by Billy Coffey
“No,” I said. “But what does make him less valuable is his condition.”
“His condition?” Helen asked.
“Yes. He’s broken. Busted. Worthless.” I ran out of synonyms.
“But look at what the poor fella’s been through,” the man said. “Banged and dropped and who knows what else. But he’s still trying, isn’t he? He’s still around. Still useful.”
“He’s ugly,” I restated.
Helen said, “And do you think that because he is scarred he is not useful?”
I sensed a trap. Both Helen and her husband were sporting Cheshire smiles. “Well,” I said, weighing my words carefully, “yes. Yes, that Santa is useless because it is scarred.”
They both beamed. The trap had been sprung. They knew it, and I knew it. But I was still curious.
“About forty years ago,” Helen began, “I was in an accident. The doctors said it was a miracle that I survived. Doctors back then were more willing to throw that word out there than they are now. But they said it, and they meant it. I wasn’t supposed to live, but I did. I was grateful, too. But the only problem was this.”
She pointed to her face. I looked down a bit when she did, but she would have none of it.
“Oh come now, no reason for that. I know you noticed it, and that’s fine. I mean, who wouldn’t notice it? Still, it looks better now than it did back then. Back then, it was so horrible that I refused to leave my apartment. I was in college at the time, but I dropped out. I couldn’t bear the thought of going to class and having people see me.”
“That must have been awful,” I offered.
“Oh, it was. I got by, though. My parents helped me out moneywise, and back then the grocery store always had some schoolchildren who would deliver groceries to me. I would always tape the money to the door. They would leave the groceries there, and no one would be the wiser.
“But cutting myself off from the world became even more painful than my accident. I was tired of being lonely. So one day I got out of bed and decided I was going to do something about it. It was raining outside, and I decided to go to the park for a walk. There wouldn’t be anyone there in the rain. I thought it would be a good first step.
“I took a loaf of bread and walked to the duck pond. Found a nice bench that was kind of off to itself. Just in case, you know, someone came by. When I pulled out my bag of bread, it fell onto the ground. I bent down to pick it up, but it was in someone’s hand.”
“It was in my hand,” her husband said.
Helen looked at him and smiled, and then she looked at me. “Yes, it was in Charlie’s hand. I jerked up, and in my surprise I looked straight at him. I didn’t know what to do. I was simply mortified.”
“I saw her face,” Charlie said. “And she knew it. I was surprised by it, of course, and I think for a moment she saw that on my face.”
“I did,” Helen confessed. “All I wanted to do was run away. But then Charlie did something I would have never expected. He smiled at me. Such a simple gesture done every day by people everywhere, but it meant so much. He saw my scars, but he also saw me.”
“What’d you say?” I asked Charlie.
“Nothing at first. And then I mumbled a simple hello. I told her it was a beautiful day to be out at the park, which got a little chuckle out of her. I was just as shy as she was. Scared to death, too.”
“He had his reasons,” Helen said. “It didn’t take me long to find out.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, we talked for a little while. It was just small talk, really—normal, everyday things. But to me it seemed like the first conversation I’d ever had. Charlie was such a nice young man, and I had missed the company of a gentleman in my life. I could tell he was just as apprehensive as I was, but I thought it was just because of my face. He didn’t want to seem rude, so he couldn’t just leave. Finally, I decided to let him off the hook. I told him I was late for an appointment. He said that he was glad to meet me and even asked for my telephone number.”
“Quite a bold gesture in those days,” he said.
“It was a sweet gesture,” she corrected. “But I knew nothing would come of it. I gave it to him, though, and then I left. I walked away. But Charlie just stood there, staring at me. I felt so embarrassed. I could just imagine him going back to wherever he came from and telling everyone about the freak he met at the park. I started to cry. I was going back to my apartment and never coming out again.
“Then I realized I had left my purse back on that park bench. Charlie never noticed it, and in the throes of our conversation I had forgotten all about it. Everything was in there, too—you know how women are with their purses. I didn’t have a choice but to go back. When I got there, I saw Charlie was walking away. And I realized why he had been staring at me before. He wasn’t appalled by my face. He was just watching to make sure I was out of sight before he left.”
“Why?” I asked them both.
Helen smiled. “Because Charlie was limping.”
Charlie took a hand off the shopping cart and knocked on his right leg. “World War Two,” he said. “Grenade got me in the knee.”
“Wow,” I managed to say. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” he said. “Son, don’t apologize to me. It was my duty and I did it. And more than that, I was glad to do it. I got this back in ’forty-three. I was pretty banged up. Most of my friends were either still in the war or already dead. And there I was, just a crippled boy of nineteen. The docs said they could fix meup mostly, but there wasn’t much they could do about this.
“I was a proud boy. Real athletic. But all of a sudden it took me more time to walk out to the mailbox than it used to take to leg out a triple. It was hard on me, you know?”
“I bet,” I answered.
“I pouted for a long while. Thought my life was over. I was a cripple, and who’d want a cripple? I’d never meet anyone, never have a family, never get to do anything. I figured I’d end up dying an old, lonely man in the very bedroom I grew up in.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked.
“I decided to take a walk one day. Not the day I met Helen—that came later. But I just realized that even though God let things get bad, that didn’t mean He intended for them to stay that way. I had to do something to show Him I was still trying, that I still had faith.
“So I just started walking around the park. It took me forever, and it hurt, but I loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it. I walked every day, rain or shine. About a month later, I met Helen.”
“It wasn’t easy for us,” Helen said. “Not at first. We were both so afraid. We both felt like sooner or later the other would wake up and decide there was sure to be someone better somewhere out there.”
“But that never happened, did it?” I asked.
“No,” Charlie said. “I love her. I loved her from the first moment we met. I know that sounds silly, but it’s true. Love at first sight?” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s real. I’m telling you it’s real. I love her.” He paused to look at his bride. “I love her because she’s beautiful.”
“You stop being so fresh in front of strangers,” Helen teased.
He winked at his wife, and she smiled back. Then a sale on a set of tools caught Charlie’s eye in the next aisle. He excused himself and walked over to take a better look.
Helen and I watched him leave, and as he did I noticed that his right leg dragged slightly behind his left. Like his wife, Charlie had to endure the consequences of fate for the rest of his life. Some consequences are like that. The pain may be temporary, but the reminder is forever. That didn’t mean life couldn’t still be beautiful.
Helen touched my arm. I looked over at her and she whispered, “Charlie’s right, you know.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About me being beautiful. Charlie told me once that my scars made me beautiful, that if I hadn’t gone through all of that, then God couldn’t have made me the person I am.”
She smiled her Cheshire smile again. I looked down at the sick Santa in her buggy, and I smiled, too.
Helen and Charlie fell in love when they both felt as though no one could possibly love them. They fell in love because each knew the other would understand their struggles and their pain. Perhaps they both felt the Santa was some sort of symbol for their lives. Yes, he was beaten and battered and scarred, but that didn’t mean he was worthless.
And what about me? I paused and reflected upon even the small part of my life that I could remember, and I saw a lot of scars. I had done plenty of things of which I wasn’t proud. Harmful things. Hurtful things. Things I wished I could take back but couldn’t. Helen carried her scars on the outside, but mine were on the inside. And I would argue they were much worse. But there was a God who still loved me, who sent His very Son to die for me. Little, rotten, scarred me.
Was it love? Yes, I was sure it was. But it was also the fact that He saw past all of those scars to some beauty inside of me that I had yet to find. And, perhaps, never would.
“I think I understand,” I said.
“Good. Well, I’ll be going. Charlie gets lost over there in the tool section. It’s a man thing, you know.”
“Yes ma’am, I know.”
“You have a good day now. And mind the snow on the way home.”
“I will,” I said. “And you, too.”
Helen began wheeling her cart away, then turned around, picking up the Santa and nodding at me.
I nodded back.
5
Passing It On
I had been following him for a few minutes. Older man, gray hair, and very nosy.
I remembered seeing him as I was trying to find my way into Super Mart through the snow and abandoned shopping carts. Parked in a white Chevy Silverado about midway to the store. Just sitting there, engine off, sipping some coffee. I also remembered wondering why someone would drive all the way out to Super Mart in a snowstorm just to sit in the parking lot and sip some coffee.
An old Ford LTD crawled into a parking space near him as I walked past, and we both watched as a family of three got out and made their way toward the store. Mother, father, and a son about six. Mother was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a ragged blue sweater that was covered by an even more ragged parka. Father was dressed in what was known in Mattingly as “weekly wear”—overalls and a flannel shirt. A John Deere cap was pulled down over his long hair. The son was in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, both of which were badly stained and a size or two bigger than necessary.
In other words, they were poor. We try our best to dress up the economic condition of that portion of society. We call them “disadvantaged” or “lower class” or a myriad of other euphemisms, mostly to lessen the guilt that they exist. But they do and they are poor and there’s just no way to make it sound any better.
The other man, I noticed, got out of his truck and followed them into the store. It was a strange sight, almost as if he was waiting for them. It got my interest up enough to follow him as he followed them. But then we all got into the store and I became more concerned with my shopping list, then met Helen and Charlie, and then, well, I just forgot.
But I remembered again when I saw the little boy, tugging on his mother’s shirt and begging to visit the toys that taunted him from across the aisle. It was an old trick used by both children and husbands when attempting to gain permission from the women in their lives—when you can’t convince them, wear them down.
It worked, too. Because a few more minutes and tugs later, his mother said, “Just go, Jacob. But stay where we can see you.”
So Jacob went. And so did I.
Standing to one side of the aisle, Jacob would pick up every toy he could reach without regard to make or model, turning it around in his tiny hands and scrutinizing every detail. He would then gently place the toy back on the shelf, pick up the next, and repeat.
I looked around. Mother and father were nowhere to be found. Spooky Gray Man, however, was. He stood at the end of the aisle, peeking around the corner at the boy.
As a father of two small children, I tend to be a little protective when it comes to kids. With his mother and father off in parts unknown and Spooky Gray Man eyeing their son, my hero complex kicked in. I was going to watch him watch.
The little boy made his way from the Legos over to the Tonka trucks. That’s where he stopped, right in front of a bright green and yellow John Deere tractor. Spooky Gray Man was about ten feet away, craning his neck around a lady who was busy surveying the G.I. Joes. I was standing about ten feet farther back, trying to decide if I was going to hit him in the throat or the jaw when he tried to snatch the boy. Not kidding.
The boy picked up the tractor. His eyes bulged as he turned the box over and then back again. He ran a hand down the side, feeling the soft coolness of the metal. Yes, metal. This was no cheapo toy. This was the real thing, complete with rubber tires and a genuine farmer action figure with blue jeans and flannel shirt. Meant not for carpets and hardwood floors, but for the sand and the mud.
Spooky Gray Man excused himself around the lady in his way to get a better look, though I wasn’t sure if it was a better look at the tractor or the boy. I took a couple of steps forward myself.
It was just then that the mother and father showed up. Spooky Gray Man took a few steps back and feigned attention at a Noah’s ark puzzle.
“Daddy, look!” the boy said, holding up the prize for his father’s approval. “It’s just like the one you drive!”
“Yep, sure is,” the father answered. “Sure is a nice one.”
“Do you think Santa could bring me this, Daddy? Huh?”
His mother looked down and peered at the price. I didn’t know how much it was, but from the look on her face, too much would suffice. She looked at her husband and shook her head.
“Well, maybe,” he said. “But you already sent off your letter. I don’t know if he’d get another one in time for Christmas Eve.”
“But I’d be extra good, Daddy. Extra. I promise.”
“I know, sweetie,” his mother said, trying to find a good excuse. “But that sure is a big toy, and I don’t know if Santa could fit it into his bag without having to take some other little boy’s present out.”
Not bad, I nodded.
“Then another little boy might not get any presents?” he asked.
“That’s right,” the father said, obviously pained that he had to say it.
This was a good kid, made evident by the fact that the explanation stumped him. He ran a hand down the side of the tractor again. His bottom lip quivered for a bit, but held steadfast. “Okay,” he finally mumbled. “But maybe Santa will bring me one anyway, right, Daddy?”
Daddy knew better. Daddy knew who Santa really was. And Daddy knew Santa simply didn’t have the cash.
“I don’t know, son. Maybe. But maybe you’ll just have to wait a while for that one.”
“You’ll see,” the boy smiled. “Santa will bring it. You’ll see, Daddy.”
The two parents exchanged a quick look, and there was a shared sigh. For a lot of families, Christmas was the best time of the year. For others, it was just another day that their children would have to go without.
They each extended a hand to their son, who took one in each of his, and together they made their way out of the toy section. Spooky Gray Man followed, obviously not ready to give up just yet.
I followed, too, me right behind him and him right behind them. It was an odd sight to say the least, but I tried to appear as innocent as I could. I wasn’t in a hurry. This was no longer a matter of protecting an innocent child. Mom and Dad could do that. I was just plain nosy.
The family settled in the frozen food aisle of the grocery section. Spooky Gray Man watched as they filled their shopping cart with two-for-one frozen pizzas. When they wheeled over to the canned goods, though, Spooky Gray Man didn’t follow. Instead he went the opposite way, back toward the other side of the store.
Puzzled, I decided to follow.
When he again stopped at the toys, I first thought he was trying to find another child, at which point I was going to put a swift end to the whole thing. But instead he did something that both astonished and puzzled me. Spooky Gray Man headed straight for the John Deere tractor Jacob had held, picked it up, and walked off toward the cash registers.
I followed and watched as he wormed his way through the crowd to a checkout line, paid for the toy, and left.
What is this guy doing? I asked myself. Is he taking a souvenir? Buying it for his own grandson? Or is he just plain screwed up in the head?
I hid my cart behind a Pepsi display and prayed to God that He’d send an angel to protect the goods inside. Then I buttoned my coat and followed him as he walked out of the store. It was time for the truth. I was just going to come right out and ask him what he was up to.
Spooky Gray Man stopped at the old Ford LTD and brushed the snow away from the driver’s side window. The door was of course unlocked. There was nothing inside worth stealing.
He pulled a small notebook from his pocket, scribbled a note, and placed the note and the toy in the backseat. He then shut the door, walked over to his own vehicle, and resumed sipping his coffee.
I retraced my steps and situated myself next to the entrance, where I could see both the people coming in and out of the store and Spooky Gray Man’s truck. After a bit Jacob and his family came out, their shopping cart full of the week’s provisions. I peered through the snow at the man in the truck. He had straightened himself in his seat and eyed the family.
Mother and father reached the car and began loading the groceries into the trunk. Jacob ambled through the snow and into the backseat. For a moment, there was silence. Then came the scream, high-pitched and long.
His parents came running. They didn’t know why or what had happened, but I imagine they fully expected to see blood. Jacob, however, was fine. More than fine. He was ecstatic. He slipped out of the backseat and into the parking lot, then thrust the toy in their faces, yelling and screaming and jumping up and down. “It’s real!” he screamed, “it’s really real!” Then, as if the gravity of the situation had just struck him, he jerked his head up into the falling snow, hoping to see the last vestiges of reindeer hooves.
