The Christmas Number Two

By Terry McMahon (Above)

‘ But… what if it’s a number two?’ I queried, determined to prevent my stammer getting in the way of the most important question I had ever asked. My mother and father were putting my brother, sister, and me to bed while explaining the necessity of Christmas Eve bladder control. My mother reasoned that I should perhaps focus more on simply not wetting the bed with a number one than worrying about that other bodily function, number two.

Santa, you see, didn’t look too kindly on children who couldn’t wait to get to the bathroom, children who, instead, did the deadly deed under the warmth of their bed covers. My slightly older sister was generous and comforting and warm, inspiring the kind of confidence in my bowels that could make a child sleep in security. But my brother? Evil personified. All that had to do was glance at me and the fear puckered the nether regions. ‘No, but seriously, what if it’s not a number one?’ I persisted, ‘What if it really is a number two?’ My mother paused, and gently stated the disturbing fact that, “Santa leaves you a bag of coal.”

Christmas in our house was the most exquisite time of year. Every dodgy and dubious event of the previous 11 months was wiped away and replaced by the greatest gifts man or boy could yearn for. In the darkness, lit only by the hand-held torch in my father’s fingers, we’d silently slip down the stairs, fearing to breathe in case Santa might still be here. My father would slowly open the sitting-room door to reveal our own private toy store under the Christmas tree.

We were allowed to request three gifts from Santa but every year there would be multiple surprises to accompany those three choices, and the surprises often outdid the original requests.

We lived in Dalton Park in Mullingar, and a magnificent place it was to live in too, with Christmas morning spilling out on the streets, kids cycling new bikes, shooting bows and arrows and trading Santa stories. This year, however, was going to be strange.

This year there was going to be a different kind of surprise, a surprise not deposited by Santa under the tree. This was going to be a surprise that was the result of indulgent overeating, youthful anxiety, and the merest hint of diarrhoea. And, rather than lying under the Christmas tree, this particular surprise had been deposited by me into the darkest crevices of my Action Man underwear.

It was my brother who woke me. The early morning scent in the small shared room made it difficult for him to sleep, difficult for him to breathe, so he did what any loving brother would do, he pulled back the bed covers and hysterically laughed at my personal misery. This was to be my Christmas now, a bag of coal from Santa and a lifetime of ridicule from my brother.

I begged my brother to say nothing so he did what any loving brother would do, he made a deal. I’d give him half of all monies received from relatives this year plus take regular beatings, without retaliation, at his whim, for a month. I wanted to scream out at the injustice, rail against the gods for giving me such weak and spontaneous bowels, and smash his brotherly face in, but, instead, I agreed.

So there we are, the whole family, on the top step of the creaking stairs, me at the back, peering at that downstairs doorway of delight, watching the round moon of light flickering from my father’s brandished torch. Nobody knew anything about the concealed timebomb in my underwear and I was about to get away with it. Through sheer force of will and blind delusion, I had convinced myself that my tiny problem had ceased to exist and we were poised for the greatest Christmas ever.

Midway down the stairs my father stopped in sudden surprised silence, and quietly asked, with a tenderness and kindness that was almost moving, ‘Did someone fart?’ I had presumed that my being last in the queue had secured my tenable position but I hadn’t considered that the upstairs window was open, allowing air to slip through, with my family all downwind of me; me and my cotton-covered catastrophe.

“Fart?” Everybody denied it, none more vociferously than I. To my overwhelming relief my father continued on down the stairs. But he breathed again, and he got it again, that peculiar scent you only get from the most overindulged bowels, and it took all of two steps for him to stop again, him and his wolfhound nose, ‘Someone definitely farted.’ Then my father followed that up with the two worst words in the English language, ‘…or worse.’

Under such relentless pressure my brother did what any loving brother would do and ratted me out, “Terry did a huge number two in his knickers!” My stammer returned in spades and, as I tried to articulate my defecated devastation, all my parents could make out, through the snot-punctuated sobs, was the terrified phrase, ‘… bag of coal.’

As they calmed me down, then hosed me down, I realised how naive I had been to believe I could scam Santa, how arrogant it had been of me to think I could pull such a stunt on the coolest fat man there ever was, and I reconciled myself to the reality that a bag of coal was indeed what it was going to be this year. My folks brought me into the sitting-room, and, of course, instead of the bag of coal, there was the most stunning array of gifts.

As I jumped out of their arms and ploughed into that mountain of gifts, it may be true that nobody wanted to stand too close to me, but I didn’t care, Santa had come through for me and the world was a beautiful place again. And I never did do the number two under the covers again. Until I was 32. But that’s a food poisoning story that, trust me, nobody needs to hear on this festive occasion. Or any other occasion.

A sublime Christmas to one and all.

Mullingar native Terry McMahon is an award winning film maker and writer.