Santa Showed Up at Thornton's

 

After Christmas, I went to one of my favorite eating places, one I hesitate to mention lest it becomes mobbed with customers.  Although I think this one is fairly safe.

A short drive from my house, inside Thornton’s gas station, they have a small table with three chairs by an emergency exit.  This tiny sit-down oasis is framed by a long rack of potato chips, pretzels, and other salty stuff to the north, a wall of energy drinks, Red Bull, and other non-pop products in coolers to the east, a big glass window facing the gas pumps to the south, and a free-standing rack filled with liters of pop and packs of bottled water to the west.

Few people walk past it while I’m there.  I have never found it occupied when I wanted to use it, nor has anyone ever asked to join me in one of the other chairs.  I’m not so naïve as to think it’s a secret place.  But only one other person I know, my friend Keith Goetz, has ever alluded to its existence and confirmed using it.  Keith and I share an affinity for Thornton’s hot dogs.  They’re not perfect but we both agree they’re damned good.

As an eatery Thorntons has a roller grill dominated by hot dogs.  And yes, there are pre-packaged sandwiches, giant fountain sodas, candy bars, lonely baskets of bananas and apples, and other miscellaneous road food.  But that’s it.  There is no service save for the cashiers.  On the other hand, there’s no tipping.  What this destination lacks in ambiance it makes up for in simplicity and economy.

The pandemic robbed us of so much.  Our collective anxiety about the virus shut down the roller grill entirely for a time.  Not that we were buying gas anyway.  Then one day the slowly turning wieners glossy with grease returned to the hot roller grill at Thorntons. 

But sadly, all condiments were prepackaged.  Gone were all the fresh condiments in open bins.  Hidden away were bottled ketchup, two squeeze bottles of mustard-spicy and yellow, and mayo.  What replaced them?  Condiments are trapped in foil packets with a shelf life measured in months, perhaps years, rather than days.  Such a steep loss in quality.  Dehydrated onions in a briny gel?  Come on Thorntons.  Why bother? 

While we are nearly back to normal if there is such a thing, only four bins of fresh condiments along with squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup returned.  New was Sriracha sauce.  Four measly bins with plastic spoons contain sauerkraut, chopped onions, standard sweet pickle relish, and jalapenos.  Gone are sport peppers, bun-length dill pickle spears, the classic bright green sweet pickle relish, not to mention celery salt, and poppy seed buns.  Yes, peppers in the form of jalapenos are available, but everyone knows an authentic Chicago hot dog requires sport peppers.  Amazingly, Thorntons has abandoned sales of a true Chicago dog.  It’s a tragic corporate decision.  Life in America can be cruel.

Rather than boycott Thornton’s hot dogs for their lack of Chicago dog cred, I continue to point out to the cashiers the folly of eliminating sport peppers.  They may be getting tired of it, but I’m not giving up.  Do you suppose there is still a Thorton involved to talk to?

The lure of a fresh Thornton Dog brought me into the lobby that day.  At the gas pumps, I actually could picture greasy wieners turning slowly inside.  At the roller grill, I fixed my own dog, using jalapeno peppers in the absence of sports, and added yellow mustard, onions, and standard sweet pickle relish.  I was tempted to try the Sriracha but stuck with tradition.  I paid the cashier.  Yes, I complained about sport peppers.  It was a new cashier who wanted clarification.

“Pepperoncini’s?”

“No.  You’re thinking Italian beef.  Sports are smaller and hotter.  No wrinkles.”

She looked at me blankly.  Obviously, the lack of sport peppers is not an issue among the staff.  There was a customer behind me.  I took my change and headed to the table. 

You need a lot of napkins at Thorntons.  They offer a jumbo wiener only and a standard bun.  The problem presented by a Jumbo dog in a standard bun is the wiener takes up room in the bun better filled by condiments.  You can’t get a proper portion of onions, relish, mustard, and jalapenos inside the bun with a jumbo dog taking up all that space.  Invariably you end up with condiments on top that fall off when you bite into your dog.  A mustache only compounds the problem.  Minimum three napkins. 

I took the chair facing the window with the bags of chips behind me, the energy drinks to my left, the liters of pop to my right, and while watching people pump gas closed my eyes to offer a small prayer of gratitude: that we had a good Christmas, that the cold snap is over, that all our guests got home safely, that I was once again enjoying a quiet $2.67 lunch in an old familiar place.  My reverie was shattered by the sound of a chair being drug across the tile floor beside me.  I heard a familiar voice.

“What the hell you doing here, McClure?”

I opened my eyes.

“Santa Claus?”

He sat down with his back to the bottled water.  He was wearing a hoodie and bib overalls.

“In the flesh.  How was your Christmas?”

“It was great.  I almost didn’t recognize you.  You’re out of uniform.  And you trimmed your beard way back.”

“I always do, after Christmas.  If I didn’t it would drag on the ground after a decade or so.  Unlike you, I’m in this for the long haul.”

“You always have to bring that up, don’t you?  Go ahead Nick, rub it in.  I’m getting older and you’re ageless.  I know.”

“Just a reminder.  But even though we have differences, we’re on a similar path.  How’s June?  I thought of her when I came by your house.  I saw her in the shack last year, remember?”

“I’ll never forget it.  That was a great night.  June is almost two now.  Jabbers away in a mix of her own personal version of English, proper English, and a little Spanish now and then.  I thought I was going to miss you.  Isn’t it late for you to still be away from the North Pole?”

“It is.  I’m doing field research.  It occurred to me that with the world changing so fast I need to see more of it.  Mix it up with the mortals.  Think about my life McClure.  I live at the North Pole, go out once a year, and enter children’s houses only when they’re sleeping.  I need more contact with humans.”

“Your life sounds like mine during the pandemic.  I saw my friends and family mostly on computer screens.  It hurt, being so isolated.  And I’m afraid some of that isolation is sticking around.  We have to work harder at keeping friendships, I think.  That’s why I’m so glad you showed up.  How’d you know I was here?”

“McClure, are you really slipping that much?  You know I know these things.  I’m Santa.  Come on.”

“Oh yeah.  Well, you’re my only friend who is omniscient you know.  Other than that, you seem like a regular human.”

“I try.  You’re a hard group to relate to sometimes, but I’m working on it.”

“Hard how?”

“Well, being mortal limits the number of years you can learn.  That being said, human beings live a good long time, as far as animals go.  Like turtles and parrots.  I’ve met some very smart humans.  Plus, you have both the ability and the means to record and pass on knowledge to the humans who live beyond you.  I’m just amazed and disappointed you don’t learn more and make things better for yourselves and the planet.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Does that make you uncomfortable McClure?”

“Yeah, a little.  I feel the same way though.  I hold out hope we can pull it together still.  Sometimes I’m ashamed.”

“Shame is a wasted emotion.  Let’s talk about hot dogs.  What’s with this decline of Thornton’s hot dogs you’ve been thinking about?”

“Damn.  You know what I’m thinking all the time?”

“Only when I tune into you.  I was headed this way, dropped into your thoughts for a moment, and what do I get?  Some rant about sport peppers.  What’s the deal McClure?”

“Thornton’s dropped sport peppers Santa!  You can’t sell a true Chicago hot dog without sport peppers!”

“And Chicago hot dogs are that important in your life and the life of others?  Listen to yourself, McClure.  There are perfectly fine pickled jalapenos available, softer than sport peppers and more likely to stay on your dog when you bite it.  Plus, there’s a fine red pepper sauce offered that will give you not the same but a nice peppery tang if you lay a little stripe of it at the bottom of your bun.  Who cares about sport peppers and Chicago hot dogs?  These things change.  You know that.  I’ve heard you say you embrace change.  What’s with these rigid hot dog requirements for Christ’s sake?  And while we’re at it, though I haven’t talked to him in a long time, I don’t think Christ cares about Chicago hot dogs either.”

People don’t often talk to me that way.  Santa had a point.  Sometimes good friends help you see yourself in a different way.

“You know what is important, McClure?”

“What?”

“Yemen.  You know where it is?”

“Yeah, generally.  It’s the bottom end of the Arabian Peninsula.  Old style kingdom last I knew.  Across from the Horn of Africa.  Next to Eritrea and Djibouti.  Protracted civil war going on.  Poor as hell.”

“Tortured might be a better word. They have the bad fortune to be located along the Suez Canal, ground zero of the fight over the dying oil industry.  They’re the site of a proxy war being played out between the U.S.-backed Saudis and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Been going on for eight years.  The human world is forgetting about Yemen.  Short attention span.  A six-month truce brokered by the United Nations ran out in October.  Ordinary Yemenis are scared the past will return.”

“I know it was bad, but just how bad was the past?”

“70,000 Yemenis have died since January 2016 that we know of.  10,000 of them children.  The UN considers Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.  Starvation is rampant.  400,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition.  Fighting prevents UNICEF from reaching all the children who need help.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Of course.  I show up jolly like I’m supposed to.  Smile, pass out candy canes to the kids, and rice and beans to their mothers to cook after I leave.  I give them the old Ho Ho Ho and go on.  That’s what Santa does.  It’s what humans expect of Santa.  But it’s not enough.”

Sometimes it’s hard to respond to people who are discouraged.  You don’t expect it from Santa Claus.  I stayed quiet and listened.

“Do you know there are states in your own country that still haven’t accepted federal funds to expand Medicaid and help poor adults get improved medical care?  That affects about 2.2 million people.  I don’t understand that.  Do you?  I need help, McClure.  Santa’s old mind is boggled.  You’re the richest country on earth.  Americans are smart, and well-educated by and large.  Yet you continue to screw your own people over.  Not to mention the immigrants and asylum seekers from other countries you could help if only you would.”

“Everything you say is true Santa.  I’m afraid I don’t have answers.  But what’s happened to you?  You never used to talk this way.”

“I’m getting out more.  It’s an eye-opener.”

“I’m a little blown away by your pessimism Santa.  I got to think some event touched you personally.”

Santa sat back and looked out the window as people fiddled with the touch screens on the gas pumps.  Most used credit cards and left.  A few came into the store.  Business as usual at Thorntons.

“I realized the fake Santas get more meaningful exposure to human beings than I do.  So, I ramped up my pre-Christmas visits.  I spent a lot of time among you, trying to figure out what makes you tick here in the early 2020s.”

“How’d that go?  Tell me something real that happened when you were with us.  Something you can’t forget.”

“I started going to American homeless shelters.  It seems odd, after dropping into refugee camps, where people flee their homes to save their lives, that a whole network of homeless shelters in a country like America even exists, rather than affordable homes, but that’s why I went there, to understand.”

“And what happened?”

“I ran into a child I couldn’t reach.”

“Go on.”

“There were a bunch of kids with adults, crowded into what looked like a dining room, and I went in like I do, being loud with the Ho Ho Ho’s, shaking hands, bending down to look at kids individually.  Have some eye contact.  You know.”

“Yeah.  I know.”

“So that’s normal.  Kids either come running to me, scream and run the other way, or hide their eyes like I’m not there.  And there’s rarely any in between, except for kids who are frozen and just stare at me without moving or speaking.”

“So, what happened with this kid?”

“I couldn’t get his attention.  Everyone standing around expected me to, including the adult with him.  Might have been his mom, maybe an older relative.”

“That’s never happened before?”

“If it has, I can’t recall.  And I don’t get “senior moments” like my older human friends.  Present company excepted of course.”

“Of course.”

“He was playing with something.  Not even a toy.  A piece of cloth, a wisp of something.  Picking it up, letting it drop.  I touched his head.  I spoke directly to him.  Nothing.  The adult with him looked at me with such sorrow in her eyes.  I think she thought Santa surely would break through whatever veil there was between him and the real world.  It was profoundly sad.  For some reason, it shook me.  I felt more inadequate than I’d felt in centuries.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you Santa.  But I don’t think you should take it personally.”

“It’s not that.  Why should he and his mother be consigned to a setting like that?  How did someone or some system allow them to fall so low?”

“What do you mean?”

“They need more than what Santa and a homeless shelter can give them.  They deserve more.”

“Maybe the shelter is trying to find them help.  I bet they are.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are.  But why are they among the Americans without homes?  I gave the crowd laughs, and candy canes, and passed out some presents, but they need homes. They need so much more, and it is entirely possible homes be made available to them in America.  I understand poverty in Yemen.  They have so few resources.  But here?  In America?  You lead the world.  Why aren’t humans better?  I’ve watched you develop over all these centuries, and you are not getting kinder.”

Santa was on a roll.

“You center on yourselves.  You hold up wealth and those who attain it as the goal.  You worship the growth of business and industry and leave people behind.  In fact, it’s getting worse.  Antisemitism is growing in your country.  LGBTQ folks who have made so many gains are seeing more discrimination in schools, and in communities.  Do you know how easy it is to simply let these people live their lives among you?  Why would that happen in the 2020s?  I don’t get it.  I’m afraid it’s being done in the name of politics of all things.  Is that even possible?”

I was lost for words.  I put my hand on Santa’s shoulder.

“Surely you don’t expect to be able to fix us do you Santa?”

“No.  But I expect you to make progress fixing yourselves.  You’re burning up the world as we know it.  You think about now and disregard the future.  I want to represent hope but I’m losing my own.”

“Santa you might need to talk to somebody regularly.  Not me, but someone who can help you with your anger.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know.  You mentioned Christ a while back.  Could you talk about it with him?  You have a lot in common.  You might ask Jesus to set up a meeting, maybe bring his Dad and that other person.”

“What other person?”

“The person that’s so hard to describe.  The third one.  Spooky yet comforting.  Anyway, you help Jesus celebrate his birthday.  He and his crew owe you I’d say.  And besides, they existed before you.  I bet they’ve been plenty disappointed in human beings.  They may have tips for dealing with us.”

Santa put a hand over his eyes.

“It’s been a hard week.”

“I know what you mean.  I have those myself.”

Santa hung his head.

“How about a hot dog”, I said. “I’m buying.”

“Well, that’s a rare event.  I’ll take one.”

“What do you want on it?”

“The works.  Sriracha, everything.”

“You got it. 

“And don’t give the cashier any shit about the sport peppers. You embarrass me sometimes.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.  You’d know if I did anyway.”

I bought two dogs.  We ate them and walked outside.

“Hope I see you next year Santa.

“I expect you will McClure.  You know, you might feel better if you lost twenty pounds.”

“Look who’s talking.  Keep your chin up Santa.  Look for the good in us, will you?

“I’ll try.”

Santa got into an old Buick and pulled away.  A white glove waved out the window.

And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”