Jolly Old St. Nick

By: Jared W. Vickery
September 10, 2008

Christmastime and down on his luck, Kelvin Keller signed on to be the worst thing a one-time devout Jew could imagine, mall Santa Claus. Kelvin had been out of a job since he divorced his wife, or rather she had divorced him, a few months prior. He had worked for her daddy, and as expected when the son-in-law gets caught cheating with a black, shemale prostitute, he got the sack. Kelvin had tried his hand at several things but was fired from them all. He lowered himself to answering the ad in the paper for the Santa position. To secure the job, he even lied about being Baptist. Fortunately, they didn't ask him anything about it. He could have managed a few lines of Joy to the World but would have started singing the Dreidel Song after that.

Kelvin showed up bright and early the day after Thanksgiving to don his gay apparel.

“Here you go.” Fred Burton, the mall manager, handed Kelvin the bright red, velvet suit and white polyester beard. “I think there are some pillows in the storeroom. Our last Santa came with his own stuffing and beard.” Fred gave Kelvin a disdainful look. “Of course, he was 70 not 28.”

“I bet he was Christian too,” Kelvin said to himself as he dropped his slacks and put on the Santa pants.

A strong, burning odor washed over him as he wrapped the jacket around himself. He had never sat in Santa's lap, but he was sure that he was not supposed to make your eyes water from the stench. It certainly was not the aroma of peppermint and gingerbread. Kelvin thought if this was what Christmas spirit smelled like, he was glad to be Jewish.

“Why does this stink?” he asked fastening the coat up.

“Does it?”

“It' s making my nose burn and my eyes water.”

Fred took a whiff near the coat sleeve. He seemed to grimace, but Kelvin could not tell if it was different from his normal scowl.

“Smells okay to me,” said Fred. “Maybe you're more sensitive to the dry-cleaning chemicals.”

“Maybe?”

Kelvin did not think so. He had worked at a cleaners for two weeks. He did not have any issues with the products and could not remember any of them smelling like this coat.

“Go get your beard on and your belly stuffed. The kids will be here soon and waiting for Santa,” said Fred with a weak grimace of a smile crossing his lips. “No funny business, either.”

Kelvin looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I know about the shemale thing. I don’t care if your gay, but I don’t want you bringing any of those chicks with dicks around the kiddies. What you do in your own time is up to you, but when you are here, you are Santa Claus, and he isn’t into that freaky-deaky stuff. You get me.”