SANTA CLAUS

We lived in the brown-shingle house, on a small rise, in a working-class neighborhood.

I investigated the basement one day for a ball and found my toys floating in thigh-deep, dark water.

They were older toys. I am mostly curious about the water. How will it go away? Do we need to work to remove it, or will it drain?

I don’t much like Mike next door. He’s snooty like his Mom. I spy him angling over to see what I’m looking at.

“Santa will bring some toys," I say.

“You’re a baby. There’s no Santa Claus.”

“Yes, there is. Why would you say that?”

“Cuz, my Mom told me so.”

I can’t help but wonder why any Mom would say such a thing. I had my suspicions but wasn’t ready.

“Take it back or I’m going to punch you.”

“Big baby. BIG BABY!” he shouts, so I tackle him, get on top and punch him in the mouth. (these things were normal when I was a kid)

Suddenly, he’s gagging and wriggling to get up, crying loud.

“My tooth, my tooth?” You knocked out my tooth!”

“Mom … MOM, Scotty knocked out my tooth!” as he runs toward his tidy, white house, his Mom leans out the back-screen door, glaring at me.

Turns out, I’ve knocked a cap off one of his front teeth. I guess my parents had to pay for the tooth. I’ve always felt guilty for that.

What has stood out all these years though, is, “There IS no Santa Claus.”

Seems like my general disappointment began there.

Though Christmas was still a special time, there was always a foreboding undertow.

Would Mom be happy or sad?

Either way, I recall those Christmas mornings of dawn misty light, peeking into the living room at the silhouettes, trying to make out the gifts they had arranged there.

A bicycle, a set of pearl blue Slingerland drums …

We didn’t have a surplus of money so the fact they did this etched deep in my soul. I thought of them working day in and day out. I thought of Dad’s horrible wreck and Mom hurrying every morning in high heels to catch a bus to work downtown.

Maybe no jolly guy was coming down the chimney, but there was that whispering in the night. There were the cookies and milk we continued to leave out because my brother was still a little kid. Still,  every time I spied that half-drank glass of milk and cookie crumbs on my Grandma’s old white saucer, I felt him close, like a soft, red blanket of love.

When I was older we had twins and the fantasy began again. We told them in the early years,

“As long as you believe, there is a Santa Claus. It’s those who stop believing that lose him.”

I’ve always felt bad about knocking out part of Mike’s tooth.

 The thing is …  I’ve always felt a lot
worse that his Mom told him there was no Santa Claus.