He Knows When You Are Sleeping

Just a little something I thought of during the Christmas season. Ho ho ho.

“Santa!” came the screams. “Santa, Santa, Santa Santa Santa Santa SANTA!!!”The rumpled old man tucked himself into a ball under the hood of the elaborately decorated sleigh. He hated Christmas. This time of year resounded with shrieks from small children, calling after him in their high-pitched voices, imperiously demanding this and that, dolls and toy trucks and electronics and clothes…the lists went on and on.Whenever he made a public appearance, usually right after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve, he had the whining monsters placed on his lap and rattle off their wish lists, sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes. He remembered a small boy, no older than three or four.“What’s your name, child?” The complacent manner came with the job; if he could have stood, the boy would have tumbled to the floor as he left to get hot chocolate and a muffin next door.

“Jack.”

“What would you like for Christmas, Jack?”

“I want a basketball and a basketball hoop and a swimming pool and a hockey team and a truck I can really drive and a pair of light-up sneakers and a puppy and a…” This litany continued for thirty-seven minutes straight. The boy did not stop for breath nor slow his pace, and stopped only when his face turned blue and his lips swelled so that they looked like two fat slices of pink, raw tuna, contrasting with his blueberry face. His mother had yanked him off the poor old man, still fantasizing about crumbly muffins with dried cranberries hidden in them like prizes, appalled that she could have ever let that man near her child; he had almost suffocated Jack!

Every day for a month he sat up on a pedestal, children flocking to him for a chance to sit on his lap, mothers nearby smiling indulgently. He was courteous, attentive (to a point), and had a special way of calming the children. Most of them, anyway. Some just didn’t want to be calm and threw tantrums in his lap. Once a five-year-old girl had ripped his jacket clean off, exposing the suspenders and flannel undershirt protecting his respectable girth.

The children weren’t always unpredictable, but every other child in line (it seemed!) pulled his beard, tore his hat off and threw it to the far corners of his small edifice, snatched buttons from his jacket, kicked him in delicate areas, and wet his lap with fear or anger. Their little squealing voices asked for intricate and impossible gifts that could never be made on time nor placed under a Christmas tree. Every time he sat on his throne-like seat, all these incidents flashed through his mind like lightning bugs. He dreaded the first child and the second, the third; all of them. They pinched him and laughed in his face, making him afraid. When he went to sleep at night he saw their faces in his dreams, yelling, screaming, crying, laughing so loudly his head throbbed and ears rang, their mouths stretched like elastic bands so close he could count the teeth, the innumerable teeth. He would awake both nauseous and afraid, terrified of the next day when his nightmares became his experiences.

Yet each day he went back. Every day, he returned to the hated chair to start his torture all over again. He had to. It was his job. It was his reason for living. What else could he do? Night after night he labored over the toys in his workshop. The elves had left years before, angry about the lack of health care, so long ago he could barely remember. With them went the reindeer. The goodbyes had been painful and tearful, but though their departure made him work even harder than before, he had to keep going to meet the deadline.

And like he promised, he watched them all. He knew when they were bad or good, when the brushed their teeth, when they went to bed, how they did in school; he heard snippets of conversation about their pets and haircuts. What he saw and heard wasn’t much, but enough to let him know who deserved what. Every day at about seven in the evening when he had finished about half his work, he trudged up and down the streets, peering into windows. Even then, safely separated by glass and darkness, he felt afraid of them.

He felt afraid now, curled in his sleigh, surrounded on all sides by seas of little faces, bright with the cold and excitement. They pounded him on the back, pulled at his clothes, screaming, yelling, squealing, “Santa, I want-”, “Santa, I want-”, “Santa”, “Santa”, “Santa, I want!”. Always “I want, I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want.” They would get, he made sure of that. But what he gave never was good enough. Every year, the day after he met his deadline, he peeked into their windows, waiting for the slight gratification he would feel. That little bit of gratitude each year pierced through the clouds of fear he felt, enough to keep him warm and give him a bright memory for the next long, dark year ahead. Each year he was let down by the looks of quick disappointment covered by carefully controlled faces.

The crowd of children receded; free candy canes were being thrown onto the other side of the street. He cautiously poked his head beyond the protective curve of the sleigh, then righted himself to prepare for the next onslaught of children.

* * *

That night he worked as usual until seven. The toys had grown to a sizeable number; he felt a deep pride for them. Though the piles hadn’t moved since he started years and years ago, he knew one day they would make thousands of children happy. He’d sneak in at some very late hour on Christmas Eve and nestle them under the tree, next to the brightly wrapped gifts left by the parents in his name. He always appreciated that. The idea that someone would do his work for him always made him happy. Although their gifts were more exciting than his own crude wooden toys, he knew that the wooden ones would last much longer than their fancy, colorful presents. If only he could find a way to get in their houses, despite his fear.

He planned on walking for about a half hour before returning to work throughout the night. His first stop each night was the corner house two blocks away. The little girl that lived there grew slowly; it seemed as though she had been five years old forever. Her parents loved her very much, he could tell, and she did well in school. She would get the best toy, he thought, the duck on wheels.

His rounds continued until about 7:25, when he reached the little boy’s house. He was in his bathroom, the door closed. As the man watched and waited for him to come out, he heard a rustling to his left. His fear took over. Quickly looking to the left, he saw a man standing stock-still with a bag of garbage in his hand, each individual thing made clear through the translucent plastic by the moonlight.

“What are you doing?” he asked. The old man said nothing, but began to back away along the hedges.

“What are you doing?!” he yelled, throwing the garbage bag down on the pavement. The contents spilled out, making patterns with their bright colors against the concrete. The old man turned and ran. The other man, surprisingly, didn’t follow, but rather went inside. Safe. The fear loosened its grip a bit. The old man went back to the window and resumed watching the boy. He was in bed now, lying on his side, reading a book. He watched for a little while longer, then turned and headed towards the driveway. Safe.

Out of nowhere came a siren. The piercing noise was just like the screaming children that surrounded him every day, demanding gifts. He ran. He had to get away from that noise, that awful noise that disturbed his dreams and plagued his days.

His bulk slowed him. His feet began to pass each other less often, and he started walking. When the car got near him, he started running again, only to be yanked from the road by two burly men in black uniforms.

“No!” he screamed. “I’m Santa! The children! My toys! Santa! Santa! Santa! Let me go! I want to go! Santa! I want! Santa! Santa!”

***

When I was little, my dad has told me, I was watched by an old man that believed he was Santa. The authorities went to his house and found mounds of rough wooden toys, things like wooden balls, yo-yos, ducks on wheels, and other simplistic playthings. He had worked at the department store nearby, posing as Santa Claus for the children. I even remember clambering onto his lap, playing with his beard, laughing and smiling widely at him in my joy. Nobody could remember when he started working there, it seemed like it had been forever.

Unfortunately, he died in jail a few days ago, imprisoned under the sentence of a sexual predator. I don’t think he was any such thing. The poor old man was confused, crazy, and probably believed he really was Santa. After acting for so long, it’s easy to imagine why he’d think so.

~ by Reluctant on January 5, 2008.