INSIDE:
NEWS/STORIES/ARTICLES
Book Reviews
Columns/Opinion/Cartoon
Films
International
National
NW/Local
Recipes
Special A.C.E. Stories
Online
Paper (PDF)
NW RESOURCE GUIDE
Archives
Consulates
Organizations
Scholarships
Special Sections
Upcoming
The Asian Reporter Tenth Annual Scholarship & Awards Banquet - Saturday, April 26th.
Asian Reporter Info
AR
Merchandise
Contact Us
Subscription Info. & Back Issues
ASIA LINKS
Asian Studies
Currency Exchange
More Asian Links
Public Holidays
Time Zones
Copyright © 2000 - 2008
AR Home
|
Talking Story |
 |
From The Asian Reporter, V17, #51 (December 18, 2007), page 7.
Good feet, clean water, just joy
I am in Lloyd Center’s lot. Again. I go maybe once a year, and that’s one time too many. The mall gives me no joy. Just a headache — from Christmas greens and golds and reds, from Andy Williams’s Yule tide carols, an assault of fragrances at Macy’s, where you can score a Chanel tote for your lady, for free, with a $39.99 minimum purchase.
Dios mío, I can’t imagine any scent making any life better. And, our hall closet’s already stacked with unused totes. My scalp itches. I’m not so good at Christmas.
And not only me. I look outside my tired old Toyota. I look left and up at another guy stalled behind the wheel of his midnight blue Armada. I look right and up at another dope just like me, high in his olive Expedition. Stuck. Stupid.
Before paralysis sets in, I leap out, smack my baby’s door, and dash through dismal Portland rain, between Voyagers and Villagers and Outbacks. For the mall.
At Marshalls’ swinging doors, my sprint ends abrupt. Our sodden crowd funnels, like congealed rice pudding, slow and lumpy, into Lloyd Center. I am soaked. I am cold. I am bad at Christmas.
Ambient Andy Williams fills the air in here. Ogh. I pump, like the Six Million Dollar Man, out of Marshalls.
In the mall, we’re a languid river of eight shoppers abreast westbound, eight abreast east, not a lot of joy in either direction.
As I pass the skating rink, I can’t remember what I came for. For whom I came to shop. Or why. What’s more: I forgot my list. I am in trouble.
Our slow-mo lane is splitting in two up ahead. The left half is flowing up an escalator, the right is angling off to Santa Claus. I go right. Right because I cannot merge left. Right because I need some help. And Santa seems kind.
Santa is nice. He smells of Altoids. His lap is warm. His lap is wet. He says it’s not his, two girls and one three-year-old boy peed on him. He says it’s out of excitement or from fear. I feel neither, but I don’t mention this to Santa. He asks what I want.
Santa knows
This is a hard question. I want so many things. I already have so much. My American stuff fills our six thousand square-foot, triple garage, split-level rancher. My wife’s nice too, much of the time. Still, there’s so-so much more I want. To have. To own.
"From Santa," he says. "What do you want from Santa?" He means for Christmas, for under the tree. For now. That line waiting to tell him their wants is getting longer, those parents’ patience is getting shorter.
"Oh yeah," I say. "From Santa, I want —" my eyes wander, my mind roves. The mall answers.
In front of Footlocker, postered in the store’s front window: a Black man as tall as a Doug Fir, leaping high as a house, an orange basketball overhead. In front of Footlocker, a Lakota lady, probably far from home, definitely diabetic, legs gone up to her knees, rolls slow in her wheelchair.
"Pretty feet," I tell Mr. Claus. "Pretty feet for her."
At Bath & Body Works there’s an ad with a pink lady lying in luxurious suds. In scented, soothing water. Also pink. Her hair is high, her neck is slender. In Bangladesh, from one end of their country to the other, generous River Brahmaputra has suddenly turned hungry, overwhelming her sandy banks, and swallowing her children’s homes. Almost a million houses gone. Brown families huddle on high ground. In the rain.
"Clean water," I tell Santa. "For that poor farmer’s family, poorer still since their awful storm. Clean drinking water."
In Radio Shack’s open entry, remote-control Humvees and red-hot Ferraris, Coast Guard choppers and stealthy U.S. Air Force fighters, are boxed and stacked tall as Giza Pyramid. On a wide-screen plasma in Radio Shack’s window, CNN’s beaming live from a Baghdadi open-air pet market cleared by a brutal blast. Parts of bird cages, of pastel parakeets, of chocolate puppies, of bright school girls, of grumpy grandpas, everywhere. Just parts.
"Play," I say. "Laughter, if you please, Santa."
Joy. Girls’ giggling in their fathers’ ears. Then in his dreams. Then in their future.
Santa stands up, so I stand up too. Santa walks off, and so do these shoppers and their kids and me.
Pretty feet and clean water and joy — just joy — are not at our mall. Are not on sale.
We can give them and give them and give them. Any time. All the time.
And oh the joy.
Our joy.