Jolly Ol' St. Nick

John Fogarty -- 3470 words
3635 Chateau Lane -- All Rights
Indianapolis, IN 46226 -- © 2007,
[phone] -- John Fogarty
 
Jolly Old St Nick
by
John Fogarty

 
 
“Please, Mom?” the little boy begged, his eyes shining with the lights from the Christmas tree. “Please may I stay up a little longer?”

His mother tried to look stern and parental but couldn’t; the kid’s smile was irresistible. At eight, Timmy was still gilded with innocence, still spotless; a golden child. And, since the death of his older brother, Tim was her only child . . . But rules were rules, even at Christmas.

Especially at Christmas.

“Honey, you know what happened last year,” she said.

“Aw, Mom . . .”

“Santa’s rules, Timmy, you know that.”

“But, Mom . . .”

“C’mon, son,” said Dad. “Do what your Mommy shez.” His father’s voice was thick and slurred, and for good reason: Pops was already into his second bottle of vodka. He’d been gargling the stuff since Joey’s death.

His wife glanced at her husband over Timmy’s head. Her husband had become so haggard and pale, so wan and woebegone, she feared he might soon join their dead son.

He certainly seemed to be trying to. But it did no good to nag him about his drinking; it only made things worse.

“Go on up to bed now, Timmy,” she said. “You don’t want Santa to catch you.”

“But, Mom, that wasn’t what . . .” Timmy began. He’d almost said, “wasn’t what killed Joey,” but stopped before he could get in trouble. Despite his tender years, Timmy knew better than to pursue that topic. Best to just give in and go to bed. Besides, the old Christmas jingle was playing in his head now, the one his parents used to sing to him, before the tragedy: “You’d better not shout, You’d better not cry / You’d better not pout, I’m telling you why / Santa Claus is coming to town.”

Timmy bowed his head and stepped toward his mother. They embraced, then the boy turned for the stairs.

“G’night, Mom.”

“Good night, honey.”

“Night, Dad.”

“Grnphrlm.”

Timmy paused and frowned; his dad was getting worse. Much worse. Without another word, the little boy shook his head and continued bravely up the stairs to his room.

Bravely, because he was terrified to go up there alone—and had been for months, ever since his brother Joey had died.

Joey had been his hero, his idol. Like most younger brothers, Timmy Parker had looked on his older sibling with a combination of emotions: wonder, envy and awe.

In Joey’s case, the latter was well deserved. He had been a standout football player, basketball star, track hero and honor student. Plus, he could whip any kid in the neighborhood—even teenagers. No one ever picked on Timmy, because they knew they’d have to tangle with Joey.

Poor Joey. His death had come as a crushing blow to the entire Parker family, but especially to Timmy. It was as if his whole world had come crashing down around him. Even worse than the fact of Joey’s death was the way he had died: a horrible, wasting disease that the doctors had diagnosed as anemia. Timmy wasn’t sure what anemia was, or what it did to a person, but he saw what it had done to Joey. And he hated it.

His brother, on the other hand, had taken his own illness in stride. Joey maintained that it wasn’t anemia, or poor nutrition, or any of the other causes the doctors bandied about. Instead, he claimed that, last Christmas Eve, he’d been “bitten.”

By a bat. In the throat, yet.

The doctors, of course, pooh-poohed the notion, and he resumed dying.

The memory haunted Timmy still, with every step he took up the stairs. Because they’d shared the same bedroom, Timmy had watched—as no one else could—the awful progress of the disease.

Even now, he could recall it all: his once-strapping brother, laid low on the bed across the room, pale, weak and listless; the awful nights of groaning, moaning and murmuring of strange names and even stranger portents; the growing pallor and the hideous lightness of Joe’s body. He seemed to be wasting away to nothing.

Some nights, Timmy would awaken to the sound of odd, slurping noises; other times, he would smell sickly-sweet treacly odors, like rotting candy, or flowers grown sick and stagnant.

Once, he awoke to see his brother floating just above his blankets, as if drawn to the ceiling on a fishing line. On other occasions, he would awaken to find his brother gone, and the bedroom window hanging open. And one memorable night, toward the end, he thought he’d heard (though his parents and the doctors told him it was only his imagination) the sound of fingers scrabbling at the window for entrance.

And every morning the pale, sunken-eyed thing that had once been his big brother, lying there, sick and dying.

And the eyes . . .

The eyes were the worst. During the day, when Joey was asleep, they’d looked merely hollow and circled. But at night . . . oh, at night, when Joe awoke, they were terrible, fathomless caverns—deep, dead and black. And the tiny eyeballs within were red and hot as lit cigarette ends. Every so often, they’d fix on Timmy with a mixture of hunger and revulsion.

Timmy had cried himself to sleep countless nights, praying for God to heal his brother. If the doctors couldn’t do it, then surely God could. God could do anything.
It was a comforting thought to a frightened seven-year-old. But, as time passed, and Joey’s condition worsened, Timmy grew less and less confident.

Why wasn’t God healing his brother? Why weren’t flights of angels flocking round the sickbed? Why couldn’t the doctors, at least, do something to help his dying hero? As still more time elapsed without improvement in Joey’s condition, a horrible possibility occurred to Timmy: maybe there was no God.

This thought took hold of Timmy Parker’s frantic imagination like a fever. At first, Timmy was terrified of the notion — what if God could read his mind? Wouldn’t He strike him dead for thinking such thoughts? Gradually, however, it became less and less unthinkable as Joey’s illness worsened. Because if God wouldn’t cure a hero like Joey — despite all of Timmy’s prayers — then there was no God. Period.

Yet, in the back of his mind, there remained the forlorn hope that maybe he was wrong — that there was still a God. And a Jesus. And angels and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and that all the treasured figures of his childhood were for real, just hiding. He wanted proof, that was all. After his prayers for Joey’s life had gone so coldly unanswered, Timmy needed a sign.

Now, he padded into the bathroom, careful to look behind the door after he’d opened it. No telling who or what might be hiding behind it — especially after what he’d seen during Joey’s illness. Tonight, there was nothing hiding in the shadows. He brushed his teeth, spat into the sink and padded back down the hall to his room. Their room.

And as he climbed into bed, and did not say his prayers, the last thought on his mind were the words Joey had spoken to him, just before he’d died:

“Whatever you do . . .” his big brother had said, or, rather, whispered, “promise me you won’t spy on Santa next Christmas. And never trust him, Timmy. Never trust any adults, OK? Promise?”

“I promise,” Timmy had said. And it was a promise he planned to keep.
 
 

* * *

Which was why, later that Christmas Eve, Timmy was troubled when he climbed out of bed. He knew exactly what he was going to do, where he was going to go. And why.

He crept from his room with dark doubts about God and Santa still weighing on his young shoulders. He wished more than anything that he could do away with these doubts and return to the bright, sunshiny childhood he’d once known, when God was in his Heaven and all was right with the world. But for that to happen, he would have to have proof. Since he couldn’t see God (or so his parents always told him), he would have to see Santa Claus.

Because if there was a Santa Claus, Timmy reasoned, then there was a God. And if there was a God, then he would be rid of his doubts, once and for all.

He tip-toed down the hall past the bathroom, his parent’s room, and on through the dark sleeping house, like a ghost. He had no idea what time it was. He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

When he got downstairs, he saw the clock on the mantelpiece, next to the Christmas tree. It read 11:53 pm. Which gave him slightly more than five minutes to find out if there really was a Santa Claus (and thus a God, a Jesus and all the others) or not. He almost prayed to God that there was a Santa, before he remembered that he still didn’t believe in God yet.

But all that might change tonight, he reminded himself.

Stealing behind the big sofa that ran along the wall opposite the Christmas tree, the fireplace, and his mother’s brand new hearthrug, Timmy hunkered down and waited.
He did not have to wait long.
 
 

* * *

It was the bumping sound that he noticed first. A heavy, muffled thumping, in the chimney. Then bits of soot and ashes began spilling down into the grate. Something was coming down the chimney. Something big.

Santa! the name reverberated in his brain. But he dared not even breathe it. Who knew what would happen if Santa heard him? It finally occurred to Timmy that he was being none too smart — that maybe his dead brother had given him good advice, and that maybe he should just get the heck out of there while he—

—but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, it was too late now. For now he saw the big black boots, the thick red leggings and the great, round body, all dressed in red with white trimming, as it squeezed down the chimney with a muffled thunk! And there he stood, with a flowing, snow-white beard, rosy cheeks and twinkling black eyes, all beneath a pointed red cap with a white ball on top. It was, to Timmy’s shock, dismay and unutterable joy, Jolly Old St. Nick, himself.

The little boy’s heart swelled with rapturous elation. It’s really him! he thought. It’s really Santa Claus! Which meant there really was a God, and an Easter Bunny, and all the other fantasy characters he’d once loved so well. They were real. The dark, heavy doubts that had weighed down on him shattered in an instant, as new-found faith and ecstasy bloomed in his heart.

Stifling the laughter that tried to come bubbling up from within, Timmy ducked down further behind the couch and watched. Santa Claus looked exactly the way he was always pictured, and behaved just as Timmy had always imagined: chuckling to himself, expelling an occasional, hearty "Ho, ho, hoooo," pulling brightly wrapped gifts of every shape and size from his sack and placing them neatly at the foot of the tree . . . It was all just the way it was supposed to be. At last. Timmy could not contain his joy any longer. Clapping his hands together in glee, he cried out a joyous, "Santa!"

And Santa heard him.

Santa heard him. The jolly old elf peered up from his work, and grinned. Despite the merry twinkle in his tiny black eyes, it was not a happy grin.

“Ho . . . ho . . . hooo,” he intoned. And even Timmy detected the sarcastic note in Santa’s voice. The fat old elf was jolly no longer.

“I think someone’s spying on me,” he said, conversationally. “Someone very naughty,” he added. “Someone who needs to be punished.” The bloated old man in red now peered this way and that, trying to spot his quarry. Finally, his sharp, beady little eyes — which Timmy only now noticed were black and soulless as the eyes of a rat — focused on the chair behind which Timmy was hiding. And the fat man grinned.

“Yesss. I’ll teach little boys to spy on me . . . bad little boys who spy . . . bad little boys like--

"--LIKE YOU, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE SHIT!"

Santa turned to face the Parker’s Christmas tree. He peered closely at it, as if seeing it for the first time. Then, leaning down with his hands on his knees, he puckered up and — with a horrible whooshing sound — began sucking the ornaments from all the branches.

One by one, they shot into his mouth with a slight popping sound: whoosh! pop! whoosh! pop! whoosh, pop!

“Mmm,” he muttered, chewing. “Roughage. Cornerstone of a healthy diet!”

No sooner had he finished sucking all the ornaments off, than he straightened up, grabbed the top of the Christmas tree and began stuffing it into his mouth. The whole tree — every bit and branch of it.

His jaws seemed to spring from their hinges like a snake’s as more and more of the tree disappeared into his gaping maw. Mesmerized, Timmy rose from behind the couch to watch the awful spectacle.

Santa’s head shook savagely back and forth, like a bulldog with a pork chop, as he gobbled down the tree. Branches crunched, tinsel scattered, and pinecones flew all over the place. His mouth and face spread open wider and wider as Santa devoured the bottom-most branches with a terrible *crackling* sound. As the last of the trunk disappeared into his mouth with a loud SNAP!, Santa’s lips closed over the pine needles, and he chewed contentedly.

“Mmm,” he said, munching. “Fiber.” He patted his swollen gut with both hands, smiling.

Presents lay trampled and smashed at his feet. Pinecones were everywhere. Yet the hearthrug, amazingly, was undamaged. Santa winked at Timmy and belched. Without another word, he turned his back to the boy and bent over.

He’s . . . he’s mooning me?! thought Timmy.

“Worse than that, Timmy,” Santa said, having read the boy’s mind. To Timmy’s shock and disbelief, the impossibly fat, old man unbuckled his belt and began lowering his pants. The butt cheeks slowly came into view — vast, quivering mountains of pink flesh, dimpled like cottage cheese (large curd), the crack between them gaping like the Great Divide. The pants fell to the floor at last, and Santa grunted.

“Nothing better after a meal than a good, healthy shit, eh, Timmy?”

Before the trembling boy could respond, a titanic blast rocked the room. Pinecones and needles, branches and tinsel flew everywhere. Shit-cones and rivers of black goo now spewed from the mammoth buttocks all over the floor . . . all over Mrs. Parker’s brand new Christmas hearthrug.

My mom’s gonna kill me, thought Timmy.

“No, she won’t,” Santa said, once again striking that conversational tone. “That’s my job!”

The Monster Claus bent over even further, grabbing his colossal cheeks as he did so. Without further ado, he ripped a titanic fart, expelling still more pine cones, needles and bits of ornaments. As the last shuddering vibrations of the earth-shattering blast echoed through the room, Timmy saw something that caused his own bowels to loosen: a horde of filthy, black bats spewed from the titan butt and rocketed for him like an avenging torrent.

Timmy threw up his arms for protection as the bats flew at his face. Several of them glanced off his elbows and wrists, their hideous mouths snapping for boy-blood. Timmy screamed and ran around in circles trying to fend them off, but to no avail. As Santa howled with laughter, one of the bats fastened onto Timmy’s throat and hung there, biting and sucking.

“Madonna’s got nothin’ on me!” Santa shouted.

“Get it off me!” Timmy cried. “Please, get it off me!”

“Get it off me! Please, get it off me,” Santa mocked, as he stood and pulled up his pants. “You get it off, ya sniveling little puke. It’s your neck.”

With this statement, Timmy’s horror and degradation were made complete. He wondered why on earth his parents hadn’t come running down the stairs, with all the noise Monster Claus had been making. Apparently, there would be no help from that quarter.

Tears streaming down his face, Timmy looked up one last time to Santa and, in a plaintive little voice asked, “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“You broke the rules, Timmy-boy. You know the song: ‘He knows when you are sleeping / He knows when you’re awake / He knows you’ve been a bad little shit / So be dead for goodness sake.’”

“But . . . but I believed in you,” Timmy tried, still digging at the bat on his throat.

“So? Lotta folks believe in me. Doesn’t mean I can’t have my fun with ‘em.”

Timmy finally dislodged the bat from his neck; it fluttered away like a bloated tic on wings. “I hate you,” he said.

“But I lo-o-ove you,” said Santa. “Oh, yes. Nice little dash of pinecone on the side, some tinsel to wash you down. Umm mmm!” He licked his lips and patted his stomach. “Yummy.” The bloated imp took a menacing step forward, drool running down his beard. “Time now, Timmy boy. Time to eat.”

Timmy felt his life draining away. He was about to die. He was about to suffer the same fate as the ornaments and the beautiful Christmas tree. He could smell the sickly-sweet, fetid breath of the Monster Claus as it loomed over him.

“Gonna eat you all up!”

Just before the horrid mouth could latch onto him, Timmy heard a familiar voice overhead:

“Eat this, fat boy.”

It was, incredibly, his brother Joey. His very dead brother. He was floating just above Santa’s head.

“Wh-what?” croaked Monster Claus. “B-but you’re—”

“Dead, yes, I know. And so are you, you fat, fart-sucking, old fuck-weasel.”

Timmy watched in mixed terror and relief as his long-dead brother swooped down from the ceiling and latched onto Santa’s throat. He saw the sharp, needle-point teeth tear into the fat, juicy flesh; saw blood gout like a fountain out of pink meat; saw the horrible thorax and larynx rip away as his brother de-throated the bloated old fiend. Santa, with an expression of shocked disbelief, crumpled to the floor like a sack of shit. He twitched once or twice, then lay quite still, blood streaming down his chest.

“Sorry you had to see that,” Joey said; and his voice seemed to be spoken right inside Timmy’s head, as if they had a special link. Which, of course, they had.

“Joey,” came Timmy’s frightened voice. “Joey, how . . . what happened?”

“Now you know,” came the incorporeal voice of his dead brother, as Joey floated slowly back up to the ceiling. He hovered over Timmy like an angel. An angel of gore. “Now you know what happened to me.”

“Wh-what happened, Joey? Did . . . did one of Santa’s bats?. . .”

His ghostly angel-brother nodded. “Yep. Bit me in the throat. Then it . . . kept coming back, night after night, until . . .”

“I know,” said Timmy, tears welling up in his eyes.

“No, you don’t, little brother,” Joey replied, Santa’s blood still dripping from his lips. “You don’t know the half of it. But . . . you will. Soon.”

Timmy’s tears spilled down his cheeks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you will become like me,” said his brother. “You’ve been bitten, same as I was. You will die the same death.”

“No! No, please!”

“Sorry, li’l bro.” The Joey-thing began fading away, becoming more and more indistinct with each tear that rolled down Timmy’s face. Only a trace of him, like the Cheshire Cat, remained.

“No, Joey, wait! Please don’t go.”

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Timmy,” his dead brother whispered, just above him. “I’ll be seeing you real soon.”

“Joey, please . . . please don’t leave me . . . pleeeeease. . .”

“I told you to never trust adults — Santa included. Now you know why.”

The voice seemed to echo off the walls as the younger boy stood staring into the blackness.

“Adults are just like pigeons, Timmy: first, they accept your gestures of love and friendship and then . . .

         “. . . they shit all over you. Bye now, Timmy. I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“But—”

“—I’ll be seeing you again reeeeeal soon . . .”

And, with that, the voice of his big brother — of his hero — wafted off through the walls and on down the long, hallowed halls of Timmy’s rapidly dimming, dying memory.

 

—30—