Night Off
1 2
The fat man turned to his wife and hocked up a gob of phlegm.
“No ho ho,” he said.
“You’re staying home tonight,” said the fat man’s wife. “I’m not letting you go out like this. Face it, you’re sick.”
The fat man groaned. When he coughed, his belly shook like a bowlful of jelly.
“We’re going to have to find someone to fill in for you,” she said.
“Whoa ho ho,” said the fat man, waving his fat hands in the air.
“Yes,” she said, “and it’ll have to be quick. Midnight’s only two hours away.”
The fat man coughed again and rolled over onto his side. He wheezed and his lungs rattled. A few thousand years of being overweight had caused innumerable cardiac and respiratory problems, but the job demanded it.
“Who can you think of to cover you?”
The fat man pondered for a moment, then said, “Lo ho ho?”
His wife frowned. “Now surely you can think harder than that. You know Loki would just cause a mess, and probably light some children on fire. Who else?”
“Pro ho ho?”
“No, Prometheus is on holiday, touring the Greek isles. Next.”
The fat man’s eyes abruptly lit up, and as he smiled, his wife could see the remains of a bag of Cheetos in his teeth and beard.
“Bo ho ho,” he said.
The fat man’s wife straightened up and adjusted her spectacles. “Do you think he’d do it?”
The fat man nodded enthusiastically. “Go ho ho.”
His wife rushed from the room and into the voluminous kitchen. She picked up the telephone and made several complicated signs in the air. The connection rang seven hundred thirty-seven times before a tingly feeling traveled from her ear to her toes. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, completely serene.
“YES?” boomed a voice from the other end, so low that the floor vibrated under her feet.
When she was able to regain her breath, she said, “Nick needs a favor.”
Little Richie Spencer waited in his bed with his eyes closed, listening intently for the sounds of sleigh bells and reindeer on his roof. He had been lying there for three hours already, and was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake. He sang camp songs loudly in his head, had imaginary arguments with his big brother, replayed his last Little League game. Luckily before he drifted off, his ears popped from a soft implosion of air near the foot of his bed, and he opened his eyes.
