Peter Hempel moved to Princeton in seventh grade and went to Princeton High School and Princeton University. He earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Texas at Austin. Since then he has written direct mail for a variety of liberal causes and political candidates. He also worked for many years in market research, and has visited 45 countries around the world listening to people talk about their lives. Now he is back in Princeton, writing and viewing the world through the lens of a staunch Timothy Leary conservative.
It was 11 a.m. when Rudolph finally came into the kitchen at the North Pole Retired Reindeer Home. As usual, the place was a mess. Dirty dishes left in the sink, empty bottles scattered pretty much everywhere. He reached down to pick up the newspaper from the floor where one of the other residents had dropped it. It was a clumsy process with his mechanical hands. The elves had made the hands for him as a gift, on their own time. They still remembered him and tried to help him and some of the other old-timer reindeer out.
They weren’t the most professional prosthetic hands — they only had three fingers, or rather one thumb and two fingers — but they let him do a lot of basic things. Most importantly, they were good enough to let him hold on to a glass or a bottle.
He tried to smooth the paper out on the table so he could read it. Despite his famous nose, he had never been the brightest bulb in class and reading was still a challenge. And these days it was getting harder and harder to concentrate and stay focused. It was easier to just drink.
And frankly, the North Pole Retired Reindeer Home was a dump. It wasn’t at the North Pole anyway, it was in a run-down section of northern Minneapolis.
It had been better when he first came to Minneapolis. The new management at the North Pole had given all the reindeer very fine retirement dinner, and thanked them all for their many years of dedicated service. And when he got to Minneapolis, the Retired Reindeer Home he arrived at was in a very nice gothic-looking building that had originally been built by a local church to provide a comfortable home for its elderly parishioners. It had had lush green lawns and adjoining woods, and he and the other reindeer would spend their days hanging out, enjoying each other’s company, and reminiscing about the old days.
But that was then. Now a lot of things had changed.
It all started when Santa died.
Actually, thinking back, there were signs before that. Santa had always been overweight of course — that was part of the package. Plus-size and jolly.
Age had never really appeared to make much of a difference for Santa. He seemed eternal. Rumor had it that he was actually hundreds of years old, and everyone pretty much expected him to live forever. Even the elves and the reindeer never seemed to age. Rudolph wasn’t sure how old he was, but he was sure he had been around a lot longer than the 15 years or so he would normally have been expected to live in the regular world.
But somehow during that past year Santa had started becoming noticeably heavier. He had always been brisk and energetic in a very jolly sort of way. Now he was slower, and seemed to stay sitting a lot more. The Christmas deadline was still there, same as always, but they all began to wonder if he was going to be able to pull it off.
Mrs. Claus was worried and began to urge Santa to watch his diet for his health’s sake. She even wanted him to go see a cardiologist for a check-up. They had been married for a very long time and were always very loving and affectionate, but now Santa was becoming short-tempered and impatient with her. “That bitch. She’s always nagging at me,” he would tell the elves. And then he would eat more than ever. And drink more too.
It was not only Santa. The elves also seemed to be slowing down. They would take breaks instead of working non-stop, and some would even knock off early. They had always been cheerful and efficient, but now they would complain about the cold and the pain in their joints. Even Rudolph and the other reindeer seemed to be becoming more creaky and sensitive to the cold.
The toys were becoming a problem too. In the old days it was stuffed animals and dolls and wooden toys. Santa tried not to give children clothing — he knew they hated getting clothes instead of real presents. But now they all wanted this electronic crap — tablets and TVs and game stations. Santa’s elves were out of their depth on this stuff and had to bring in hired elves from China and India to help out.
“Damn electronic junk! Damn kids!” Santa had been heard to say after drinking a bit too much eggnog.
It hadn’t been like that in the old days.
Growing up wasn’t always easy for Rudolph. His nose was oversized and the other reindeer at school called him all sorts of names — “snot-nose,” “wart hog,” “clown face,” “freak” — and basically treated him like shit.
Every December, various mathematicians would crunch the numbers and prove that Santa’s around-the-world-in-one-night delivery feat was logistically impossible. They just didn’t get it.
As he got older and moved into adolescence, his nose changed from being big and warty-brown to dull red and then continued to get brighter and brighter.
None of this helped. Being a freak with a bright red nose wasn’t something anyone, including Rudolph, saw as a big improvement.
When he and the other reindeer graduated and moved to Santa’s stables, Santa was much nicer to him than the others had been. But he had no particular reason to see Rudolph as a member of his starting line-up.
Rudolph did get to participate in the regular physical training and workouts, and he was determined to get into as good shape as any of the others. But he knew that none of that would make any difference.
And so it went, year after year. And then …
Yeah, you know the story. One foggy Christmas Eve and all that. Well that’s pretty much it. The elves had to do a rush job to fix up an additional harness for Rudolph at the head of the pack. And you should have heard the bitching from all of the other reindeer.
Still, at the end of the night, they all had to acknowledge that they couldn’t have done it without him. And so they warmed up to him, sort of.
Rudolph knew damn well what a bunch of bastards they all were. He was like the Jew or the black they had to admit to their snooty country club.
But now things were different. Very different. Suddenly Rudolph not only had Santa’s praise, he was also a chick magnet. All the does were mooning over him. Even the cute young female elves used to come out and pet him and flirt with him. Not that anything ever happened on that score, of course, but it felt damn good to be the star for a change.
And so Rudolph began doing what any right-thinking young male reindeer would do. Donner and Blitzen and Comet and all the rest, they had thought they were the rock stars. Now it was Rudolph who was banging every female reindeer in sight.
After that, Rudolph led the way every Christmas. He was the star. And he thought it could go on forever…
Anyway, it was Rudolph’s fifth Christmas when it happened. Maybe his sixth — it was hard to keep track of the years up there.
Every December, various mathematicians and physicists and engineers would write columns crunching the numbers and proving definitively that Santa’s around-the-world-in-one-night delivery feat was logically impossible. Santa’s sleigh would burn to a crisp someplace in southern California. Or maybe Shanghai. Or wherever.
They just didn’t get it. It wasn’t logic or science that ruled where Santa was concerned. It just happened. Get over it.
This year, however, things were getting off to a rockier start. It was time to go and the elves were still not finished loading the toys onto the sleigh. And Santa was having a hard time just hoisting himself up into his seat.
The reindeer were getting antsy. Even under the best conditions, they were facing a trip of tens of thousands of miles, mostly at a full gallop, with millions of short stops — an endless cycle of house-to-house wind sprints. And here they were, losing essential time.
Finally the elves managed to help push Santa into place and toss the last bags of toys onto the sleigh. As an extra precaution, one of the elves was added to sit beside Santa and help with the steering. They were ready to take off. There wasn’t much fog to speak of, but they would definitely need Rudolph’s extra help if they were to make it.
They headed out at full speed and were soon flying over homes of sleeping boys and girls. But almost immediately things began to go wrong. At the very first house, a now enormous Santa got stuck in the chimney and the elf had to pull with all his might to help get Santa out. After that, the elf had to take over chimney and delivery duties while Santa tried to sort out which toys went to each house.
It was very unprofessional, and pretty soon all of them, Santa, the elf, and the reindeer felt themselves losing the spirit of Christmas. Which only made things worse, since it was the spirit of Christmas that allowed them to do all this in a single night in the first place.
In the end, they did deliver all the presents to all the right homes. But the final deliveries, rather than being made at midnight or even in the general middle of the night, were squeaked in as dawn began to break and eager children were already beginning to wake up.
They still had a long run back to the North Pole. Along the way, Dasher, who had been breathing heavily for much of the trip, suddenly stopped moving. This threw the team out of balance and the elf was barely able to make a controlled landing in a heavily wooded area in northern Lapland. When the elf got out to see what was up, he found Dasher’s body was already growing cold and stiff. His heart had given out sometime after leaving the last house.
Dasher’s body was much too heavy for Santa and the elf to lift onto the back of the sleigh to bring home. So very sadly and reluctantly they had to leave him there in the snow.
They moved Rudolph into Dasher’s space to balance out the team, and unhooked Rudolph’s lead harness. Then they took off for a final and very somber trip home.
The new management at the North Pole had determined that most of the elves could be replaced by new hires who were younger and worked for a lot less money.
By the time they got back, it was clear that Santa was not well. His normally rosy cheeks had gone pale and he was shivering. They tried to help him inside, but just as he got down from the sleigh, he suddenly clutched his chest and pitched forward into the snow.
The other elves had come out to greet Santa on his return. Now they rushed to help. They dragged him inside and tried CPR for nearly half an hour. It was no use. Santa was dead.
Mrs. Claus was hysterical. “I told him to take care of himself. I warned him over and over, didn’t I? But did he listen to me? Of course not.”
The elves didn’t know what to say to her, or to each other, as they waited for the doctor to arrive.
After that, of course, everything changed. Everyone knew that Santa’s work must go on. But how?
Until now, no one had worried about anything. Money. Organization. Supplies. It all just seemed to happen.
Now … what?
They had never announced Santa’s death to the world. The funeral was small and very private — Mrs. Claus, the elves, and the reindeer. Santa was buried in a snow-covered field behind the workshop. No one was even supposed to know.
A few days later, however, they heard a strange sound in the distance. It was a helicopter. Inside was Carl Svensen, the toy tycoon.
Carl liked to describe himself as a “grown-up kid,” and he had always regarded Santa as the patron saint in his life. He had found out — never mind how — about the situation, and realized it was his destiny to carry on Santa’s work for the generations of children to come.
Carl knew toys — he had toy stores in countries around the world — and he knew how to handle challenges with tight deadlines. He was ready. And he had a trusted team of people to help him with all the planning details.
The very next week, Carl held a meeting with the reindeer from Santa’s team. He appreciated the very loyal service they had given over the years, he explained, but he also knew the toll recent events had taken on them. He was offering them an opportunity to retire, and he was establishing a new North Pole Retired Reindeer Home where they could live rent-free as long as they wanted. He had already found the perfect building on the grounds of a church in Minneapolis. In addition to their pensions, they would receive a generous severance payment that would allow them to enjoy some degree of luxury in their lives.
The reindeer agreed to his proposal, partly because they didn’t seem to have much choice. But also, that last ride and Santa’s death had taken a toll on them. No matter what, things wouldn’t be the same.
It was good at first at the retirement home. It was clean and comfortable and the food was excellent. The staff was always eager to find fun things for them to do. In Rudolph’s case, the social worker suggested he might enjoy the chance to pull a sleigh at children’s parties during the rest of the winter. Rudolph agreed, and they set him up with a whole series of parties and events all over the country. He loved being around the children and they loved meeting the famous Rudolph whom they had all heard about.
It was very nice going to all those parties and being around all those happy children, but when the winter season was over and the snow was all gone, he realized he didn’t have anything else to do. He decided to head back to Minneapolis.
When Rudolph got back, he discovered that the North Pole Retired Reindeer Home had moved. The original building had been very nice of course, but it had also been very expensive. In this economy, there were plenty of lower-cost options available.
The new location was in a former one-story apartment building in a slightly run-down industrial area on the north side of Minneapolis. The building had been in foreclosure, and what with new city regulations requiring owners to maintain their properties at their own expense, the bank was happy to sell it for practically nothing.
The staff from the original Retired Reindeer Home hadn’t been invited to stay on at the new location. Instead services were being handled by a management company, which could be contacted by phone during office hours.
Rudolph was discouraged by what he found. So were the other reindeer. Blitzen and Rudolph had become friends after they had been ushered into retirement — they were all in this together now, regardless of past differences.
Blitzen told Rudolph that some of the elves had stopped by for a visit while he was away. The new management at the North Pole had determined that most of the elves could be let go to be replaced by new hires who were younger and worked for a lot less money. And increasingly, toy production was being outsourced to elf factories in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Bangladesh.
As for the old elves, they too had been offered a retirement home, only theirs would be in Florida. Many of the elves were tired of being cold, and unlike the reindeer, the idea of hot weather sounded fine. They had been rather pleased when the arrangement was first mentioned, but seeing the condition of the Reindeer Home, they were sounding a lot less certain.
“What about Santa?” Rudolph asked.
“Well,” Blitzen said, “it’s actually going to be Santas now. Even the logistics consultant they brought in from some big name firm couldn’t figure out how Santa had been covering the whole world in that time frame.”
“He was Santa, dammit!” Rudolph exclaimed. “Of course they can’t figure it out.”
“Well anyway, it seems like they’re going to split it up — maybe have a dozen or so Santas. But that’s going to cost a lot, even if they go cut-rate. They were talking about maybe having to red-line some areas to make it work.”
“And what about the reindeer? And the flying? You know none of us was able to fly without Santa.”
“Well they’re trying to get some reindeer from Russia on the cheap. I guess they think they’ll figure something out. Me, I think that’s bullshit. We were the only ones.”
The whole thing was just a bummer.
Increasingly, Rudolph found himself thinking about the old days, and about what had happened to some of the other reindeer.
Cupid had decided to come out as transgendered. He figured he could make some money (no, not a quick buck) on the talk show circuit. He was fine in New York, San Francisco, LA, even Austin. But then he decided to appear on some talk shows in the Deep South. The other reindeer had warned him…hell, begged him not to go. Of course he wouldn’t listen. And sure enough, his first day in Alabama he got run down by a couple of rednecks in a bright red pick-up truck with a big confederate flag decal all across the back window. Some people who happened to see it said the guys in the truck were yelling, “Ye haw! Got that queer!”
Cupid was lying there in agony and a local cop had to administer the final coup de grace with his pistol. He thought Cupid was just an ordinary deer. When he was told this had been one of Santa’s reindeer he felt really shook up about it, didn’t want his kids to hear about it at all. Still, he said, “wasn’t much else I coulda done anyhow. I was just doin’ my job.”
Rudolph wasn’t quite sure about that line of reasoning. Is that what the cop would have done to a fellow officer wounded in a shoot out? Officer down. Bang.
But Rudolph knew he couldn’t change any of that. Hell. Most all of the old gang was gone by now.
Prancer had died of AIDS. They had put him on retrovirals, but he kept forgetting to take them. It was some weird form of denial. “What kind of Santa’s reindeer goes around taking retrovirals?” he would say.
Vixen, who had always been one of Rudolph’s favorites, had met some caribou from Canada and the two of them had headed to Maine to stake out some territory. None of it was good. He and Blitzen had lost touch with most of the others.
As the children sang, Rudolph’s eyes began to tear up. He sobbed for Santa, for the elves, for all the reindeer. He sobbed for everything that had been lost.
As the days went on, the two of them spent less time talking and more time drinking. Sometimes Rudolph would pass out before he could make it back to his room.
Summer was long and hot and he spent most of his time indoors with the shades drawn.
In the fall, however, things cooled down, and by the beginning of November they had their first snowfall. The cold weather lifted Rudolph’s spirits, but when he thought about Christmas without Santa, without the elves, without the other reindeer, he grew morose again.
Then one day in mid-December, a group of children came to the Home to sing Christmas carols for the reindeer. The children were very sweet and eager to bring joy. All was going well until they started singing, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” They didn’t know. Rudolph’s nose had long ago lost its glow, and it was no more red than all the other reindeer who drank too much.
As the children sang, Rudolph’s eyes began to tear up, and by the end he was crying very hard but trying to keep it from showing. When they left, however, his crying turned into deep sobbing. He sobbed for Santa, for the elves, for all the reindeer including himself. He sobbed for everything that had been lost.
It was hard to sleep that night. Rudolph’s dreams were one tragedy after another.
During the night it began to snow and by morning the falling snow was so thick you could hardly see across the street.
Rudolph got up early. He couldn’t stand trying to sleep anymore. When he looked out, his heart leaped. He had missed this so much.
Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He had to go home — his real home, at the North Pole. He had never even gone back to visit Santa’s grave. Now it was time.
He knew north. That was easy. It would be a long way, but that didn’t matter. Time didn’t matter anymore.
He felt younger and freer than he had in years. He pulled off the prosthetic hands and left them. He began walking, then galloping, then walking again. After an hour or so, he found himself at the side of a huge highway. It was Interstate 694 on the north edge of Minneapolis.
He looked. How many lanes was it? Six lanes each way? Eight? Ten?
Despite the blinding snow, traffic was heavy. The big trucks didn’t have the option of taking the day off, no matter how bad the weather.
Rudolf watched carefully, trying to judge their speed and see when there might be a gap. He wasn’t used to this and it was confusing to try to figure out. But the North Pole was on the other side, and he had no choice.
Rudolph looked again, both ways. “I’m coming Santa. I’m coming home,” he said softly to himself.
And then he leaped out onto the highway.
Rudolph,
