Santa Claus Conquers the Homophobes by Robert Devereaux Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Devereaux
self-loathing had increased. “I’m not like my brothers,” he said. “They sense it. So does Mom.”
At the thought of her, Chuff’s throat narrowed. She preferred her sons vicious. But Chuff found viciousness harder to conjure up with each passing day. She rewarded mayhem in the telling. Even when one of his brothers lied, and everyone knew he was embellishing his nasty deeds, Mom praised the liar.
When the blood of vengeance rode high in her, a certain nostril flare and lip curl distorted her looks. Chuff’s tales, contrive them though he might, never managed to please her. Hard and cold as her heart, she listened. If he escaped the telling without a scornful word or a command to the others to beat him senseless, he counted himself lucky. “She means well. No, that’s wrong. She never means well. I don’t want her approval or praise. But I do. It’s the coin of the realm, and dear pale moon—who at least, in your indifference, spares me your sneers—I sit here impoverished. Enrich me, or at least grant me minimal sustenance. There must be a way out, some way to...to find my true family, not these awful changelings.”
His brothers’ scowls rose before him. He dismissed them, but they came again. Then he calmed and let them vanish into the chill air of the island.
“A sign. One small sign pointing the way out.”
But the moon’s glare held steady. No wink. No warmth. No wavering. Clouds came in to cover it, until it was but a gray smudge hidden inside a darker gray.
For the longest time, Chuff tried to coax the moon back into view. It refused to return.
Chapter 6. The Power of Prayer
THE ELVES WEREN’T THE ONLY creatures at the North Pole who had slipped into magic time that night.
Santa, having scrutinized the ceiling above his bed for hours, finally crawled from beneath his blankets and over the bottom lip of the bed, doing his best not to disturb his wives. He pulled on flannel underwear, shrugged into a suit and boots, and trudged across the commons to the workshop. There he sat for many an hour, summoning scenes past and present from the four mortals whose futures Wendy had shown him.
First he examined Ty Taylor, a proper lad who had adopted without question his parents’ strictness. From his earliest days, he seemed destined for the ministry. Santa observed the young man at seminary, swallowing as gospel his denomination’s lies. Evangelicals were a cockeyed fringe back then, as the seventies began and Ty turned twenty-two. Outside, authority was being questioned, defied, rebelled against. But inside, Ty and his classmates were admonished to obey absolutely and to buttress with rhetorical flourishes the beliefs of the buttoned-down.
Santa brought up scene after scene of Ty’s indoctrination into institutional homophobia, into selective Bible parsing that slathered a false sheen of God-acceptance over the prejudices of the day. Though Santa longed to wrench these teachings from Ty’s mind, he could only observe their inculcation.
In his teens, Ty passed two vagrants on a park bench in Chicago and burned at the suggestion they shouted after him. Santa felt his discomfort, as if he thought that heterosexuality ought to blare with trumpeted certainty from him, but did not.
Then came assignments to this or that church, sermons on sin, the gradual development of a beguiling preaching style that honed the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness that worked upon the sinful.
Despairing at what he saw, Santa let Ty Taylor go.
He next probed Jamie’s parents, likewise tracing them from their childhoods, how they met, the dominance of Kathy MacLaren in their marriage. Here as well he noted the gender uncertainty in both of them, dropped references to manliness as their sons developed and diverged. Though Jamie was only eight, Santa observed his father’s worried looks and felt the fears of both parents as they discussed
At the thought of her, Chuff’s throat narrowed. She preferred her sons vicious. But Chuff found viciousness harder to conjure up with each passing day. She rewarded mayhem in the telling. Even when one of his brothers lied, and everyone knew he was embellishing his nasty deeds, Mom praised the liar.
When the blood of vengeance rode high in her, a certain nostril flare and lip curl distorted her looks. Chuff’s tales, contrive them though he might, never managed to please her. Hard and cold as her heart, she listened. If he escaped the telling without a scornful word or a command to the others to beat him senseless, he counted himself lucky. “She means well. No, that’s wrong. She never means well. I don’t want her approval or praise. But I do. It’s the coin of the realm, and dear pale moon—who at least, in your indifference, spares me your sneers—I sit here impoverished. Enrich me, or at least grant me minimal sustenance. There must be a way out, some way to...to find my true family, not these awful changelings.”
His brothers’ scowls rose before him. He dismissed them, but they came again. Then he calmed and let them vanish into the chill air of the island.
“A sign. One small sign pointing the way out.”
But the moon’s glare held steady. No wink. No warmth. No wavering. Clouds came in to cover it, until it was but a gray smudge hidden inside a darker gray.
For the longest time, Chuff tried to coax the moon back into view. It refused to return.
Chapter 6. The Power of Prayer
THE ELVES WEREN’T THE ONLY creatures at the North Pole who had slipped into magic time that night.
Santa, having scrutinized the ceiling above his bed for hours, finally crawled from beneath his blankets and over the bottom lip of the bed, doing his best not to disturb his wives. He pulled on flannel underwear, shrugged into a suit and boots, and trudged across the commons to the workshop. There he sat for many an hour, summoning scenes past and present from the four mortals whose futures Wendy had shown him.
First he examined Ty Taylor, a proper lad who had adopted without question his parents’ strictness. From his earliest days, he seemed destined for the ministry. Santa observed the young man at seminary, swallowing as gospel his denomination’s lies. Evangelicals were a cockeyed fringe back then, as the seventies began and Ty turned twenty-two. Outside, authority was being questioned, defied, rebelled against. But inside, Ty and his classmates were admonished to obey absolutely and to buttress with rhetorical flourishes the beliefs of the buttoned-down.
Santa brought up scene after scene of Ty’s indoctrination into institutional homophobia, into selective Bible parsing that slathered a false sheen of God-acceptance over the prejudices of the day. Though Santa longed to wrench these teachings from Ty’s mind, he could only observe their inculcation.
In his teens, Ty passed two vagrants on a park bench in Chicago and burned at the suggestion they shouted after him. Santa felt his discomfort, as if he thought that heterosexuality ought to blare with trumpeted certainty from him, but did not.
Then came assignments to this or that church, sermons on sin, the gradual development of a beguiling preaching style that honed the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness that worked upon the sinful.
Despairing at what he saw, Santa let Ty Taylor go.
He next probed Jamie’s parents, likewise tracing them from their childhoods, how they met, the dominance of Kathy MacLaren in their marriage. Here as well he noted the gender uncertainty in both of them, dropped references to manliness as their sons developed and diverged. Though Jamie was only eight, Santa observed his father’s worried looks and felt the fears of both parents as they discussed
Similar Books
Protect Me
Selma Wolfe
This May Sound Crazy
Abigail Breslin
Chocolate Fever
Robert Kimmel Smith
A Man of His Word
Sarah M. Anderson
Public Enemies
Bryan Burrough
For Life (Reclaimed Hearts Book 1)
L. E. Chamberlin
Kissing Arizona
Elizabeth Gunn
Christmas Moon
J.R. Rain
15 Targeted
Evangeline Anderson
