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November 30ᵗʰ was the last regular day of the year for David. He had a reasonable amount of tasks on his checklist, a manageable number of emails in his inbox, and a physiologically acceptable level of caffeine coursing through his system. But, after almost one hundred years on the job, David finally conceded that nothing about his life was normal.
All it took was one glance around his live-work space to understand why.
He discarded the lurid, velvety decor ages ago; however, even after the renovation, the warehouse remained recognizable to any living person with a subscription to the Hallmark Channel. Fresh garland adorned every wall, filling the space with the pure scent of winter even the best candles could not fully emulate. The elegant gold and crimson decorative ornaments tastefully arranged on the thirty-foot Norwegian Pine shone almost as brightly as the crystal bulbs that cast light across their reflective surfaces. A change in color palette and a dumpster full of creepy, dancing figurines could not erase the identity of this iconic space.
Santa's Workshop.
David still opposed the notion that he was “Santa Claus”. He preferred to think of himself as a curator of artfully selected gifts, chosen by the immortal beings of the universe to share his impeccable taste and his knowledge of correctness on all things, material and otherwise. Was that the truth? Ehh–more or less. The details of his contract started to blur after a handful of Christmases in the role. He was sure of one thing, though. November 30th seemed to approach faster and faster each year.
As David stood in front of the 10-foot flat screen displaying the Christmas Dashboard, he inhaled deeply. His eyes scanned over the numbers organized into detailed charts and graphics.
"On schedule...7.98 billion people... and an–" David gasped, cutting his mumblings short.
He was not a numbers guy, per se, but he understood percentages. That particular percentage was lower than he had ever seen it before.
"An estimated 87% success rate?!"
David reared his head back and blinked feverishly, sure his eyes betrayed him like that one time he thought he saw Justin Bieber in his workshop.
The elves made life-size cardboard cutouts that day and placed one by his desk just to freak him out.
It worked.
It pained David to sign his name on those over-sized pieces of garbage, but he went against his better judgment and shipped them across the world because he could not stand the sight of that goddamn bowl cut for even a day longer.
That year, he received his highest success rate to date: 98.6%. He refused to accept those stupid cardboard cutouts had anything to do with it.
"Stevie!" David shrieked. His hands clenched into tight fists by his sides, manicured nails pressing into the flesh of his palms. It was much too early in the season to have this heightened stress weighing him down.
A small but strong hand gripped his shoulder, and his fists unfurled. He finally let out the breath that had made his chest feel tighter than his suit on Christmas Eve. The air that left his lips was a gust of cinnamon, nutmeg, and relief.
"David...," Stevie spoke his name tentatively. Never a good sign. "There’s something you should see."
Stevie held onto a letter with a careful grip, as if accidentally crumbling or tearing the paper might permanently damage the contents written on the page.
David witnessed Stevie clip her toenails while sitting on a leather sofa on more than one occasion. He was alarmed by the reverence she deemed necessary for a piece of fan mail.
David received thousands of letters on a given day – so many letters that he had an entire unit of elves devoted to archiving and data mining correspondences. Stevie hadn’t stepped foot in that department since she was banned for writing fake letters full of absurd requests.
Clive, the Head Elf of the Mail Unit was not amused when he learned the thirteen hundred ‘What’s Your Poo Telling You?’ books were unnecessary after he already placed the order with the Builder Elves. He was even less thrilled when Stevie gifted him one of the books for the office Christmas party gift exchange.
Stevie instigated most - all of the pranks around the workshop, but something about the slight downturn of her mouth gave him pause.
"Does this," David gestured towards the letter, "have anything to do with that!"
Every muscle in his body tensed as he pointed to the abysmal percentage on the screen behind him.
Stevie's mouth quirked to one side like it always did when she knew something David did not, before she rolled her eyes and placed the letter in his outstretched hand.
"Okay, just…” Stevie huffed, already resigned to talking David off a ledge. “Before you read it, I think you should look at the previous letters. You know. Get the full picture."
She slowly reached inside the pocket of her red and black flannel. When her hand returned to view, she clutched a small clicker. With one press to the button, the stress-inducing statistics were gone, replaced with a hand-written letter dated December 4th, 1990.
"Wow. Okay. So, this was all premeditated, then? What is this? Some kind of intervention!”
He half expected Clive and his other Head Elves to make an appearance, surprise him with a “It Get’s Better” cake and corny anecdotes to serve as an unwanted soundtrack to the increasingly dismal visions infiltrating his mind.
As his anxiety rose, his hands flailed in all directions they could reach. The paper in his grip sliced through the air, making a whooshing sound like a fiber whip. An unexpected clatter finally halted his frantic movements.
He looked down to see the clicker on the ground, spinning like a top before falling on its side. When he glanced back up at Stevie, he could not help but ask the question he dreaded most.
“Am I being fired? Who can even do that? And what does –”
“David. Stop,” Stevie awkwardly bent down to pick the clicker off the ground without looking away from David, worried that leaving him unmonitored for two seconds might set him off again. “No one is firing you…yet,” she snickered.
“Oh my God!”
“Just watch the screen. Can you do that?” She asked, eyebrows raised heavenward.
Her eyebrows almost never moved, so David knew she was serious. He sucked his lips into his mouth and nodded. There were other questions sprouting in his mind, but he thought it best to save those for the end of the presentation, fearing Stevie’s features may never return to normal if he voiced further doubts.
Stevie pressed another button, and the page faded from the inside out to reveal a scene of a young boy riding giddily on a blue, shiny bicycle.
David scoffed, “Classic.”
🎄🎄🎄
The young boy, Patrick, wore a helmet that sat askew on his head, revealing the unruly, slightly sweaty curls that clung to the sides of his face. His eyebrows hung low over his eyes, and his mouth formed an ‘O’ shape as he focused on the road ahead, determined to keep up with his friend.
Tyler kept a steady pace, exerting his muscles to their limits to trek up the steepest hill in their neighborhood like a wannabe Tour de France pro.
Once at the top, euphoric from the dopamine spike and abundance of adolescent boy energy, Patrick proposed a brilliant idea.
“Let’s race down the hill!”
“You’re on, Brewer,” Tyler agreed without hesitation.
The second their feet returned to the pedals, they were off.
The wind caught Patrick’s shirt, parachuting off his back as he picked up speed. He wanted to win and would do whatever he could to make sure that happened.
He bent his arms to bring his chest closer to the handlebars. His fingers rested on the brakes but did not apply any pressure. His eyes remained fixed on the finish line, a white house with blue shutters at the end of the street.
His house.
The place where he’d be celebrating with a root beer popsicle in a few short moments. Just a few more–
“Car!”
Patrick’s bike stopped as soon as he clutched the brakes, but his body kept moving, soaring over the handlebars until his hands and knees scraped across the cement. The burning sensation at all four points of contact with the road caused tears to well up in his eyes.
Before he fully registered what happened, strong arms wrapped around his body, picking him up but leaving the bike stranded in the middle of the street.
Patrick clung to the man - his father, he knew instantly by the brush of soft wool beneath his cheek. Catching sight of Tyler over his dad’s shoulder, Patrick watched his friend awkwardly trudge alongside both bikes, head downcast, as he walked back to his own house a few blocks south.
Their race was over, but neither boy had won.
Patrick certainly did not feel like a winner. His father’s coat dried the tears and muffled the sobs that shook his body.
Once inside, his dad sat him down on the kitchen island and rummaged through the cabinets, pulling out the gauze, bandages, and antiseptic. His hands worked carefully as he cleaned Patrick’s cuts and started piecing him back together again.
After his dad smoothed the last bandage onto his knee, he walked to the sink to wash his hands. Even with his back turned to him, Patrick could see how tense his father looked. He braced himself, waiting for a lecture.
But, one never came.
His father sighed and turned to face him, leaning his hip against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest.
He asked one question. The right question.
“Popsicle?”
“Yes, please,” Patrick said with a grin.
As they enjoyed their frozen treats, they talked about their plans for the rest of spring break, neither man mentioning bicycles in any capacity.
🎄🎄🎄
“If these are all that predictable, can we maybe skip through some of them?”
“You are unbelievable.”
“Mmm. Thanks so much,” David quipped.
Stevie continued to the next letter without another word.
🎄🎄🎄
Patrick picked up the medium-sized box and shook it lightly. It was heavier than he expected. The crisp edges of the wrapping paper and the curled, gold ribbon were almost too pretty to mess up.
Almost.
He tore into the paper with anticipation tantamount to a chimpanzee unsheathing a banana after eating nothing but leaves for days.
When his eyes finally landed on the new pair of hockey skates, he shouted over the Mannheim Steamroller record his father played every Christmas morning.
"Mom! Dad! Thank you. These are," Patrick turned one of the skates over in his hands, admiring it from all sides, "...wow."
"Those are from Santa, son."
Patrick did not care where they came from. All that mattered was that these beauties were his. He said a silent thank you to Santa–or whoever the heck was responsible for his new prized possession.
He met up with Tyler and the boys later that day, eager to try out his new skates. The neighborhood pond had frozen over–Tyler's dad went out to check last week–so Patrick's parents allowed him one game before Christmas dinner.
With his new skates beneath him, Patrick glided effortlessly across the ice. The sharp blades cut through the smooth surface and afforded him speeds he had never previously achieved.
He weaved through his friends, steady and controlled, to score the first and only goal of the game. When it was time to leave, he pumped his fist in victory as his friends either sulked (the opposing team) or danced (his team) off the ice.
On his walk home, Patrick cradled the skates to his chest with the care a mother showed her newborn baby. Tyler, who hauled his skates by their laces, could not help but tease him.
"Dude. You're not going to break them if you carry them in your hands."
Tyler swung his skates towards Patrick, so one of them brushed his thigh.
"I know."
Patrick clutched the skates tighter to his chest.
Tyler laughed, amused. "In my next life, I want to be Patrick Brewer's hockey skates. Live the good life. Be treated right."
Patrick's cheeks reddened. He removed one arm from his skates to shove his friend playfully.
"You should be so lucky."
🎄🎄🎄
Stevie's eyes darted to the side to gauge David’s reaction. He didn’t have enough time to mask the crooked smile that lingered on his lips.
"Cute, huh?" She prodded.
David rolled his eyes and bit back the acidic response he could easily throw at her.
"Mmhmm," he uttered, nodding his head instead. "What's next for our little Brewer? Another sportsball device?"
Stevie snorted as she cued up the subsequent letter and reverted her eyes to the screen. "You ready?"
"As I'll ever be," David grumbled.
He still wasn't sure what this had to do with anything. Stevie didn't appear to be letting it go anytime soon, though. As far as David was concerned, there was no way out.
He settled in, only somewhat reluctant to venture further into this child's seemingly perfect adolescence.
🎄🎄🎄
“DDR?” Tyler asked incredulously.
Patrick lowered his head and raised his arm to scratch the back of his neck. “Yeah, I mean… I asked for Unreal, but this is what I got, so...”
He nudged the plastic mat on the floor with his socked foot. The slight movement caused an unpleasant crackling noise.
“It’s not much to work with, I have to admit, but it’s…something. I guess.” Tyler groomed his chin like he was stroking a full beard and not the few random hairs Patrick thought he should have started shaving by now. “Soda?”
“Yep. In the cooler.”
“Sick.” Tyler stepped around Patrick to start setting up the game. “When is everyone coming?”
Patrick turned his wrist to look at his watch. “Should be here any minute.”
“Great. Challenge you to a warm-up round?”
Patrick smirked. His friend was always hungry for competition. “You’re on.”
They stepped onto the mats, and Patrick, a gentleman, let Tyler have the first song pick.
He instantly regretted that decision.
Tyler chose CARTOON HERO , the fastest, most obnoxious song he had ever heard. His feet stomped gracelessly on the mat as the arrows soared across the television. He’d never felt more uncoordinated in his life.
That was until he looked over at Tyler.
His friend jumped up and down to the beat. Half the time, his feet didn’t even land on the buttons. He punched the air and started singing along with the song. Nonsense lyrics, of course, but that only made Patrick laugh harder.
Consumed by the game, dancing to A Geisha’s Dream and then Disco Inferno, they didn’t even notice the rest of their friends had arrived.
Later in the evening, his friend Rachel asked him to play a round with her. Patrick smiled politely and agreed. He let Rachel choose the song and chuckled when she picked Everytime We Touch .
“What?” she asked curiously.
“Nothing,” Patrick assured quickly. “I, um…I love this song.”
“Same.”
They smiled at each other until the first few beats of the song blared through the speakers.
Patrick danced and sang along almost as loudly as Rachel beside him. He didn’t notice, but Rachel kept sneaking glances at him, each time forfeiting a few points. It was no surprise to Rachel that Patrick won, but that didn’t matter to her. She had a different goal in sight.
🎄🎄🎄
“DDR?” Stevie teased, not unlike Tyler in the clip.
“I don’t hand out shooting games to children, Stevie. Absolutely not. No.”
“He looked at least fifteen–”
“Nope. Not gonna happen.”
“I’ll give you fifty bucks to play that game,” Stevie wagered, now desperate to see David make a fool of himself on one of those plastic mats.
David plastered a fake grin on his face. “Didn’t make any this year, unfortunately, so can’t. Sorry.”
“I could make one…” Stevie mumbled. She pressed the button to move on to the following letter with a little more force than was strictly necessary.
🎄🎄🎄
Looking at the case, Patrick didn’t have to use much imagination to guess what was inside. When he unhooked the latches and raised the lid, his breath caught at the sight of the polished acoustic guitar before him.
His fingers gently slid across the taut strings before his hand clutched the neck to lift the guitar onto his lap. He strummed each string, letting the notes ring, soft but pure.
After the drone of the last note ended, the room suddenly felt too quiet.
Patrick looked up to find his father perched next to his record player, his finger holding the needle above the spinning disc. His mother sat on the ottoman with her elbows resting on her knees as she watched Patrick with glistening eyes.
“This is,” Patrick’s voice cracked, so he coughed to start again. “This is really special, guys. Thank you–”
“This is from Sant–”
“Sure. Um, thanks.”
Patrick played guitar every night after he first opened that case. His fingers were entirely calloused over, and his fingernails were a bit too short, but few things brought him peace like the strings did, moving under his hands.
He played for himself, mostly. His parents listened through his door whenever they could get away with it, but he hadn’t offered to play for them.
By the time the spring talent show came around, Tyler didn’t have to beg Patrick to play a song with him. Patrick wanted to.
He was ready to share.
Tyler started piano lessons when they were ten. He thought it was lame at first, but now that Patrick played an instrument, he knew they had to team up for “the performance of the year, Patrick!”
Patrick didn’t argue. Not even when Tyler decided they would play Yellow by Coldplay. Tyler said it was deep and would resonate with people–pure gold to secure first place at the high school talent show.
And he was right, surprisingly.
Their win may have had more to do with Patrick’s buttery voice and his ability to lose himself in the song as his voice reverberated off the auditorium walls. Tyler played decently, only missing two notes, but Patrick stole the show.
All of their friends crowded around them at the reception in the cafeteria afterward. Patrick accepted high-fives from people he didn’t even know. When Rachel approached him, he raised his hand, ready for another one, but she stood on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek instead. Her friends giggled behind her.
“Congratulations, Patrick,” Rachel whispered in his ear.
His entire body stilled, and he momentarily forgot how to breathe.
She pulled away and grinned at him before rejoining her circle of friends, leaving Patrick with a strange feeling in his stomach. He wasn’t sure if it was a good feeling or not.
Tyler wrapped his arm around Patrick’s shoulder and held their trophy in front of their chests.
“Smile,” Tyler said as his mother snapped a photo of them.
The oxygen returned to Patrick’s lungs all at once.
🎄🎄🎄
David clapped his hands slowly in front of him.
“Very nice, Stevie. An acoustic version of Yellow was just what I needed right now,” David supplied sarcastically.
“What do you have against Coldplay?”
“Oh my God.” David pinched the bridge of his nose to center himself. “Stevie, what the fuck is going on?”
“Oh, did you have something else you needed to be doing right now?” Stevie deadpanned.
His jaw fell open before quickly snapping shut to let out a low growl.
Her eyes lit with unabated glee at successfully riling David up.
He swore she was a spin instructor in a former life. It was the only explanation for her pure evilness at times.
David regarded her, unblinking.
Something Stevie saw in his expression must have caused her to reevaluate the situation. Her mouth grew small, and her eyes filled with sympathy–or something close to that. David wasn’t entirely sure Stevie could feel sympathy.
“Look. There are only a few more.”
“A few more! He’s got to be, what? Sixteen! You’re telling me he wrote to me in…his twenties?”
Stevie nodded her head.
He sighed, “okay.”
The remaining few letters were montaged together, but David could tell they spanned a few years.
First, they watched Patrick as he got ready for the Winter Ball. David chuckled as Patrick struggled to tie his bowtie and smiled when Mrs. Brewer helped adjust the tie into its proper place.
The sound of upbeat pop music pulled David’s focus back to Patrick.
Patrick now stood enveloped in Rachel’s arms, bouncing somewhat uncomfortably to the music that filled the gymnasium.
“They’re kind of cute.” Did he say that out loud?
“What?” Stevie mocked.
Shit. He did.
“They’ve got that whole boy-next-door, girl-next-door vibe going on. You know?”
Stevie hesitated, “...no.”
“Mmmkay.”
The song changed to something slower, and the distance between Patrick and Rachel’s bodies grew smaller. Had this been a dance in David’s day, someone probably would have had something to say about that.
Rachel used her arms, clasped tightly around Patrick’s neck, to pull him down, close enough for their lips to meet in a tentative kiss. Patrick stepped back after a few moments to see Rachel’s face lit up brighter than the fake stars that lined the gym walls.
She beamed at him. Patrick smiled in return, but there was something off about it. David could tell.
“Okay. That’s…I didn’t have anything to do with that,” David assured Stevie.
“Anything to do with that?” Stevie parroted.
“It’s coming back to me now. He actually asked for a car that year which I…also did not supply, so…”
“Ahh.”
The gymnasium dissolved, and the entire screen went black. David thought that might be the end, but then Patrick’s bedroom expanded across the screen.
Patrick stood motionless, holding a thick envelope in his hands with the emblem of his dream school stamped in black ink across the seal.
David almost felt as if he were standing in the room with him. He had an urge to place his hand on Patrick’s shoulder and tell him everything would be okay.
David Rose was many things, but he was not a liar.
If Stevie thought he needed to read Patrick’s letters, he had a gnawing suspicion that Patrick’s All-American–Canadian?–boyhood was about to sour.
Patrick carefully opened the envelope. His eyes scanned over the word “Congratulations,” but he remained still.
David half expected him to leap onto his bed and start jumping up and down, but Patrick oddly looked crushed.
“Why–”
David didn’t even get a chance to finish his question.
The scene changed again. This time, Patrick reached over to pick up a name tag from a table staffed with two lively resident advisors. When he stepped out of line to grant the following student access, his new school’s logo was visible on the wrinkled tablecloth - a logo that was noticeably different from the one on the envelope he held in his room.
As if summoned, Rachel appeared next to him in the dorm lobby with a matching name tag.
Patrick opened his arms, and she stepped into them with ease. He pressed a quick kiss to her temple before leaning his cheek into the side of her head. He let out a deep breath and squeezed her a smidge tighter to his chest, unconsciously taking in his new surroundings behind her.
Unlike the previous letters, the next one showed Patrick in the process of writing while seated at his spotless desk.
David watched the words appear as Patrick’s hand moved across the page.
I want a good, stable job.
He didn’t have anything to do with it, but David somehow knew Patrick got exactly what he asked for.
And nothing more.
“He does look good in a blue button-up,” David joked, but it was half-hearted.
Stevie’s returned silence made him fearful of what came next.
It took David a moment to realize where Patrick was in the new scene. The lighting in the room cast an unnatural green glow on Patrick’s already pale face but did nothing to mute the dark circles under his eyes.
“Patrick,” a weak voice spoke from the other side of the small room. Patrick rose from the uncomfortable armchair and willed his legs to carry him toward the strained voice.
He was a few years older than he was in the last memory, but David instantly recognized him.
Tyler lifted his arm off the hospital bed to summon Patrick over to his side.
Patrick grabbed Tyler’s bony fingers and held onto them with both hands as he sat on the edge of the bed and gazed upon one of his favorite people. Tyler’s hand was ice cold.
“You doing okay, man?” Patrick asked.
“No.”
Patrick let out a sharp laugh. Tyler was always brutally honest. A cancer diagnosis surely wouldn’t change that.
They stared at each other for a few quiet moments. A silent conversation, only brothers could manage, passed between them.
“It’s okay.” Patrick finally spoke.
Tyler let out a shaky breath. “I know.”
Patrick lowered Tyler’s hand to the bed and looked out the window when his eyes started to water. He cried more in the last few months than he had in his entire life. Tyler told him to “quit crying like a little bitch,” on more than one occasion, so he didn’t want to get caught in the act. Again.
“Hey,” Tyler urged Patrick to look at him.
Patrick turned his head to find that Tyler’s eyes were also wet with unshed tears.
“I love you, man.”
David sniffled loudly, just as Patrick did the same on the screen.
Patrick playfully punched Tyler’s shoulder to elicit an annoyed groan from his friend.
“I love you, too.”
Patrick struggled to say those words for years now, not knowing what they truly meant.
Speaking those words to Tyler, though, was as simple as breathing.
Inconspicuous, yet vital.
When Tyler passed, Patrick continued to live, but he wasn’t alive.
Patrick promised to play a song at Tyler’s funeral, but when the time came, Patrick trudged up to the church empty-handed, his guitar left behind in the trunk of his car.
Seated in the first row of the church, Patrick didn’t even register Rachel’s hand as it rubbed soothing circles across his back. He stared at the poster hanging directly ahead of him unable to make out any words.
Tyler was the most competitive person Patrick had ever known, but that didn’t mean anything in the end.
He lost. And so had Patrick.
🎄🎄🎄
David surreptitiously wiped his eye with his knuckle. He thought he did, at least. Stevie’s scoff suggested otherwise.
"I'm not God, Stevie! I couldn't have fixed that."
“David, I didn’t - that’s not–”
“It’s fine. Let’s just keep going.” David crossed his arms in front of his chest as a chill prickled through his body. He made a mental note to ask the Mechanical Elves to check the heating units.
“Okay,” Stevie complied.
A letter addressed on November 30th, 2015 settled in the middle of the dashboard.
David read the letter once.
Then he read it a second time. He waited, but nothing else happened.
"Wait. That's it?" David asked.
"We’ve been at this for the better part of an hour now."
"But where's the video - what happened to him?” David’s voice pitched.
Stevie shrugged her shoulders a little too casually. "Don't know. This is the first letter he’s written since Tyler…"
"Yeah." An uncomfortable silence settled between them. "So..."
"You have to help him,” Stevie pleaded.
"What? Are you insane!"
Sure, David could do a little magic here and there, but he wasn’t a miracle worker. How the hell was he supposed to give Patrick what he asked for in his letter?
"Look, David. We ran the numbers. This is pretty much the only way you can boost your rating."
"And by this, you mean what, exactly?"
Stevie nodded her head once more to the letter before meeting his eyes. She looked as sincere as David had ever seen her.
It scared him shitless.
"Give him a happy life."
He blinked once. Twice.
A raucous laugh escaped from what David considered to be the ugliest part of himself – his gut.
He laid off the cookies during the off season. He looked fine. But, in recent (and not so recent) memory, it was when David listened to his gut that he ended up woefully off-course, questioning his worth and role as one of the World's protectors.
"Good one, Stevie,” he laughed airily, but it sounded forced even to his ears. “This performance was Tony worthy, truly. Give him a happy life..." David shook his head.
Stevie’s eyes softened the way they did when David doubted his abilities. At times, he questioned if his Head Elf could read his mind.
That would explain a lot of things.
"Stevie. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?" He asked genuinely.
"I don't know."
"I don't even know what he's been up to for the last five years. An espresso machine, a Thom Browne suit, even a car would have been easier to manage."
"We better go if we want to get there before sunrise," Stevie hedged.
"Dare I ask where we are going?"
A grin curled from the center of her lips in Grinch fashion. That expression never meant anything even remotely good where David was concerned.
"Schitt's Creek."