by Paul Beatty
Stooped, wrinkled and arthritically slow, the old man clasped the little boy's hand in the weathered claw of his own; and, with the assistance of a cane, creaked at snail's pace through the shopping mall's spacious halls. Oblivious to the crush of holiday crowds, the old man's eyes twinkled in wonder. His grandson only wondered why.
The little boy's grandfather was nearly as old as the dirt under the mall's concrete foundation. How could a man of his years get misty-eyed over a film as wantonly repugnant as the one that had just unspooled on screen?Had it been "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street,""A Christmas Carol" or, even, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," the little boy might have understood his grandfather's addled wonderment.
But "Santa's Showdown in the Sand"? It had given him a headache. And he was only nine!
The preceding summer's teaser—a black screen, an exploding fireball and a jolly Ho! Ho! Ho!—promised fun 'n guns galore for the whole family. Once it was announced California's Austrian governor would flex his considerable muscle behind the camera instead of in front of it, "Santa's Showdown . . . " was the most highly anticipated release of the Christmas season. And, on opening day, popcorn sales soared.
The little boy, however, was not fooled.
As he suspected, "Santa's Showdown . . . " was humbug sold as "lighthearted comic-fantasy." Or so grinned the gap-toothed "gouvernator."Along with martial arts sequences highlighted by troupes of flying acrobats; an overuse of computer-generated animation; and a two-gun Santa blasting away in slo-mo as if he were trying to keep it real for MTV's hiphop generation, there were elaborate song and dance routines with crotch-grabbing elves and rappin' reindeer.
Oh, how the pain in his head throbbed!
Even before the film's introductory title and credits, the little boy realized this Santa was going to be difficult on his stomach when, the gouvernator, anxious to show off his erudition as a cineaste, referenced the early efforts of Brian DePalma by opening with a split-screen of the President of the United States in the Oval Office speaking with Santa at the North Pole.
"Those swarthy camel jockeys are at it again, Santa!" the president said. "They're hatching another nefarious plot against the peoples of the free world! And you've gotta stop 'em!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho! Precisely how 'nefarious,' Mr. President?"
"Frankly, I have no idea what 'nefarious' means," the president replied without embarrassment, despite his expensive Ivy-League education, "but my advisors say it ain't good. Our intelligence sources, in any case, have informed us those nasty little sand-boogers are out to steal Christmas from the Infidels! And I have a suspicion those snaileatin' French are behind it—even if they are Catholics!"
"Ho—uh—oh no!"
"That's right, Santa, you'll be out of a job! No more cookies and milk set by the fireplace for you! No more quick nips out of that flask of hot spiced-rum you keep hidden in your winter overcoat while your reindeer fly through those snowy nighttime skies! And, most important of all, no more fat residual checks from those nice people at the Coca-Cola Corporation! You'll just be a forgotten, lonely old man stripped naked and left to die on an ice floe in the Arctic—a bloated blue has-been fossilized in a colossal block of ice!
So load your sleigh with the most advanced military weaponry the U.S.government can buy; round up the roughest and toughest gang of the most ornery elves you can find; water up your reindeer and high tail it over to the Middle East! Spare the U.S. taxpayer no expense! Nothing's too good for our Santa! Now, hop to it!"
"Right away, Mr. President!"
"Did I mention those swarthy, fig-eatin' towel heads were 'nefarious' . . .?"
As the title and credit sequence scrolled in a tricolor-shimmer of red, white and blue stars; stripes; snowflakes and Holly branches, accompanied by a heavy-handed score evoking strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner," "Jingle Bells" and Ennio Morricone's "Man with a Harmonica," the white-whiskered fat man, unseasonably attired in his ermine-fringed red suit and seal-skin snow boots, was dispatched to the Middle East.
During a cheerful ditty about assailing the Taliban with a down pour of wet reindeer-dung, Santa ran into the first of his complications when his team of reindeer, in mid-air flight, suddenly died of heat exhaustion. And Santa, sleigh and gang of cut-throat elves—as well as inert reindeer stiffening in rigor mortis—fell from the sky; plummeting into a massive sand dune.
With their food and medical supplies scattered across the desert, and sinking beneath the sands, Santa and his elves were forced to disrobe in the sweltering heat. Further, to stave off infection, as the fall had left them scratched, battered and bruised, they stood in a circle, fusing in a cluster of chubby pink bodies, and showered each other in a brine of steaming urine.For the next three days, compressed into time-lapsed montage, they subsisted on the maggot-ridden remains of the reindeer's mangled carcasses. It was during this sequence of over-saturated Sergio-Leone sunglare the little boy's stomach turned for the worse.
Soggy with dripping Santa piss, the naked elves, skin puckered and wrinkled, gorged themselves on a mound of maggots left to dry a crispy brown under the sun. Upon witnessing this scene, the color in the little boy's face turned a pallid green. And a volley of rancid bile spewed from his mouth in an ever-increasing arc of half-digested popcorn; artificially-flavored grape soda; animal-shaped jelly candies; and a McDonald's Happy Meal with an extra-large chocolate shake. This fetid frappe rained down on a pigtailed seven-year-old seated three rows ahead.
Squalling in abject horror, the little girl fled the auditorium in a carapace of semi-congealed putrescence with her pigtails trailing stiffly in the wind.
The little boy, mercifully, fainted.
Unaware of what transpired, despite his grandson's unconscious status, and the residual stench wafting under his hairy nostrils, the old man remained seated with his eyes riveted to the screen.
As the old man and his grandson walked through the shopping mall's crowded halls, inundated by displays of flashing lights, artificial evergreens and cycloramas of robotic Christmas critters, the old man nudged his grandson with a wink and enthused: "That was one hot pistol of a movin picture, huh, Froggie?"
The little boy's grandfather called him "Froggie." Or "Froggie Chocolates." He didn't know why.
"There's nothin' like a good Christmas picture to put you in the holiday spirit!"
Froggie said nothing. His stomach tossed like a ship on angry seas. And his vision spun in the wayward circles of an erratic gyroscope. His legs wobbled as if made of pliant rubber. And the inside of his mouth tasted like, well, a McDonald's Happy Meal.
"That was a real whiz-bang of an ending, too!" his grandfather continued. "It had plenty of piss and vinegar! Santa showed them sand monkeys they can't mess with Christmas and get away with it!"
Froggie didn't need reminding. Just as Santa was about to defend himself and the sanctity of Christmas against Osama bin Laden in a no-holds-barred cage match to the death, Froggie, recovering from his nauseous faint, opened his eyes on a Santa stripped to the waist. Thick curly tufts of white hair grew on Santa's back. His belly's excessive corpulence sagged over a loin-cloth. The loincloth enfolded his flabby fish-white haunches like a baby's diaper. Osama stood in a corner laughing at the bearded fat man with his boys, smoking a hookah. The hookah was packed with chalk-colored gravel. He asked Santa if he wanted to "beam up" before the brawl.
Behind the iron bars of the cage, a turbaned supplicant caterwauled on a prayer mat. This was the signal for the match to begin. Osama sprang out of his corner like a bat-winged Ferret; gouging out Santa's left eye. Santa bellowed like a shot Moose. The empty socket gushed spurts of crimson, turning his fabled white beard into a cone of bright red cotton candy.Tendrils of optical nerve fastened to his cheek in a spatter of coagulating blood. Osama butted him in the mouth. And Santa spat out thirty-two kernels of loosened teeth in a gelatinous wad of mucus and blood, stumbling about the cage like a drunken bear.
Santa's face, aw
ashed in blood, was pained, toothless and contorted in despair.
Unexpectedly, Santa began to cry. Tears streamed down his cheeks.Mucal-bubbles popped in his nostrils.
Osama had proved too much for the once-jolly fat man. Santa accepted defeat without grace; surrendering all he once held dear—Christmas, children, the American way of life—to the hookah-huffing Face of Evil.Osama sneered in triumph.The Cineplex audience joined in one thundering voice and booed the spineless Santa. Even the little boy felt a twinge of outrage. Santa had let down America. He let down Christmas. Most of all, he let down all the children of the world.
Then Osama delivered the final blow of humiliation. He mimicked Santa's falsetto boo hoo-hoos, stripped him of his loincloth and exposed the shriveled worm of his nakedness!
However, in one of those predictably "ironic" turn-arounds common to Hollywood fare, a letter fluttered from under the folds of Santa's linen loincloth. It was addressed to a "Mr. Jolly Man" in care of the North Pole.And sent by a child who had lost all four limbs during an attack on his jungle village in the Congo. The letter was a painstakingly-written scrawl;smudged with imprints of the child's lips. Clearly, he had written it with a leaky Bic pen gripped between his teeth. It read:
Dear Mr. folly Man:
How is Mrs. folly Woman? How is the borned animal with the red nose that lights up and goes on and off? My life is not good. Soldiers chopped off my arms and legs. And ate them. For Christmas, I want to live with you and Mrs. folly Woman and all your little jolly men and make free stuff to give away to all the children of the world. I have no hands or feet but you would be surprised by what I can do with my mouth.
Your friend,
Pete
Upon reading this letter, Santa had decided then and there to raise the child in the snowy climes of his North Pole reindeer ranch. He and Mrs.Claus would feed him heartily on a diet of Caribou chops, Walrus steaks and quivering globs of Beluga-whale blubber. He would teach him to fish by dunking his head in icy waters, coming up with a fresh catch clenched, like a seal, between his teeth. He would not only employ the child in his enchanted workshop making wondrous and magical toys but he would bring him along on his sleigh for his yearly mission of spreading j oy and good cheer. All his plans came flooding back into memory as the letter floated into blood-shot view. Now his tears of self-pity seemed ridiculous compared to the suffering of that limbless Congolese child. Santa's resolve returned with the fury of an Olympian god.
"No!" he dry whispered to the sneering Osama in his best Clint Eastwood voice. "I ain't goin' out like a sucka!" He raised his fists in the air and roared a mighty "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Then rushed the surprised Osama with the swiftness and power of a rhino. He kneed Osama in the groin, knocked him to the floor and grabbed him by the shaft of his manhood.
He gloatingly, savagely, tore it out by its root.
As Osama shrieked in agony, bleeding like a menstruating woman, the one-eyed and toothless Santa waved the bloody trophy high above his head, dancing the primate's dance of victory.
Froggie—once again—fainted.
Assisting his grandfather, Froggie inched towards the shopping mall's exit.The old man leaned the bulk of his weight on Froggie's small shoulders, encumbering the little boy. The exit was somewhere far off in the distance. Froggie found it curious his grandfather's feet moved in the same stumbling way as a twro year old first learning to walk.
Froggie was appalled by "Santa's Showdown. . ."It was not only because his geriatric grandfather enjoyed this crap but he also couldn't believe a "responsible adult" would expose a precocious yet impressionable child to such puerile madness. What was the purpose of the Motion Picture Association's "rating code"? He thought it was there to protect him.Had the "gouvenator" or the studios paid them off? And what did any of it have to do with the spirit of Christmas? Maybe he missed something.
"What's Christmas, grandpa?" he asked. "And what does it have to do with that movie?"
"What kind of fool question is that?" his grandfather snapped, lapsing into the Never-never Land of senility. "Why Christmas is when the whole family gets together with rubber masks of Michael Jackson and Ronald Reagan pulled over their heads an' go out searchin' for roast turkeys hidden in the bushes! It's when you throw rabbits at your neighbors' windows an'set off fireworks on their front porch if they don't give you any painted eggs while singin' We Shall Overcome for the Negroes! It's that time of year we thank God we got all the good stuff because the commies don't deserve it!But, most of all, Christmas is holiday specials on TV!"
Froggie surprised himself with the words he heard himself say next.
"Christmas is about Jesus!"
His voice was shrill and impatient. He had no idea what provoked his outburst. He was not particularly religious. However, he was irate.
"What was all that nonsense about Arabs stealing Christmas?!! And where do you learn Kung Fu at the North Pole? From Chinese elves? What did all that have to do with Jesus? Wasn't he born in the Middle East? Doesn't that make Jesus an Arab, too?"
In loud reverberations, Froggie's voice echoed throughout the shopping mall's cavernous halls. His voice bounced from wall to floor to ceiling and back again in rapid ricochet; shocking its denizens into stony silence.
"Doesn't that make Jesus an Arab, too? . . . too? . . . too? . . . too?"
No one moved. No one said a word.
Out of nowhere, a human stinkball in rags shoved a picture of Jesus in Froggie's face. Jesus' skin was painted the color of pink bubble gum. His hair was long, wavy and straight. His hands gestured in mudras of blessing and grace. Jesus' eyes tilted piously towards the heavens. A wreath of thorns choked the bleeding muscle of his heart.
"Does this look like an Ay-rab to you?" asked the ragged Stinkball. Its smell was one Froggie hadn't thought possible for a human being.
"No," Froggie replied. "He looks like he plays guitar for one of those stupid bands on MTV!"
"You're an evil child!" spat the Stinkball. "Don't you know what happens to bad children on Christmas Eve?"
"No" replied Froggie. "I don't."
"Well, tonight's the night!" cackled the Stinkball, wagging a crooked finger. "And you'll find out!"
"Does it involve . . ."—Froggie's grandfather asked—"bathing with people like you?"—before his cane crashed down on the Stinkball's skull.
Froggie and his grandfather stepped from the bubble-topped black and white without the aid of the two officers. On the front lawn, a Santa suit stuffed with straw crowned by a grimacing and candle-lit pumpkin sat on a throne built of snow. The policemen sat and watched, muttering sarcastic jokes. Froggie, as best he could, helped his grandfather steer the icy path to the door of their gray-shingled house.
After cracking the skull of the malodorous "Christian," the old man and his grandson were surrounded by a mob of hostile holiday shoppers. They threatened with umbrellas; stuffed animals; ribboned packages; Swiss koo-koo clocks; candied apples; remaindered cookbooks; and oversized peppermint sticks. Even the rum-hound hired as the resident Santa of "Christmas Village" took part in the festivities. Imitating Santa's testosterone imbalance, a three year old pelted Froggie and his grandfather with oblong slabs of candy fired from a Pez dispenser.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" screamed the three year old, "YOU IZZWOMIC SCUM!!!"
And continued his assault with artificially-flavored projectiles launched from Bugs Bunny's neck.
Local police were called to quell the disturbance.
When the police arrived, the mob complained the two were terrorist sympathizers and that the "heretical" little boy had called Jesus an Ay-rab.The policemen peacefully dispersed the crowd by reminding everyone it was Christmas Eve.
"Go home,' the policemen said. "And watch 'It's A Wonderful Life.' If you hurry, you can still catch 'A Charlie Brown X-Mass'; 'The Grinch Who Stole X-Mass' and that 'Honeymooners' episode where all the characters from 'I Love Lucy,' 'Amos 'n' Andy' and "The Untouchables'get together with Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton fo
r a special X-Mass celebration in Ed's sewer. It's the one with that famous scene of Lucy kissing the Kingfish. And he says, 'Holy Mackerel! I been kissed by a white woman! They gon' cancel our show for sho' now!' before Elliot Ness caps 'im in the butt with a submachine gun."
The mob laughed at the policeman's impersonation of the melanin-skinned malaprop and went home.
The security staff of the White Woods Suburban Mall didn't press charges; however much they liked the idea. They realized it would be bad publicity for the mall. "Old Man Jailed For Defending Nine Year Old Against Deadly Ball of Human Rags!" Christmas morning's headline would not look good.
Instead, the Stinkball was charged with air pollution; driven to a nearby dump and left to fend for itself against a pack of prowling dogs. The dogs ate well that Christmas Eve.
When Froggie and his grandfather reached the door of their home, Froggie looked up and asked: "So what's supposed to happen to bad children on Christmas Eve, huh, grandpa?"
"The Giant Easter Rat gets them!" His grandfather popped out his dentures. He tried to make a scary face by baring his false teeth like the fangs of a snarling animal but only succeeded in looking stupid. "He's six feet tall with sharp yellow claws!"
Froggie rolled his eyes and decided not to ask his grandfather any more questions.
Inside, the Christmas tree, as one of his father's "innovative" space-saving ideas, was suspended upside down from the living-room ceiling. It had the frosty glow of the musical mothership in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." A pile of presents in metallic wrapping was heaped on the floor underneath.
Froggie's father was watching television clutching a can of beer when he and his grandfather walked in. By way of greeting, his father grunted and belched. His eyes hadn't strayed from the screen.
The television set was a point of contention between Froggie's father and grandfather. Though the set broadcast in color, it's monitor was housed inside of a scratched wooden cabinet. And it was so old, it couldn't connect to cable or hook up to a vcr. They had picked it up at a yard sale for three bucks.