Santa’s Little Blackmailer.

Word count 1,200


Friday December 13th. In the dim twinkling lights of a tacky department store grotto, a bored Santa sits craving his end-of-shift cigarette. Business is slow; he watches the hypnotic twinkling lights throwing random shadows across the worn red carpet. This winding walkway that leads from the entrance to where he sits on his Styrofoam throne is bordered by banks of fake snow. Embedded in the snow are some shabby plastic fir trees, a few unconvincing reindeer and the mechanical elves. These ancient automata are Santa’s only company. While he sits motionless, each elf is unceasingly occupied in its own monotonously repetitive task. One paints the same patch of a half red wooden fire engine; another robotically picks building blocks from within a building block bush. Yet another rocks endlessly carving the same groove in the mane of a hobby horse. There are nine of these little men dressed in red and green, each blindly engaged in his own eternal task and they’re giving Santa a headache. For four hours he has been listening to the constant whirring of their old electric motors, the clanking clunking of their metal rods and the grating of their little gears. Wide-eyed grins of astonished delight are fixed on their ageless faces.

‘These guys give me the creeps’ thinks Santa, yet he knows that most of the few who visit are drawn, not by the promise of meeting the spirit of Christmas personified, but by the magical mechanical wonder of these robots from the past.

Santa’s real name is Vernon Scailes. A sexagenarian ex-con with rosy cheeks and a beer barrel belly. People approach. A small thin woman in a cheap coat and bad hair walks behind a large-headed boy of about six.

Vernon sits up. “Ho Ho Ho!”, well young feller. What’s your name? Come and talk to old Santa.”

The boy’s unblinking water-blue eyes stare challengingly, as if daring his observer to realise how unsettling his features are. Vernon realises. The boy's face is unchildish. The skull of the old man the kid will become is already shaping his head. It isn’t a face on which a child’s innocent smile would easily fit.

“Joel Hoey”, mumbles the boy.

“Have you been a good boy, Joel?” asks Vernon.

Joel nods.

“So, what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?” says Vernon, trying to sound interested.

“A Star-cruiser 6000.” Order placed.

It’s a rich kid’s toy, the most expensive in the store. These folks don’t have the money.

“You know Joel, every boy in the world wants a Star-Cruiser 6000. I’m afraid there aren’t enough for everyone, but you know what? For those who don’t get one I have something special which is even better!”

The boy stiffens visibly. Tiny spasms of fury jerk round his eyes and mouth. Suddenly fierce little hands with sharp fingernails are inside Vernon’s beard and wig tearing the flesh along the sides of his head. The mother’s arms gingerly pull the screaming boy away.

Her voice is pleading and desperate, “No, please Joel, that’s not nice! You’re hurting Santa!” She turns to Vernon. “I’m so sorry sir, he has a behavioural condition. Please excuse him.”

Blood is trickling behind Vernon’s ears. The boy is catatonic with rage. Vernon temporarily recovers from shock to wave away the weeping woman and the furious boy.


xxxxxxx

Tuesday 24th December. The elves are industriously ignoring Vernon as he tousles the hair of yet another awestruck child in a fatherly gesture of farewell. His professional smile falls at the sight of his next customer. The insane little demon with unblinking water-blue eyes is back, this time wearing a triumphant grin and in the company of a sorry looking man who walks with a beaten down stoop and has tear-tired eyes.

“Remember?” asks the boy rhetorically.

The long crusty scabs itching along the sides of his head have not let Vernon forget.

“Hello Joel, where’s your Mommy today?”

The man behind raises his head and in a soft timid voice says, “My wife, Joel’s mother, is missing since last week Santa.” Vernon notices how sorrow has left the father’s face no resistance to gravity.

“What can I do for you today, Joel?” asks Vernon in an over-jovial way.

“I want a Star-cruiser 6000.”

Looking at the father’s workman clothes and his leathery hands firmly holding the boy’s Vernon can’t bring himself to promise. “Ok I’ll do my best,” he says. As Vernon leans to retrieve a gift from his sack the boy’s commanding voice halts him.

“I’ll pick!”

With unsettling speed the boy has his hand in the sack, retrieves a gift, turns and without looking back, leads his burdened guardian away.

xxxxxxx

The job’s over, the last shift is done and Vernon is relieved that Joel Hoey is gone for good. In the staff washroom of the store he gingerly takes off the wig, being careful not to re-open the wounds on his head, and begins to remove the now odorous red coat and pants. As he stoops to remove the pants his eye falls on the gift sack by his feet. A piece of paper written with a child’s hand lies inside.
****
Deer Santa
If I don get a a Star-cruiser 6000 I’m gonna tell the cops where my mommy is beried with yor blood on her fingernales
Joel Hoey
112 Capeville Avenue
Hillwood

*****

Kids! They always make sure the address is on a letter to Santa so he knows where to deliver.

xxxxxxx
Wednesday 25th December. The address would be easy to find in the daytime but the lanes are not well lit at 3:30am. Vernon, dressed in the dark colours of his burgling days is silhouetted against the snow. He darts in a stooping run across the street and up the path of number 112 with a box under his arm containing a Star-cruiser 6000. He leaves it on the porch. ‘That’ll do it’. The sound of a car coming up the street makes him freeze. Headlights shining at the house make him dart into the dark round the back. He hears the heavy rapid thud of someone running toward him. A motion-sensitive light flicks on to reveal the silhouette of a big man in red with a white beard. He’s running powerfully and carrying a child who struggles helplessly in his abductor’s powerful grip. Joel Hoey's eyes are wide with terror, his mouth clamped by a massive pink hand. The kidnapper winks at Vernon as he passes. Then the light goes out.

xxxxxxx
The guy who owns the grotto is dismantling it on Christmas Day, making room for Boxing Day sales. Vernon is in at nine to collect his wages. As he approaches the guy he notices something unfamiliar in the tableau he thought he knew every aspect of. An elf he hasn’t seen before. It sits at a little wooden desk writing a letter with a quill. A strange feeling of recognition makes Vernon look a little closer at that elf with the unblinking water-blue eyes.

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