NALO HOPKINSON

THE SALVATION ARMY Santa Claus wasn’t ho-ho-hoing, not any more. He was no longer singing a carol, and he had stopped ringing his bell. He stood on the busy street corner—a thin brown man wearing Saint Nick’s heavy velvet-red-and-whites and sweating himself thinner in the tropical heat—and gaped into the brass pot he had hanging in a frame for people to put their coins in.

Only two people stood near him. The young woman’s freshness of skin and mischievous smile made it impossible to guess her age. She could have been sixteen, or twenty-six. Her jeans were scandalously tight, and, he noticed as she bent to tie her child’s shoelace, showed off her high bottom nicely. Under different circumstances, the Salvation Army Santa Claus would have been using the cover of his cotton wool mustachios and beard to sneak a better glance. The young woman was not so much beautiful as pretty. The Salvation Army Santa Claus preferred pretty; he generally found it to be friendlier. Hers shone through despite hair severely processed into rigid ringlets. Her stylized makeup job failed to homogenize and blanch her features. Instead of the sparkling gold chain around her neck, silver or platinum would have complemented her black skin better, but no matter. (The chain supported a pendant with the word “foxy” in gold, followed by a star.) If you were to search for a word for what glowed through her as it did, made you want to laugh with her, and dance, you would have come up with “joy.”

The young woman smiled as she placed her hand on the head of the second person standing at the Salvation Army pot; a little boy? Girl? Difficult to tell. An even younger person. The child wore too-big jeans, rolled up at the ankles, with threadbare knees. Its hair was cane-rowed neatly against its head, in even rows that went from nape to neck. It wore a scowl, a Spider-Man t-shirt, and a gold stud in either ear. But earrings were no indicator of gender these days. The child had one foot on a skateboard, up-ending it at an angle. The child pulled a handful of candy out of the Salvation Army pot and, with a look of intense concentration, flung it in an arc away from its body. Other children at the street corner broke free of their parents and scrabbled to collect it. So did one woman, her feet bare and black-bottomed, her body burly only because she seemed to be wearing everything she’d ever owned, in dirty and torn layers one atop the other. She clutched two packets of tamarind balls and five peppermints to her bosom with one hand. In the other hand she held a purple lollipop. As she scuttled into a corner to eat the rest of her prize, she tore the lollipop wrapper away with her teeth.

The Salvation Army Santa Claus stared at the young woman. “It didn’t have any sweeties in there before,” he said.

In response, she only grinned. Worlds in that grin; miracles. Somewhere, a leader was shot, and the wondrous creation that was a gull swooped down over the waves and caught a fat fish for its young. “La’shawna,” she said to the child—a girl, then—“people want more than sweeties to fill their belly.”

The tomboy of a girl looked up at her, scratched her nose, and said, “So what I should give them?”

“I ain’t know,” her mother replied. “Some people eat meat but no provisions. Some people eat provisions but no meat. Some people only want a cold beer and some peace and quiet.”

The little girl considered. The Salvation Army Santa Claus peered into his brass pot. As far as he could see, it still only held the few coins he had received for singing his carols and ringing his bell. Perhaps the child had put the sweeties in there herself? They were troublemakers, her and her pretty mother. He was going to have to run them off.

“All right,” the child said. She tossed her chin in greeting to the Salvation Army Santa. “Mister, tell any hungry people to put they hand in your pot. Each one will find what they want.”

“What?” The Salvation Army Santa scowled at the little girl.

“You eat lunch yet?” her mother said to him.

“What that have to do with . . . why?”

“You hungry?”

Her smile was infectious. He found himself beaming back at her. “Yes.”

“Then put your hand in the pot, nuh?”

Feeling like an idiot, the Salvation Army Santa did as she suggested. His hand closed over something warm and yielding. A delicious smell came from it. His tummy rumbled. He pulled his lunch out of the pot and nearly dropped it in surprise.

The child laughed. “Mummy, check it,” she said. “All he want is a patty and a cocoa bread!”

People were starting to gather round. The woman in all her tattered clothing was tiptoeing nearer. “Only the hungry ones will get anything,” the child told the man.

“Come, darling,” said the young woman. “We have to go. Plenty to do.”

The girl let the skateboard slap to the floor. “What else we must do now?” she asked.

“Well, this nice man going to get more customers than he can handle. So now we have to visit every Salvation Army Santa we can find round here and make their pots into cook pots, too.”

“That’s a lot of work, Mummy.”

“You started it, girlchild.”

The little girl made a face and kissed her teeth in mild exasperation. She shook her head, but then she smiled. The smile had something of her mother’s about it.

The little girl hopped onto the skateboard and rolled away slowly. She stopped a little way away and did skillful, impatient circles, waiting for her mother to catch up.

Cringing as though she feared violence, the tattered woman snuck her hand into the pot. The thing she brought out was wrapped in banana leaves, tied with string, and steaming. She cackled in amazement, a delight rare and miraculous. Somewhere, children got a snow day. Somewhere else, a political prisoner died only minutes into his “interrogation,” cheating his torturer. A man stepped up to the pot and put his hand inside.

“Is not this easy, you know,” the Salvation Army Santa said to the young woman.

She gave him an appraising look,

“Doing good, I mean,” he explained.

She sighed. “I know. She still have plenty to learn, and sometimes I don’t know what to tell her. When she help one person, she might be harming someone else.” She gestured at the pot, where four people were elbowing at each other to try and get their hands inside. “Where you think all this food coming from?” she asked. “Is somebody hard labour.” She clapped her hands to get the attention of the people squabbling over the pot of plenty. “Hey!” she yelled. Faces turned to her. “If allyuh fight, that food going to turn to shit in allyuh mouth one time.”

The wrangling subsided a little. The little girl came whizzing up on her skateboard, dipped her hand into the pot, and brought it back out overflowing with penny sweeties, sweet and sour plums, candy canes and gummy bears; only the red ones. She flashed a triumphant grin at her mother, who said, “La’shawna, you have to have more than that for lunch!” The girl put two gummy bears in her mouth and zoomed away again.

The young woman sighed. “I have to go with she,” she said. “Yesterday she turned an old man’s walking cane into solid gold. He nearly break he foot when he drop it.” She waved goodbye to the Salvation Army Santa Claus. Tentatively, he waved back. She began to run after her child. She stopped a little way off, cupped her mouth with her hands and yelled back at the Santa Claus, “Yes, the name is Mary. I ain’t have no Joseph. But you nice. I could come back and check you later?”

He nodded.

She ran to catch up with La’shawna.

2004