigar, pointed it at the policeman. “Now, as for you, Officer Flah—” He stopped abruptly, staring at the beribboned box on the bench.

  The policeman walked over to it and with shaking fingers pulled out a large bottle—a gift card hanging from it. His voice wavered slightly as he read it aloud. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Dundee.”

  The cork suddenly and inexplicably popped out of the bottle, and the policeman sat down on the bench because his legs could no longer support him.

  Dundee’s mouth was wide open as he stared at the bottle. The policeman finally picked it up, wiped the neck, and held it out. “After you, Mr. Dundee.”

  Dundee took a couple of shaky steps over to Flaherty. He accepted the bottle and tilted it to his mouth, then he handed it back to the policeman. The two men sat side by side taking turns, doing honors to an oddball gift that they were both sure was a figment of their imaginations, just as the sudden warm feeling in their stomachs must also be illusory. But sit there they did. And drink they did. And the make-believe liquid in the imaginary bottle was the best-tasting brandy they’d ever had.

  * * *

  A light snow drifted gently down through the glow of a street corner lamp where Henry Corwin sat, the burlap bag between his legs. People came and went. But they came empty handed and left with whatever precious little thing they had asked for. An old man carried a smoking jacket. A sad-faced immigrant woman in a shawl gazed lovingly at fur-lined boots that she cradled in her arms as she walked away. Two little Puerto Rican children loaded their gifts onto a brand-new red wagon and, chattering like bright-eyed squirrels, ran through the snow. A rheumy-eyed Bowery bum clutched happily at a portable television set. And still people came and went—a tiny Negro girl, barely able to walk, an eighty-year-old ex-First Mate from a banana boat that hadn’t sailed in twenty years, a blind gospel singer who stared, unseeing, into the snow-filled night, crying softly as two of his neighbors helped pull a new organ down the sidewalk toward his tenement room.

  And Henry Corwin’s voice carried over the traffic noise and his hands flew in and out of the bag. “Merry Christmas ... Merry Christmas...Merry Christmas... Here’s a sweater for you. What’s that, darling—a toy? Here you are. An electric train? Got lots of them. Smoking jackets? Lots of them here. What do you want, sweetheart—a dolly? What color hair would you like, darlin’...blonde, brunette, red, or what have you?”

  And still the gifts came, and Henry Corwin felt a joy, a fulfillment, a sense of contentment he had never before known. It was when bells on a distant church steeple rang out midnight that Henry Corwin realized that most of the people had disappeared and that the bag was empty burlap lying limply at his feet.

  The toothless little old man with his smoking jacket worn over his shabby coat looked off in the direction of the chimes. “It’s Christmas, Henry,” he said softly. “Peace on earth, good will to men.”

  A little Puerto Rican child, setting up toy soldiers in the snow, smiled at Santa Claus sitting on the curb. “God bless us,” he whispered, “everyone.”

  Corwin smiled and felt a wetness on his cheeks that wasn’t snow. The smile persisted as he touched the burlap sack. “A Merry Christmas to all.” He got to his feet and looked at the old man standing close to him. He straightened the phony beard and started to walk down the street.

  The old man touched his arm. “Hey, Santa! Nothin’ for yourself this Christmas?”

  “For myself?” Corwin said quietly. “Why, I’ve had the nicest Christmas since the beginning of time.”

  “But with nothin’ for yourself?” the old man persisted. He pointed to the empty bag. “Not a thing?”

  Corwin touched his make-believe whiskers. “Do you know something? I can’t think of anything I want.” He looked toward the empty bag. “I think the only thing I’ve ever wanted was to be the biggest gift-giver of all times. And in a way I’ve had that tonight.” He walked slowly along the snowy sidewalk. “Though if I did have a choice...any choice at all...of a gift”—he paused and looked back toward the old man—“I guess I’d wish I could do this every year.” He winked and grinned. “Now, that would be a gift, wouldn’t it!”

  The old man smiled back at him.

  “God bless you,” Corwin said, ‘‘and a Merry Christmas.”

  “To you, Henry,” the old man said, “to you.”

  Henry Corwin walked slowly down the street, feeling a sudden emptiness—a dullness, as if he had traveled through a land of lights only to enter suddenly a gray limbo. He didn’t know why he stopped, but then he realized he was standing at the entrance of the alley. He looked into it and, double-taking, looked in again and caught his breath. All his brain, his logic, his understanding of what could and couldn’t exist told him in this one flashing instant that this was simply an illusion added to a night full of illusions. But there it was.

  Set back deep at the far end of the alley was a sleigh and eight diminutive reindeer, And even more incredible, there was a tiny pipe-smoking elf standing alongside.

  Corwin jammed his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed hard, but when he peeked through his fingers there was the scene just as he’d seen it.

  “We’ve been waiting quite a while, Santa Claus,” the elf said, taking a
puff of his pipe.

  Corwin shook his head. He wanted just to lie down in the snow and go to sleep. The whole thing was make-believe—of this there could be no doubt. He smiled foolishly and then giggled as he pointed to the pipe. “That’ll stunt your growth.” Then he giggled again and decided there was no point in going to sleep, since obviously that’s precisely what he was—asleep.

  The little elf’s voice carried with it just a tinge of impatience. “Did you hear me? I said we’ve been waiting quite a while, Santa Claus.”

  Corwin let it sink in and then very slowly raised his right hand and pointed to himself.

  The elf nodded. “We’ve got a year of hard work ahead of us to prepare for next Christmas, so come on awready!”

  Henry Corwin walked slowly into the alley and, as if in a dream, mounted into the tiny sleigh.

  * * *

  Officer Patrick Flaherty and Walter Dundee walked down the steps of the station house arm and arm, feeling no pain at all. They stopped at the foot of the steps.

  “Going home now, Officer Flaherty?” Dundee asked.

  Flaherty smiled happily back at him through glazed eyes. “Goin’ home, Mr. Dundee. And you?”

  “Going home, Officer Flaherty. This is quite the nicest Christmas Eve I’ve ever had.”

  There was a sound and both men looked up into the night sky.

  Dundee shivered. “Flah...Flah...Flaherty? I could have sworn that—” He looked at the policeman, who was blinking and rubbing his eyes. “Did you see it?”

  The policeman nodded. “I thought I did.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Mr. Dundee—I don’t think I’d better tell you. You’d report me for drinking on duty.”