A Merry Heart

Jonathan Farlow

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."

Proverbs 17:22

It was Gene who got the ball rolling the week before when he went into First National to cash his paycheck from the Dog and Shake. He was on his way out and was looking at a pattern in the rug that looked a lot like Porter Wagner when he walked into the Christmas tree that was standing by the entrance and knocked this little paper angel off onto the floor. A woman who had been behind him in line picked it up, handed it to him and told him that it was only right that he buy the child whose name was typed on the angel's back a toy. The desired toy was printed right underneath the name.

"There are a lot of sick children in the hospital that may not get anything this Christmas," she said, poking Gene in his rather ample belly. "It would be a good thing for you to help somebody out this holiday season." Gene thanked the woman and followed her out, reading the name of the child and the toy on the back of the angel.

**********

Gene took the angel with him to breakfast that morning and showed it to Slobber, who was slurping down a bowl of runny grits. He had fully intended to buy the toy that the kid wanted, but after paying rent, plus the payment on his scooter, then his insurance that had gone sky high since he had hit a mule the previous July, he hardly had any money left to buy his mama a present, much less anything else. On top of that, he didn't have any idea what the toy was that the kid wanted. It looked like one of those computer things and it was probably pretty expensive.

"You think you can go in on this with me?" he asked, spitting a piece of bacon across the table and bouncing it off the angel's left wing.

"I would if I had the money," Slobber sputtered. "What is this thing that this youngun' wants anyway?"

"I don't know, probably 'lectronic. I thought we could go halvsies on it."

"I would if I could, but I can't. So I ain't." Slobber chuckled at his joke. Gene ignored him, took the angel and studied it while he was finishing his coffee.

"Hey, maybe I should show it to Mike and we all could go in on it. It'd be from the Dog and Shake. Like a group thing."

"Hey, you remember that Santy Claus suit that Stanley Fisher let me have for the D & S Christmas party last year? You remember, we got you one that was an elf."

"Yeah."

"Why don't we go and play Santy Claus at the hospital? Then we could give something to all the kids."

"How we gonna afford presents for all those kids?"

"No, well, we can get them a little something, but the real present'll be getting a visit from Santy Claus this year."

"Well, that might work."

"I know it'll work." After they finished eating, Gene tied on his apron to get to work and Slobber strapped his helmet onto his head.

"Do you think that I could be Santy this year?" Gene called from behind the counter as Slobber was heading out the door. "I am bigger than you, you know." Truth was that while Slobber was no means a small man, Gene did weigh in at about three and a quarter so his logic was valid but, as usual, was lost on Slobber.

"It's my suit."

**********

On Christmas Eve Mabellene Hicks helped get the children from the children's ward down to the solarium for a program that a group from Central Methodist Church had provided. It had turned cold a couple of days before, and the glass was coated with a thick layer of ice. The janitor had chipped away most of it that afternoon so that the children could see the animals milling about in the living nativity among the actors draped in bathrobes and towels in attempts to look like shepards and wise men. The church choir stood a few feet away from the manger, pressed up against the building to escape the cold wind that had been blowing all day. Beside them a fire that the janitor had lit burned in a large metal drum to keep all the participants warm.

Mabellene hadn't told any of the children that Santa Claus would be coming. Slobber McAllister had called her the previous afternoon and told her that he and his elf were coming, which was great; the Central Methodist Group hadn't been able to get a Santa Claus who didn't charge, but Mabellene was quick to tell herself that this was Slobber McAllister, whom she had not met but she had heard things.

Stories of Slobber's various feats of mental inadequacy were too numerous to mention and she would not have anyone disappointing those children. About four songs into the choir's performance, she crossed her arms across her ample bosom and looked out across almost two dozen children with various injuries and maladies. There were some with legs and arms in casts. Several had IV's, a couple were bald as the result of chemotherapy and one or two were on oxygen. Two dozen, twenty-four, and not a smile in the bunch as a group of grown adults swayed and hopped out on the patio to a peppy version of Sleigh Ride.

Things like carols and nativities, even presents and visits from parents for those who had them and who cared enough to come, did little to lighten the spirits of a child spending Christmas in a hospital. No, sir. The thought of someone disappointing these children broke her own heart and she wouldn't have it. If he came, wonderful, and she prayed he did, but it'd be a surprise for the children and for her as well.

**********

At that moment in a men's room four floors up, Slobber McAllister, dressed in a ratty, wrinkled old Santa Claus suit, tied one end of a rope to one of the urinals and slung the other end out the window.

"You know, it's a long way down," whispered Gene, staring out the window over Slobber's shoulder. "Why don't we just go through the door?"

"'Cause Santy Claus don't go through the door. He comes down the chimney."

"I don't think this place has a chimney."

"Don't matter. He lands his sleigh on the roof. This way it'll look like we're coming down off the roof."

"Our sleigh's in the parking lot."

"Like I said, it don't matter." "Now hand me that sack."

**********

A good half hour later as the choir was beginning its last song, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, the children, as well as Mabellene Hicks, were startled by a loud thump overhead. Everyone looked up to see the soles of a large pair of combat boots barely visible through the thick, crystal-like layer of ice that was coating the glass. In just a second the boots were joined by a pair of green bedroom shoes. They stood still for a moment and then the boots started creeping down the slope of the roof toward the edge overlooking the patio. The children watched, Miss Hicks as well, wide-eyed, mouths agape as the boots made it halfway down, started sliding and then started backpedaling violently before disappearing all together. A split second later the boots were replaced by the outline of a very haggard and disheveled looking Santa Claus pressed against the icy glass. His hat had come off and lay above him, his eyes were dark and full of terror, his nose was pressed upward like a pig's and his lips were splayed out like a leech among a cotton ball beard. He had a trash bag in one hand, a rope in the other, and he flailed his arms wildly as he very slowly began sliding down the slope toward the edge of the roof. The bedroom slippers had remained still for a moment when they attempted to run after the Santa Claus. They had not gone three steps, however, before they disappeared and were instantly replaced by the rear view if a very tightly stretched pair of green tights.

The buttocks started sliding after the Santa Claus, who had slid over the edge of the roof and was now dangling by his fingertips, able to hold on only because of the abject horror that was coursing through him. This let the children, the nurse and those underneath on the patio get a good look at who was later described as a Skid Row Saint Nick as well as get an earful of profanity which had started cascading down off of the edge of the roof. Santa was able to hold on long enough to let the buttocks catch, overtake and pass him. It was at this point that the children and Nurse Hicks saw a very obese elf plummet off the roof, a rope tied around his waist. All the gapers on the patio saw was the illumination of the security lights on top of the hospital as well as the moon blocked out before the elf crashed through the nativity, sending actors, animals and splintered wood scattering in all directions.

About half way down, the rope had pulled taught snatching Santa off the gutter and dropping him in the fire barrel. He was still for a moment until he realized what had happened, where he was and what was about to happen to him. It was then that he made a loud noise not unlike a train whistle and started stomping. As Mary was clutching a Cabbage Patch Kid dressed in swaddling clothes and two wise men were trying to pull the elf out of the manger, Slobber Claus was stomping like a clogger with ants in his pants and he didn't stop until he was knee deep in ashes.

Then it was quiet and still. The animals had stopped braying and bleating, people had stopped screaming, and Santa Claus had stopped cursing. The church performers looked at one another, at Santa and his elf, and then at the tiny faces which looked down at them from the Solarium windows. Mabellene Hicks had put a hand on her heart and swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in her throat when a sweet sound started ringing throughout out the room, bleeding through the windows, and drifting down onto the patio like falling snow. That sound was not heard often at a hospital. That sound was the sound of a child laughing. It soon doubled, tripled and grew until the sound of two dozen children laughing filled the halls, spreading the warm cheer felt by the children to all who heard it.

**********

Later that night, as Mabellene Hicks checked on the sleeping children, there were still smiles on their faces. The presents that Slobber Claus had brought them were miniscule: key rings, temporary tattoos, deflated balloons, stale candy; but they were all kept in places of honor on the children's nightstands as a reminder of a much greater gift.

**********

Just after midnight Slobber Claus stood up on his sleigh, a child's flexible flyer, which was drawn not by eight tiny reindeer but by a very fat man dressed like an elf on a scooter. The scooter's motor wound loudly as it struggled to pull both of them along the icy asphalt of the town's main drag. Welbourne County's answer to Kris Kringle would not be denied, however, and he screamed "ho, ho, ho" at the top of his lungs as he flung candy up onto the empty sidewalks. I had heard them coming and watched from my window for as long as I could see them. And I heard them exclaim as they rode out of sight:

"Can't this damn thing go faster?"

"All right: All right!"

Copyright © February 13, 2002 Jonathan Farlow