Father Pat desperately needed a buddy to pull off this kind of stunt and Terry was the one.
“OK, but I’ll hold you personally responsible for behaviour not befitting a Santa from your boozy friend Joe. If he doesn’t show up sober, you’re going to do it, collar and all!”
FATHER PAT DIDN’T tell Brenda about the plot. She would be skeptical, and he was unsure enough without her dousing this one with cold water. But she suspected he was up to something when he said he was going to the mall on a Saturday when he was normally locked in his study trying to come up with an original sermon.
“Where are you going, your grace?” she called down the stairs as she heard him bustling with his winter gear.
“Oh, just to the mall to get some paper for my printer. Won’t be long.” And he hurried out.
So it came to pass that on that Saturday, two weeks before Christmas, Father Pat was seen leading a reluctant bearded man into the small suburban mall for his critical first go at being Santa.
This really is Joe’s dry run — in more ways than one, Father Pat thought to himself with a smile.
As he helped Joe into the Santa outfit, he turned to trying desperately to convince Joe that this was a good idea — and more important, the only way he would ever see his daughter. A few minutes later, leading the now suited-up Santa to the makeshift throne in Ridgewood Mall, Father Pat’s path crossed that of a snooty older woman parishioner who was surprised and shocked that her priest would even be talking to a Santa Claus … a “department store anti-Christ,” she sniffed as she huffed off.
You could never possibly understand in a million years, Father Pat thought. Then, he watched from a nearby food court as Joe good-naturedly let kids pull his real beard. Father Pat realized that his idea might yet prove inspired.
“Hey Reverend, being Santa is fun,” the big man, by now in his underwear, said to Father Pat as the two sat in the little room the cleaners used where he had brought his change of clothes. “I told you that all it would take to get me on my feet was a job and to see my daughter. I was right. I think I’m going to see her, yes I think I am, eh?” and his red eyes twinkled out from behind their wrinkled slits.
“Well maybe you are after all, Joe.”
THE CRITICAL SATURDAY dawned, bleak, deep midwinter. Alice had told Mary that they were going to the mall and asked her if she wanted to visit Santa. Luckily Mary agreed — for the best of little girl reasons — jealousy. She told her mother that she didn’t really believe in Santa — they are just ordinary men — but her best friend Lotta had been there the Saturday before with Mary’s rival Tina. They’d both been on Santa’s knee and Lotta was showing everyone the picture. Mary said peevishly that she wanted one with Lotta so she could show everyone too.
“That’s young women for you — but at least she’s going,” Alice told Father Pat that morning on the phone. “And think. I can’t believe it — now Joe can tell Mary later that he was Santa,” she added with an enthusiasm Father Pat had seldom heard from the usually highly contained woman.
Father Pat said a short prayer under his breath and they decided on a “plan two” — a further twist to the rapidly developing conspiracy to set up the possibility, at least, of a real reunion. He checked the whole plan with Deirdre on the phone. She was relieved that they might surmount the damage her article had done. She asked Father Pat for an instant report on the outcome. Even as he hung up from this conversation, Father Pat started feeling new and deep guilt about keeping Brenda in the cold about what was rapidly becoming a minor obsession. Luckily she told him she was going into the city on that ultimate Saturday. Father Pat did not have to sneak out of the house like some kind of truant.
Father Pat had convinced himself that he had to participate directly. He liked denouements. Terry arranged with the mall manager that Mary would be the last child Santa saw that noon hour. He decided to go too for moral support. Deirdre got wind of the full extent of the fun from Terry on Friday and decided she would make an unannounced appearance too. Maybe she owed it to Joe.
A half-hour later the phone in the rectory rang. It was Alice. She had just hung up from an inebriated Joe. He couldn’t go through with it. It was a disaster — the whole complicated plan, so carefully knit together, was unraveling.
“Call Joe and tell him someone will be there in half an hour,” Father Pat told her. He called Deirdre and begged her to go right away to the rescue, surprised that she seemed to know a good deal about what was going on. Then he roused Terry from bed. He was around to the rectory in record time.
When Pat and Terry arrived at the unkempt rooming house, they were greeted by what Father Pat thought was almost a Madonna-like scene, Deirdre in jeans and a big green sweater was standing over Joe. He was sitting, leaning back on the counter by the kitchen sink. Holding his tousled head in one hand she was bathing his face with a washcloth with the other. He seemed to be enjoying it. There was a loud belch and Deirdre winced as Terry and Father Pat came upon the outlandish scene.
“The things you guys get me into!” Deirdre said, splashing a final cloth of cold water as best she could on the drooping man’s head. “Here Joe,” she said, grabbing, a somewhat soiled dishcloth that was handy. “Dry your beard. Can’t have kids getting wet.” She was definitely in charge. Well, don’t just stand there dummies. He’s a big guy. I had a hell of a time just persuading him to come down to the kitchen.”
With that, the unlikely trio forced Joe, arm by arm, into his huge second hand overcoat and out the door to the slurred refrain, “I just want to see my darling little Mary. That’s all, just want to see her …”
Through the swirling snow they drove their odoriferous and groggy charge the long half-hour back to Ridgewood and the rectory for a bath and further sobering-up before taking him to the mall. Terry spent most of the drive embellishing the even more wonderful story of how Father Pat would have to play Santa because the man hired to do the job was drunk.
“A deal’s a deal, Pat. You’re for it. You don’t want to go through with it, do you Joe?” He played the increasingly crazy new plot of an ordained priest “doing” Santa. Deirdre played along.
“Pat, you’ll be wonderful. Just think, you can tell the kids about the wise men bringing gifts and that it’s better to give than receive! You can work it all together. And nobody but us will know. And you can trust us, eh Terr?” she said sardonically. The ride was lots of fun — for Terry and Deirdre.
Father Pat breathed a long sigh of relief that at least Brenda would be out when, turning into the drive, he saw what he dreaded most of all, her little sedan still there. His heart sank. He started rehearsing, “Brenda it’s a long story but this is Joe, Alice’s husband. Terry has a job for him playing Santa in the mall …” That’s where it would end because it would then be clear Joe was still drunk and Brenda hated drunks. He could imagine her ironic remark, “Nice idea and glad to meet you, but I’m sure that nobody wants their child to be sitting on the knee of a man who has clearly been drinking. Whatever is this all about anyway Pat?”
“Brenda!” Father Pat called out as his friends dragged Joe into the side door of the house and into the downstairs bathroom. No answer. He looked on the kitchen table. A note. “Joan drove me into town. See you later. Good luck with your sermon.” Father Pat, one burden off his mind, sat down heavily to collect himself.
He heard the shower and Deirdre emerged shaking water off her hands.
“There’s a limit. My young eyes, you know,” she said humorously. “Do you mind helping Terry. I think I’ve done my duty by now.”
Joe was out of the shower and coming to nicely. But there was another kind of challenge. Neither Pat nor Terry had any experience dressing an unwilling and still boozily uncoordinated two-hundred-pound man. They decided to suit him up at the mall and bundled him half-dressed back into the car which Deirdre had warmed up.
In the tiny room off the dry cleaner’s two sympathetic security guards held feet and arms and with Deirdre di
recting, propped Joe upright for the finishing touch, the down pillow, stuffed into his pants. By the time Joe was in the costume, the role took over. He was finally motivated, so much so that he waddled at great speed out of the back room grunting, “By the good Lord I’m gonna do it!”
Father Pat and Deirdre ran ahead to a drugstore to get him breath mints, physically put them in his mouth as he rounded the corner where his throne was set up and took up their positions as planned.
The kids were lined four abreast waiting for Santa’s second and last noon-time visit to their own mall. Joe was secure on his red velvet armchair and seemed to be behaving. Father Pat was at the ready with more mints in case Joe’s breath started to blow the kids away. He passed him a handful as discreetly as possible, and Joe started popping them every few minutes.
Two hours later, Mary arrived as planned with Alice and her friend Lotta. The manager dutifully apologized to the families behind Alice to make sure Mary’s little group would be the last through.
Terry and Father Pat had agreed to stay within earshot of Joe to prompt him, if necessary. So the manager put two folding chairs just behind the cut-out elves and reindeer that framed Santa’s garishly decorated red armchair. A third chair for Deirdre had also been brought.
With the little girls settled on his knee, Joe, seized with the hubris of the moment, decided to try and impress his daughter.
“Let me guess your name, darling …” Father Pat heard him wheeze and realized to his horror he was looking at Lotta.
Saints be preserved, he must not recognize his daughter through the wig, or perhaps through the booze, or the years apart. So in a loud stage whisper he leaned into the elf nearest Santa, “Mary is on your other knee!”
“Oh yes,” Joe turned to Mary with nary a pause. “Yes, you dear child. Is your name Mary?” Once he started to turn the charm on, Father Pat could hear it working. Joe asked Mary what she wanted for Christmas and she answered with crushing honesty that she wished she just had a nice father as well as a nice mother like her friend Lotta had.
Joe was just able to say, “Perhaps you have a father and he’s nicer than you think.” He hugged her quickly, the Polaroid flashed and it was over.
“How did I do? Can I meet my daughter and take this outfit off?” Joe asked over the elf that was hiding Father Pat and his friends.
“You did fine — it’s plan two,” Father Pat whispered back.
As prearranged, Alice got the high sign from Father Pat that it had gone well, and plan two swung into action. Alice was to take Mary to meet her Santa/Father as he was changing back in the small cleaner’s room near the security area.
Father Pat was racked by doubts as he and his two friends waited what seemed an eternity for the family to come back out into the mall. Deirdre even lit up a rare cigarette. Their hearts fell as Alice and Mary came out without Joe. What had happened?
Little Mary obviously understood the plan of which she was the target and spoke up smartly.
“Father Pat, he is my Dad and he was nice and he did make a good Santa. But he smelled of booze when he hugged me. So I told him he could only come to see us at Christmas if he hadn’t had anything to drink. Anything at all. So he’d better not.”
With that, she strode off, pulling her mother after her. “Right on!” Deirdre said, punching one hand into the other. “That one is farther ahead at seven than I am at… well…” And she turned with her friends as Mary and Alice walked off. “It’s Mary’s day,” Deirdre said as the others nodded. “She’s taking charge. Absolutely.”
Joe then emerged, his craggy face beaming with relief and joy. The four of them, moved by the same spirit, then struck up a cheery little impromptu jig as a group of frowning teenage mall lizards looked on.
CHRISTMAS DAY. FATHER Pat missed his friends. He wondered how it had worked out with Alice and Joe on their big reunion day. Brenda had said with what seemed real sincerity that she wished Father Pat had told her about his “crazy” plot to get Joe and Mary together. Father Pat gave as bright a rendition of the events as he could, but clearly it was a “you had to be there” kind of story and Brenda had obviously felt left out again.
Father Pat scanned the congregation as he took his place after the processional. He saw no large bearded man. He worried that after all their well-motivated shenanigans something had gone wrong in the Alnick household, whose happiness and atonement had now become Father Pat’s metaphor for this particular celebration of the birth of Christ.
His Christmas sermon was on a favourite theme, the power of love. The Christmas story as he told it was one of love and faith, but for once in the year he allowed himself to talk of the mysteries of the word made flesh, of the ringing opening to St. John’s gospel, “… and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.” He talked of the true meaning of grace as it applied to leaders everyone knew, perhaps even the leaders we desperately needed. Of the idea of a “son of man” — a remarkable individual who took to himself all the anxieties and hopes of simple people and could read them back and inspire them to be the best they could. How few there had been in human history. How we all longed for one — perhaps for Christ’s promised return, if we stopped and thought about it. He talked of Christ’s childlike characteristics, strangely related to those most uncontemporary qualities, honesty and humility. He talked of Christ’s love of children, of their innocence and directness. He then made the wraparound back to the child in the Bethlehem manger.
Walking in the processional at the end of the service and acknowledging the smiles of his parishioners, he thought of little Mary. She knew to offer just enough love to bring Joe back to life. But would it last?
As he walked back to the rectory, he was still enjoying the annual high of a full and spirited congregation and whistling In the Deep Midwinter which seemed to befit the light snow that had begun to fall.
Passing by the créche, he noticed a big man and a little girl examining it with rapt interest.
Trudging over to wish them Merry Christmas, he recognized little Mary Alnick and a clean shaven Joe. It had worked after all. Mary was explaining to her somewhat incredulous father how Jesus, who was also God, had a father called Joseph too.
“Well, it was Santa who got us back together,” Joe said.
Father Pat said that loving one’s parents and being loved by them was probably what Christmas was all about — and that heavenly parents were occasionally useful too.
This proved a real conversation stopper. They all laughed and hugged. Father Pat left them and, still whistling, trudged on toward the rectory caressing a warm thought. Jesus and Santa maybe had a few things in common after all. Together, with a little help from Father Pat’s special team, Jesus and Santa had pulled off a real miracle that Christmas.
The Devices and Desires of Our Own Hearts
IT WAS A cold January morning. Monday. The worst day of the week. The worst month of the year. Post Christmas partum. And Mondays were bad at the best of times — particularly for Father Pat who, after the self-indulgent performance of the Sunday services came down on Monday as if from a drug high. But now, in contrast to his days as a member of parliament where there were invitations to speaking engagements, meetings with caucus and attending to the urgencies of riding business, Monday at St. Bart’s brought only Brenda and the phone in his study that seldom rang.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he intoned to Terry in a Monday phone call that he felt could be the highlight of the day. “It’s just my normal Monday depression. Nothing more. Brenda has gone to her gardening club, though I’m damned if I know what they talk about in January. I took Paddy for a short walk, and she’s on the floor beside me, paws in the air in her best submissive position, and I’m scratching her tummy. Guess that’s as good as it’s going to get!”
Terry sensed an unusually anxious friend when he picked up the phone. Father Pat was getting voluble. “Perhaps it’s the weather, you know,” he continued without a pause. “One does
feel a bit sealed up here in Ridgewood when it’s well below freezing and the snow is swirling around the window and the frost is threatening to come into the house through the wall plugs here in the study. It was really too damn horrible even to take Paddy for a decent walk … though she doesn’t seem to mind …” He trailed off.
“Well, why don’t you get on the train and come into town, you old fool? Do you think you’re up for the trek to the station?”
“I don’t know what that would do for my spiritual health today, Terry.”
“Oh, stop going on about your spiritual health. You’ve had your weekend of praying and preaching. Come on down to the city. I’m seeing Deirdre at the office at eleven about a client and maybe we could go and have a visit after — at Bradley’s.”
Get thee behind me Satan, Father Pat thought, as he felt his mood changing with the prospect of friends and a noontime drink. He went across the landing to the dressing room adjacent to the bedroom and looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the cupboard door. He was in his only grey trousers, a tired checked shirt and an open black vest, a leftover from a priestly suit that had long since worn out. He liked vests because he could keep his father’s treasured gold knife in the tiny right-hand pocket. Hardly an outfit for a day in town.
He opened the drawer of the tall bureau and looked under a pile of worn black clerical shirts and round “dog” collars for a beige viyella shirt he hadn’t even thought of let alone worn for months. He pulled it out and modeled it against himself. So, would he wear a jacket? Or a sweater? He took a cardigan out of the closet — his favourite, a green wool affair. No, too dated. He’d wear an old camel-hair sports jacket that had belonged to a deceased uncle. The open viyella shirt and jacket looked okay together. The pants would have to do. The only non-black pair he had. He looked at the effect. Well, softens the image anyway, he thought.
The Father Pat Stories Page 20