Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes (22 page)

The whispers grew to grumbling, the glares more fierce.

“We have done grievous wrong to our brothers and sisters and to ourselves. Through condemnation, we have attempted to circumscribe responsible expressions of adult love. We have dared to inform God which parts of his creation are acceptable and which are not.”

A deacon in back bent to another in intense talk. George Stuppelbeen, red-faced and goggle-eyed, gripped the back of the pew in front of him. Compassion filled Ty’s heart for these good people. But he also knew that some in his congregation were receiving his words as an unexpected balm to their souls. And they too belonged to his flock.

“Churches are not infallible. One hundred fifty years ago, our sect pressed the biblical justification for slavery. Passages were lifted onto pedestals, their meanings tortured to support racial inequality. Eventually, far too late, we yielded. That is an unspoken and little-known part of our history. All of this happened long before any of us were born. But history does not lie, and history attests to this shameful blot on the Christian faith. Today, homophobia similarly stains our religious practice.”

“Blasphemer!” came a shout from the back. The cry was picked up, caroming at random from pew to pew.

“Hear me out,” Ty pleaded. “This world is a brilliant jewel, a pearl of great price. Our prejudice, our holier-than-thou, our there-but-for-the-grace-of-God, diminishes the world’s luster and spits in the face of our Almighty Benefactor. Denial of our gay brothers and lesbian sisters drives another spike into the palms of the crucified Christ. We nail Love to the holy rood and leave it there to languish and die, while centurions mock and Mary weeps. Shame on us. Shame on us all.”

George Stupplebeen struggled to his feet. “Ty Taylor, you’re no preacher of mine!”

“Nor mine,” yelled Joe Pyne, his wife defiant and tightlipped by his side.

Pandemonium broke out. There was great liberation in Ty’s heart, and dread and compassion and sorrow beyond telling.

A few brave parishioners rose to voice their support. Some members of the choir bore tense witness to their hidden hearts, standing amongst outraged companions in robes, looking on grimly in silent admiration. The Strattons, though teenaged Kurt looked a little embarrassed and go-along, stood foursquare behind him.

Though Ty tried to say more, he was shouted down, excoriated and pilloried, until at last he bowed his head in silent prayer. Then he recessed down the center aisle, scorn flung upon him, beast faces fleering from the once serene. This it was to disappoint expectation, to turn on a dime and pull the rug out. Though fists and voices were raised, the only congregant who touched him was Walter Stratton, who confided, “We’re with you, Ty.”

Indeed, the Strattons followed behind him, hardy souls, past the deacons in their starched demeanor, and out the church’s tall doors into a sun-filled Thanksgiving morning.

Chapter 22. A Joyous Thanksgiving

THIS YEAR, GREGOR AND HIS BROTHERS HAD BEEN CHOSEN as honored guests at Santa’s Thanksgiving feast. Though they slept in the stables, Santa insisted they endure the traditional, good-natured preparation and hazing in the elves’ dormitory. Gregor cast a gimlet eye on that insistence, which had no doubt been meant to bring him down a few pegs.

He would let his siblings get gussied up, let them suffer the mockery of the simpleminded. As for himself, he made no special preparations, no ribbons in his beard, no after-shave stink, none of that folderol. He was who he was, and Santa and his brood could accept him or go hang.

That morning, the usual jeering gauntlet was muted. The elves seemed only half-committed to the ritual. Gregor knew it was because he cowed them, and that was all to the good. But Engelbert and Josef, this one day, had let down their guard, and it disgusted him. Hands flailing, he batted away the nonsense about him in the dormitory and strode to the entrance, while behind him his brothers laughed and made pained being-wounded gestures as jeers and catcalls hit them from all sides.

Heading across the commons, his doltish sibs tried to get him to link arms. “Away with that noise,” he scolded Engelbert. “Grow up, why don’t you?” he scoffed at Josef, whose fat face instantly drained of mirth. “We have positions of authority to uphold.”

The cottage door opened and out onto the porch spilled Snowball and Nightwind followed by Wendy and Rachel and Anya and Santa himself, looking portly and beaming ear to ear. “Weh-heh-hell,” said Santa, glad-handing his guests. It made Gregor feel small and subservient, so exuberant was Santa’s welcome. “Come in, come in, dear friends. Stamp the snow from your slippers and make yourselves at home. Josef, young and roly-poly, a brilliant burst of energy, welcome to you. Engelbert, who keeps my team in good feed, you too I welcome most heartily. And big brother Gregor, always scowling, forever sitting on a cactus, but I find that endearing, indeed I do, come in, come in, let me embrace you all.” At that, Gregor melted beneath Santa’s rapt attention; or more accurately, the icy surface of his personality gleamed for an instant with a thin sheen of water before it froze solid once again.

More ravings, more hugs from Rachel and Anya. Wendy’s high-pitched squeals. Thank God the cats weren’t that way. Snowball glared in shocked scandal at the goings-on, while Nightwind took the occasion to lick a less-than-private portion of his anatomy.

Then into the living room they went. “Take seats,” said Santa. He settled into an easy chair and hefted a Coke bottle sitting beside him on a small table. “You good fellows want some? Wendy, get the lads Cokes, would you?”

“None for me, Santa,” said Gregor.

“Nor me.”

“Nor me.”

“Plays havoc with the innards,” added Gregor, raising a finger and an eyebrow of condemnation.

“Of course, of course,” said Santa, letting it go. “We’ll share a pipe after dinner instead. Camaraderie. Conspiratorial winks. Man talk.”

Josef and Engelbert positively glowed. Gregor, appalled, said nothing. The gush had risen knee-deep already, and he had no wish to wade further into it.

Dinner went well. Sumptuous aromas swirled out of the kitchen to the dining room, held proud and entrayed beneath beaming faces. Wendy brought out a huge boat of gravy flavored with generous handfuls of porcini mushrooms, followed by cranberry sauce. Rachel swept in with heaping bowls of whipped potatoes mixed with fresh fennel, candied sweet potatoes with a pecan garnish, and buttered green beans slivered with almonds. Finally, Anya, her grandmotherly bosom broad and all-giving, with a grin that brightened the dining room, brought in a twenty-pound turkey on a cutting board, skin brown and shiny and ready to flake off, the steam rising from it as Santa carved and plates piled high with sliced meat moved about the table. Gregor’s brothers praised the feast to the heavens, ooh’ing and aah’ing like appreciative lovers. Gregor clucked his tongue at them to no avail. Just as well. Their undignified behavior saved him the bother of pretending to wax orgasmic himself, which was simply not his style; he could lord it over them all the more later.

The table groaned from the weight of the food, until at last the diners took over that cheery task themselves. The talk, when their mouths were empty enough to fill with words, consisted of banter, compliments to the chefs, this or that expression of thanks for that or this blessing. Then, Wendy told the tale of saving Jamie Stratton. Gregor noted with interest her glancing references to the Easter Bunny, who had clearly played a major role in this salvation, a role Wendy downplayed to spare her mother discomfort. Why Rachel should feel discomfort was a puzzle and a conundrum. It swam in the general stew of suppressed memories, a stew whose ingredients Gregor vowed one day to tease out.

In his study after dinner, through a cheery haze of pipe smoke, Santa held up one hand. “Reason me no reasons. Gregor, there will be no badmouthing of Fritz, or anyone else, in this house. I simply want my old helpers back, the ones whose skilled hands are incapable of shoddy work.”

Gregor gripped his cold dead clay pipe, not puffed on but held tight in his fist. “And you shall have them. Things are well in hand. Are they not, boys?”

Josef puffed and murmured, “Umm-hmm.”

Engelbert, similarly cocooned in an aromatic haze of smoke, held the bowl of his pipe and nodded with as much sagacity as his simple mind could muster.

“Without getting into particulars,” continued Gregor, “let’s just say they’ve developed an odious personal habit. I and my brothers are breaking them of it.”

Santa pondered, keeping Gregor in the rich purview of his canny stare. “Is my intervention required? Would it help, do you think?”

“None needed, Santa. This firm hand grips the teller.”

Santa swatted his thigh. “By God, I believe I’ll talk to them in the morning. It can’t hurt.”

“No call for that, Santa. Me and the boys, we’re on the job.”

Santa brushed it aside. “I’ll give them thanks, then obliquely broach the subject. Be assured, there’ll be no mention of our little talk. Just a small boost to your efforts. Oh and speaking of efforts, has my gratitude to you come up to the mark? Have my thanks for your superb care of my reindeer been sufficiently profuse?”

“Indeed they have,” said Engelbert.

“More than profuse,” managed Josef, choking on a puff of smoke, which Gregor whacked out of him with a smack between the shoulder blades.

Gregor peered at Santa. “More praise would be welcome, I think. It makes us...more equal, if you catch my drift.”

Santa roared with laughter. “Gregor, you are a stitch,” he said. “And yes indeed, I praise you from the bottom of my heart. Without a top-notch stable, Wendy’s Galatea and my nine chargers would quickly grow indolent and discontent; not the crack team they are, powerful from hoof to antler. Diet. Exercise. Care. Ah, but not just care. You give each of them individual love and attention. I can tell. Fresh straw. Fresh water. Rubdowns, rest, and regular canters and gallops about the commons. When I need them, when Wendy needs Galatea, there they are, stamping and snorting and eager to take to the heavens. And the sleigh, oh my, you three do me proud in that department. It’s a pleasure to ease my posterior down into that nice wide cushioned seat, the runners gliding stiletto-smooth across the snow. Bravo, say I. Bravo to you three fine fellows. Ah, Gregor, what a winning scowl you wear; I can tell my praise is hitting home. Josef, your wide jowly face is lit up like a thousand Christmas trees, a delight to behold. And dear sweet Engelbert, your pupils dance so with candy canes and tinsel that your cherry cheeks glisten and glow. Life is grand indeed, lads. I thank you for doing your part in making it so!”

“Aw, shucks,” said Josef.

“‘Tweren’t nothin’,” said Engelbert.

“Is that all?” said Gregor, casting an eye about the study and imagining it as his own, once he convinced Santa to retire. “Can you not praise us more than that? You’ve praised us to the sky. But not to the stars. How about to the stars, and beyond?”

And Santa laughed to shake the foundations of his cottage and said, all right, he would do his best to comply. At which he launched into a stem-winder of an encomium that lasted well into the night, that made the brothers’ heads swell with pride, and went the teensiest, tiniest way toward assuaging Gregor’s essentially unassuagable hunger for strokes.

But all was well with them. Even Gregor suffered the women’s hugs as they were at last dispatched out the door and floated across the commons—more precisely, his brothers floated; Gregor tromped—to the stables for a good night’s rest.

* * *

“Kurt, you look a little bewildered,” said Ty, happy to be among friends but still shell-shocked at his flock’s reaction to his sermon. To see such seemingly gentle souls turn nasty, to lose his job...ah, but he hadn’t lost his vocation. A job was nothing compared to acting with integrity, and Ty knew deep down that he had made the right decision.

“I don’t know,” said Kurt as he spooned up another helping of peas. “You’re all...so different.”

Kathy laughed. “We are.”

“As Reverend Taylor put it when he said grace, we’ve all been changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye.”

“Your father’s right,” said the pastor. “We seem suddenly aware of so much to be grateful for. But this year, we’re not simply going through the motions of Thanksgiving. Kathy, this cranberry recipe is divine!”

“Jamie seems to agree with you.”

“Aw, Mom,” said Jamie. “It’s yummy. I like it. And I also like...how everything feels at the table.”

“Me too,” said Kathy. “We have been given so many blessings. Our health. Our love for one another. Abundant food. A warm lovely home. A kind-hearted pastor and friend to share our food with. And this year, the miraculous change that came over us last night. It’s almost as if—now you’re going to laugh at me—as if Santa Claus came early this year and left a little more generosity in our hearts.”

“Come on, Mom. Even Jamie knows there’s no Santa Claus.”

Kathy smiled. “I wonder if that’s really so.”

“Son, don’t wolf your food.”

“Sorry, Dad,” said Jamie.

“I think I believe in him all over again.” She faltered. “If only everyone in our church did the same.”

Ty squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, Kathy. They that have ears to hear, as they say. Until last night, I shared their moral deafness. Heck, I spurred it on. But this morning I had no choice. No, that’s not true. Willingly and with all my heart, I spoke the truth to these good people. It delivered a shock to their systems, even as it served as a refreshing balm to mine, to yours, and, I have no doubt, to others in the congregation. I’ve walked away from the pulpit. But even the hard of heart are going to find a lesson, perhaps over weeks or months, in having witnessed their pastor repudiate, in no uncertain terms, a central tenet of their church’s teaching. Religious institutions change, despite the posturing of some that the Bible—or rather the passages they choose to highlight and distort—is inerrant, unchanging, a rock upon which to build one’s faith. Perhaps my leaving will hasten a long overdue change of heart. Oh, but things have grown somber around this festive table. Listen to the poor preacher drone on, while the potatoes grow cold. Eat, everyone. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But today we live. And while we live, let us give thanks for God’s bounty. Kathy? More white meat, if you please.”