This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Existential Threats” Down in the Dirt, v172 (the June 2020 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Outside the Box the Down in the Dirt May-Aug. 2020 issues collection book		get the 422 page May-Aug. 2020 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book 2020 in a Flash the 2020 flash fiction & art collection anthology		get the 296 page flash fiction & artwork & photography collection anthology as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Vietnam Santa

George Critchlow

    I once engaged the Christmas season as Santa Claus, a paid Santa Claus at JCPenney Department store in Eugene, Oregon. It was at the peak of the Vietnam War, and I had dropped out of college for a semester or two on the hunch that what was happening in the streets of America was more interesting than what was happening in the classroom.
    My father was reluctant to support activities involving drugs and free love instead of college and work. The little money I had socked away diminished rapidly as I navigated a new world of buying groceries and paying rent on my own dime. Finally, I confronted the inevitable: I had to find a job. With longish hair, few skills and little work experience outside of stacking boxes in a potato shed, I knocked on doors and made phone calls hoping some employer would be impressed with my intelligence and good looks. I had no luck until one day in December I visited the state employment office and was told that JCPenney was looking for someone to play Santa for the Christmas season. “Santa?” I thought to myself. “Are you kidding? I could do that standing on my head. They’ll love me.” A very nervous JCPenney assistant manager in a pressed JCPenney suit interviewed me and asked a few questions to determine whether I could speak intelligibly and understand how to talk to kids. He had reservations. I was perhaps too young and too skinny. I reassured him I had ample knowledge of Christmas – I had read The Night Before Christmas many times and knew all verses to The Twelve Days of Christmas. Plus, I had seen Miracle on 34^th Street and performed in Christmas plays. I loved kids, and I would look just fine behind a fluffy white beard with a pillow tucked under my Santa suit. He hired me, and I started the next day.
    The first few shifts were fine. It was hot in the Santa suit, but I enjoyed playing the role, joking with the kids, and winking at their parents. Of course, central to a department store Santa’s role is discovering what the kiddos wanted for Christmas. Parents sometimes valued that information, although they sometimes motioned or whispered to me to tell little Jimmy or Janice that Santa might bring some other gift, usually something less expensive. The store just wanted me to talk to the kids about stuff that was available for sale on JCPenney toy shelves a few feet away. I squirmed a bit but tried to satisfy all three constituents: kids, parents, and store manager. By the 3^th or 4^th day, I realized a fourth point of view was emerging — my own. The toy store was overflowing with war toys and war games and war toy advertisements. There were rifles and tanks, hand grenades and rocket launchers, war planes and toy soldiers, military board games, and military jeeps and jigsaw puzzles depicting jets and helicopters on bombing runs over vaguely drawn tropical jungles. The most popular item, however, the item the boys begged for, was GI Joe. The whole thing started to disgust me.
    Looking back, it all seems so benign in comparison to today’s era of permanent war, war technology, and intensely violent and realistic video games. At the time, I had no stomach for a war that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and killed or injured so many Americans, mostly low-income Americans who could not obtain a college deferment or find a doctor to sign off on a minor physical disability. And I had no stomach for toy industry profiteers who glorified war and equated violence with patriotism. I started to discreetly direct kids’ attention away from war toys and refocus them on what I thought were less pernicious items. I did not talk to the parents because I knew what I was telling the kids could be viewed as subversive and I wanted to stay on the job long enough to get a full paycheck.
    The Santa Claus episode came to a somewhat dramatic but appropriate end when I went to work still very high from the substance I consumed the previous night. My friend John shared with me a hallucinogen blotted onto a tiny bit of paper. I had taken hallucinogenic drugs previously because I thought they would be entertaining. While I welcomed the possibility of transcendent insight, I was not seeking and did not expect spiritual awakening. I share my experience not because I wish to promote drug use, but because consuming drugs is a choice, like having sex, that all young people face. I was sensible and limited in my drug use, but I recognize that, for some, it is a long road that has no turns.
    Anyway, it is important to recall that acid produces sights and sounds and feelings that do not always correlate to what is happening in the objective world. But the real world is not irrelevant to the experience. It can have a calming influence; it can frame or focus the flow of chaotic mental activity, or it can freak you out. JCPenney freaked me out, especially the war toys. I managed to slip into my Santa suit, stick on my beard, and get the pillow suitably positioned around my belly. I put my Santa hat on and wandered forth to the toy section of the store where everything was the same, but different – different colors, different shapes, different meanings. I could handle changes in the environment but, in the back of my head, that gyroscopic part of the head that every acid tripper relies upon for sanity, I prayed that the manikins did not come alive and start talking. I found my Santa chair next to a vibrant and flowing line of children who looked like Oliver Twist’s gang. They had circus smiles and cherub, puffed up faces, but their energy reminded me of Veruca Salt, the girl who wanted the pony in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I told myself I could handle the kids. Just smile, George, and radiate positive Santa vibes.
    But it was all over with the first young boy. He climbed on my lap and immediately started going on about how much he wanted a GI Joe for Christmas. “Please Santa...oh please Santa...can’t you ...won’t you bring me a GI Joe?” The boy thrust one hand forward and one behind as if holding and shooting a rifle. “Bang!” he cried. And then, louder, “Bang!” I’d had enough. There was no way I was going to help JCPenney promote war and violence when every atom in my kaleidoscopic being told me it was my duty to bring light to the darkness. I gently lifted the boy from my lap, took his hand, and walked down the aisle, beyond the tanks and rifles and GI Joes, to the doll section of the toy department.
    I picked out a classic, cute-looking Raggedy Ann and said, “Santa can’t bring you a GI Joe because Santa doesn’t like people to shoot other people. But tell your mommy that Santa wants you to have this Raggedy Ann doll and, if you are good, next year Santa will bring you Raggedy Ann’s brother, Raggedy Andy.”
    The poor boy just stared at me, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. He started to shake. Then he exploded into tears and ran screaming to his mother. It took only a few minutes for the news of Santa’s warped, abusive conduct to reach the assistant manager. I had reclaimed my Santa chair when he breathlessly confronted me with a customer complaint to the effect that I told a young boy he could not have a GI Joe for Christmas.
    “Is that true?” he demanded.
    I calmly surveyed the zealous young man’s perfect junior-management suit trimmed with a Christmas tie imprinted with reindeers and Santa’s sleigh.
    “Well yes, it is true.” I confessed. “But it’s not like I didn’t want him to have a Christmas present. I just thought Raggedy Ann would be more...you know....”
    “More what?” the assistant manager implored.
    “Well, more like what Jesus would want.”
    I didn’t mind getting fired, and I considered it a real bonus that a JCPenney accountant paid me what I was owed before I left the store.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...