The Loneliest Santa

Santas, elves and reindeers packed out the bar at Phebe’s on 2nd Avenue. 

Most Santas were bastards - sexy Santas or tuxedo Santas or even lazy-man Santas, wearing sweaters with screen-printed Christmas icons: Santa golfing and Santa pooping and Santa laying naked by a fire on a polar bear skin rug, a sparkling wrapped gift covering his manhood. 

Gerald Fourier, 25 years old and fair-skinned, felt himself squeezed against a wooden booth as the crowd gave way for a trio of bottle-blonde Santas in short skirts.  

“This is lame, I’m leaving,” Gerald shouted at Joe. 

Joe looked over at Gerald, swirled his beer steiner, and leaned into a short dirty-blonde elf, “My roommate’s lost his Christmas spirit, it’s very tragic. Can you believe he wanted to skip SantaCon? I work in finance, by the way…”

Gerald adjusted his white polyester beard and reached for the booth table, grabbing his Columbia jacket amongst the pile of Moncler puffers and Canada Goose parkas. 

As he stepped past the hulking doorman with neck tattoos, an old-school rap song boomed from the stereo. The lyrics made him stop:

It was December 24th on Hollis Ave after dark, 

When I seen a man chilling with his dog in the park….

“Keep it moving, buddy,” said the doorman, sweeping his hand along Gerald’s back. 

An icy wind whipped Gerald's face as he stepped onto 2nd Avenue; a snow squall had started up. Across the East Village, Santas and elves and reindeers were laughing, falling over one another and helping each other from bar to bar. Red and green Christmas lights glowed from penthouse apartment balconies.  

A spirit of white powder pushed Gerald until he was at the corner of 1st Street and Bowery, between a bodega and a Sweetgreen. 

A tall, raven-haired man with sharp eyebrows exited the Sweetgreen, pulling his equally striking girlfriend close to his chest as he leaned into the wind. 

“Move it, Santa,” said the man, sounding bored. 

Gerald sidestepped. He looked up into the awning, where a cluster of icicles hung like treacherous fruit. One stretched down to the sidewalk like a thick, gnarly finger, wanting to graze humanity with its numbing touch. 

Gerald’s eyes watered, and he wiped a tear; he thought it might be because of the wind. The more he stared at the icicle, the more tears he wiped. He thought about going home, taking off his Santa costume and going to sleep. Maybe even going to workout; but sleep sounded so nice. 

He took off one of his mittens to rub his eyes, then squinted through the snow. A young woman in a thin black overcoat was seated on a bus bench at the end of the street. From her robust profile he could make out a delicate nose, porcelain skin and long, dark eyelashes. 

She held a book in her lap; the snow seemed to fall lighter around her, as if she were in her own private globe. 

Slowly, she raised her head, gazed into the winter sky, then turned and looked at Gerald. She smiled. 

Gerald shifted his beard and walked to the bus stand. 

“A little cold to be reading outside, huh?” said Gerald. 

The woman looked up from her book; she was beautiful, more beautiful than any girl Gerald had talked to in New York. Her eyes were thin almonds, vaguely oriental, and her hair fell in great dark cascades to her shoulders. 

“I’m having a great time out here,” said the woman. “You look like you got lost from your Santa pack, though.”

She folded the book, her thumb resting just below the title - ‘Poems of New York.’

“Ah, I just needed a break,” said Gerald. He sniffed and pointed to her book. “Reading poetry?”

“I’m re-reading it. Poetry’s the heartbeat of this city,” she said. 

A few yards away, a man in a red sparkly tuxedo with white lapels kicked a metal trash can, cursed, and then fell into the street. He lay on his back and gasped while his friend in an elf onesie laughed hysterically and tried to help him up. Both men flailed and guffawed and pushed each other while a taxi honked.

“This city has a lot of heartbeats,” said Gerald, smirking. 

“Don’t you like poetry?”

“Sure. I mean everyone does, right? We’re all supposed to understand it after sophomore year English class or whatever,” He rolled his mittened hand in the air. 

“The way you read poetry reveals the state of your soul,” said the woman, tapping the book with her index finger. Her fingernails were painted black. 

Gerald laughed, “Jeezus, how are you not wearing gloves?”

“I don’t need gloves. And you don’t need that Santa costume,” said the woman. 

Gerald squinted; he thought she looked familiar, like from his dreams. Or just his fantasies.

She suddenly flipped open her book, rifling through pages until she was about a quarter-way through. 

“Allen Ginsberg, June 7th, 1980. Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof out my window across the street…”

Gerald tisked, “Ginsberg, wasn’t that guy a pedophile?’

The woman lay both hands on the pages and blinked at Gerald. 

“You couldn't just listen?”

“I’m sorry, I'm really not a poetry guy,” said Gerald, laughing. “But look - it’s gotta be the coldest day all winter. How about you warm up, join me at this next SantaCon bar? You’re dressed in all black, we can say you’re Krampus.”

Before she could answer, an aggressive wind forced Gerald to hunch his shoulders and grab at his Santa cap. His synthetic beard blew up his cheek; he turned away and pulled off the beard. 

When he turned back to the woman, she was standing and holding her book to her chest, her straight black hair unmoved by the wind. 

“Just drop that thing,” she said, pointing to the white fluff in his hand. 

Obligingly, Gerald dropped the beard. He felt relieved. 

“I’m Gerald, by the way,” said Gerald. 

“Annie,” said the woman. “I’ll walk with you, but I’m not going in any bar. Bring your drinks outside if you want to read poetry with me.”

As they walked downtown, Gerald found himself talking - without even thinking - about his childhood; his high school years; how he had met his roommate Joe, pledging a fraternity freshman year of college. 

“Why do you hang out with Joe if he’s such a jerk?” asked Annie. 

“He’s not a jerk, he’s right about me. I don’t have my shit together,” said Gerald. 

“What do you have to do to get your shit together?” asked Annie.

“Oh, figure out my career I guess. I fucked up in college, this sales gig was the only thing I could get in New York – all my friends were moving here, though, so I kinda had to,” said Gerald. 

They were standing at the corner of Chrystie and Rivington. Gerald motioned to a hanging neon sign in front of Loreley Beer Garden. 

“Check it out, no line,” Gerald said. “Let’s grab a seat inside.”

Annie shook her head, “Go get your beer. I’ll be here.”

Gerald went to the doorman and presented his ID; he turned around and looked at Annie, who was standing with her arms folded over her book. 

Strange girl, Gerald thought to himself. 

At the bar, Gerald ordered a tallboy can of Schlitz, paid, then went back outside. As Gerald approached, Annie began to read aloud. 

“Just once before I die, I want to climb up on a tenement sky, to dream my lungs out till I cry, then scatter my ashes through the Lower East Side….”

She continued reading; Gerald watched her, his index finger pressed on top of his beer can. When she finished, he popped the tab and took a long sip.

“I don’t get it,” said Gerald.

“It’s about this area,” said Annie, waving around Allen Street. 

“Yeah, but I don’t get it, like what’s he doing writing about - faggots and freaks or whatever - 

“The point is they’re people, not freaks, come together in one place…” she grabbed his mittened hand, “Let’s keep walking.”

She led him west, explaining the lives of the New York City poets - how they were all lost, lonely, mostly fucked up individuals who couldn’t fit into regular society. And how it was their very brokenness that made them great. 

Jonas steadily slipped his Schlitz can, watching her pretty profile and sometimes looking up the sidewalk to avoid whatever gaggle of SantaConners were coming their way. 

His phone buzzed at the corner of MacDougal and Bleecker; he read the message from Joe and trilled his lips:

‘Yoo Parkside Lounge is a movie you could bag at least a 7 here <christmas tree emoji>’

“Who’s texting you?” Annie asked. 

Gerald pocketed his phone, “Joe wants me to come back to the Lower East Side.”

Annie frowned, “You should stop doing whatever your friends tell you. We’re walking the path of poets.”

She flipped open her poetry book and stopped in the middle with her pinky finger. 

“Way down in Greenwich Village / there’s something, ‘twould appear / demoralizing in the atmosphere….”

By the time she finished the poem, Gerald was at the bottom of his Schlitz’s. He tossed the can on the ground, clapped with his mittened hands, then pointed to a black bar-front with ‘Wicked Willy’s’ emblazoned on the awning. 

“You wanna come in this one?” he asked. 

Annie shook her head, closing the poetry book and holding it to her waist. 

‘You’re really going to make me drink alone?’ laughed Gerald.

“I’m not making you do anything,” she said. 

“Quit playing mind games,” he said, wiggling his index finger at her. He chuckled and turned to go into Wicked Willy’s. 

The bar was full of grizzled barflys, barely paying attention to the SantaCon revelers shouting for drinks and crowding tables. Gerald scooted in line behind two tall white guys - facsimiles of he and Joe - and plotted his next move with Annie. 

She seemed interested, though he wasn’t sure why. Sometimes Gerald hardly felt interested in himself. 

As he picked up his double whiskey ginger from the bar, he resolved to bring her home with him to Murray Hill. 

The wide, bearded doorman halted Gerald as he tried to leave with the drink. 

“No open containers, Santa,” said the doorman. 

Gerald shrugged, tilted back the drink and chugged. He tossed the plastic cup behind him onto Wicked Willy’s grotty floor as he walked out. 

Gerald clapped as he approached Annie, “Wooo, Santa’s gettin’ merry this year, huh?” He laughed. 

Annie pointed up the block, “Did you know police have cleared the homeless completely out of Washington Square Park? It’s such a tragedy.”

Gerald scratched his neck, “Homeless in New York City are wild. You got a lot of homeless people where you’re from?”

Annie shook her head, “It’s too cold where I’m from. Even people with homes don’t want to live there.”

“Huh,” said Gerald. He cracked his neck and grabbed her elbow. 

“C’mon, we could be the first ones at the Chelsea bars if we take the subway…”

Annie shifted her elbow out of Gerald’s hand, “I can’t take the subway.”

“You can’t take the subway? What, you think it smells, or it’s dangerous….”

“I just can’t,” said Annie. 

“You got some kinda witch-y energy. Or you’re a saint,” said Gerald, grinning. Annie didn’t laugh. 

They continued to walk northwest; as they neared the border of Chelsea and West Village, Gerald pointed towards a bar with a white picket fence out front, enclosing a small wooden shed glowing with heat lamps. 

“Here we go, Grace’s. A good ol’ Irish pub. Let me get you a hot chocolate….”

“I’m good,” said Annie. 

Gerald reached to touch her shoulder, but she shifted away. 

Gerald erected himself, “Wait here, find a poem about Chelsea or something. I’m getting you a hot drink.”

“Nothing hot!” she exclaimed, as Gerald peeled away and went into Grace’s. 

A quartet of girls in matching elf onesies sipped hot toddies at a back table in Grace’s. Gerald ordered a shot of Jameson’s whiskey, chugged, and then placed an order for a cup of spiked hot chocolate, which came served in a styrofoam coffee cup. 

When he left Grace’s, Annie was standing at the corner of 14th and 8th, looking up and down from the street to her book. 

Gerald saddled next to her and nudged her with his elbow. 

“Pst, I got you a spiked hot chocolate. I’m lactose intolerant so I told them to hold the whipped cream. In case you need help finishing…”

Annie hummed, “Edgar Lee Masters wrote a wonderful poem about the Chelsea hotel, I can find it….”

She bumped the cup from below; a dab of thick chocolate splashed out, landing on her inside wrist. 

She screamed, loud enough to pierce Gerald’s eardrums.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” said Gerald. “Here, I have a napkin…”

“No!” shouted Annie. She bent her head to her chest and cradled her hand as if holding an injured animal. 

Six roaming Santas idled by the sidewalk; one gave Gerald a pugnacious grin. 

Gerald flushed with embarrassment. 

“Look, that was stupid of me. It wasn’t that hot though, was it?” he asked. 

She breathed in and out, slowly standing up straight and sticking her injured hand in her coat.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, her voice placid.

Gerald glanced at her arm, shoved into her overcoat.

“I can get you band-aids from that CVS right there…” he started.

“No, I wanna go to Central Park.”

Gerald swayed and looked to the west; the Sun was starting to set over the High Line. 

“I probably want to change out of this Santa costume, first. How about you come back to my place…”

“You don’t need to change,” said Annie. 

She pivoted and began to march north; Gerald protested after her. 

“Hey, not to be a jerk, but it’s fucking cold out, I need a real jacket.”

“You have Santa’s jacket,” she said, not turning around.

He followed her to 34th Street, where the sidewalks were lined with grease-smudged, amputated men and wailing, pregnant women. 

“Annie - the sun’s setting,” said Gerald, puffing a few steps behind her. 

She turned towards him; he was surprised to see she was smiling. 

“I'm taking you to my favorite place in the whole city. It’s where I write, where I meditate - pretty much where I live,” she said. 

“Where you live,” repeated Gerald. A man with an open peacoat and no undershirt hacked and babbled to his left. 

“It’s worth it, trust me,” said Annie. 

“Can we at least take the Subway,” said Gerald. Annie turned and kept walking. 

They reached the corner of 59th and 8th Avenue at 5 p.m.; a Christmas market at the entrance to Central Park bustled with shoppers. Gerald inhaled the rich smell of butter, sugar and cinnamon, and looked longingly at a stroopwafel stand. 

“Annie - I’m going to stop and get a bite - Annie -” he called after Annie, who was just a few yards ahead of him. 

He waffled for a few moments about getting a waffle, before cursing and hustling to catch up to Annie. 

Annie strode across the asphalt bike path. A rocketing cyclist barely missed hitting her. Ice crunched beneath Gerald’s feet as he followed Annie into the grass. 

Soon they were walking in darkness, and Gerald couldn’t hear anybody else in the park. The tip of his nose was cracked and wind-burnt, and his fingertips were numb inside his Santa mittens. 

“I think Central Park closes at sundown,” he called.

“We’re almost there,” said Annie. 

They came to the Bow Bridge - a white cast iron bridge overlooking the Central Park lake. She circled the grass for a moment, like a cat, and then sat facing the frozen lake. 

As she exhaled, a mist of condensed air grew from her mouth. 

Gerald sat next to her, wincing as he felt his knees crack and the grass crunch beneath him. 

“Are you going to read another poem,” he asked, watching his breath come out and evaporate in the cold. 

“How about you read me one,” she said.

Gerald was silent for a moment. 

“I used to write poetry,” he said finally. “I mean, it was like - spoken word, over a beat, kind of like rap - it was rap. I used to rap.”

A sliver of moonlight poked through the Central Park trees. Annie’s black hair had fallen over her face. 

“Rap for me,” she said. 

Gerald began to recite the first thing that came to mind, barely thinking:

I tip-toe through the city / ‘cuz these streets are cold.

And I wanna chase dreams, but I’m getting too old / 

Cuz I’m a sick spitter, so I’m lighting up a spliff / 

Maybe one day God will let me use my gift.

He stopped, nodding to a beat only he could hear, then shrugged. 

“I wrote that my first year in the city. I was lonely, still getting used to the real world. Kinda still am,” He shook his head and looked away. 

Annie breathed out, “So you are a poet. I knew it.”

After a moment of silence, Gerald looked back at her.

“It wasn’t that bad was it?”

“Kiss me, Gerald,” said Annie. 

Gerald leaned forward and pulled her towards him, brushing her hair from her face. 

“The fuck -” started Gerald. 

Pus-oozing sores riddled Annie’s pale skin, and her pupils had dilated completely into blackness. She grinned, revealing row upon row of sharp incisors, stretching to the back of her throat. 

She embraced Gerald round his neck and pulled him close; he strained as her lips grazed his. She pried his mouth open and breathed into him, a bright white smoke filled with ice crystals.  

He felt intense cold, cold like he had never experienced, as if every muscle fiber were being cased in ice. 

Then, he felt nothing.