Red Christmas
Christmas Eve, 1963
Betty and Bobby Stewart were nestled in their beds, asleep but dreaming of the presents that would surely be beneath the tree come the morning. There would be no mistakes or errors, for they had used their best penmanship in writing their lists, spelling out each word carefully and precisely. It wouldn’t do to spend a whole year being the best little boy and girl they could, only to have a sloppy misprint ruin everything.
That was the kind of attitude and precision that Santa appreciated. You couldn’t run a holiday empire without regimented precision. There weren’t as many good boys and girls as you might expect, but Santa still had to make thousands of stops around the world in the course of a single night. Imagine if an elf misprinted one of the addresses!
So, when Santa slipped down the Stewart’s chimney, he was thinking less about sugarplums and more about efficiency. Supply lines. Delivery schedules. The importance of precise penmanship. He wasn’t operating at maximum situational awareness, and why would he? Betty and Bobby Stewart were two of the nicest children in the world, and definitely the nicest children in all of the United States.
Santa flowed out of their fireplace and was prancing across the thick, wall-to-wall carpet towards their Christmas tree. It was a beautiful specimen of a tree: full, lush and decorated with care. Old Saint Nick smiled as he noticed a few new ornaments. He bent over and opened his sack. He was elbow deep, fishing for their gifts, when his cherry-red nose twitched. He smelled something naughty.
The sound of the flue being slammed shut sounded like a coffin-lid closing for good. “Why don’t you take your hands out of the sack real slow, and make sure they’re empty.” The voice was colder than the North Pole and blacker than the sootiest coal in Pennsylvania.
Santa Claus stood up with his gloved hands draped over his red cap. Santa didn’t need to turn around to know who that voice belonged to, but he turned anyway. His eyes twinkled. “Hello John, it’s been a long time.”
Standing beside the fireplace, with an M1911A1 pistol held tightly in both hands, was John McCone, the director of the CIA. One hand was sooty from reaching inside the fireplace to close the flue.
“Sometimes,” Santa said, “I think I should never have given you that Daisy Air Rifle. You’ve been a naughty boy ever since.”
“I remember it, a Model 25 pump action. I was the luckiest kid on the block.” Despite himself, John’s mouth twitched into a smile. The smile vanished like a cloud of breath in the frozen weather. “I’m naughty, all right,” John said. “When you’re trying to keep the nice kids safe, Nicky, you’ve got to do all sorts of naughty things. Nice children need the naughty ones to keep them safe.”
Santa glanced at the gun. “Are you planning to shoot me John? Because if not, I do have a few more stops to make tonight.”
“Well, Nicky, why don’t we have a little chat,” John said. He gestured with his gun. “Grab yourself a seat. I left out some milk and cookies for you.”
Santa eased himself into an overstuffed recliner. On the end table beside it was a small china plate, loaded with gingerbread men. “You do know my weakness,” Santa admitted.
“It comes with the job,” John said.
Santa picked the first cookie off the top. This gingerbread man was decorated to look like an elf. Santa smiled when he bit off its head. He brushed some crumbs out of his beard. “You know, I’ve got an Easy-Bake Oven for Betty in that sack, but I bet she helped her mom make these.”
“I’m sure she did, being a nice little girl. But let’s cut the smalltalk. Your country needs you.”
Santa laughed a big booming laugh, shaking like a bowlful of Jello. It was loud enough to shake dust from the rafters, but somehow, no one in the house was disturbed. “John, I’m Santa Claus. I live at the North Pole. I have no country. Children around the world are my country.”
John shook his head. “C’mon, Kringle, you and I both know that’s a load of one-world, mamby-pamby bullshit. Where do you think Easy-Bake ovens come from? Red Square? Hell no- they’re made right here, in the old US-of-A. Is Ho Chi Minh leaving out any gingerbread for you? Do you think Kruschev is spending tonight with carolers? Is Mao knocking back any eggnog?
“Be smart, Kringle. America may not have invented Christmas, but we own it. Christmas is made on American assembly lines, sold on American television, and dressed up in American decorations. American soldiers are dying to defend Christmas from those godless commies. Hell, Rudolph was bred by goddamn Montgomery Ward, and shipped up to you with a blinking nose and a song. So don’t try and tell me that you haven’t got a country. Add a little blue to that red and white outfit, because you’re as American as I am.”
Santa’s jolly disposition had evaporated before this assault. He bit the head off of a second gingerbread man, this one done up with an iced coonskin cap. “Perhaps,” he said, “we’ll have to agree to disagree.” He chewed thoughtfully. “So, John, what is it on your wishlist that makes you do such naughty things?”
“It’s simple: I want you to make sure a very naughty boy gets a great big piece of coal in his stocking. All you’ve got to do is make one special delivery for us.”
Without ever taking his gun off of Santa Claus, John strode over to the tree and fished out one very heavy box, wrapped in paper printed with a thousand cheerful elves hammering out a thousand identical wooden rocking horses. “While you’re out running errands tonight, America needs you to make one special delivery. It’s a gift from us to Fidel Castro. Hopping into Cuba would be a breeze for someone like you.”
Santa grinned beneath his snow-white beard. Despite the threat of John’s gun, he leaned forward, with his hands on his knees, and then rocked himself up, a right jolly old elf. “John, who do you think owns the North Pole workshop?”
“Why, you do.”
“No, John. I don’t. The elves do. All of them. Collectively.”
“No…” John stepped back, shaking his head.
“Oh, yes, Johnny,” Santa said, striding forward. John raised the gun, but couldn’t pull the trigger. “Each year, they give presents to the nice boys and girls. The nice ones who always help around the house, who always give according to their ability, the ones who share. And we give them gifts according to their needs, John. And how do I know who the nice boys and girls are Johnny? By running an intelligence organization that makes the CIA look like children playing house.”
“That’s not true! That’s impossible!”
“My coat is red, Johnny. Red.”
Like a flicker of moonlight across newfallen snow, Santa drew a candy cane from somewhere in his voluminous red coat. Faster than a toboggan on a steep hill the cane snaked out, hooking John’s gun and tearing it from his grasp. With the backstroke, Santa brought the cane down on John’s head, sending him sprawling, dazed.
When John came to, Old Saint Nicholas was gone, vanished up the chimney. John tried to pull himself up to his feet, but something was terribly wrong, it hurt to stand. It hurt just to have his shoes on. Confused, fuzzled from the blow, John ripped his black leather shoes off. His socks bulged oddly. He tugged at them, and shook them out.
His stockings were full of coal. The lumps of coal rattled to the carpet, staining it with sooty smears. From outside, he heard the faintest echo of a booming voice calling out:
“Merry Christmas to all, and viva la revolución!”
