St. O'Claus
A very short story that sold to Weird Christmas, now live for Epiphany.
Before we get into the rest, know that I, Emily Munro, LJ Cohen, Gordon Linzner (the founder of Space and Time magazine), Alexander Sirkman, and one surprise guest who far more famous than all of us combined will be reading January 21st in NYC. Please mark yourself as a maybe and invite ten friends who will invite ten friends.
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A much shorter version of the following story sold this year to Weird Christmas and their annual list of Christmas stories, which you can read here or listen to the podcast version here.
The Christmas presents worldwide still hadn’t arrived well into Epiphany and closing on Lent, so St. Patrick rang Saint Nicholas. “Nicky?”
“Hey there Paddy,” Santa Claus said. His voice rasped.
“Nick?” St. Patrick asked. “What’s wrong with ye? Not a single stocking stuffer and folks… aye, lad, folks’s getting blue’n worried.”
Santa said, “Got the COVID.”
“You too? And this many years later?”
“That one poor girl just died of it.”
“But,” Paddy said, “we’re endowed with great healing powers and constitution and fortitude and what for forthwith.”
“No mask,” Santa said. “Now I’m nothing but a metaphorical example for stubborn folks in the older, fatter, jollier crowd.”
“Those elves can’t reach the reins.”
Santa Claus said, “Remember that one time when you needed me to sub for you on—”
“Let’s not bring up The Troubles: protestant and Catholic issues need not detain an old sick man.”
Santa Claus cleared his throat and said, “Anyways, Paddy—“ he coughed, hacked like the long-tenured multi-bowl-a-day pipe smoker that he was “—I thought you owe me.”
“Awww come on, fat man.”
“Still want to be more generous, Paddy? Here’s your chance: pour your heart into my magic red pawn shop bag and drive out snakes and convert pirates and give out gold to all the childer.” Santa hacked incessantly.
“Comeon, Nicky, I’m quite fine giving out green beer once a year. Don’t need me roots.”
Santa hacked hard then, phlegm and all manner of ungodly sounds in the background.
“Fine, fine. As long as it doesn’t erupt in civil war on your own territory, I did you better than you did me, eh?”
“Too soon. Get to the elves here at the pole. Stay six feet from my lodge.”
“Tain’t gonna go well.” Paddy said.
“Sure tis. I have faith in you.”
“God help us both.”
St. Patrick arrived on a Tuesday bearing his shepherd’s crook. They tried to give him curly shoes, but he insisted on barefoot. At the north pole, no less. “Puts hair on yer chest,” he said to the elves.
The elves gave him lessons on the reindeer. It went well.
Actually.
No it didn’t.
Dasher didn’t think St. Patrick O’Claus could keep up with the team. Dancer didn’t go for sword dances. Prancer hated the pugilist stance. Vixen tried to mother the man. Comet burned out. Cupid preferred to drive Paddy, his patron’s feast day landing but one month prior to Paddy’s own. Donder shouted over Paddy’s shouts during a drinking game. And Blitzen? Blitzen got a bit too nationalistic for even Paddy’s tastes. There’s national pride and then there’s the bombing of London.
Reindeer wouldn’t work. Went on strike, more or less, though for different reasons.
So Paddy went digging for snakes. Pretty hard to find snakes in the arctic, cold blooded and all. Couldn’t find a rattler, a moccasin, a python, or a common garter to save his life. He dug too deep with some of the musk ox and found a den of ice wyrms and ice drakes. Bit of his pot of gold and those things were in flying shape. Strung them up to the front of the sleigh (new green paint job, elves approved). Then Paddy drove the snakes out of the arctic.
It felt like a cobra strike yank into the air, not a slow gallop. Getting them to even fly straight was a damned miracle (strictly speaking: demon dragons doing the work of God is a damned miracle). Had he not done it centuries prior, he’d have thought they’d whip the sleigh asunder.
Halfway to Iceland, Paddy realized he had loaded up all the wrong stuff. Irish-oriented gifts probably wouldn’t go over so well in some parts. And let’s be honest, there’s no way he was going to stress himself doing this all in one night.
Presents arrived weeks late (some folks blamed the attempt to gut the USPS), but he found himself giving less prime rib and more beaver tail. Less figgy pudding and more lamb stew. Kept the kids warm. The only consolation he offered was double and triple servings. Which, in the end, fed more hungry kids and got rich folks to stop complaining about not having enough truffle salt, bacon fat, and creme de la creme de la whatever.
Green beer he gave to teenagers in teetotaling houses. Especially Christian ones. The savvier kids thanked St. O’Claus and the parents scoured passages like John 2 to figure out if Jesus ever gave wine to folks who were drunk. Green beer flowed like the waters of Bashan.
He gave gifts to the demons of The Pit and drove the snakes out so that they grew feet once more and became luck dragons. He visited Bellhammer, Illinois and sowed fields and fields and fields of persimmons and four leaf clovers for all of the whitetail and also made it open season for the deer for the hunters. Lamb stew was a hit with goat curry folks. So he flew some more down to Australia, some to Appalachia.
He worried. It’d been weeks. The elves tracked back home and Santa had taken a turn for the worst. Some of the other saints had put him on a respirator, prayed over him and anointed him with oil, and injected him with some crazy cocktail of steroids and a weird glowing black and then white and then black metal that Patrick didn’t understand.
Nevertheless, it seemed he would have to finish the job alone over the slow grind. Patrick delivered the rest of the food, water, clothing, and community to Micronesia.
Then he realized the terrible cost: he’d blasted straight past his own holiday, straight past the Ides of March, and Easter fast approached. He went to Boston and found it desolate. He went to Ireland and found it much the same. He had poured the very body and soul of the Irish people out so that the world would not hunger: not a famine from the theft of the English, a fast that others may feast. Even Patrick himself had grown bone-thin and his skin had almost gone see-through and it was all he could do to drive the great snakes back to the North Pole.
He crawled on his hands and knees, leaving the bishop’s crook behind, and entered Santa’s lodge — the one he should stay six feet away from in such a state — as if through the tiniest little mouse hole. The door had been used so little it had shrunk and the camel of Ireland passed through the eye of the needle in the North, quite brittle and quite small indeed. An arctic church of the nativity.
It tore at his aged skin.
It tore muscles.
It made his mind think he had nothing left to give the world.
And on the other side, he saw golden light and heard a voice speak not a cough. “Paddy? Have some cookies. Have some milk and honey.”
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