Santa’s left eye was watering again, sending a tear down his cheek. Rudolph wiped across it gently with a white-gloved hand. “It’s okay Santa, don’t cry,” said the plump, earnest little 5-year-old girl on his lap. She patted his arm with her tiny hand.
She regarded him with large, shining, deep dark eyes, serious and innocent at the same time. Her older brother, who looked to be 10 or 11, waited to one side about 15 feet away. Beyond the boy, a line of parents and children waited behind a white picket gate.
“Santa’s not crying,” he told her quietly in his jolly-old faux bass-baritone Kris-Kringle voice. “Santa’s got something in his eye.” He wiped his eye with the back of his glove again.
“Now, tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” he said
“Mi Mama. I want my mama.”
“Don’t be scared. I’m sure your mother’s right here.” Rudi looked up and saw the little girl’s brother and smiled. “There’s your brother. He’s right there,” Rudi motioned with this bearded, Santa-hatted head. “Now, tell Santa what you want for Christmas.”
“Mamma. I want my mama back,” she said. Tears welled up in her big round eyes.
Sometimes people would ask him about how he handled bratty children when he played Santa. Very rarely did he get any guff from a kid. He had to handle those tiny ones who got Santa-Terror, but that was relatively easy too, compared to the good kids – the really good kids in every sense of that work. Not the usual kids who asked for the usual toys and electronic games, but the kids who wanted something real, and generous and truly in the spirit of Christmas, for example for mom or dad to find a job, little sister to get well from an ailment, or to be able to do better for their parents in school. These were the kids for whom he would wish he were really a magical elf who could grant boons, not just a collaborator in the merchentile consumerist complex that relied on Santa and holiday shopping to keep the economy rolling.
“Oh.” Santa Rudi said after a pause, “Did mama have to go away someplace. Is she sick?”
The little girl nodded her head. “Gone… we don’t know where.”
The boy approached. “Come on, Serena.” He looked up at Santa. “It’s okay.” He had a faint accent, hard to place, and the same large, dark eyes.
Rudi regarded him for a moment. “Where’s your mother?” He asked the boy.
“She had to go away. She’ll be back. Serena is just missing her,” he said.
“No!” said the girl softly but emphatically. “She didn’t’ go away. We gotta find her. You said so.” She looked accusingly at her brother. “Santa can bring her back on his sled, can’t you, Santa?”
Rudi, nonplussed, was silent. “Don’t worry,” he finally, said. “I’m sure she’s thinking about you. What’s your mama’s name?”
“Delia,” answered little Serena. “Delia Estancia.”
“Then your father… Where is he? Who brought you kids here?”
“Come on, Serena.” The boy took his sister’s hand and pulled her gently off Santa’s lap. People lined up just outside the little open-ended Santa area were getting restless, giving them looks of impatience.
“Santa. You’ll bring mama back. I know it. You’ll bring her back with your reindeer and sled!”
“Right. Yes. Don’t worry. Santa will bring you nice presents. I’m sure your mama’s okay. She loves you. She’ll come back soon.”
The boy guided her out of the Santa circle and out into the rest of the store. Another child ran up to him and put her arms out, with here mother just behind her smiling. Rudi leaned to see the boy and his sister, but they were gone.
“Are we doing a photo?” Said Anita the elf, approaching the Santa chair and looking at the mother. Diminutive, with red hair cut short, she looked perky in her extra cute green elf tunic dress with green tights and green, red-trimmed pixie hat.
“Yes,” answered the mother.
“Then I’ll set it up,” Then she said to the child: ”You go sit on Santa’s lap, and tell him what you want for Christmas,” said Anita, and helped the child get up and sit comfortably, positioning her just a certain way for the photos. ‘’Go ahead and talk to Santa for now and I’ll tell you when to smile,” she said to the child, retreating back behind the camera on its tripod and computer workstation.
But before stepping away, she leaned closer to Rudi’ ear and whispered. “Problem?”
“Santa Rudi” shook his head no. Anita followed the protocol of the concessionaire who employed them both, calling each St. Nick, Santa, followed by his first name: Santa Rudi, Santa Bob “Don’t think so,” he said.
“I heard you promise that little girl that Santa would get her mother back?” Anita gave him an admonishing look. “That’s outside the pale.” Anita was more mother hen than Santa’s helper. “Gotta be careful of that stuff…”
”They looked okay and seemed to know where they were going…” said Rudi.
“Mom might be in jail or who knows where.” She half-laughed, then stepped away. The kid on Santa’s lap looked at the two of them with wise eyes, taking it all in.
“Is she your girlfriend?” she teased. Santa’s rosy cheeks grew redder under the makeup. “Why, nooo,” he said, glancing over to Anita and noticing her green eyes widen, and then wink, and then look down.
The little girl was about 7. Obviously she didn’t believe in Santa anymore, but was milking it for another year. The seven-year-old had busted him, discreetly eyeing Anita with a little more than Christmas cheer, and Anita doing same back to him.
She and Rudi connected on the first day. She had a way of making him feel special, with a warm deference that wasn’t at all patronizing or mechanical. She had a pleasant demeanor that didn’t dilute her alertness, and she communicated high expectations that seemed to bring out the best in Rudi. And he returned her attentiveness in kind. They soon were swapping stories.
He wished he’d met her under different circumstances, however, because she seemed to relate to his Santa Claus persona as if it were the same as his very own… At the same time, he found it warming to be treated as someone so special.
“But you are special,” she told him when he hinted at this. “You’re really Santa. It’s a honor the play the role and you couldn’t do that so well unless you had carried the Santa spirit inside you.”
It was better than what he ex-wife said about him, and, he thought, well, why not. He liked Anita. He could picture her as a Mrs. Claus – in gold-rimmed glasses, her graying hair swept up, being all motherly and cookie-baking in public at Christmas and wanton in some tropical resort with vacationing Santa in the off season… She was comfortably rounded, padded, plump, but well proportioned… sexy to his way of looking – and his idle speculations, helped him pass the time in Santa-land during lulls when the boredom set in and clocks seemed to stop or run backwards.
Santa, he’d discovered when he first began doing this several seasons back, did have a certain sex appeal. After all, he was a man who could give a lady anything she wanted.
He looked away from Anita and back to the seven-year-old. “Now, tell Santa. What to you want for Christmas?”
The girl looked quizzically at him as he wiped his watery eye with his glove again. “It’s okay,” he said, intercepting her look. “Santa’s got something in his eye.”
That was true. He wasn’t at all tearful -- although sometimes he felt like it. Not everything was jolly about the job. Off-and-on, his eye would suddenly water excessively since the second of his two, laser, lens-replacement surgeries to correct cataracts six month earlier. But since then he could see what seemed to him amazing details, colors and shading of things around him and read -- all without his glasses for the first time in decades.
Thanks to his laser surgery this year, as opposed to the previous holiday season, having to wear those fake, gold-rimmed, jolly Santa spectacles didn’t prevent him from being able to read handwritten lists of presents that some kids would hand him.
To his surprise, virtually all of them listed gifts for siblings, cousins and even parents – with little for the author of the list. himself or herself. One list said, “Santa, please get my daddy a job.” Another wanted his little brother to get well. Another asked to make her better in math so her mother would be happier with her grades – and she was only 6.
“Kids don’t want things specifically,” he had theorized to Anita the night earlier when they’d walked to a nearby deli after a shift on their first, tentative non-work outing that didn’t qualify as a date, as yet, and was strictly Dutch.
“Those Cartoon Network cable TV commercials give them ideas – names for stuff. But the kid’s game is to see if they can make mom or dad or any other adult break down and buy something for them. It’s about influence, control and, to a certain extent, love, with egomania and insecurity built in,” he pontificated.
Anita laughed. “Oh, my! Santa knows all about children. So is that naughty or nice?” Anita asked coyly in her Boston Southie accent.
“Both,” he answered. “Well, I’ve had a few, now grown. At least they still talk to pappa. And you?”
“A daughter, out in California, and a granddaughter.” He looked down.
“Married?” Anita asked.
“No, divorced,” he said. “Ten years now. Or is it twelve?” He looked up, counting in his head.
“What happened?” Anita asked bluntly.
“Lots of things. Money, mostly money. It’s always money in there someplace, right? Money’s the real Santa Claus. Money is only one who can get what the kids want and what people need.”
Anita smirked, and patted his arm. “Aren’t we a bitter Santa?”
“Sorry… I plead guilty on both counts. First-degree self-pity and first-degree of impersonating a Santa Claus. But aren’t we taking this role too far?”
“Oh, silly. But of course you’re Santa Claus!” She laughed. A waitress came and offered more coffee. She nodded yes and looked up at the waitress and extended a hand, palm up, towards Rudi. “Meet Santa Claus.”
“Charmed,” said the waitress. “I know.” She bowed toward Rudi and smiled back at Anita. “Santa was in here the other night still in his red pants and boots with the furry tops. I wasn’t fooled by the pea jacket, Santa,” she said, pouring him a refill as well. “Anything else?”
“No, thanks,” said Rudi. “We’re okay.”
“I’ll be right back with your check,” said the waitress.
“See?” said Anita. “Even the waitress knows you’re Santa.”
“Thank you, Anita. My point exactly! She’s shilling for a big tip.” He laughed.
The waitress floated and dropped the check on their table on her way to another customer. Rudi automatically snatched it up.
“Let me get that,” Anita feinted a grab, too late. “Or at least, let’s split it.”
“No this is mine, ‘cause you’re such a nice elf.”
“And a naughty elf, you hope.” She said, smiling at him. “You can’t deny it. You are Santa,” she said as he dropped his bankcard on the bill.
“You wouldn’t think that if you knew my FICO score,” he said. “I can barely afford to get my daughter and granddaughter a Christmas gift this year. I’ve been out of work off and on, two years now. Why do you think I’m playing Santa?”
“Aren’t we all?” said Anita. “But we’re all Santa too,” she added. “Santa R Us.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“No,” she looked back directly into his eyes, her own strikingly pretty, penetrating gray-green eyes fixing him “There’s still a Santa Claus too. We just help him and cover most of the bases. That way he only has to show up in a few places where we just can’t do the job. How do you think all those presents get delivered all over the world in one night?”
“Ah. A fine theory, my dear.” Rudi toasted her with his coffee cup and took a sip. The waitress came back with his bankcard. He signed the slip and put the card back in his wallet.
“Thank you, Santa,” said Anita.
Going by Elf Anita’s Theory of Special Santa Relativity, the clientele of Macy’s Manhattan had Christmas pretty much covered. Most of the kids seemed to be from affluence, with a substantial mix of working class and in all races and colors, most from New York, but many from out of town in the U.S., and all over the world, coming to this Christmas tourist Mecca.
It was a little hard to be his old cynical arch self with stuff like that going around. But it wasn’t ever the kids that he was cynical about – except if one counts the stereotypes. It was the whole commercial phony hoo-haw of it. Yet there he was: the culmination of his life and career as a department store Santa -- and lucky to be there at that.
He’d let his beard grow full out from its usual trim state all year..
Rudi tried for the trim-bearded, stand-up Santa image, like Edmond Gwen in the original Miracle on 34th Street, even though he wasn’t quite as diminutive as the 1940s character actor. Santa Bob, who manned the evening shift and had done the job there for going on 20 years, by comparison, looked the picture of the traditional, plump, generous-white bearded Coca-Cola Santa Claus image.
Bob lived up in Maine and was a fisherman the rest of the year. There was one other, part time fill-in Santa – William. But Rudi hadn’t seen him since their pre-season orientation meeting.
Bob had warned him, but Rudi took no heed as he began falling into his role more and more as the long days filled with children and shoppers nonstop went on. He was in danger of becoming delusional the Santa role, entertaining the fantasy that he really was Santa who happened to take the job at Macy’s just like Edmund Gwen in the original 1947 film or Richard Attenborough in the 1994 remake.
He had to get a grip. Anita the “elf” was no help. She operated the cameras and workstations the produced instant portraits to sell eager parents at inflated prices to profit the concessionaire that hired them.
The store got a free, bonded, background-checked, “real-bearded,” professional team of Santas and elves for free and a fee on top of that. The store rule was that any kid could line up and sit on Santa’s lap for free with no obligation to by photos.
But the company insisted on no amateur snapshots. What with digital camera and home computers, it was too easy for people to make their own portraits. Most people did buy portraits anyway, once they got a look at the image of their little darlings on the photo station’s computer screen.
Lots of adults showed up too --- just to get a photo with Santa – whole families, wives and husbands, mothers and daughters, adult couples – straight and gay, ladies who lunched and came for their annual Santa group shot and liked to flirt with Santa while they sat in his lap.
Those who didn’t opt for photos had their reasons – usually financial. But it was hard to tell for Rudi because he never had an eye for the cut of clothes, to tell designer from discount store jeans, for example. They could be low-income, but more likely than not nicely dressed up for the occasion, taking the children to see Santa – single moms, immigrants, or miscellaneous homeless and tough-breakers.
Unless Hugo, the boss was around, Rudi took it upon himself to waive the no-personal-photo rule. “It’s okay. Take all the pictures you want, “ he would say, with a brushing motion of the hand. “Santa’s boss here and makes the rules.”
Rudi mused this as he walked into a company men’s room on his break an hour later, took off his gloves, hat and jacket, hung them over a stall door, stepped up to a sink and put his head under cold running water.
Look! It’s Santa! He’s pouring water on his head! Look it!” A squeal bounced off the black-and-white tile walls and floor of the men’s room and stabbed Santa brain through his eyes, nose and ears. Santa shuddered and raised his head out the cold, running water of the sink. He took a step back, his long white hair and beard dripping.
It was the same little girl, with the big round, coal-black eyes, looking for her mother, Serena.
“Ho, ho, ho!” he bellowed off the walls and mirrors… He looked around at the men’s room, which fortunately was empty. “What are you doing here, little girl? This is the boy’s room. You’re not supposed to come in here. Where’s your mom? Where’s your brother.”
Now he was sweating even more profusely than when under the camera lights in Santa uniform. He imagined how it might look if a supervisor walked in and saw the store Santa in a men’s room with a 6-year-old girl
“Here,” said her older brother, Ramon, coming through the door. “Serena. Get over here. You can’t be in here. Quit bothering Santa.”
“Please, please,” Rudi implored. “Take her out of here. What are you both doing in this part of the store anyway… Oh, never mind. Just get out, please.” Then he turned to the little girl, “I’ll be done in a few minutes and you can talk to me out in the hallway if you like.”
“Sorry,” said the boy, leading his sister away. He looked sideways over one shoulder at Santa Rudi and half-whispered: “She still thinks you have magical powers, and can bring us mama in your flying sled with the reindeer.”
Rudi noticed the little girl looking back too and listening in. “Oh, children, but I do too have magical reindeer and a flying sled, you’ll see come Christmas Eve.” He didn’t want to spoil Santa for the little girl.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the boy. “Could I please ask you something?”
Rudi shook his head, but then said: “Well, okay, but not in here. Outside. Take your sister out in the hall and wait, please. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
It was his final break of the eight-hour day shift and he had only so much time to cool down his body temperature before donning his fine red velvet, satin-lined, faux rabbit fur trimmed jacket with its engraved brass buttons and going back under the hot lights for another two hours.
Every morning, he came in with several gel cold-packs from his freezer, wrapped each in a hand towel and pinned them just under the neckline of his jacket and a few other strategic places and put on his Santa jacket. The cold packs worked to cool him under the hot lights for about half his shift.
After that, he’d remove the gel-packs on his lunch break and put them in his shoulder pack to take home. From then on, he’d simply wend his way through the back corridors to an employee men’s room, take off his jacket, wash and soak himself. Finally, he’d soak the hand towels in cold water, wring them out and put them back under his Santa outfit. This wasn’t nearly as cooling as the freezer-packs, but it helped a lot.
His Santa outfit was of the finest, professional material, style and cut, and was not a rental, nor provided by the concessionaire. He owned it, having invested in upgrades each of three seasons playing Old St. Nick for parades, stores, corporate and private parties.
He pulled down maximum hourly fees being a “real-bearded Santa,” for a top Holiday party agency – which made him a major leaguer in this jolly, odd niche, far above the guys with fake beards on street corners and the amateurs dressed up as St. Nick for suburban events.
This year he’d moved up the Santa ranks to the very top – playing Santa at Macy’s department store in Manhattan. It all started feeling delusional to him right after the first week. He was in a surreal version of Miracle on 34th Street every day, seven-days a week, with no breaks, starting from the weekend before Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve.
In addition, to earn extra money, he did Santa gigs for corporate and promotional parties a couple of evenings a week, set up by the agency. .
The party gigs were lightweight compared to his daily 9-5 department store performances, where he sweated, suited up under hot lights while kids and adults lined up endlessly to sit in Santa’s lap, tell him what they wanted for Christmas and have their pictures taken.
. He finished washing up and took a quick look out into the hall for the kids before getting back into full regalia. At first he didn’t see them, but then they came back around a corner from the direction of the employee snack bar, but carrying nothing. That was the first time it really hit Rudi that these kids might be homeless or something, and hungry.
“Want something to eat?” he said to them, and the little girl nodded yes, enthusiastically, but Ramon remained stoic, although his eyes widened. “Here,” he pulled a bill from the little pouch attached to a cord around his neck. His Santa pants had no pockets. “Go get your sister something back there at the snack bar. I’m sure you saw it right where you just came from. Get yourself something too. I’ll be right out.’ Ramon took the money, gingerly, and they trotted back off.
Feeding the little brats. I’m getting in deep, he thought. Food is the answer too all problems when you’re Italian.
-----------------
Back in the small stockroom that doubled as a Santa dressing room behind the Christmas Display area and the Toy Department, Rudi combed out his beard and hair and re-applied his rosy-cheek makeup for the final stretch. The kids sat on packing cases behind him, amazingly quiet. “See?” He said, turning to little Serena. “I’m not really Santa, just one of his helpers,” he explained.
She shook her head in disbelief, slipped off the box wee she had been sitting, walked over and pulled on his beard. “See? You ARE Santa,” said the little girl
“Are you okay,” Anita tapped softly on the door. It was ajar and swung slowly open. “Oh. Sorry.” She spotted the kids and bowed her head their way, “Oh, hello. Ramon. Hello Serena. Are you having fun watching Santa?”
Rudi turned in his chair and stared at her. “You know these kids?”
“Yeah, of course” said Anita. “They’re Delia Estancia’s children. She comes in late with the clean up crew. You never met her because you always work early shift….”
Rudi looked back at the children in disbelief. “Then…” he began… “Yeah, the little girl said that was her mother’s name, but that explains...
Anita cut him off. “You know it’s about time for you to get out there, Santa. The line’s getting long,” she said. “Don’t mean to nag.” She even sounded like an elf, in her high voice with its slight nasal twang. “Can I help you with anything? May I borrow your blush? I think my nose is fading.”
“Go ahead.” He handed her the blush and little application brush while he slipping the jacket back on and buttoned it. “So, where would she be right now?”
“The mother?”
“No, Paris Hilton. Yes, the mother. Who do you think?” He laughed, but he could tell from her expression that his sarcasm had bruised Anita. “Sorry. I’m just trash talking… I keep forgetting You’re from the North Pole, not New York.” Now he made it worse. Big mouth.
“It’s okay,” piped Ramon, “We’re going now.” He took his little sister by the hand.
“Just a second, honey,” said Anita. “Where did she say for you to meet her? You could get lost here. It’s a big store. I can take you upstairs to administration and they can find her for you if you’re lost.”
“No. We’re going now. It’s all right.” Ramon sidestepped Anita and pulled little Serena around with him. He opened the dressing room door. Anita looked questioningly at Santa.
“No,” yelled little Serena, suddenly and started crying. “I want to stay here with Santa Claus. He’s gonna bring mamma back in his sleigh. It’s on the roof with the reindeer.” She pointed upwards, looking a Rudi now fully in his costume.
“Well, sweetie,” Santa Rudi said, and gave Anita a quick, frowning glance. “Santa’s has to go talk to the other children. Why don’t you and Ramon stay here with Santa’s helper, Anita. She’ll take care… “
But Ramon started tugging on Serena’s hand again…
”No, Ramon,” She screeched and this time she kicked her brother on one ankle with her little patent leather maryjanes
“Quit it!” Ramon said, and pulled on her again, tussling. Anita broke them up. “Tell you what, children. Why don’t you go with Santa here and watch him with the other kids. There are a couple of chairs and a play area to the side with toys.”
“Good idea,” Rudi said with a big smile. “While you’re with me, Anita will go upstairs and find out where your mama’s gone to.” He added. Then he turned to Anita. “It’s okay. Betsy can take the photos and handle the cash register at the same time for a little while until you can come back,” he said conspiratorially, referring to the second elf-helper who worked the shift with Anita.
The two children seemed mollified. Serena pulled her hand away from her brother’s with a cross look and smiled triumphantly. “We’re going with Santa!” She exclaimed.
Santa Rudi put the finishing touches on his costuming. He put on a fabric, Velcro bracelet with five ping-pong-ball-sized, silvery bells – musically tuned perfectly to emit a limpid, cheerful, Donner-and-Blitzen sounds.
“How do I look?” He asked, shook his wrist, ringing the bells, giving out a hearty, practice “Ho-ho-ho,” at about half the full volume he would use when he entered the Santa throne area to the wild cheers of the waiting crowd.
Ramon smiled. The first time Rudi had seen him do that, and little Serene giggled loudly.
According to the store Santa guidelines, he wasn’t supposed “Ho-ho-ho” an individual child. A big fat, white-bearded stranger in a red suit reads as a scary alien monster some of the smaller ones. Bellowing a hearty ho-ho-ho was one way to set off Santa terrors.
That could spoil any opportunity of getting good pictures to sell mommy and daddy at inflated prices --- along with maybe one or two of these lovely Holiday frames. Portraits-with-Santa sales, after all, were what paid his hourly fees.
Once a toddler started yowling in Santa’s lap, the odds were against recovery. The parent might succeed in taking the child away and calming it down, but more often than not, proximity incited another round of terror.
Nick, however, took pride in having bettered the odds considerably by stashing a number of small toys in a basket next to his high-backed Santa throne, on which he could draw to distract a kid, which worked, if he, Santa, joined in the playing with childlike commitment. After all, he was an elf.
“Okay, then” he said, “Here I go. Follow me, kids. Stay right behind me.” He waved the kids onward with a white-gloved hand and gave Anita an imploring look, motioning towards the elevators with his head. Then he stepped out of his makeshift changing room.
The kids had played quietly a while. But they were gone when he looked nervously over to the play area.
He had been distracted posing for a photo with a large family group --- a mother, father, three kids and grandma. Somebody was always messing up the shot and they’d have to go over. Betsy was sweating, looking flustered more and more -- and still no sign of Anita.
He had figured that Anita would return with the children’s mother, and thus all would be resolved. But its was going on 90 minutes and no Betsy. Now, no kids. Ramon must have convinced his sister somehow to go with him wherever he had planned to go.
Just as well, Rudi was thinking when Anita finally showed up, but alone. She tiptoed over to Rudi and whispered. “No sign of the mother. They said far as they know, Delia Ramirez quit, or at least hasn’t shown up in days. I’d have to ask her crew boss to be sure. She doesn’t work for the store. It’s a janitorial service. She works for it.”
“Jesus,” said Chris, softly. “You don’t suppose….”
Anita shrugged her shoulders. Betsy brought another child forward with his mother holding him by the hand. The little boy looked to be maybe just short of three.
“Hello, and what’s your name,” Rudi said to the kid, in a little to hearty a voice because he was nervous. The kid froze I terror and started screaming. Rudi leaned back in his chair so as not to look too threatening and tried not to roll his eyes.
He was tired, and coming a bit unraveled himself, as he did after a long shift like this one. It had run 12 hours, counting a store promotional photo session early in the morning before his regular Santa shift. No union for Santas.
The bawling kid’s mother was trying to calm her son and carry him closer to Santa at the same time, saying, “look, honey. It’s Santa. He’s very nice, and brings all the children toys…”
The boy wasn’t buying the concept. They hardly ever did. “It’s okay, M’am,” said Anita to the woman. “Take him over to the play area over there and he can watch for a while. We’ll try again once he’s comfortable with seeing Santa.”
It wasn’t long before Santa Bob was ready to come out. He cracked the door leading from the stockroom to the Santa area just enough so only Rudi could see him, and waved. Rudi finished up and then announced he was taking a break.
They did the switch every afternoon around 4 p.m., so that nobody, except staff ever saw the two Santas together. Somehow that would violate an unwritten Santa code, even though people waiting there surely would notice the difference between the red-suited guy that left and the one who emerged a few minutes later.
As he entered the hallway to his dressing room, Rudi had to brush past Santa Bob in full costume. “Hey, there,” he said. “Have a good one.”
“Ho ho,” Santa Bob said, in a soft, almost mocking tone of voice. Bob stared past him, staying concentrated like an actor about to enter stage.
Rudi felt a mix of shame, envy and hostility as he did in this handoff each afternoon. He smiled broadly to cover it up. He hated feeling this. It was just that Santa Bob looked like a storybook St. Nick come down the chimney. Not only did he look the part, he had just the right expressions, carriage, tone, costume, make-up and style.
All of Rudi’s rationalizations about portraying a “different,” a “more distinguished” type of Santa evaporated into embarrassment. Santa Bob made him feel like the fake that he was…
Had Rudi still been seeing his shrink, she would have asked him at that juncture, “Rudi. Think now. In what other situations have you found yourself feeling like a fake?”
He didn’t have time to dwell on this, however, because when he got back to the makeshift dressing room, he saw Ramon and Serena sitting on boxes, awaiting him with big saucer eyes. This time they both looked up and smiled to see him, not just little Serena.
There was a man talking to them. As Rudi walked past him, he saw that it was Mr. Pitney, one of the managers from upstairs. “What’s happening here?”
Mr. Pitney gave him a disdainful look. “That’s quite all right Mr., ah… What is your name?” Mr. Pitney was tall, slim, pale, impeccable in his double-breasted dark blue suit, his sandy hair thinning, and slightly combed over. He fixed Rudi with steely blue eyes then looked away before Rudi could answer.
“Martin. Rudi Martin.”
“Children. Come with me.” Mr. Pitney said, ignoring Santa Rudi.
“Hold on, there Mr. Pitney.” Rudi blurted and sidled over between Pitney and the two children. “Are you with their mother?”
“No. But …”
“But nothing… They came here to meet their mother, whom I understand works here. Do you know where she is. I’ll take them over to her. It’s no problem,” said Rudi. He could see Anita walk in now, and stop just behind Pitney.
Her presence emboldened him. She smiled and nodded approvingly. Rudi noticed that he was talking in deep, clear tones, sounding very authoritative, very, well, Santa Claus-like – not the jolly Santa, but the one who knows if you’re naughty and will put coal in your stocking.
“Ah, Mister, ah…”
“Claus. Santa Claus…” Rudi said this time…
“All right. I wasn’t going to say this in front of the children, but their mother, Mrs. Estancia, she’s, well, been arrested…”
“What are you sayin’ ’bout my mother, Mister?” Ramon stepped closer and looked up into Pitney’s face. “My mama would never do anything wrong…”
Hearing that, little Serena started crying.
Anita went over to her, crouched down and put her arms around her. “It’s okay, honey…”
Pitney looked back at Rudi. “What’s your connection to their mother? Are you a relative?”
“Well, no,” said Rudi.
“We’re friends.” Anita piped up.
Pitney regarded them both. “Well, it’s none of my business, but you need to take these children home, or make arrangements, or I’ll have to call the authorities. The store can’t be responsible.”
“What was she arrested for? Where is she?” asked Rudi.
“Immigration: They picked her up here three nights ago. There was a sweep. They took several of the janitorial people…. No employees here, mind you. The illegals were working for the janitorial service company.
“Oh, that’s convenient,” said Rudi… “You make it sound like she was arrested for some crime.”
“Being an undocumented alien is a crime,” said Mr. Pitney…
“Where is she now? Is she in jail, or a detention center? Did they send her back to… ?”
“I don’t know,” said Pitney…Serena was crying again.
“We’ll take care of it,” said Anita. “The kids are staying with us and we’ll be in touch with their mother.”
“They should be with her. They should be sent back to Mexico where they come from. Children should be with their parents.”
Ramon started towards Pitney.. “Don’t you say anything about my mother..”
Rudi held him back. “Look. Mr. Pitney, Just give me time to change into my street clothes, the Anita and I will take the kids and be out of here. Okay?”
“All right,” said Pitney, retreating out the door. “But I’ll be back down to check and I don’t want to see them here. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Anita. Pitney withdrew silently. Rudi just stared at him leaving, then back at Anita, then at the kids in dismay. Then he started peeling off the rest of his Santa outfit.
Anita took the kids out while he changed. “I’m hungry,” said little Serena on their way out.
A few moments later, Anita, who was done with her shift too now, popped her head in the dressing room door. “I’m taking the kids to the deli down the street where you and I ate, okay?”
Rudi took a deep breath. “Why ask me?” He said.
She looked hurt.
“Sorry,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “Go ahead, I’ll meet you there I a few minutes,” he added. She brightened a little at that and left.
================ ====
The kids wanted pancakes but got cheese blintzes with maple syrup as the closest, deli approximation, along with hot chocolates. Anita ordered a hot pastrami sandwich on rye, and shared half with Santa Rudi, who ordered a Cobb salad, blue cheese dressing on the side. He had tea, not milk and cookies. “Now, Ramon, I want to know everything… and I mean everything. What’s going on?” He looked the boy straight in the eyes…
=====================
Ramon wasn’t too worried when he woke up the first morning his mother wasn’t in their small, walkup apartment. When she worked for the janitorial company, Delia usually got home in the wee hours, slept briefly and arose to get the kids breakfast and off to school. But sometimes she had to work a double shift. In that case she’d be home soon, Ramon thought, maybe by 7:30 or 8 in the morning.
Ramon got himself and his little Serena dressed and poured them each a bowl of cereal. He took Serena over to Mrs. Vargas apartment across the hall and explained that Serena needed to stay there earlier than usual while he went to school because he didn’t have time to take her to kindergarten too. Mrs. Vargas, an amiable, stocky woman with graying black hair pulled back tight on her head, spoke little English, so Ramon used his Spanish.
Mrs. Vargas gave them each half a Mexican pastry and a hot chocolate. While they were eating it, Ramon heard people knocking at their door across the hallway. He cracked Mrs. Vargas’ door, peeked and saw a man and a woman, each carrying a briefcase. Mrs. Vargas came to the door, but Ramon waved her away.
After a while, the woman and man crossed the hallway and knocked on Mrs. Vargas’ door. They were looking for Ramon and Serena – whom she had shooed into her one of small apartment’s bedroom and closed the door, keeping them out of sight. Mrs. Vargas played dumb, and confused them thoroughly with an especially fractured Spanglish, even though her Spanish usually was fluent. The pair left.
“La Migra?” asked Ramon.
“No,” answered Mrs. Vargas. “servizio para los niños.”
“Chile protective service, esse,” said Mrs. Vargas’ teenage nephew Raf, who had been staying over on the couch that night. “You gatta watch out for dam, kid. Dey take you away to foster home, you know.”
Mrs. Vargas shooed Serena into the next room and told Ramon -- all in Spanish --- everything she could find out from the social workers. “You mother’s been picked up by ICE agents and is being held for deportation. She told them she had to go home to you but she didn’t have bond and so they notified child protective services to come get you. She told them you were staying with an aunt, but they don’t believe her.”
Ramon tried his best to hold back tears. He asked her what to do. Mrs. Vargas said she didn’t know except that Ramon should get in touch with another member of the family if it could, and that his mother needed a lawyer.
“You mamacita, she needs a lawyer, bad, really bad,” said Raf. “Otherwise… grrrrrt….” He drew his finger across his throat. “La Migra, they get you kids too, send you to Mexico…and you gonna starve there. No work. No trabajo, nada.” he said, shaking his head broadly at the boy.
“Honduras,” said he boy. “Mama’s from Honduras,” said the boy.
“Same difference,” said Raf. “What about you fatha?” he continued, but stopped when Mrs. Vargas shook her head in a big “no” and put her finger to her lips.
Ramon didn’t shrink from telling Raf that his father had been killed in a meat packing plant accident in Kansas. That was just after Serena was born.
Ramon didn’t remember this except from what his mother had said one, and knew little else. He remembered his father only dimly. But with this sudden crisis, he remembered his mother mentioning that his father had a half-brother, who, practiced law somewhere in New York – in the Empire State Building, he thought she’d said.
Ramon couldn’t stop trembling, though he tried hard to present a stoic exterior after enduring Raf’s demoralizing analysis of the situation, After he was sure the child services people wouldn’t be back, Ramon took Serena back across the hall back to their apartment.
He packed some clothes and a few other items into his blue canvas, school backpack. He also found the thick, white cotton gym sock where his mother kept a wad of money she’d saved painstakingly for emergencies. He bundled Serena up in her large, pea jacket, and trundled her downstairs and out of their Newark apartment. He found a New Jersey line underground station and before boarded a Manhattan-bound train with Serena.
They took the train to Penn Station on 34th Street in Manhattan, where the line ended. Ramon remembered Penn Station from a year earlier when his mother had taken the two children to see Santa Claus and all the giant balloons in the big, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
He knew that the Empire State Building was also on 34, only a few blocks from the station, where perhaps he could find the uncle attorney his mother had once mentioned. In between the two was Macy’s on Herald Square at 34th and Broadway, where his mother had worked, and perhaps he could find out something there. Perhaps the story Mrs. Vargas had told was wrong and his mother was still there, at Macy’s.
That’s what he told Serena – that they were going to find mama and go see Santa Claus. To Ramon’s consternation, Serena talked about it excitedly all the way there.
============== ============
“Now, you go doing things for people and you’re hooked. They’ll be leaning on you. Then their family and friends will be along to pile on. Pretty soon there are mobs following you for a glimpse, a touch, and right behind them, somebody in the crowd who wants to assassinate you.
“Mark my words. People are so needy, so hungry for just a scrap of joy and serenity, even if it’s fake, they can become instantly addicted to anyone who gives them the least little lift. Then you’re hated for not ever being enough and envied for being too much. Just ask Gandhi, JFK, Martin Luther King, RFK, Malcolm X, RFK and John Lennon.”
Rudi had memorized roughly, his father’s version of The Sermon On The Mount, which this old man held to right up until he died in his sleep, peacefully, following a gratifying lifetime of narcissism.
Rudi remembered asking when he was small: “What about Santa Claus, daddy? Everybody loves Old St. Nick. I always leave him milk and cookies.”
“That’s because he’s a fake, son. We’ve got him under control. Madison Avenue made him holiday marketing vice president.”
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this old stuff, Anita,” said Rudi. “My father was a jerk, but he could have helped. He was a lawyer and a successful one at that, not that he knew anything much about immigration – more corporate and banking.”
Anita looked at Ramon and Serena, who where polishing off burgers and milkshakes next to her in a semi-circular, red plastic booth at the back of the deli. “So, you called them and your dad’s old law firm friend can’t help?”
“Well, the son. And he kind of put me off, but said he’d try to check into it and would recommend a referral tomorrow morning.” Rudi had rung up the son of his father’s law old partner, now also deceased. “He said we ought to be careful, because the kids’ mom should be the one deciding things – and he was right.”
Rudi looked at Rudi, who was listening in raptly. “What about that uncle, in the Empire State Building? What did he say?”
“Nothing,” said Ramon. “We couldn’t find him. His name is not listed. Nobody seemed to know his name that I asked there. Then my sister was crying. We walked to Macy’s. Serena wanted to see Santa and I thought we might find mama there” Ramon added.
They were silent for a few moments. Rudi sipped coffee, and stared off into space.
“What are you thinking?” Anita asked him.
“I’m thinking about the mother,” he said in a low voice, hoping little Serena wasn’t listening.
“Me too,” said Anita. “She must be desperate. I know I would be -- and beside herself worrying about them.” Anita nodded her head towards the children. “Why wouldn’t they let her contact them? What’s wrong with these people?”
“I don’t know. There was no way. They probably notified child services. Why do they do this? Incarcerate her, I mean – probably doesn’t have the money for a lawyer and God knows getting a pro-bono one probably is a long shot, like for anything else, too many hard-luck cases for too few do-gooders. I mean, really, what did she do all that wrong. Work hard; raise kids; try for a better life? What’s she’s guilty of is being broke working for substandard wages…”
Anita interrupted, “Ranting won’t help. We’ve got to help.”
“Why us?” Rudi asked. “These things happen. They aren’t our…”
Because, they are here,” she interrupted again. “Don’t need a reason,” she hushed him. “Doesn’t matter what else happens, we’ve got to find a way to put her in touch with these children and vice versa…”
Ramon was by now, staring intently back and forth at each of them. Serena had finished her milkshake and was lying down in the booth against her brother’s shoulder, eyes closed, looking angelic in that way kids do dropping off to dreamland.
“Don’t worry, kid,” Santa Rudi said to Ramon, patting his arm. “We’ll straighten things out in the morning. Right now there isn’t much we can do. I’ll see what I can find out online and make some phone calls, okay?”
Ramon nodded. His eyes welled up.
Rudi’s eyes watered too – both eyes, not just the left one. He mussed Ramon’s thick black hair lightly: “Hey, kid, I’m not Santa, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll find some way.” Rudi looked down into his coffee, wondering if he was promising too much.
“Would you like to stay with me at my place tonight Ramon?” Anita asked Ramon. The little girl had opened her eyes, and nodded yes enthusiastically.
“Ramon, please,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Can we stay with Santa’s helper. Can we help make some toys too? Is it at the North Pole?”
Ramon just eyed Anita for a few minutes then looked over at Rudi. The boy cocked his head, then asked him: “What about you? You’re not going to call the cops on us, are you?”
Rudi shook his head emphatically. “Hell no! But you’ve gotta promise to let us call child services in the morning if we can’t get hold of your mother and find out what she wants. They’ll figure out how to find her.”
Ramon scowled. “They gonna send us to a foster care,” he said. “I know it.
“Well, Ramon, I can’t take care of you. I’m well, not at the North Pole now.” Rudi motioned to Selena so Ramon would get the message. “Let’s said Mrs. Claus lives there but not me these days. I’m kind of between places right now. Staying at a friend’s apartment on the upper West… well… just not in a good position.”
“What about your elf helper here?” asked Ramon, looking over at Anita.
“She lives with her mama, who is a nice lady. A long time ago, Anita’s mama was a very, very good girl and Santa put a rent-controlled apartment in her stocking.”
“Oh, stop,” Anita turned and gave Rudi’s hand a playful slap.
“Okay.” Ramon said. “But you promise you’ll help me find my mother in the morning?” Ramon asked.
Anita smiled. “Good! Now let’s go.” Then she looked at Rudi. “I call Dolores at Macy’s and she if she’ll switch her late shift with me. She said she likes getting off earlier anyway. But what about you, Rudi? Can you switch with Santa Bob?”
“Doubt it. He does some kind of car promotion every morning all this week. I’ll just call in sick. They can get old backup Santa-something to fill in. Can’t remember his name. ”
“Santa Willie.” Anita said. “But you better call Sandra on her cell phone right now and tell her.” Sandra Cominsky managed the Santa-photo concession.
Rudi pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number.
======= ============
The next morning, Rudi rendezvoused with Anita and the two children in the lobby of the Empire State Building. Rudi went through the directory and talked to a building manager. It seemed Ramon’s uncle had relocated upstate to Albany.
Rudi’s cell phone chimed. It was the son of his father’s old law partner. He stepped over near one of the marble walls of the elevator lobby, already crowding with tourists, in order to hear better.
“You got a problem, Rudi,” said the voice over the phone talking fast. “The mother is scheduled for removal, that means deportation. That can happen fast under some circumstances. She’s probably in a detention center.. The ICE has chartered jets to fly illegal back to Mexico daily. It’s like their own airline. They work fast nowadays.”
“But what about the kids?”
“They ought to be with her.”
“But both children are U.S. citizens. The older one tells me they were born in San Antonio, Texas.”
“No matter. They are minors. If they aren’t with their mother, going back to Mexico…”
“Honduras…” Rudi interrupted.
“Whatever,” said the lawyer. “My advice to you, Rudi, is take the kids to family services and let them sort this out. These things happen all the time. It’s their mother’s problem. She chose to come here and have them. You should stay out of it.”
“Right.” Rudi said, in a barely audible voice.
“The mother needs an immigration lawyer, if she has the money, or can find somebody pro bono. Try the Catholic charities office… Probably they’re swamped. But who knows? I can’t help you – and they sure couldn’t afford me if I could,” he said sounding impatient.
“Okay, “ said Rudi. “They need Santa Money, not Santa Claus, and especially not Santa Rudi” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” said Rudi and they said quick goodbyes.
He mumbled. He pulled Anita aside and filled her in.
They stepped away from the kids, and left Ramon holding onto Serena. The boy was making her giggle with delight by reading names aloud to her off a building directory on the wall, fracturing pronunciation and punctuating the names with rude sounds.
Rudi related what the lawyer had said on the phone. Anita put a hand on her hip, and bit her lip. “We can’t do that – just run out on them now,” she said. “At least we should find that uncle or somebody or set them up with an attorney.” Rudi nodded reluctantly in ascent.
Anita glanced back to check the kids. But they were nowhere in sight in the bustling lobby.
“Oh my God, Rudi,” she said. The two of them peered in all directions and walked in widening circles looking the kids. “Did they go out to the street, or up one of the elevators?” Anita asked.
Rudi described the children to a woman at an information counter and asked if she’d noticed them. The woman said no, but called a couple of lobby attendants into the search.
“Don’t worry,” she said to Anita and Rudi. “We’ll find your children if they are in here,” she said unconvincingly. “In any case, they wouldn’t be able to take an Observation Deck elevators unless they bought tickets.
“They’re not…” Rudi started to say, then stopped, thinking of the complications.
“What are their names, I’ll put make an announcement over the sound system,” said the woman.
Rudi looked over at Anita and nodded a subtle no, but she blurted, “Serena and Ramon.”
They moved away from the counter and heard the woman’s voice over lobby speakers, requesting Ramon and Serena to come to the information desk in the main lobby – all very businesslike.
A large woman in a dark blue, wool suit on her stopped at the desk and said she thought she’d seen two kids getting onto one of the office elevators headed for the highest floors. “Being a mom, I noticed they were alone,” she told them. I was coming down from my office on the 75th floor and an elevator arrived and out they came, and went down a hall.
Anita gave Rudi a little shove: “You go up there. I’ll wait here in case they come back down,” Anita told him.
Rudi thanked the woman in the blue suit.
“Yes, thank you,” Anita told her, and gave Rudi another push. “Go on Santa, up the chimney with you.” Anita touched the side of her nose with an index finger and then raised it pointing upwards.
“Jeez, please, Anita, don’t call me that,” said Rudi with a weak smile. He did a little bow of the head towards the woman, then back at Anita and walked off briskly.
“That’s a good Santa Rudi,” she said, with her best her elfin grin, her cheer veneer never fading, and waved him off to the elevators. “Get going.”
Rudi caught an elevator to the 75th floor. He was the only one to get off on that floor. He saw no sign of the kids up and down the hallway.
He walked along it, and tried a few doors. The sign on one of them read: “Gotham Janitorial and Maintenance.” He pushed open its door and stepped inside. It was a small office, three rooms. A small, fidgety man hunched over a computer screen at a reception desk. He looked up, but Rudi walked right past him towards one of the other rooms when he heard Ramon’s and Serena’s voices floating from a short hallway leading to an inner office.
The inner office was small, but afforded a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline and rooftops, facing southwards. At a cheap, green metal desk, a muscular, stocky man bulged out of his white shirt and blue slacks. The children sat opposite him in two large, worn, leather chairs that seemed to swallow them.
“This is the company that paid mama,” said Ramon looking at Rudi as if all this were business as usual. “I saw the name on the lobby wall, and I remember seeing this same name on mama’s uniform… Gotham…” He stopped.
Rudi whirled and faced the man. “Where’s Delia Estancia? She worked for you, at Macy’s doing clean-up.”
“The ICE got her. She’s in detention --- upstate, I think,” said the man in subtly middle-eastern accent that Rudi took to be Turkish. .
“Yah, yah,” he said, “We know all that. What are the grounds? What’s happening? Did any of your other workers get picked up?”
“Hey,” he said, waving a beefy hand. “Hold it. I run respectable operation, here.”
“I’m sure,” Rudi said, sardonically.
“We check for proof of legal residence or citizenship for all our people,” he said. “She must of given us forged documents. Just for that should could be kicked out and good riddance,” he huffed, sneezed and lit a cigar. “Look,” he said, pulling a file envelope out from a lower drawer on his desk, “We got served too, for having her on staff.”
“Then it wasn’t part of a raid?” Rudi said, reading out to see the paper. The man handed it to him. Rudi scanned it with his eyes, noting details like the judges name where to appear… anything. “Mind if I make a copy on your machine here?”
“No, go ahead,” said the man.
“Tell me this,” said Rudi, “If this wasn’t’ a raid on your company employees, then how did it happen? Why did the come get just one person, here, Mrs. Estancia? Isn’t that unusual, given resources and all that?”
“How do I know?” The Gotham Janitorial man said. “This is just an administrative office. We handle bookkeeping and stuff like that here. Operations are out in Jersey,” he said.
“Think!” Rudi insisted.
“If you wanna know, it was someone over there at Macy’s. Take another look on the paperwork…”
Rudi looked over the sheet more carefully. “Mr. Pitney!” he said. “The sonofabitch… What was his problem?”
“Maybe she steal something,” the man said. “Or maybe she, you know, not … you know… He turned away from the kids so their view was obstructed and made a gesture with his hands that they couldn’t see…”
Rudi stiffened. “Geez… I can’t believe… No. Well, actually, I can believe…but… ”
“Happens.” The man said. “She complain to us, about him. You know?”
“And what did you do?”
“Oh, it happens….”
“What needs to happen now,” said Rudi, standing up, “Is that you should help out this woman. She worked for you. You gave her the job.”
“Not our problem…”
“Don’t give me that,” Rudi replied, “ICE’s gonna get on your case now anyway. I’ll bet she’s not the only one on your crews without papers – in fact, most…”
“Hey, you need to butt your nose out…” the man started.
“No,” said Rudi, “How about I butt it more IN, and go talk to Macy’s management about all this – and maybe what you are doing with their Mr. Pitney? Admit it, you’ve gone along with him doing this before!”
========== ===
Rudi took the high speed elevator down to the main lobby with the kids, and a file folder in one hand. His bearded face was flushed. Anita was waiting.
“Well, now we know where she is -- the Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal detention center up in Batavia, near Buffalo. These papers may help.” he said. “Now what next?”
========
Fortunately, 21st century Santa wouldn’t leave the North Pole without his Blackberry, and neither did “Santa Rudi,” who had acquired his phone-PDA in a final fling of affluence before he was laid off of his last real, paying, fulltime job, at an Internet company. He was glad about the extravagance nonetheless. The GPS alone made it worth the money “to use for reindeer sled navigation,” he said to Anita pulling it out of his inside jacket pocket.
“My red-nosed namesake would be out of a job if Santa had one of these babies” Rudi said, waving his Blackberry in front of Anita. A quick stop at a café and a few more cell phone calls, and Rudi had located the Batavia ICE detention center on the Internet.
Rudi called the center’s information number and followed the automated woman’s voice instructions, punching numbers obligingly, and entering names and numbers until it confirmed that there was, indeed, a Delia Estancia in custody there.
Detainees couldn’t be reached on the phone directly, but he was able to leave a message saying Ramon and Serena were okay and waiting to talk to their mother. He left Anita’s cell phone number, thinking Delia would be more comfortable connecting with a woman.
“It says here we could put up a bond,” said Rudi. Hearing this, Ramon dug down into his pocket and came up with what remained of the cash he’d gotten from the sock where his mother had stashed it. He held it up to Rudi.
“Put that away, Ramon,” said Anita.
“No, wait a minute,” said Rudi, taking it and counting it out on the café table. “We might need it… and it’s her money, so…”
You can’t mean it. You can’t use that money,” said Anita. “That’s all these kids have right now. Right, Ramon?”
Ramon nodded yes.
Rudi handed back the cash, a bit brusquely. Anita looked at him disapprovingly.
“What?” He snapped.
“Nothing!” Anita answered.
Anita’s cell phone buzzed. “Hello?” She flushed and burst into a smile. “It’s your mama!” she whispered at Ramon and Serena. The children leaned forward.
“Yes,” Anita said back into her phone. “They are with us and they are fine, just a little worried about you… “ Anita quickly sketched in what had happened in the past 24 hours.
Then she handed the phone to Ramon, who almost dropped it in his excitement, with Serena starting to cry out “Lemme, lemme talk to her too!”
Anita put an arm around her. “He will. Your mama needs to talk to Ramon first, then he’ll put you on and you can talk to your mama. “
“Oh, Santa, I knew you’d find mama!” shouted Serena with glee, causing several customers in the café to turn and stare.
Rudi looked down into his coffee cup. Serena was next on the phone with her mother. After a while, Anita got back the phone and passed it over to Rudi.
“Well, it’s okay, Mrs. Estancia…” She got through the thank you part and they talked over the situation, but time was nearly up on her end. Afterwards, Rudi looked at Anita and the children a while…
There was a long silence. Ramon looked at him: “Mama told me you’d take care of things.”
Rudi looked at Ramon, “Kid,” he said, “Your mom asked if we can help her get an attorney and file a paper to release her and get a hearing. Otherwise, she said to take you back to Mrs. Vargas and she’d let the authorities handle matters from there. They’ll probably let you two go back to Honduras with her, but if not…
Ramon paled and Serena started crying again quietly this time. Rudi looked at Anita and away from them.
“Anita,” he started. Then he stopped. Finally. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He looked at Serena then at Ramon. “Might as well give it to you straight. It doesn’t look good for getting their mama outta there. I found out a few more things on the Internet sites here, and early this morning before I met you, I did manage to talk with an immigration attorney briefly that where Jim – the partner from my dad’s old firm, had referred me to.”
Rudi ran down what legal information he’d gleaned: She needs to file a motion with an immigration judge, then get it to the ICE people upstate to make sure she’s not deported right away, which could happen. They might get some help through a couple of organizations, mostly notably, Catholic Charities – maybe get pro-bono or means-adjusted legal aid… His voice trailed off…
Anita said “Well, at least we should drive the kids up there for a visit. Maybe if we could get something filed, like you said, we could post bond and get her out in time for Christmas….”
“Anita….” Rudi said. “Anita. Look. That’s a day’s drive practically at Christmas, plus they’re predicting snow. Don’t you think we’ve taken this about as far as we can? “
Anita looked at the two kids and back at him, bit her lower lip and shook her head, no.
“Look, Anita, just take them back to your place and call Catholic Charities or one of the other agencies and maybe they can get their mother a pro bono attorney or file a paper themselves and get her out on bond before the ICE sends her out of the country. That’s all we can do. I gotta get to work. Maybe if you could just do this, I will go back to Macy’s and tell somebody there…This has just gotten out of hand.”
“Rudi…You can’t just do that. This little girl asked you, Santa… ” She looked at Serena then back at Rudi accusingly..
“I’m not Santa anything,” he started.
Anita held one hand up over his mouth. “Hush. She’s going to hear you.”
Anita fished some cash out of her purse. She handed Ramon $20. “Here, Ramon, take your sister over to the counter there and pick out some dessert for each of you, whatever you like. This is the smallest I have. Bring me back the change, please.” Ramon took the twenty-dollar-bill and the kids walked across the café to the pastry counter.
“Well, you’re trusting,” Rudi said. “Listen. We’ve taken this Santa thing as far as we can with these kids. Let the proper people take care of things from here on out.. I’ll make some phone calls. Can you just take them back to your place? Help me. Make a few calls. Then in the morning we’ll take them back to where they live and that Mrs. Vargas, and that will be that. I’m sure there are cases like this all the time.”
“But you promised Selena, and she believes in you. We’re all these kids have right not – all their mother has… I’m going to rent a car and drive them up to see their mother. You can come with me or not, as you chose,” said Anita.
“Anita. Consider that I barely have enough right now to keep from being homeless myself. You get that? These are her children. They belong to Delia Estancia. She had them. She came here. She’s got a problem. Lots of people have lots of problems, some of them terrible problems, and most of them undeserved, probably most… Can’t fix it… Even if I were Santa or even if Santa were real, it’s pretty obvious he’s not doing a very good job.”
“But people do a lot of good too,” Anita said. “Sometimes you get a chance to make things better, and that’s a special thing, even if it isn’t everything. That’s the Christmas spirit – any time. When you have a chance to do some good, you just do it, and don’t wait for the world to be perfect.”
Rudi looked down into his coffee. “Suit yourself. I’m just not seeing it, Anita.
“Rudi, you disappoint me…” She pulled her coat off the chair behind her, put it on and collected her purse off the table. “I’m going… I’ll take the children to my place for tonight again, and we’ll figure this out for ourselves, one way or another.” She said,
“Okay. Think of me what you want. I’m a fake. I’m not Santa Claus. I never said I was… Maybe I got carried away, trying to be a hero to impress you, Anita.”
“You did impress me, Rudi -- but not now. Okay, do what you want. I’m taking the children back to my place.” She waved at the kids, who were just returning from the counter. “Come on, kids.”
“Fine,” said Rudi. “I’m going back to the store and suit up…”
“That’s good,” said Rudi. “I’ll talk to you after I get off. I’ll call.”
“Don’t bother,” said Anita.
Rudi felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down and there was Serena, staring up at him with those limpid, brown eyes again, and holding up a small, pink pastry box, wrapped in red-and-green ribbon. “Cookies,” Selena said. “Cookies for you, Santa – for when you bring my mama back. You might get hungry. It’s a long way…”
“Thank you, honey,” he said, his voice hoarse. He took the box gingerly and put it in his knapsack. “I’ll do the best I can. Sweet of you… But Santa’s gotta go now.
“Santa, will you come back?” asked little Serena…
“Okay, but Santa’s got a lot of work right now. There are lots of toys to load up on the sleigh to deliver tomorrow night. It’ll be Christmas Eve,” he said, not very convincingly, nodded at both kids and at Anita and walked down 34th Street towards Macy’s.
====================
On his way down 34th Street towards Macy’s, Rudi stopped in front of a sidewalk Santa, resplendent in his fake beard and sagging, rumpled red suit. On impulse, he dropped a twenty into the red pot for the Salvation Army. “There.” He said. “My last twenty, but what the hell. It feels good, even if I feel like a bum right now,” he said.
“Bless you. Thank you. You’re very generous.” The sidewalk Santa frowned and smiled at the same time and gave him a little bow. “You must be the real Santa Claus,” he said, with a wink.
“How much you getting for this gig?” Rudi asked.
“Ah.. why.. nothing. It’s all volunteer, you know..”
“Exactly!” Rudi patted him on the back. “You are the real Santa Claus. But you can catch my act at Macy’s seven days a week impersonating you.. Merry Christmas.”
============
Santa’s Village was shut down for lunch break when Rudi got back to Macy’s. The fill-in Santa was in the stockroom dressing room with his jacket off, wiping off makeup and sipping a cold, diet cola.
When Rudi walked back there, he discovered that the backup guy wasn’t the regular third Santa. It was someone Rudi’s never seen before. Like Rudi, he had a real beard. It was fine, fluffy, white and full like Santa Bob’s, but his eyebrows were bushier.
This new Santa was smaller, more rotund, efin and less imposing than Bob. His eyes were a deep, cobalt blue and did seem to twinkle.
“You must be Santa Rudi,” he said in a rounded, baritone Santa voice that sounded natural in its heartiness, not put on for the role. “I’m Santa Claude.”
“Claude?” Rudi tried to suppress a laugh.
“Claude Crangle,” he said, proffering a hand.
“Santa Claude?” Rudi cleared his throat to suppress a giggle.
“Ho ho ho,” he said with self-mocking good humor.
Rudi got his Santa suit down from where he had hung on a coat hook, preparing to take up the rest of the shift. “No need,” said Santa Claude. “I’m here, already suited up, and I can work the rest of the shift,” he said. “You go take the rest of your day off. I’m sure you’ve got important things to do.”
Rudi considered. He looked down at his half boots, the ones he wore with his Santa suit. He was thinking about Anita and the kids. “Well, if it’s okay with the boss. Anita’s not coming in either.”
“Nothing to worry about.” He said.
“Tell you what,” said Rudi, let me buy you lunch upstairs then at the lunchroom – or around the corner someplace if you like.
=============== ================
Upstairs, the two Santas sat down at a table off to one side away from others on lunch breaks. Nevertheless, some of the employees kept glancing over and waving and giving them the Hi-Santas!
“You sure that’s all you want?” Rudi nodded at Claude’s piece of chocolate cake, and two 8-ounce glasses of milk.
“I ate a big breakfast,” said Claude. “Is that all you’re having?” he countered. “That’s no meal for a Santa.”
Rudi mixed low-cal ranch dressing into a small Cobb salad, and took a bite. He put down his fork. “Here. Since you’re obviously not on a diet, I’ve got something for you,” he said. He took the small bakery box Serena had given him with the cookies, from his knapsack, opened it and offered them to his Santa colleague. “Help yourself,” he said, and returned to his salad.
Claude didn’t hesitate to pick one – an oversized almond cookie. “Mmm…these are special,” said Claude, dipping the cookie in his milk. Where did you get them?”
Rudi unburdened himself. There was something about this Claude that encouraged him to open up. He quickly related the whole story about Serena, Ramon and the past 24 hours, and their predicament. Rudi told him about Anita too, without leaving anything out.
Rudi realized he was rambling, weaving in his life story, attitudes, Anita’s troubles, the good and not-so-good life of a Santa Claus. “Not every kid gets what he wants for Christmas, or even what he needs, life looks so much prettier in the multicolored holiday lights, doesn’t it?”
Santa Claude listened and munched another cookie, taking occasional bites of his cake too. When Rudi finally paused, he gave him a ”ho ho ho.” Then he said: “You’re right to let the situation go, and about everything. Those kids are up the creek and they need a paddle that you just can provide for them, my Santa friend.”
Rudi sat up straight, wide eyed. “What? No, I didn’t mean that. Far as I can tell, it’s a pickle, yes, but not hopeless. That’s what’s so frustrating -- so near and yet so far.
“The mom probably could get sprung, and there could be some sort of hearing and she could get to stay on grounds of no separating the family and hardship for the kids if she has to go home and take them, where there’s no work and they’ll probably all starve. It’s just the timing is so bad. Money and timing are everything!” He flushed.
“Ah ha!” Claude slapped his hand down on the table. Rudi noticed then they he was still wearing the white gloves – and without a spot on them. “See, now that’s the Santa spirit, boy!”
“What? I don’t understand.” Rudi swayed in his chair. The room seemed to spin – or rather, rotate almost imperceptibly, but enough to disorient him. He blanched. “I’m sorry.” He blurted.
“Steady there.” Claude put a hand on Rudi’s upper arm. “You’re okay.” He smiled broadly, and chuckled reassuringly. “All I’m saying is that there’s no rational solution to the problem. You are right. You can’t give that little girl – Serena, is that her name? – her wish. But we Santas have to handle that all the time. Junior wants this toy, but he just has to be happy with another one, and so forth.”
“It’s not about toys. That would be easy,” Rudi shook his head. “But I know what you’re saying. Everyone’s caught up in their own little worlds revolving around the big world and some crash into each other, and it doesn’t stop for Christmas, or New Year, or Easter, or make way for Santa or the Easter Bunny.”
Claude laughed, “And what has all that to do with you?”
“Nothing, really,” Rudi said. “No, everything. For me it’s all personal, not business. For me, it’s little Serena looking into my eyes and thinking I’m going to get her mother back okay for her, and believing I can do it, when I can’t really,” Rudi slumped. “
“And you’ve got your own grief, right?” Claude said. “You probably want to ask Santa for a lot of things yourself. But stop feeling sorry for yourself, lad.? ” Claude startled him with
Rudi smirked. Then threw up his hands. “If there were a Santa, I’d ask him to just this once, let me be him. Let me have Santa powers so I can do some good some way, somehow for somebody. I don’t seem to be able to do that, not for anyone, not for myself either.”
Claude nodded and cocked his head. “And has Rudi been a good boy?”
Rudi laughed. Then he said a in little falsetto voice, “Yes, Santa, I’ve been good. I brush my teeth and do what mommy tells me all the time.”
Claude looked him straight in the eyes. “Now, Santa doesn’t believe that. You impress me as a pretty good guy, Rudi.”
“This is about as good as I can get, Santa,” he said.
“Fine!” Claude said. “Just fine!” Claude held out the box and said: “My Santa friend, you need one of these cookies.”
“No thanks,” said Rudi. “Not on my diet.”
“Go on,” said Claude. “And here, some milk.” He moved his second yet-untouched glass of milk over in front of Rudi. “Here,” he said. “This butter chocolate pecan cookie is perfect.”
He dipped it in the milk the held it out to Rudi, who rolled his eyes, then took the cookie from him and bit off a piece. Rudi closed his eyes and took a second bite. “Mmmm… You’re right,” Rudi said, nodding his head in appreciation.
“These are great. Amazing! They’re just from this regular coffee place down the street.”
“Oh, no. There’s where you are wrong,” said Santa Claude.
He, laughed, a surprisingly jolly, belly laugh that really sounded very much like a ho-ho-ho, not put on: “Nonsense! He said, smiling through his enormous white beard that seemed to fly out in all directions under the harsh, flickering fluorescent lights of the lunchroom.
“These are very special cookies!” said Claude. “These are Santa cookies, the ones you get only from children who believe in us.”
“Huh?” Rudi gaped at him.
“These cookies are the ones that make you Santa and send you flying. You can’t be Santa without them” Claude said.
“What?”
“Eat another one,” said Claude. “You’ll see. Everything will come clear. You’ll fly. my friend, and things will change for you.”
“What? How…?” Rudi shook his head.
“Grace. Goodness. You know. Connection. ‘The ‘Force,’ Luke. Use the Force, Luke’ This is the secret to discover your inner Santa, able to leap tall buildings and go up and down millions of chimneys all over the world in one night?”
“Surely,” Rudi began… and then he laughed. “Okay, Claude, you’re a kick. Have it any way you want.”
===============
Back in the dressing room, Rudi carefully rolled up his suit and packed it so it wouldn’t wrinkle in his backpack. This would have been the last day, and now gig was over. The next day was Christmas Eve and it would be a half shift in the afternoon which would be covered by Santa Bob.
Claude had excused himself on their way down from the lunchroom and said he’d be along but had some business to take care of. He turned down a hall from the elevator banks heading toward what Rudi thought was Pitney’s office, but wasn’t sure.
When he was nearly done with the packing, he heard Claude just outside the dressing room door. He was talking to someone on a cell phone. Rudi tried not to listen.
“Fine! Perfect.” He heard Rudi says: “Bye now and Merry Christmas!”
Claude breezed into the room, “Ready to go now. Any tips? Are you still giving free photos to needy moms and kids?”
“How did you know that?” said Rudi.
“Word gets around” Claude patted Rudi on the back.
Well, if I don’t see you, Merry Christmas!” Rudi extended a hand.
Claude took it and shook up and down in an exaggerated fashion that gave Rudi that vertigo again. “Here’s something for your stocking, Rudi,” Claude said. “Pitney’s gone.”
“Huh!”
“Fired! Laid off. Found a lump of coal in his stocking.”
“Can’t say as I’m sorry about that,” said Rudi.
“Now don’t go dashing off. I’ve got something to ask you.”
“Fire away,” said Rudi,
“Tomorrow,” said Claude, ignoring the comment. “Tell you what. I have a big promo. That’s why I went by Pitney’s office. His assistant got the request from a big corporate client when their regular Santa took sick. They need a last-minute fill-in. But I can’t make it. I want you to go in my stead? There’s an honorarium in it for you – maybe enough for that bond, if that’s how you want to spend it – and all in cash on the spot! What do you say?”
Rudi hesitated. “I don’t think so, but thanks, Claude. I think I need to do something with those kids. I have a few idea. I’ll rent a car and drive them up for a visit.”
“Bring them along-- the kids, Anita too” said Claude, giving him the ho-ho again. “These people will get you and the kids where you want to go, believe me. Here’s a name.” Claude handed him a card. “Got this from Pitney’s assistant. I won’t need it.”
“Well, let me think on it and I’ll call this guy?”
“Oh, good for you,” said Claude, with a hearty voice as if ti was all settled. “The job will be great. You’ll see--- and they need a Mrs. Santa and elves, so you can bring your friend and the two kids.”
“But…” Rudi held up a hand.
Santa Claude fixed him with those cobalt eyes staring from behind his Santa glasses. “Good. It’s settled then. There’ll be a limo to pick you up. They need a Santa and some elves. Bring Anita and the two children. I’ll phone to have costumes ready. It’s a big-budget promotional extravaganza put on for a corporate client. Call and tell me them where you want the limo to pick all of you up.”
===============
“Call him,” Anita’s mother, Hilda, told her for the third time since the kids sat down for breakfast. “The man was discouraged. Your father used to get discouraged all the time. He just needed some positive reinforcement and a kick in the ass, and he’d start right up again.”
“Mother, please…” Anita bit into her bagel with cream cheese.
“You know you like him,” Hilda teased. “You need to get out, Anita. Just because one man hurt you, doesn’t mean you should cloister yourself the rest of your life.”
“I’m not cloistering myself. Just not interested right now. I’m not buying. I’m not even shipping, mom.”
“Is he coming?” asked Selena. “Is he gonna bring mama back?”
“No, sweetie. But we’ll take care of things; don’t worry,” said Anita.
“Are you going to tell them what the lawyer I called told me, or do I have to do it? Don’t keep things from children. It’s their mother,” said Hilda.
“Mother, please,” Anita said again.
“So what’s up?” said Ramon.
“Not so good, honey,” Anita said slowly. “Well, good news and bad news.”
“Give me the bad new first,” said Ramon.
“Unless we can get an order from an immigration judge to stop it fast enough, your mother could be put on a plane and sent back to Honduras in two days. Apparently there was some mix up about a hearing long time ago that she didn’t’ show up for, and she’s on a list. Or something” Anita said, talking fast hoping that Serena would keep focused on cartoons on the TV set across the room set on the Cartoon Channel with the sound down low.
“And the good news?” Ramon asked.
“He said she’s got a good case for relief and being allowed to stay if we can get it heard. That’s because of you two, being citizens and that sending her back with you or without you, either way, would be a hardship for the children, plus she’s been in this country more than 10 years and hasn’t gotten in trouble with the law.”
“So?” asked Ramon.
“All this costs lots of money and we’re trying to get more. My mom’s friend did us a favor a drew up papers, but there are filing fees and then the bond so she doesn’t have to rot in the detention center.”
The doorbell rang. A man and a woman were there from an agency – an ad agency. They brought three elf costumes and a lot of cookies.
--------------------------
The children were very excited. Serena was squealing with pleasure. Ramon was laughing too, for a change. By the time the limo pulled up at La Guardia Field the four of them were singing Jingle Bells.
A man in a dark suit opened the doors and a woman in red from the marketing agency invited the four of them to follow her.
“Right this way,” said the marketing woman, leading them into the terminal and off to a boarding area. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take off your boots, Santa. No exceptions. He smiled. “But I have the tickets all ready and we’re in a VIP line so it will go fast.
There was a small crowd of children with adults clustered by the gate leading to their plane. The let out whoops and screams when they saw Rudi and his little entourage all decked out in their costumes.
“Santa’s here,” the woman announced, unnecessarily, barely above the din. “We’re ready to go now.”
Just behind the group of kids, Rudi noticed a camera crew, pointing toward him. He tried not to squint into the lights, while he waved at the kids letting his reindeer bells ring, and shouting out a hearty “ho-ho-ho: Merry Christmas!”
The group burst into “Here Comes Santa Claus” as they marched down the gangway into the waiting commuter jet. “Welcome to Mrs. McCauley’s Cookie charter flight 2, for Buffalo,” said the captain over the plane’s sound system when they were all buckled in and the plane taxied out to the runway. “Ho ho ho,” he said. “And welcome aboard Santa. We’ve got your reindeer all harnessed up to our sled here and they should get us to Buffalo in 55 minutes.”
Once they were airborne, the camera crew came down the aisle to where Rudi sat next to Anita and just across from Ramon and Serena. “Do you mind if I interview you? asked a woman with a microphone. Rudi shook his head and said okay. “Okay. This is a live feed, so when I signal you, just start,” she said.
The woman stood up straight and faced the camera. “Once a year, Mrs. McCauley’s Cookies flies a group of needy, New York children and their parents to tour the company’s big cookie factory in Buffalo. The tour is part of the company’s annual Holiday charity fund drive for children’s hospital, and big Christmas cookie giveaway. It culminates this evening, with a ceremony and party with celebrities and music. And here we have the biggest celebrity of all! Old St. Nick!”
She did a half turn and gave a little off-camera hand signal for Rudi to rise. The camera panned back for a two-shot as he unbuckled and gave the camera a hearty ho-ho. “What do you have to say, Santa. Who’s been naughty or nice this year?”
Santa Rudi thanked the newscaster and then introduced Anita and then stepped over to Ramon and Serena. The kids waved. “Serena,” tell the lady what you told me you want for Christmas.”
------------------
The PR man from the cookie company wasn’t happy when he called “Santa Rudi” into his office after the hoopla of the kids’ cookie plant tour. Two executives from the company were there too.
He cleared his throat and put his objections diplomatically. “We’re not here to help illegal immigrants,” he told Rudi. “We don’t hire undocumented aliens, really. That we know of. That is.”
“That you know of…” Rudi repeated. “Look. Don’t worry about it. I just need help with this one little problem. The company must have legal counsel, right? Maybe right here on staff?”
---------------------
It was only an hour by limo from the cookie factory to the ICE’s Battavia immigrant detention center. A man in a brown suit, herringbone overcoat and chocolate-colored fedora carrying a briefcase met them. The man pulled out some papers from his case as they went inside to register. “You got it good!” Said Rudi.
“Yes, there’s an immigration court right here in the complex. I got an emergency stay. I don’t think they’ve bussed her out for the flight to Honduras, as yet.”
Selena screamed in glee when she saw her mother behind the glass barrier separating detainees from visitors. Rudi, still in his Santa outfit, gave her a little bow. “Gracias, Santa!” she said in a loud voice.
“De nada, senora,” he answered. “I didn’t do much, believe me,” he said. “It was.. well.. anyway.. excuse me and I’ll go see what that lawyer is doing with the papers to get you out of here…”
“For now.” She said.
“For now -- for Christmas anyway. But don’t worry; the lawyer says there’s a lot he can do.”
“Si Por Navidad.” She said, looking back at her children. “Feliz Navidad!”
(THE END)
Copyright © 2009 by Umberto Tosi – All rights reserved.
