Portrait of Santa
Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash
I drew the picture with crayon
on a sheet of white paper.
It was Santa Claus.
The hat with the furry puff proved that,
though I had dispensed with the rest
of his traditional attire.
And since without the red-and-white suit
my Santa stood naked on the page,
and since everyone knew Santa was a boy,
I felt obligated to include what must surely be hidden
beneath all that red and white.
A dangling penis.
My face burned as I drew.
I could hardly have felt more wicked
if I’d drawn a penis
on God.
I sat back to study my work,
overwhelmed by my audacity,
then tore the paper
into fragments
and tucked the bits
into the bottom of a waste-paper basket
destined for furnace flames.
But wickedness never goes unpunished,
at least it didn’t in my small world.
Though the punishment,
when it came,
was worse than anything
I could have imagined.
The scraps of Santa’s penis
never surfaced to accuse me
before my scandalized parents.
Not long after my desecration, though,
my brother,
eternally older,
forever more knowing,
decided it was time
to tell me the truth:
“There is no Santa Claus,” he said.
“The presents come from Mommy and Daddy.”
My beloved Santa banished,
penis and all!
Magic banished,
forever and ever,
world without end!
“You’re wrong!” I cried,
indignation scouring my soul,
and I ran to our mother,
who would surely prove him wrong.
“Santa Claus is too real,” I wailed.
“Isn’t he?
Willis says he’s not, but he is!”
My mother,
a woman of few words
and little appreciation for magic,
answered.
Simply.
Flatly.
“No.”
No explanation.
No sweet story about how Santa lives in our hearts.
No apology for the lies from every grown up I’d ever known.
Just “No.”
Perhaps I should have been relieved.
After all, how could I sin against a story?
Especially one created
to trick me into being good.
Yet I remember the great cavern
that opened inside my chest
where once my heart
had lived.
Yet I also remember,
perhaps even more powerfully,
the wicked thrill of applying crayon to paper
to create
that
long
dangling
penis.
