Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Santa, the Bookish Hooker
I’m currently working at the Ban Macy*s (né Marché) on the seventh floor, behind the walls. When I walk off the elevator every morning, the first thing I see is Holiday Lane, which is their annual Christmas installation. I’m not writing to rail against a corporate juggernaut who’s collective brain is so twisted and evil as to thrust Christmas decorations upon an unwilling public in the middle of September… although I could.
A little to the right of the elevators, smothered between an artificial tree dripping with gaudy ornaments and a half wall separating the atrocities of Holiday Lane from the quiet dignity of mattresses, stands a plump little Santa Claus statue. The jolly fat man stands about four and a half feet tall and he’s carved and painted in exquisite detail.
Santa has full, red, pouty lips, brightly rouged cheeks, large bedroom eyes accented by green eye shadow. His shiny red velvet suit clings suggestively to his chest, buttock and chubby belly. His hip is cocked seductively as he leans against the street lamp, reading what appears to be a small green address book. Santa’s prowling the streets; turning tricks to help him fill his bag of toys.
Times must be tough in Christmas town, because Santa has to put on the red light. Maybe he’s developed a junk habit. Mrs. Claus is in Al-Anon, learning tough love, while the elves are in the back of the toy shop passing the crack pipe. Old Saint Nick has gone down hill since he crashed the sleigh and got his forth DUI. Now he’s dropped out, walking the streets… getting the shit beat out of him by his pimp, Jack Frost. He looks pretty now, in the dim twilight, but the heavy makeup hides the bruises and the sallow cheeks. In another couple of years, Santa’ll loose some of front teeth, and ol’ Jack will take him out of the hotel trade and set him up on a corner next to Dairy Queen… the kind of neighborhood where the johns don’t look too closely at the merchandise.
If the junk doesn’t kill the jolly fat man, he’ll hit rock bottom one day. Then he can choose to curl up under some bridge and die, or to enter the system, get cleaned up at the Betty Ford Center, buy some dentures and tell his story to Oprah.
