Where’s Santa?

by David Benjamin

We gotta send Santa Claus back to the Rescue Mission.
Christmas don’t make it no more.
Don’t you know that murder and destruction
Scream the toys in every store…
— Frank Zappa

Ralphie was too old to believe in Santa Claus but zero hour was approaching and he couldn’t afford to risk his Red Ryder carbine-action two hundred-shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock. So, he entered Higbee’s department store and headed for the snowy mountain where rested Santa’s throne.

He was shocked and dismayed when he reached the foot of the mountain. Up there, instead of St. Nick, loomed a creature more grotesque than any he had seen in a science-fiction movie. Atop its head was a bulbous face, tangerine-dyed with white raccoon circles around its eyes. Dried bits of greasepaint flaked away and collected on a bright red tie that reached all the way down to the tassels on the thing’s loose-fitting shoes. Above its garishly-hued brow, a stiff, stringy mop of platinum blond cantilevered outward like a surfboard teetering on the roof of a woody. The creature wore a cyan-blue suit and a shirt blindingly white. It was surrounded, instead of elves, by a throng of identically dressed white men crouching in obeisance, poised to lick its shoes and kiss its ass.

Ralphie’s mind reeled at the sight. His first impulse was to run up the staircase and demand to know what the thing had done to Santa. But his route was blocked by a phalanx of burly men in black suits with grim, eyeless faces wearing Foster Grants. “Who are you?” Ralphie asked one of them.

He got no answer. He could only guess. He had seen the movie.

Looking around, Ralphie realized that Higbee’s was crawling with more of the thing’s blue-suit bogus elves, aided by a platoon of professional wrestlers wearing Speedos, who were pushing huge carts and confiscating all the toys and games and kid stuff in the store, even the TinkerToys. They were leaving behind nothing but school supplies, Fruit of the Loom underpants and pink-bunny pajamas.

Ralphie realized that, suddenly, it was up to him to save Christmas from this weird gang of rampaging shoplifters, who seemed to be in thrall to the thing—was it a person, a hologram, the ghost of Christmas Mutant?—that had supplanted Higbee’s Santa. Where was Santa? Had they drugged him, locked him up, killed him? Shuddering at the thought, Ralphie sidled past the men in black and worked his way around to the back side of the mountain. An unguarded scaffold provided a route to the top. In a moment, he stood beside the orangutoid apparition. He touched it. It was hideous but solid. He peered into its hooded eyes and asked, “What are you? Who are you?”

“I’m your retribution.” As it spoke, it started making spastic accordionlike movements with its well-manicured but tiny white hands. “But my friends—thousands of them—call me Chuckles.”

“Chuckles?” Ralphie said disbelievingly. “Why would they do that? You’re not funny.”

The thing peered down at the scurrying minions who were stripping the store. In tones more imperious than the voice of God in The Ten Commandments, he told them, “The kid says I’m not a funny guy. Whaddya think, bros?”

In an instant, a manly chorus rang out. “Oh no! You’re hilarious!” Others cried, “You’re a laugh riot!” and others roared. “You crack me up!” In unison, all his crew raised their gaze worshipfully and laughed, and laughed, ’til they were all hoarse and saliva was dripping from their chins.

Ralphie had to relent, “Okay, okay, you’re funny,” he said. “Please, make them stop!”

“Laugh!”

Ralphie laughed, grudgingly.

It raised an arm. Silence descended like a dead hound.

“Mr. Chuckles,” Ralphie ventured to ask, “what’s going on?”

“What’s it look like, kid? We’re taking the toys away.”

“Taking the toys? Where?”

The thing scowled from on high. “Away.”

“But it’s Christmas,” argued Ralphie. “Kids are s’posed to get toys.”

The thing growled menacingly. “Wake up and smell the woke, sonny. Christmas is a Socialist plot. It’s rotten to the core.”

“Christmas is rotten?”

“The deep state is handing out free presents to the unworthy, to criminals! To the children of illegals, mongrels, vermin and scum, whores, murderers, Muslims, Marxists and Puerto Rican garbage men. Santa Claus is going down the chimneys of insane asylums and setting them loose. To eat our kittens and puppies! Like Hannibal Lecter!”

All this was confusing, but Ralphie tried to stick to the subject. “Speaking of Santa,” he said, “where is he?”

Chuckles spoke in clipped, dismissive tones. “He went senile. Tripped over sandbags. Couldn’t finish his sentences. Had to be replaced.”

Ralphie shivered. “And you’re the replacement?”

“Everybody wants me. They love me. Ask them.”

From their knees, his blue suits cried out. “We love you!” They kept saying this, over and over.

“Make them stop,” Ralphie begged.

Chuckles twiddled its mini-fingers and peace returned on earth. He said, “Don’t worry, boy. I’m gonna stage a Christmas like nothing the world has ever seen before.”

Ralphie, who hadn’t noticed any problems with previous Christmases, watched Chuckles’ wrestlers wheel the last toys out of Higbee’s. He asked, “Really? Without any toys?”

“Don’t worry, son. I’m gonna make Christmas great again. There will be toys, more than anyone has ever seen before. The most toys ever! Towers of toys! Hotels, casinos and golf carts full of toys!”

“From Santa Claus?”

Chuckles stomped with rage. “Forget Santa already! He lost the goddamn election!”

“There’s an election for Santa Claus?”

“Which I won, kid. In a landslide like never before. I’m in charge! Only I can fix it!”

“Fix what?”

The thing glared Stephen Kingishly down at Ralphie. “IT!”

Ralphie backed away a step. “Okay, so, this Christmas, more toys than ever. Where do they come from? When do they get here? When can my parents shop for them? It’s getting late.”

“We don’t need no stinking shopping. It’s inefficient.”

“Inefficient?”

“It’s simple, you dumb brat. We took out the middleman—this idiot Santa. We give the toys direct to rich kids, who—guess what! They already have way too many toys. They don’t have room for all those teddy bears and video games and bikes and drones and Barbies. Their rumpus rooms are packed to the ceiling, Their Rolls Royces start to overflow. They can’t play with all of these trinkets and doo-dads. They get bored. Thousands of toys tumble from their greedy little hands and they start to trickle. It becomes a flood. My flood! Suddenly, nice kids look under the tree and there they are, the hand-me-downs and leftovers of the rich and special, the puzzles and storybooks, all the Muppets and GameBoys and smartphones that fell off the back of the truck, only slightly soiled, many still in working order.”

Ralphie had spotted the operative phrase. “Nice kids?”

Chuckles chuckled. “Yeah, I took over the Naughty and Nice lists. We haven’t decided about you yet.”

Ralphie caught the hint. If Santa was gone, this freakish humanoid was his only hope. Thinking about his Red Ryder carbine-action two hundred-shot range model BB rifle, Ralphie asked what it takes to qualify for “Nice.”

“Not my department,” said Chuckles, looking out from the faux mountaintop to survey his delusional kingdom. “Steve, you wanna take this one?”

Suddenly, one of the blue suits, bald and ferretlike, seized Ralphie by the scruff.

“Nice? You wanna be Nice? You want your damn BB gun? You wanna belong?”

Ralphie said, “Well, yeah, I’ve been good this year!”

“Good? Good for who?”

Ralphie got the drift. There really was no more Christ in Christmas. Everything was a “deal.” Ralphie pointed upward. All he could see was the thing’s chicken-skin neck, where the makeup didn’t quite cover.

“Him!” said Ralphie, feigning loyalty. “I’ve been good for him. Love the guy!”

“Está bien, entonces, niño,” said the Inquisitor, pleased but still suspicious. “Now, show me your papers.”

“Papers?”