Santa Claus The Movie

by Joan D. Vinge

  But the words of merry greeting which he had rehearsed for days now seemed completely unfamiliar to him as they crawled up out of some hidden depths onto the screen of a teleprompter. Intended to reassure and guide him, he found to his frightened dismay that the printed lines were only leading him astray. First they crawled by so slowly that he had to drag out every word as if he were talking through a mouthful of glue; then they abruptly speeded up until his tongue had to run full tilt to follow; then suddenly they slowed to a crawl again. And at the same moment, he was switched from one camera to another in midsentence, leaving him crosseyed and gibbering.

  B.Z.’s venal manipulation had in one stroke reduced the once elf-assured Patch, who had been so certain that he was on top of the world figuratively if not literally, to a confused pawn in a game not of his own devising.

  As Patch floundered and blew his lines, looking wildly from side to side for the right camera, the studio’s harassed floor manager grimaced in silent agony. Where did they find these amateurs, he wondered, and why did he have to be responsible for making them look good? On live TV, to the entire world, yet? No company had ever bought so much advertising at once before. He had to make this commercial a success, or he’d never work again. B.Z. would see to that. He paced back and forth, earphones jabbing his head and his clipboard clutched in a deathgrip, trying to outguess Patch’s floundering mistakes in time to save the commercial from utter disaster and himself from professional suicide.

  As Patch became hopelessly garbled on TV Camera Two, the floor manager hissed desperately into his mike, “Camera Three! Camera Three!” Patch disappeared abruptly from the monitor screen in front of him, replaced by prancing chorus girls. The manager dashed out onto the stage and hurriedly shoved Patch into the proper position, then darted back into the wings.

  Patch heaved a deep sigh of heartfelt relief as he realized that he had miraculously been given a moment in which to collect himself. The chorine “elves” began to prance and curvette around him, batting their eyelashes at the proper camera as it trained on Patch again. Knowing that he must make this a success or all that he had worked so long and hard to prove would come to nothing, he stretched his mouth into his widest and most winning smile as the chorus girls began to sing.

  “On the first day of Christmas

  My true love gave to me—

  A Patch present under the tree.”

  They sang and danced gaily to calculatedly “revised” Christmas carols, riveting the attention of television viewers everywhere. Across the United States parents and children glanced up from their tree-trimming and present-wrapping to see the odd apparition in the glitzy patchwork suit smile and recite ingratiatingly:

  “From the Old North Pole

  Where the elves make toys,

  Here’s a Christmas treat

  For you girls and boys!

  Oh, my name is Patch

  And as you can tell,

  I’m an elf myself,

  So let’s give a yell!”

  “Patch! Natch! Patch! Natch!” the chorus girls cried, flinging their arms into the air.

  The bizarre spectacle circled the world as B.Z. had promised, bouncing from satellite to satellite, emerging in countless languages from television sets wherever they might be . . .

  Even at the North Pole.

  In the elves’ compound Dooley, Gooba, and Puffy sat together in the information center of Dooley’s quarters, watching the brightly painted picture box that showed them the world outside day by day. (Even Dooley had had to admit that it required modern methods to keep up with the rapid changes in the world and the interests of its children.) The three elves sat gaping as their former companion began to strut his stuff with the singing chorus girls. Their faces turned pale and tight-lipped with shocked dismay as the garish display went on and on, and Patch’s obvious Christmas Eve competition with Santa Claus began to take awful shape.

  Dooley raised a hand. “Quick,” he said to Puffy. “Get him in here right now.”

  Puffy leaped from his seat and rushed out of the room to find Santa Claus.

  Back in New York City, every one of the half-dozen television sets in the window of an appliance store brayed Patch’s message to the passing stream of last-minute shoppers.

  Joe stood in front of the store window, his hands in his pockets, the chill wind forgotten as he stared in wondering disbelief at the sight of Patch reciting:

  “Well, the patchwork present

  Comes from me.

  You’ll find it under

  the Christmas Tree

  And best of all, you will agree,

  Is that it’s absolutely FREE!”

  Skimpily clad chorus girls sang shrilly, “Deck the halls with Patch’s lolly! Fa-la-la-la-la! La-la-la-la!” as Patch held up a small box decorated with a patchwork motif that matched his clothes. Around him, the chorus girls waved gigantic lollipops striped like puce-and-white bull’s-eyes.

  Joe frowned and shook his head. He wandered on down the street, wondering what Santa would think of this brazen competition for the hearts of children everywhere, or if Santa even knew. It occurred to him that in a few more hours he would be able to ask in person. His heart leaped with sudden excitement, and his frowning face began to smile. Only a few more hours . . . it was Christmas Eve!

  In the living room of her townhouse, watching the same thing that Joe had seen, Cornelia frowned, too, twisting her hair in silent concern. The strange, garish elf was on every channel of her television, brazenly challenging Santa.

  “When you look inside,

  Here’s what you’ll find!”

  He held up the box as she watched, and his face suddenly furrowed, as if the next few words were trying to stick in his throat. He coughed, and went on,

  “A little puce candy

  That’ll blow your mind.”

  “Patch! Natch! Patch! Natch!” the chorus girls shrilled. “Snatch the batch from Patch! Natch!” Twining arms and bending their heads, they began to sing in a travesty of reverence.

  “Silent night, silent night

  In your window, leave a puce light . . .”

  Managing a shaky grin, as if he had been through an ordeal that was finally coming to an end, Patch waved farewell to Cornelia and all the invisible watchers on the other side of the camera’s unblinking eye.

  Cornelia shook her head, the ghastly commercial sitting as uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach as a TV dinner. Just then Miss Tucker entered the living room, and Cornelia glanced up at her.

  “Cornelia,” Miss Tucker called, “your step-uncle has stopped by for a minute. Go on in and wish him a Merry Christmas.”

  Cornelia rose distractedly from the sofa and followed her nanny out of the living room, still too worried about what she had seen even to care that she had to face her uncle and act pleased to see him. She moved like a sleepwalker down the long, echoing hallway to the closed doors of the library. Pulling one of the heavy doors open, she quietly entered the room.

  Across the room her uncle was seated in a chair, also watching a television. She could see nothing but the top of his head and a puff of cigar smoke curling above it, as if he were steaming.

  “Merry Christmas, Uncle,” Cornelia said politely.

  B.Z. swiveled around in his seat, startled, and stared in surprise at his small waiting step-niece. Then he grinned, flushed with triumph at having just pulled off the greatest promotional gimmick he—or anyone else—had ever dreamed up. Merry Christmas? He chuckled. “It certainly should be,” he said cheerfully.

  Cornelia, who had never seen her step-uncle smile at her before, looked at him blankly and thought she hoped he would never smile at her again.

  Meanwhile, back at the North Pole, Santa Claus stood grim-faced before Dooley, with Anya and Puffy at his side. The Patch commercial was just ending. He had caught enough of it to realize what his once most highly trusted elf had done: Patch had set himself up in direct competition with the people who had been his famil
y and friends. “Well, at least he’s all right,” Santa murmured at last, when he found the strength to speak again. That was one weight which he was glad to have lifted from his heart, even if it had been replaced by another. Had he really driven Patch to this? Was there some way he might have done things better to have kept Patch from leaving them in such bitterness? If only he had tried a little harder to talk to Patch. He always had such difficulty discussing things that were painful to him . . .

  “What are you going to do?” Dooley asked Santa at last.

  Santa shrugged wearily. “It’s Christmas Eve, isn’t it? I’m going to do my job the way I always do.” He sighed. Tonight, for once, it scarcely seemed like the privilege and pleasure it had always been before. He turned and walked out of the room, his face a mask of resignation.

  Puffy gestured at the television screen. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said resentfully, angered at the pain Patch was causing Santa, and still more than a little jealous of Patch in his heart of hearts. “I think Patch is greedy.”

  Dooley sighed, and shook his head. “Not greedy,” he said sadly. “Maybe just a little bit elfish.”

  Twelve

  Grizzard the chauffeur and Miss Abruzzi stood flanked by a small handful of mystified technicians in the dark, chill silence of the deserted B.Z. Toy Company’s factory. No one spoke as they stood waiting, almost afraid to disturb the silence around them, as if perhaps even here the walls had ears. When you worked for B.Z., you could never be too careful.

  Besides the small group of chilly humans, there was only one other sign of any activity, past or present, in the empty warehouse. At the far end of the room a mysterious dais waited, framed by twinkling stars made of dozens of tiny lights, and completely shrouded by a tinsel curtain glittering with patriotic red, white, and blue. There was no sound or sign of life from within it, and the waiting group glanced nervously at it as often as they glanced nervously at the elevator doors behind them. It was Christmas Eve, and they had all been summoned here for the unveiling of Patch’s big surprise. They were waiting now for B.Z. to arrive . . . and beginning to wonder seriously about what they were waiting for, since Patch seemed to be nowhere in sight.

  At last the clunk and whine of an arriving elevator echoed loudly in the expectant silence. The doors slammed open and B.Z. stepped out, rubbing his hands together in eager anticipation. The small, waiting group clustered around him like flies around spoiled meat, all trying to be the first to greet him.

  But B.Z. looked past and through them, peering toward the two immense, closed doors at the far end of the building, doors large enough to let a fairly large airplane pass through. A great blinking ramp had been constructed, leading toward them from the hidden dais. But the doors were firmly closed, and nothing stirred at the far end of the building, where the dais still waited like an unopened present. “Well? Where is he?” B.Z. said impatiently.

  The others turned with him, following his gaze, all wondering the same thing, and surprised that even he didn’t know. The elf had been mysterious all along, but . . .

  Abruptly the glittering curtain of tinsel began to part. As one, the watchers drew in a deep breath of wonder, their eyes wide as they took in the sight it revealed.

  The first thing they saw was a remarkably lifelike reindeer . . . but this one was only inches high, and shone with chrome plate. It perched, as if ready to launch off into the air, on the hood of a car—a car like none of them had ever seen before. Before them lay . . . the Patchmobile. It was blindingly yellow in color, and its radiator grille was bright red; its hood looked like a jigsaw puzzle; the headlights were the drum heads of four toy soldiers who stood on each front fender, ready to play; the pistons had toy mushroom caps; the tires were over-inflated beach balls with red and green stripes; its two antennas protruded from the turrets of two red castles, and had giant pinwheels at their tips; several large tops, ready to spin, balanced over its motor; two outsized roman candles were mounted on its outsized rear fenders—exhaust pipes, poised and waiting for its driver to fire up its engines; the back of the car was an open rumble seat of unusual size, which was now filled with an enormous pile of patchwork-wrapped lollipop presents. Seated behind its wheel, almost invisible inside the splendor of his new “delivery system,” was Patch, dressed in his own comfortable elf garb, with a pair of goggles pushed up on his forehead.

  This was Patch’s answer to Santa’s sleigh and reindeer, and although it looked deceptively like a toy, in spirit it was the ultimate in modern rocket technology, the very antithesis of everything Santa Claus held dear.

  Beside the car sat a red-white-and-blue gas pump shaped like a robot, with a clear plastic dome for a head, and long, silvery hose-arms. Within the clear tank attached to its side were gallons and gallons of fuel, sparkling and glittering with a high-test mixture of magic stardust. At Patch’s gesture, the waiting technicians ran forward to the pump and began to fill the Patchmobile’s tank with fuel.

  When the fuel gauge measured full, Patch turned on the ignition, and his car sprang to life like an enchanted toyshop window. The tin soldiers played a drum roll, their drums spinning around and forward, becoming bright headlamps. The tops spun; the beach ball tires began to turn, their colors spiraling hypnotically. The entire car almost seemed to take on a life of its own, quivering with excitement. Patch pressed the horn, grinning, and it played the eight familiar notes of the musical jingle that had filled his television commercial.

  B.Z. grinned, too, puffing madly on his cigar as he gazed on the magnificent culmination of all Patch’s work . . . and his plans. This was the greatest moment of his megalomaniacal life. “Knock ’em dead, kid!” he shouted triumphantly. “Knock ’em dead!”

  Towzer swallowed the large lump of maudlin sentiment that choked his throat, and mumbled, “It’s moments like this that make me proud to be an American. Free enterprise, by God! This could never happen in Russia.”

  Even Miss Abruzzi, carried away by the magnificence of the moment and her participation in it, began to jump up and down, clapping her hands. “All the way, Patch! Go for it, baby!” In that moment, even B.Z. could have believed that once she had been head cheerleader and the most popular girl in her class.

  At last, with its engines revving up to full power, the Patchmobile began to roll forward off of the display turntable. The motor’s soft thrumming became an ear-numbing roar as the rockets fired up. The roman candle exhaust pipes flared with a shower of sparks, and great clouds of puce smoke spewed from their mouths.

  Patch shifted gears, grinning with the unbelievable thrill of it all, and stamped his foot down hard on the accelerator.

  The Patchmobile roared forward with a burst of speed that thrust him back into the cushioned seat. Up ahead, the hangar doors opened automatically, as if on cue, revealing the black velvet sky sprinkled with diamonds, and a moon like a vast pearl. Below—three or four stories below—lay the silhouetted trees and houses of Long Island, and far off in the distance, the nighttime skyline of Manhattan, rivaling the moon and stars with its lights.

  The Patchmobile roared forward up the lighted ramp, crossing the distance to the open doorway in a matter of heartbeats—and plunged over the edge into the open air. But instead of roaring off the brink to crash several stories below, it launched upward into the night.

  In a dazzling burst of stardust, the flying car zoomed straight out of the warehouse doors like a rocket, its already remarkable speed still increasing. With a trail of puce smoke pouring from its exhaust pipes, it thundered away into the night in a flashy imitation of another Christmas flight, one which was taking place at exactly the same time.

  Far away at the North Pole, the elves gave their customary cheer as Santa Claus, with his sleigh and reindeer, took off into the sky for his annual midnight journey. But in the hearts of some of the watchers there was not the same joy there had always been before. Dooley and Anya thought of their strayed sheep Patch, and what he was doing tonight, and their cheers rang hol
lowly in their ears.

  But back in the empty hangar, B.Z. and his gaping-mouthed cronies let out a cheer of their own that was entirely heartfelt as they watched Patch disappear into the night.

  “He did it!” B.Z. shouted exultantly, shouting with something besides anger for the first time in years, as he realized that all his trouble and expense had actually paid off after all. “That little son-of-a-gun! He said he’d do it and he did it!” The Patchmobile was more unbelievable than anything he had ever dreamed of. If Patch’s puce pops were even half as remarkable, he was set for life . . . His hands clenched, clutching fistfuls of imaginary dollar bills.

  Santa Claus journeyed fast and far that night, bringing his gifts to the children of the world as he had always done. But tonight Patch, in his rocket car, was always faster, always one or two or even three stops ahead. His Patchmobile would roar off again into the night in a cloud of puce smoke even as Santa’s slower, old-fashioned sleigh was just silhouetted against the moon, spiraling down to a landing.

  Santa Claus entered the familiar surroundings of one more home, this one a home that he remembered quite vividly from last Christmas—the home of the boy who had wanted a fishing rod. It was also the first home he had visited with Joe at his side. But tonight his memory of that happy moment was marred by the knowledge of what had followed that last Christmas Eve . . . culminating in what had happened to him in home after home tonight.

  He moved slowly, even his sack seemed to weigh too much as he crossed the room from the chimney. He did not glance around him to admire the cheerful decorations, did not touch a single one of the cookies that had been left out for him . . . or someone. He pulled a gift out of his sack almost absently and carried it to place beneath the tree. But as he reached to set it down, he froze, as his gaze fell on something already waiting there. It was yet another tiny present wrapped in patchwork paper, narrow and thin and only about four inches long.