Mall Santa

I

“Don’t because I’m too heavy to go on your lap.”

“You are older than most of the kids.”

“I’m fifteen. That’s hardly a kid.”

“When you’re my age. You know.”

“Yeah you’re probably like eighty. How long have you been pretending to be Santa for dumb kids.”

“I’m fifty-eight.”

“You look rough.”

“Thanks.”

“My parents are there.” She pointed, her arm taut like a rockclimber’s. “They think I’m their kid still. Hence the Santa thing. Jesus don’t wave at them.”

“They might appreciate me waving at them.”

“Well don’t. You look like a homo.”

“I am gay.”

“Oh my god you’re like a homo Santa.”

“Well, I am.”

“I don’t really have beef with that. It’s more the hanging around in the mall stuff. With kids. You know. And getting them to sit on your lap. Your beard looks very fake by the way. It’s like all plastic and frizzy.”

Beyond the candycane fences of the grotto, the mall’s palm trees. Their bark like hair shirts. Four escalators slid shoppers up high.

“There’s nothing here that doesn’t look fake,” Santa said. “What’s your name?”

“Naomi. Hate it. Literally sounds like I’m forty.”

“It’s a nice name.”

“Yeah well. You’re a mall Santa. Don’t know how good your aesthetic credentials are. You know that word, aesthetic?”

“Yes. You like words Naomi?”

“Oh my god don’t use my name once you’ve just learned it to try and get closer to me. That’s simple creep psychology. Creep.”

Bing Crosby was marshmallowing over the sound system. The queue of drooling and sleepy kids stretched long, way out of the candycane gates. They mostly had both hands lifting to the air, in parents’ hands, whose elbows were thick with gift-bags. Dense freight of air-con descended.

“Do you want a present?” Santa reached to a sack the same texture as the palms’ trunks.

“Absolutely not. Stop. I’m not a kid. As I said. Have you got memory problems.”

“I like you.” His round rouged cheeks raised a smile.

“What? Literally what have I done in the time we’ve been speaking to give you anything to like about me? I’ve basically just called you old and a predator and a bit sad for being a mall Santa. And a homo. You’re not even of retirement age so is like, this your job? Do you get paid?”

“Nope, no pay. I just do weekends. I enjoy it. And I like you because you’re honest.”

“I’m honest, okay, right. You can be honest and still a bitch you know.”

“I know.”

“You’re so calm and smiley it’s infuriating.”

“I’m just wondering.”

“What are you wondering? What?”

“Have you seen the queue?”

She flashed her head to look, swinging greasy hair like a curtain. “And? They can wait their turn.”

“Naomi, you wouldn’t have been with me so long for a queue that big to build up unless you were getting something out of it.”

“You’re suggesting I like you.”

“Maybe. I think more likely you like Santa. What he stands for.”

“Um he stands for the exploitation of elf labour and the dumb herd mentality greed of literally everyone. People like him for presents.”

“You didn’t want a present.”

“Meaning? Meaning you think there’s more to it than presents for me? Sure. Sure. Look we’re in fucking Hawaii and you’re in a fluffy red coat and there’s this fake asthma-inducing snow everywhere. Like?” Snowflakes, all the same shape, stirred in lazy fans’ air. They whirled in a faux spiral like the meeting of two winds does to garbage in back-alleys. A languorous drifting spiral, lifting and falling, like a chest’s breath.

“Well, everyone likes Christmas.”

She almost stamped; her hands by her adolescent leather skirt tensed in frustration. “Santa, bro, not everyone likes Christmas because firstly not everyone celebrates it at all. Like have you heard of Muslims for instance. And secondly as I’ve just said I don’t like Christmas and I think most people over the age of six who haven’t had a brain injury probably don’t either. You’re just a weird creep who hangs around with children on your day off. Do you have children.”

“Well, I told you I’m gay. I have the luxury of not having to have children.”

“Homos can adopt. So. And if you don’t want or hate children why are you a mall Santa. Also it’s freezing in here and your clothes look scratchy. And can you breathe in that. How long have you been doing it?”

“This is my third year.”

“Oh so you’re not even a pro really. Because realistically you’ve done like four weekends over three years. So like twelve times. Are my parents still watching us?”

“They are. They look like nice people. They’re both smiling.”

“What’s everyone’s obsession with smiling recently? You are too.”

“It makes you happier to smile, even if you aren’t happy.”

“So you come here to smile to make yourself feel happy. I’m still of the belief it’s that you want kids on your lap.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a present Naomi?”

“My name again, jesus. No thank you I do not want a present Santa. Do you have a name anyway.”

“Santa.”

“Really really intensely not funny.”

“I like your t-shirt.”

“You like my unwashed Nirvana t-shirt.”

“Yes.”

A laugh tried to come out of her. “That’s just a lie.”

“It’s not.”

“It actually is and because it was so obviously a lie it takes away like all of the compliment’s power.”

“You’re right it was a lie. I hate it.”

“Thank fuck someone’s finally honest. Finally.” Naomi looked behind her fast again. Her movements were always as extreme as they could be. They seemed suspicious of rest. “My mom and dad will probably be about to kill themselves worrying about me so I probably should go.”

“Come back next year.”

“Oh yeah. Don’t think so.” But she didn’t leave right away. She spoke with the spontaneous liberty of a child. “I realised recently. I don’t know that many people. I was trying to count. The people in my grade at school, that’s about a hundred. My family, in Hawaii anyway there’s just us for dad’s work, me mom and dad, and there are cousins and things but they’re in Michigan, I think. I met them but I was young. But as for people I know, personally and really know there aren’t that many. Maybe twenty. Like, would mom’s yoga instructor count? Would teachers count that I only see when they’re being teachers?”

“Would I count?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I think I’d have to see you a few more times. But you’re that type of person you’re close to from first meeting them. What I hate is seeing people fuckloads but you don’t really see them, don’t get them, know nothing about them, they’re just there, being.”

“Or people who give nothing when talking to you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There are so many people hiding behind politeness or what they think is charisma. Just say all the deep dark shit you’ve wanted to say. I can take it. Let me hear it. I prefer all your random theories about life and what makes you anxious than nice nice niceness. Or worse. Nothingness. I think some people aren’t capable of even having feelings.”

“They can be hard to have.”

“Yep. Yep.” Naomi looked over her shoulder again. “Yep, time to go. Thanks.”

“See you again next year.”

“Maybe. Most likely probably not.”

She moved away, quick and almost scared, past the long line of kids in neat shorts, and the dads with guts and hats. Just leaving the Christmas grotto, by the gate, Naomi looked back, her two eyes full on the mall Santa. She stared, still, in a time of pause. She was something like a deer. Then she moved quick once more, back to her parents, putting headphones over her ears as soon as they began to speak to her, smiling.

II

In February, the mall Santa was out of his beard and red coat and at home, shaving, in his apartment’s bathroom, a little way from the beach, and the phone rang. All the blinds were down yet the sun still strayed in. He was shirtless, the white hair of his chest made dark by humid sweat.

“Hi, yep?”

“This is Naomi’s mom.” The voice came from far and deep. It wavered, like birdsong. “Hi.”

“Naomi—Naomi from the mall? Fifteen-year-old Naomi.”

“Naomi’s sixteen now, yep. I’m so sorry to disturb you by calling you. I don’t want to disturb you but Naomi took a liking to you.”

“She’s a great girl. You must be proud. Very intelligent.”

“Yep. Look I’m sorry—”

“Are you all right?”

“What’s your name?”

“Richard.”

“Mine’s Melinda. My husband’s name is Mike.”

“Mike and Melinda.”

The mall Santa set his phone on the ceramic of the basin where you’d normally keep soap. He kept shaving, the phone on speaker.

“Look would it be really weird to ask you to come and see Naomi?”

“Sure. Sure. Is she doing okay? I could come and see her. I’m not up to anything today.”

Melinda’s voice was made richer by speakerphone and the small bathroom’s echo. It was wise and authoritative and sweet, even while wavering. Drips of sweat like water on panes made paths down the mall Santa’s body. He had glasses on and removed them and pinched the lenses’ rims to rub clear the glass. On the mirror he wiped a window out of the steam to see to shave, stretching down a flushed edge of hot cheek to bring the razor close. He gurned, and tilted his chin high.

“I hate to ask you.”

“No, your daughter is a great person. I’ll come see her. Is it not wanting to listen to parents, that sort of thing? Teenage problems? Is she depressed?”

“So it’s downtown, you live in Honolulu right, the Queen’s Hospital, I can text you the details of the ward.”

“What? She’s been in an accident?”

“Oh—no.”

He tipped his chin down and stopped shaving. “Oh Melinda.”

“Think you can be here this afternoon?

“I can.”

“I’m going to hang up.”

It felt very important that he should finish shaving his whole face, but as he got to the last stubble and began to wash clear the foam which was imbedded with little shards of his white hair he knew that it would be right for him to come as Santa. She didn’t know him as Richard. So he went to the bedroom. In the shaded sweating swamp-light, where light like glaives through the blind slats sliced the room, the mall Santa started to dress. He dropped his towel, and put on loose shorts. He put on a white undershirt, tight at the shoulders. He tucked the undershirt into the shorts, which were pale. He took a pair of black socks from a tall drawer which were balled together, and unfurled them, and put them on. Then he had garters to hold the socks high and close on his calves, which he strapped tight. A large man, bending brought a slick line of sweat to the skin along his spine. He breathed a little before he took his red leggings, fake sticky wool, and forced a socked foot into each leg. His coat next, with the white fur trim, he buttoned each button of. The belt was plastic leather and wide—it looped through the loops of the coat. He didn’t need it but buckled it up nicely anyhow. Finally, as though being crowned, he took his Santa hat with two hands and drew it onto his head and pulled it to his temples. The fur took on his sweat and along his brow it formed spikes like wet hair.

Melinda met him in the car park and they said nothing. She didn’t say anything about his Santa suit, as if it had been expected, or as if she hadn’t considered that you could imagine him another way. The February skies held a stodge of cloud stumps, flannel grey. Warm rain, barely rain, filtered down, gently prickling. Yet the skies themselves were pure singing blue. Inside, more air-con. Everybody stared at a man dressed as Santa going through a hospital. Some looked with the stark eyes of soldiers. They all seemed, without saying, to know what him there meant.

“This is her room,” Melinda said. “I’ll leave you. Let me just get Mike.” She had a hand on the door handle.

“You don’t want to be there? You shouldn’t leave.”

“Well. She wanted to speak to you.”

“How—how is she right now? Do you want to be away from her?”

“No, she’s okay. She’s awake.”

“And it’s?”

“It’s cancer. It’s terminal. We’ve known for six months.”

“She knew when she met me.”

“Yes. It was her idea to go and speak to you. I’ll just get Mike.”

She went in and they came out and withdrew. The mall Santa went in.

“Naomi.”

Her voice was weak. Cracking on its words. “Oh fuck you came in the Santa suit.” There was the idea of a smile.

“I did.”

“That’s so dumb.”

He came to the bed and sat down where her knees were barely mounds beneath the sheets. The plastic bedframe heaved and creaked.

He said, “I’m angry with you.”

“You are? Exciting. Why.”

Smiling, he said, “You said it was your parents plan for you to speak to me at the mall but it was yours, your mother was just telling me.”

“Oh yeah, so it’s stupid but. You know how I’d’ve never spoke to a Santa again, anyway. Because I’m like grown up now.” She paused a lot to breathe. “Or whatever. You know it’s only kids. Well I don’t know cos I knew I was going to die. So I sort of wanted to do something I knew I wouldn’t be doing if I was going to live. So I could get a win out of dying. See I just wanted to do something crazy and different that I’d go my life without doing if I had a life. So I wanted to see a mall Santa.”

“Why did you ask them to get me here?”

“You were really nice to me.”

He felt awkward—she was so small and flat and dry and he wanted to touch her, to hold her hand or hug her, but she was a young girl and dying. The bedsheets with her under them were about as flat as if she hadn’t been there. Her face had caved at the cheeks. A TV opposite the bed was turned on, muted.

“And you wanted to see me again?”

“Well yeah.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I just thought it would be funny to like summon a Santa to my hospital bed where I’m gonna die of cancer.”

“Yes, it’s very funny. How did you know I’d wear the Santa suit?”

“I don’t even know your name so I knew you would. As you said you’re a symbol. You’re Santa to me, not some guy.”

“Do you believe in Santa?”

“Obviously not.”

“I’m Santa to you though?”

“You represent something.”

“Are you okay talking? It doesn’t hurt?”

“It hurts.”

“Should we stop?”

“No. No. I want to talk. I want to talk as much as I can even if it hurts.”

They were quiet a while. Different colours lay on the sheets and over Naomi’s skin as the TV images changed and projected through the room.

“I can’t help you you know.”

“I know that. I’m not dumb. You’re not a doctor, you’re a Santa.”

“Just checking.”

“Can you pass me that water.”

On a little tray attached to the bedframe she had a small cup of water with a paper lid and a straw punched through. He held it to her mouth. She took a tiny drink. She said:

“I’m scared Santa.”

“I’m scared too.”

“Why.”

“For you.”

“I meant I was scared for you. I’m dying and you have to deal with me having died.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m scared for my parents too.”

“Yeah.”

“And a little for me.”

She rolled her head over so a cheek felt the pillow. She pushed out a short sigh, which was like a form of weeping. But she didn’t cry.

“You’re such a strong person. You’re so intelligent, Naomi. Your parents are so proud of you, did you know that?”

“Don’t. It makes it worse. It would be better if I wasn’t intelligent or strong. There’d be less to miss.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Do you want your parents back in?”

“I feel so awful.”

“I know you do.”

“It’s hard to imagine till you’re in it. Like not even the pain. It’s like the most tired and sleepless you’ve ever been, totally fatigued and you can’t get rest. And worse the knowing. You know there’s no rest. This is it. Just tired and ill and painful to the end.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow and the next day and visit you every day.”

“No. Definitely not. I do not want you here.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you did.”

“I mean then. I’m fine having you now.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t want to be a kid. I don’t want to die next to Santa. Can you go?”

“I’ll go. Yeah.”

“Thank you for visiting me. Hopefully I’ll improve.”

“Yeah. I hope so.”

“You have a really sweet smile by the way Santa.”

“You do too.”

“Go now please.”

Melinda and Mike were waiting and he told them about her. “She’s very strong,” he repeated. They were openly crying because the door to her room was closed. Mike was curled and Melinda was holding him. He kept putting hands onto the baldness of his head and saying the word no. The mall Santa said he should leave and left them.

III

He came back every day, all day on the weekends, and after work on weekdays, but followed her wishes. He stayed in the corridor dressed as Santa. She was never to know that he was there, though he hoped that she did know. She never saw him. Melinda and Mike became cold with him. He understood. But they didn’t ask him to go and he knew they knew he had to be there. They would feel protective of their grief and be jealous of him sharing in it. It was not for him. Yet they knew he had to be there.

The mall Santa saw more terribly sad people than he had ever before in his life. Every day a new person would scream their agonies and woe and fall to knees and curse and cry. It began to be a horror just to endure seeing it. Almost, he was taking part. Every evening at ten the janitor came and buffed the floors with his slow heaving machine, erasing the marks of shoes that had preceded it. There were black smears from shoes everywhere but by ten when the corridor lights were dimmed a new polish replaced them, shiningly.

In March one night with the usual warm rain beyond the hospital he heard similar agony from her parents in the room in front of him in which Naomi had been living these weeks. It rose from soft crying to real wails of real woe. Then it fell, and for some time was hushed. Then through the door the crying rose again. He took off his Santa hat when he heard it, and journeyed home. He curved his car smoothly round the roads. He went up to his apartment and put the lights on and went to the bathroom, and took his beard off and let it fall to the floor and looked at himself in the mirror and started to lather his face to shave again. He was very careful about his ablutions. He was calm. He had fulfilled his promise to Naomi not to die with Santa. But he wished he had sat with her. She had asked him not to. But she had wanted to see him at the mall, and had wanted him to come to her in the hospital. And maybe she had been asking him to sit with her while she died when she said she wanted him not to. Because with fake snow spiralling a few months back she had stayed with him, while a queue formed at the Christmas grotto, and had tried to improve his day, and he did not do the same with her, when she was scared, when warm rain was outside, when her parents wept, when other families had people dying and the marks of their shoes were cleared from ever having been there, on her last day.