Santa Claus is Your Mamma

The first time I remember someone questioning the truth of what our parents told us was in Mrs. Nesbitt's class. I was in first grade, and I was in the advanced class, but I wasn't in the advanced group of the advanced class. I was in the kind-of-average group of the advanced class, and because of this, we had to wait outside the library while the really advanced kids picked out their books. Mrs. Nesbitt had to let them go first because they had a field trip to go on while the rest of us dawdled in the library first and then watched the Hellen Keller movie.

They didn't have to watch the Hellen Keller movie. They read the book. They read a lot of books while the rest of us looked at pictures and tried to sound out letter combinations. For my part, I was at the head of the not-so-advanced group. I could look at words and say the sounds out loud, but it took me a few passes before I realized that the sound I made had meaning. I was more like a parrot than a literate child. Because of this, I usually got to be line leader for the dumb-dumbs.

So there I was, king of the idiot first graders, waiting in the hallway while the kids who knew how to read got to check out all the good stuff first. And it wasn't like they checked out the chapter books, either. They got the same things we did, which meant that none of us got to take home Where the Wild Things Are or The Polar Express until after all of the little geniuses had already ripped the pages and wiped snot on the binding.

All of my friends were in there, blowing their noses into Maurice Sendak before I got to read him. No one I was in line with actually liked me. You see, I was supposed to be in the advanced group. All of them knew it. I just fit in with that group. I liked science fiction and Star Wars and at recess, all I did was find someone from the advanced group and make them explain to me what they did during their advanced science class, or make them re-tell me the stories they got to read in advanced reading.

I was an advanced kid. I just didn't read. I preferred TV, especially Discovery Channel.

So there I was, in line with a bunch of people I barely knew, made into line leader because I was quiet, trustworthy, and advanced. The people behind me kept pushing me, and a few of the other boys in class were out of line and messing around with the pencil machine. It was stocked with NFL team pencils that year, and the guys in class would empty their pockets into it, trying to get Raiders pencils or to make a full set of teams that they kept unsharpened. The girls were mostly just giggling and looking six and blonde. I don't know what they did other than that.

At that age, girls were terrifying to me. I'd seen one naked when I was about four, and the combination of their complicated system of tights, underwear, and hair accessories combined with the fact that I was constantly afraid contact with one would... erase the differences between us... made me wary of trying too hard to get to know them.

I especially hated these girls because Shawna, the girl who sat next to me, had fed me dog treats and convinced me they were beef jerky. All the other girls had laughed, and so I liked to pretend that they were just not there. Except Amy, who actually was not there that day because she was in the advanced group, and Brenda, who was not even in the advanced class because she had moved in next door to us halfway through the school year.

Amy and Brenda had given Shawna a mud-shampoo when they found out that she fed me dog food. Shawna's friend Tanya told on them, and when they had to stay in at recess, they didn't even tell the teacher that I'd asked them to beat up Shawna or that I was dumb enough to eat dog food. As far as I was concerned, Amy and Brenda were boys, even if they didn't have all the right parts.

Shawna was right behind me that day. I remember she was wearing white tights, because she was also wearing a white sweater, and she was very pale and very blonde, and the cinderblock walls were white, so when I turned around, all I saw was a plaid skirt and a pair of eyes. When I realized who was there, I looked away because I didn't want her to laugh at me about the dog food again.

Looking away was what made Tony notice me. I didn't know Tony, but he was funny when he talked to the whole group of us. Today, though, he was looking bored. When he saw me whipping my head around, he said, "Hey! I meant to be asking you..."

At that point, the boys at the pencil machine snickered. Apparently, whatever I was about to be asked, they were in on it.

I just hoped it was because they'd had the same prank pulled on them, whatever it turned out to be. I didn't want it to be like the dog food, where I found out afterward that I was the only person in class stupid enough to believe it when someone lied to me.

Anyway, Tony said, "I meant to be asking you... what you know about Santa Claus."

Of course, I knew what any six year old knew. I started telling him the story. It was about two weeks into the school year, so it wasn't close to Christmas, but I thought maybe he just wanted to hear it. Tony cut me off.

"No, man, I meant to be asking you if you knew who Santa Claus was." Tony was the only black kid in my elementary school. And he wasn't even all black, his mom was white. Still, he felt that it was his heritage to call everyone either 'man' or 'brother', even Mrs. Nesbitt.

What I said to him was, "Santa Claus is St. Nicholas. He started delivering presents after he escaped the Romans."

Tony laughed. The guys at the pencil machine looked back and forth between us, grins sneaking halfway across their faces before retreating. Apparently, they weren't in on whatever this was, but they expected me to freak out or to make Tony freak out, because they were really uncomfortable and really entertained at once.

Tony pointed a chubby finger at me. "Santa Claus... is your mamma."

Everyone laughed. Even me. Shawna giggled so hard that red lips and tongue appeared in the middle of one of the cinder blocks, and the eyes disappeared. We'd all heard Tony tell jokes about our Mammas. It was okay, because everyone's mom was a fat hooker with saggy boobs.

But Tony didn't laugh. Instead, he leaned in like he was telling us about when he caught his mom with her boyfriend's prick in her mouth. And he whispered. "Seriously. Your parents want you to believe in this shit, but I got up last year so that I wouldn't wet my bed, and my mom was in the living room putting a bike together. The next morning, it was tagged for my big brother, and it said From Santa. I think that they just don't want us to know that they can afford shit like bikes and Nintendos, so they pretend someone else paid for it. If we knew they paid for it, we might ask for it all year, and they wanna spend the money on, like, cars and beer and Detroit Tigers tickets."

Nobody believed Tony. Well, at least not publicly. Some of the girls called him a jackass, and when he threatened to tell on them, the boys at the pencil machine pushed him down and kicked him. I even told him that since Christmas was a religious holiday, he would go to hell for not believing in one of the saints.

When he got kicked, I did go get the teacher. Not because I was a tattler, but because even though I told Tony he was going to hell for what he said, I also believed him. Maybe I didn't say it out loud, even to myself, but I knew he was right. As Christmas approached, I caught my parents sneaking out after my brother and I were asleep and coming back with Meijers bags. And I wondered why, when they said they were grocery shopping, they made me stay in my room while they brought everything in from the car.

They told me that I couldn't go into their room because Santa stored stuff at their house so that he could fill up his sleigh, and they didn't know if any of it was for my friends, so they didn't want me to ruin the surprise.

And each time, I remembered what Tony said. Eventually, before I was even seven (which was Christmas Eve of that year), I realized that what they were saying was stupid. It made no sense, and it didn't fit any of the stories about Santa's magical power, and the more I saw, the more obvious it was that they would just spew any garbage stories they could in order to try to plug holes in the Santa theory.

By the time my brother and I opened our presents on Christmas day, I was positive. I watched him rip into package after package, screaming "Thanks Santa!" every time, and I didn't want my parents to think I didn't appreciate them, so I made sure I said "Thanks," but I couldn't say "Santa" any more. My lips wouldn't move to shape the sound, because I was sure he wasn't there to hear it anyway.

That, and I still thought I could go to hell for lying. And maybe that everyone's parents would be there, too.