1966 Chrysler Imperial
December 1966
I was too preoccupied with the monkeys to pay much attention to the shoes. We were Christmas shopping in Butte, in the only store that had shoes that fit my sister’s feet. It was really snowy and cold outside, but inside the store the steam heat, the monkey pee and the new leather melded into a hot, sticky smell that made me think of barf. While my mom and sister argued about heels and toes, I split my attention between the monkeys and the Hush Puppy poster. I wanted Hush Puppies, but they were out of my size.
I would have liked to have seen penguins, but I didn’t mind the monkeys. They lived in a cage that ran all around the top of the store, high above the stacks of boxes and racks inside Keene’s Shoes. My mom said they got the monkeys—she called them recess monkeys—just to bring people into the store. My dad called the store a menagerie, and dropped us off before heading to the Ranch House Bar and Grill to talk about business.
My sister hated the monkeys. But I think that’s because the only shoes that fit her feet were really ugly. She was always in a mood when we went shopping for shoes. I usually just said okay to anything put on my feet. This time, it was a pair of hard, patent leather Sunday shoes.
We were at the checkout stand paying when the monkeys started screaming. They huddled to the front window and stared out into the street. I glanced out the frosty window and there, on the sidewalk just beyond our parked Chrysler, was Santa Claus. My heart stopped.
I’d never seen Santa for real before. I’d only heard stories and seen pictures in books. But there he was, with a bag of gifts on his back, talking to some kids across the street. I tugged my sister’s sleeve.
“What?” she asked. I pointed across the street, and she shouted “Mommy! Look! Santa Claus!” B.J. was clearly excited about Santa. I was terrified. I grabbed my mom’s leg just in case B.J. was thinking of dragging me across the street to talk to him. She was a year older than me, and always dragging me into stuff I really didn’t want to do, and places I didn’t want to go.
“Don’t be silly, honey,” my mom said. “That’s not the real Santa.”
I was skeptical. He sure looked real to me. Besides, I didn’t know of anyone else that even looked a little bit like Santa. Except Mrs. Claus. And this clearly wasn’t her. “But I want to go talk to him,” my sister whined.
“Okay, go take your brother and meet Daddy and me at the car,” my mom said.
The traffic on East Park Street whizzed by. B.J. and I had to stop at the crosswalk in the middle of the block. Butte was a half-hour drive from where we lived and twice the size of Anaconda.
“I’ll wait in the car,” I said as the light changed.
“No you won’t,” B.J. said.
She was right. She had been put in charge. I knew what that meant. I had to do everything she wanted to. So that was it. I was going to see Santa.
As we crossed the street, I started getting a stomach ache. My eyes started to burn. My tongue swelled up in my mouth. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.
He walked right past our car and joined the crowd of kids. When I got a closer look, I thought maybe my mom was right. The whole thing was fishy. Why would Santa be out of his house two weeks before Christmas? What was he doing in Butte, Montana? Where was the sleigh? The uncertainty of it made my knees weak. I looked really closely at Santa. His beard was real, his glasses were real. His suit looked like red velvet. Maybe my mom was wrong.
Suddenly, I was star struck. I started to pull my hand away from my sister’s grasp, but she was steadfast. As the kids filed away with a new toy from Santa, I started to think up excuses for leaving the scene. Needing to pee was out. There weren’t any bathrooms nearby. Needing my mother was out, too. She was off talking business at the Ranch House Bar and Grill. The only excuse I could think of as possibly working on both my sister and Santa, was that I needed to go feed the monkeys in the shoe store. B.J. had an entire catalog of gifts she was expecting for Christmas. As she rattled off the names of toys and treats she had seen advertised between Saturday morning cartoons, I decided my shoes were way too tight. I was going to spend another year of Sunday School in shoes that were too small.
“How about you? Have you been a good little boy?” Santa asked.
I stared at my shoes.
“What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?”
I stared at my sister. Certainly she would think of something to say. The pit in my stomach grew deeper by the second.
What I wanted for Christmas was to climb into the backseat of our car.
“He’s shy,” my sister said. “And he used to be tongue-tied, so he doesn’t talk much. The doctor clipped his tongue a couple of weeks ago, so he should be able to talk.”
Right again. I really didn’t have any good reason to not talk to Santa anymore. Up until a couple of weeks ago I would tell B.J. in secret what I wanted to say and she would interpret for me to my parents. I was going to start kindergarten after Christmas, and I was going to have to talk there. I was sure of it.
“Do you want to whisper in Santa’s ear?” Santa leaned down and put his ear right up to my mouth.
“Monkeys,” I whispered.
“What?” Santa asked.
“Monkeys,” I whispered.
“Speak up, son. It sounds like you are saying car keys,” Santa said.
“MONKEYS!” I screamed.
Santa stood up straight, narrowed his eyes and reached into his pack. He thrust a small, plastic fire engine into my mitten-covered hands without saying another word. Off the hook to continue our conversation, I turned abruptly and headed back to the car.
Nothing my family owned was more beautiful than the inside of our Chrysler Imperial. The front seat was for grown-ups only. But the backseat belonged completely to my sister and me. It was roomy and beautiful. My dad said the car smelled like a million bucks. In the back, we had our own Kleenex box, door locks, window cranks and ashtrays. The front seat had a huge pocket sewn into its back big enough to hide in. My favorite part was the back window. I loved to climb up on the back of the seat and lay on the ledge and watch the cars behind us. The window was always cool on my face. Sometimes, on long trips I would fall asleep watching the world move away from us.
Climbing into the back of the car, my sister and I staked out our territory. I sat behind my dad, mostly because I wanted to look forward and see my mom. I felt special when she looked into the back seat and saw only me. Santa was still standing in the crosswalk, but the crowd of kids was pretty much gone by the time B.J. rubbed the fog off the window just in time to see my folks come out of the bar and cross the street.
My dad opened the car door for my mom, then walked around the front of the car and checked the tires and the headlights. As he pulled on the driver’s side door handle he dropped the keys. I heard him say “Damn!” when he lost his footing and bumped into the car for support.
“Dad just said Damn,” I said.
“Honey, just because adults use swear words doesn’t mean it’s okay for you,” my mom said. Then she thought for a second. “If you are repeating something they said, you can use their words, though. I mean, don’t use it as an excuse to not talk.”
My dad swore again, once he settled into the driver’s seat. My mom looked over her shoulder and winked at me after she lit a cigarette.
“Did you talk to Santa?” she asked.
“Yup,” my sister said. “And he agreed to bring me everything I asked for.”
“Oh he did, did he?” my dad asked. “I hope you didn’t ask for a new bike, because I heard Santa was promising new bikes to kids all over town and the kids end up with each other’s bike and not the one they wanted.”
“Stop it, Bob,” my mom said, taking a drag off her cigarette.
“I’m just saying if Bobbi Jean asked for a bike, she might get one, but not the one she thinks she wants.”
“What did you ask for Grantsy?” my mom asked.
“Monkeys,” my sister said.
“What?” my dad looked into the rear view mirror.
“He asked for monkeys,” my sister said.
“Well, that’s … new,” my mom said to my dad. She glanced back at me and smiled. I just shrugged and played with my fire engine.
As my dad started the car, I turned around and leaned up against the back seat. Santa was standing right behind the back of the car, waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk. For a second I thought he looked right at me, before turning around to look up the street for on-coming traffic.
“Sit back Jean, I need to see if there’s any traffic coming,” my dad said. My mom leaned as far back as she could and my dad looked out past her into the street. “Looks like we’re good to go,” he said.
“You’re completely clear up front,” my mom said. My dad hit the turn signal to pull forward out onto the street. “Grantsy, do you see any traffic coming up from behind?” I looked up the street. Both lanes of traffic were stopped a block away.
“Nope!” I said. My dad looked straight ahead, put the car into reverse and gunned the engine.
The car lurched backward into the crosswalk. From my vantage point, I could see Santa fly sideways, landing all splayed out in the muddy snow bank on the side of the road. The car stalled.
“Jesus Christ!” my dad bellowed. “Who hit us?”
“You hit Santa!” I said. Santa was almost immediately up on his feet staggering around, brushing snow and mud off his suit.
“What?” my dad asked.
“You just hit Santa with the car!” I said.
“Oh holy shit!” He threw open the door and trundled around to the back of the car.
I jumped up and looked out the back window. My dad had his arm around Santa who seemed to be pushing him away, holding him at arms length. I couldn’t hear what my dad was saying, but he was clearly sorry for hitting Santa with the Chrysler. It didn’t look like Santa wanted any part of it.
Through the window I did actually hear Santa shout something at my dad.
“What did he say?” my mom asked.
“Santa just called Dad a son of a bitch,” I said. My mom turned and stared out the front window.
“That’s not the real Santa,” she said.