Santa?
It wasn’t the dull roar of the traffic or the soft whisper of the summer night breezes pulsing through the open window that woke Marvin Cornett at 2 a.m. It was the sound of his front door opening. “Terrific, a damned burglar,” was his first lucid thought. Marv didn’t own a gun. He’d never even fired one. Instead, he grabbed the lamp from the table next to his bed and padded out into the hall.
“Who’s out there?” Marv shouted, as if the thief was actually going to introduce himself before pilfering his silverware.
“Relax, Marv,” answered a calm, male voice. “It’s only me.”
“Who’s me?” asked Marv, trying to pull from his not yet wide-awake memory who knew him well enough to think that “Me” was a sufficient greeting. “And don’t try to lie. I’m armed.”
“With a table lamp? What were you planning to do? Make me squint to death?”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“Marv. Marv. Marv. I’m surprised at you. I would have thought that, of all people in the world, you’d recognize me.” The ceiling light in the living room burst into life, switched on by the intruder. The sudden glow revealed a white-haired man with a full beard wearing a tailored Brooks Brothers suit. “You look pretty foolish standing there in your undershorts holding that lamp, Marv.”
“You look like Santa Claus, except for the worsted.”
“Close, but not quite a cigar, Marv. Santa’s my older brother. I’m Sonny. Sonny Claus. He got the milk runschlepping toys to all the kiddies on Christmas Eve. One night and he gets the rest of the year to sleep. Me? I get stuck with the Yuppie route. Takes me six months to complete my appointed rounds, which explains why I’m dropping in on you in June, in case you were wondering.”
“Just how stupid do you think I am, friend? You don’t actually expect me to believe you’re Santa Claus’ younger brother, do you? Aside from not having the red suit, you don’t even have the big middle. I’d guess even that beard is a fake. Now hit the road before I call the cops.”
“I was hoping you’d just accept my existence like you did with my brother when you were six, but I can see you’re a mite more skeptical now. Santa had dibs on the red suit, so I had to settle for running up huge accounts at menswear stores all over the world. As far as the jelly belly is concerned, only the kids appreciate that look. My clientele is more interested in buns of steel and stair-steppers, so I gotta stay in shape to impress them. I can see even that isn’t working with you though, huh?”
“You break and enter on me and then try to feed me some lame story about being Santa Claus’ younger brother and then wonder why it is I’m skeptical. I didn’t fall off the hay wagon this morning, pal. I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was about eight, and I never had any reason to believe there was a younger brother, Yuppie or otherwise.”
“See, that’s the worst part of this job, Marv,” Sonny sighed as he sat down on the sofa. “It’s bad enough that I gotta spend ten months out of the year working my way into condos like this one, lovely though they may be. I could deal with that. But the worst part is that not one single person I visit believes in me. That’s even harder for me to handle than trying to come up with something new and exciting to give Bill Gates every year.”
“You break in on Gates too?”
“I really wish you wouldn’t put it quite that way, but yes, I visit Bill just like I do you every year. And let me tell you, it isn’t easy with guys like him. I mean, what do you give a person who could buy the Universe? He’s tried to get us to merge with him twice already, go online and all that sort of stuff, and don’t think I haven’t given it some thought. Wish he’d hurry up and do it so we could get a cut-rate deal on new letterhead. Anyway, at least he acts like he believes in me, even if he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just being hospitable. You have any Cutty and water, Marv? I sure could stand to wet my whistle.”
“How did you know I drank Cutty?”
“Hey. Santa keeps his lists. I keep mine. One of these days I’m gonna retire and sell it to Penthouse. Boy, would THAT ever raise a few eyebrows!”
Marv chuckled at that one, nervously as Sonny noticed. “If you did that, you’d never be able to leave the North Pole.”
“What North Pole? I’ve got a beach house in Bimini. All that snow and ice gives me sinus problems. And those damned reindeer my brother keeps around the place. Ye gods, those things are filthy. All they do is eat and crap all over the barn, and they get nasty if you don’t feed them every three hours. Give me the sand, sun and surf any old day. And you ought to see some of the babes on Bimini, Marv. They’d make some of the women you’ve been dating look like rejects from a librarian’s academy. Take my word for it, Marv.”
“The gal I’ve been seeing is pretty nice.”
“Who, Nikki? C’mon Marv. You can do better than that. Y’know what she asked for this year? An Italian sports car, and an Italian to go with it. You should hear what she says about you when she’s with her friends and you’re not around. She says you can’t…”
Marv held his hand up. “I can imagine. You really do know a lot about me, don’t you?”
“Told ya. Do you believe in me now?”
Okay, Marv told himself, let’s put this old goat to the test and end this charade once and for all. “What did I ask for this year, and every year since I was a kid, that I’ve never, ever gotten?” Marv figured he’d play the game at least long enough to sneak back into the bedroom and call 911.
“I can’t give you Elle McPherson, Marv. Much as I’d love to.”
Marv chuckled, more than a little nonplussed. “Her too, but I was thinking of something else. Something even my Dad never gave me.”
Sonny stood up and stretched. “How about that drink, Marv? It’s getting really late and I still have the whole south side to do yet tonight.”
“Sure. Cutty and water, coming right up.” Another year, another disappointment, Marv thought. And to think I almost bought all of this, Marv tried to hide his very real disappointment as he sauntered toward the bar. Sonny Claus, indeed. Just another freeloader with a line of BS a mile long. Maybe I can even get back to sleep after I get rid of this joker, Marv thought, although he feared that decidedly un-sugarplumlike visions of Nikki arm-in-arm with someone named Carlo would no doubt dance through his head the rest of the night.
“Marv,” Sonny said. “Do you remember back in 1963 when the Dodgers swept the Yanks in four straight?”
Marv stopped mixing the drinks. This guy must be some sort of mind reader, he thought. Do I remember? “I remember it like it was yesterday. My Dad and I, we were supposed to go see Sandy Koufax pitch that day. But Dad got called away on business right before we were to leave for the game. He’d promised me he was going to buy me a ball and have Koufax sign it. Said he knew Koufax and everything and that he was sure he’d autograph it for me. God, I’d have given anything for that baseball. Dad never took me to a game after that. He was always too busy and I grew up, or thought I had. Then Dad died and I…”
“You mix a pretty mean Scotch and water,” Sonny interrupted before Marv became too maudlin. “Best I’ve tasted in a long time. I’d love to stick around and have a couple more of these, but time is flying.” Sonny downed the rest of the drink and made his way to the door. He was about to grasp the knob to let himself out when he halted.
“Oh, by the way Marv, I’ve got this little thing I’ve been carrying around with me for a long time and I wonder if maybe you’d like to take it off my hands, sort of as a payment for the hospitality.” He reached into his oversized pocket and rummaged a bit, then produced a package, beautifully wrapped in “Bon Voyage” paper and sporting a bright, orange bow.
“Pardon the wrapping, but Christmas paper is a tad hard to come by in Bimini in June. Any porthole, you know.”
Marv began unwrapping the box, shooting questioning looks at the strange old man the entire time. Once he’d removed the paper, he opened the lid and gasped.
r /> “My God! It’s…it’s… I can’t believe it. How on Earth did you get this?” Marvin Cornett reached into the box and pulled out a scuffed baseball, its surface further blemished by the blue ink of the autograph “Best Wishes Marvin. Sandy Koufax - World Series - 1963.”
Marv looked up, but the old man was gone. He hadn’t heard the door close, but Sonny was gone. Marv looked again at the ball. It was real. It wasn’t vanishing into thin air as the old man had just done. All that remained was the empty glass Sonny left behind. Marv picked it up. That was when he found the handwritten note left underneath the glass. It read simply:
“Ya Gotta Believe!”