The Clothes Make the Man
Part One
I want to relate 2 experiences that demonstrate the truth of this oft quoted statement. When I was a young man in college I had a job as an ice cream truck driver. Salvador, my boss, made Italian ice in 6 flavors in his garage. I would drive around the neighborhoods ringing my bell and stopping along the curb halfway down the street. The children would line up for my product on the hot and muggy Ohio summer days. I made pretty good money for a summer job. Sal would give me 15% of the gross. Sometimes I'd go home with $120 at the end of a long 10 hour day. Sal would count out the red stained bills and I would grab up the my wad with my still frozen hands.
After driving around in that white truck all day it became quite natural to see the children jump up and down wildly as soon as they saw or heard me. For the first few hours it always made me smile to see them uncontrollably bursting with excitement and energy. After the novelty wore off and I came to expect it. I liked it. Who wouldn't? Sure they weren't jumping for me exactly but I was "the ice cream man", and a very important person to these small people. OK maybe I enjoyed the attention and even became a little addicted to it. Maybe I would have been the ice cream man even for 10% of the gross. OK I would have done it for free. Yes I might have even paid him to let me drive around in that white square truck and ring that bell and wear that white shirt and hat.
It was always so strange riding home. I would see kids walking along the street, but since I wasn't in my uniform,they wouldn't notice me. I imagined I knew what Clark Kent felt like when Lois ignored him. "If they only knew," I thought "that I'm the Ice Cream Man. Then they would jump up and down. Then they wouldn't ignore me."
I'm the kind of a guy who is deeply affected by movies. Sometimes after the movie ends, I feel like I'm a character in that movie. Often this feeling goes on for days. Of course I never act on these feelings, but my thoughts are affected. Maybe that's why clothes and costumes influence me so much. A certain receptivity to suggestion. Of course there's no harm in it, usually. But this one time there was.
Do you have a list of things you'd like to do before you die? Maybe not a real written down list but at least a mental one? Well I do. If an opportunity comes up for me to experience one of the things on the list, I'll jump at the chance. I don't analyze why I want to do them or whether I should do them or not, I just try to do them. A few years back, I was working as a public school teacher. I had no special plans for the holidays and I had two weeks off before Christmas. I saw the chance to do something I had always wanted to do, be a department store Santa. I wondered if it might seem strange to the people in the personnel office that a Jewish man would want to be Santa, but they said no, it was common since Jews could work on Christmas Eve.
It was surprisingly easy to get the job. I showed them my teaching certificate. I was resonably clean cut. There was no security check and no calling of references. I started 2 weeks before Christmas and worked 6 hour shifts.
At first it was great. All day adoring little innocent kids would come up and ask me for this or that.
In the beginning I tried to talk lower than normal and threw in a lot of ,"Ho Ho Ho's". But it didn't take very long before that got irritating. What was I ,a robot? I decided I was going to define my own kind of Santa. And that Santa was me. After all who's to say what Santa should be like? If Santa is the personification of the giving spirit in all of us that we wish to nuture, well then I could just let my own personal nuturer out. So I began talking like I always do and made the same jokes as I always do. I was Santa, but from the inside out and not the other way around if you know what I mean.
After that, being Santa was a lot more enjoyable. I was in fact having the time of my life. Of course there were little problems here and there. At one point the manager of the store came up. "Uh Santa I'd like to talk to you for a minute please?"
"Oh Mrs. O'Donnell how would you like a big hug from Santa? Have you been a good girl?"
"Uh over here Santa in the backroom"
"Sure. What's can I do you for Mrs OD?.Heh-heh"
"Santa I'll get right to the point. One of our sales ladies has complained that Santa is drunk. She said she saw you singing Christmas songs while walking up the down escalator"
I started at her uncomprehendingly for a moment.
"Drunk? I'm not drunk. I'm just having a good time. Of course my inhibitions are going to be lowered slightly. I'm wearing a Santa's suit in a public place for Christ's sake. Oh, excuse me. Santa shouldn't talk like that. Look what do you want me to do? OK I'll count backwards from 100 by 7's.
100..93....86.....79...72....65. I'll touch my nose with my eyes closed. I'll count backwards while touching my nose. 100...93.......86...."
Now it was her turn to be dumbfounded.
"Oh. I guess you're not drunk are you?",she mumbled .
"Naw I'm just being me. I gotta be me.Igotta be me",I sang as we emerged from the backroom.
"Well, you are a most unusual Santa. But as long as you don't abuse alcohol and act properly with.. ah ..the children then I suppose......." But I didn't wait to hear the end of it. A long line was starting to form and Santa didn't want to keep the little monsters waiting.
Actually the kids were great. They were so cute and innocent . There were different kinds of kids. There were the ones who believed in Santa absolutely. They had no doubts. When I was with them I felt like I was really Santa because they believed that they were really with Santa. I heard myself say things that I normally wouldn't say. I started talking in the royal third person. "Well come up here and tell Santa what you want for Christmas. We are so happy to see you. Of course We got your letter."
Then there were the doubters. They wanted to believe but they were starting to realize that something was not quite right. But deep down they really wanted to believe. I had no problem lying to them. It's the same thing I do when talking to a fundamentalist religious person. I translate. If a person says Santa I substitute another definition for that word for example "love". Then "Do you believe in Santa" becomes "do you believe in Love ? "Is there really a Santa?" becomes "Is there really love in the world and can it transcend?" " Are you really Santa ?" becomes "Do you have love in your heart?" " Absolutely positively ", I'd answer the kids with such conviction that the clouds would begin to disperse and the brightness and innocence would come shining forth.
And then there were the cynics. Those are the ones who have caught on. Some are a little angry at having been duped for all those years. They usually start out with "You're not Santa. I saw another Santa on the street drinkin something from a bottle in a bag. I think He's the real one. How could you be in 2 places at once." These and other more complex paradoxes are best ignored.
There's a fourth group that have reached a mature state of equilibrium called Santahood. They can take the imagery and history of Santa and make it their own. Most adults fall into this category of course. I was making Santa my own by having fun with Him and by deciding to be a non-traditional Jewish sounding Santa. And of course the department store was making Santa their own by using Him as a way to remind customers to SPEND SPEND SPEND if you really love your kids.
Actually, the more I thought about this aspect of the Santa experience, the more disgusted I became. Some kids would actually climb up on Santa's lap and without bothering to even say hello, would launch into monologue of how they wanted this and that. As the days went on I thought about this a lot. If I really believed in Santa would I be more interested in what I wanted from him than in having a real and meaningful exchange with him? By the third day I decided that these kids had been brainwashed and something needed to be done about it . Even I , a non Christian ,knew that this was not right. Even I ,a master of spiritual translation ,could not translate this. It was starting to become more and more of a problem and it was starting to affect my work. While these kids were going on about this Barbie or that Transformer, Santa was thinking "You greedy little monster. You know what you're getting this year, Wooden blocks. That's it. No batteries, no talking strings to pull, and no video chips" Of course I didn't say those things. I just sat there and listened. It was unbelievably boring. The pressure just kept on building up until on the 4th day there came a moment when I couldn't take it anymore.
I'll never forget him. His name was Mathew and he was your stereotypical fat disgusting spoiled
little brat who picked his nose and smelled faintly disgusting. As he clusmsily climbed up my lap, poking me here and there , he started right in giving me the list. I struggled with myself. "There is good in there somewhere. You've just got to find it. There is good ", I thought as I continued nodding to his incredibly long list. Mathew had his list down. One after another in rapid succession. Squirming,poking, transformer,there is good ,and I want , picking, 3 gameboys....he didn't miss a beat. I was about to scream when it happened. I found it.
"Mathew," I interrupted. He stopped to suck in some more air.
"Mathew," I continued. "Do you know that Santa loves you very very much."
Mathew stopped . Stunned. His mouth hung open, frozen in the formation of the next toy he had to have.
"And Santa loves you just the way you are. He loves you so much."
It seemed like everyone stopped talking. People turned around from all over the store. The whole world was waiting to see what Mathew would do, to see what he would say. Even a pin wouldn't have dared to drop .I saw it start to happen. The toys, the commercials, the things started flaking off from his psyche like dried skin. Something much more powerful was melting the crud away. Underneath was an incrediblely beautiful little boy. Full of love and hope and freshness.
With moisture welling up in his eyes Mathew said ," I love you Santa". And the world started up again. Mothers and fathers broke into a smile and a wave of warmth spread throughout the room. A world was born anew.
"Is there anything else you want to say to Santa, Mathew?"
He looked at me, his eyes riveted to mine, full of love, and slowly shook his head his eyes never leaving mine, an incredible connection for us. I felt like I was massaging the inner recesses of his soul, all the hurts, the times when Mommy or Daddy weren't there for him, were being soothed by this very significant person telling him that He loved him.
"Santa wants to hug you Mathew."
And we hugged tenderly and deeply for a long 5 seconds and smiled gently at each other.
"Next", I yelled. I was ready for them now.
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