I gave 75 cents to a homeless man
sitting on the frozen sidewalk
holding a half eaten loaf of rye bread.
It's 13 degrees and the sun's out.
Times Square, December 2, 2005.
A lanky man dressed like Santa walked by,
glared and shook his head at me.
He took a step sideways
and continued on, stumbling down the sidewalk,
stopping to lean against the building
twenty yards away.
He slid down the wall
and sat in an empty doorway,
his red and white costume sloping down on one side,
the elastic beard matted
with sweat stains and fresh egg yolk.
Gaps in the fabric revealed black stubble
with streaks of gray along his cheek bone,
his belt far too big for someone twice his size.
One of the lenses on his fake coke-bottle glasses
was cracked down the middle, but he didn't notice.
How come Santa drinks so much, my little cousin asked,
trying to absorb the idea of habits.
She's smarter than most seven-year-olds.
Some day she'll realize the therapeutic power of bourbon,
whether she wants to or not,
by virtue of a twisted and distorted lineage.
Remembering back to a time when I believed,
I asked myself,
Was he always so intense and disruptive?
Did he always look so disheveled?
Waking up in ****** unfamiliar motels,
fur stuck to his tongue,
feeling cheap and
smelling like reindeer?
Doesn't he have family to go home to?
I distinctly recall Santa getting agitated
at a pawnshop in Jersey,
hocking a six year old Rolex knockoff,
arguing with a deadbeat in an orange latex bandana
about whether it could get him 5 bucks or 50.
Santa is a hobo who should be in rehab
but decides to sit back and take blame,
driven by dollars and cents, not peace and love.
Fictitious friends have more of an impact,
imagining someone out there barks like a dog
when a strange man in card-carrying colors
gets too close to either side of the line
and lodges himself in a chimney
too small for his socks
but too large for his vision.
Think of the profile:
An obese elderly man, about 6'1",
big bushy white beard
puffy red cheeks
and glazed over eyes. Dresses in red velvet,
has eight deer he runs until they drop,
overwhelmingly fond of children,
known to sneak around
in the darkness late at night,
carrying a sack,
usually around the holidays.
Santa is a transient worker.
But does he have a record?
Was he always a bag man?
Busted for B&E;
at the Christmas Tree Shop in Danbury, 2001,
then fast forward to indecent exposure
inside a moving vehicle
somewhere around 23rd Street
where the sun becomes the moon.
Everyone is old enough to know
not to sleep in soiled piles
reeking of their own fermenting remnants
of a night gone sour.
But he meets Betty Ford for drinks anyway
in a seedy club in Queens,
one night too many,
one night in particular, in 2003,
strung out stiff on single malt,
he grabbed the reins, lost control
and flipped back to front on a car full of elves
at a busy intersection somewhere around LaGuardia.
He showed up in night court
with a ****** who promised him a good time
but gave him more than he bargained for.
He never said he was innocent,
just that he didn't think he could be convicted.
Across the street, he pulls himself up,
throws an empty bottle against the concrete wall
and crosses back over toward us.
The stale stench of cheap red wine
permeates from the center of his beard,
with permanent stains across his chin
and all along the white fabric pleasure
path that connects one head to the other.
Santa glares at us again,
mumbles something in Croatian
and falls face first into a pile of stones
deep down the alley,
two sheets to the wind,
and ten steps closer to Brooklyn.