The Potential of Zeroes

by Eric Mattys

  “Perhaps.” Max paused as if calculating before putting on the red pants. “Can you help me with the boots? It’s kind of hard with all this extra fat padding.” Bartholomew tied the boots for him. “So if I get arrested, you guys’ll bail me out, right?”

  Mew looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. “Jesus, Max. What are you planning?”

  “I don’t know. Just tell me you’ll bail me out.”

  Terese shook her head. “We’ll bail you out… but...”

  “Good. What about the arm?” Max waved the baggy sleeve with his stump. “Pin it up or leave it loose?”

  Terese looked for a second as Max kept waving. “Leave it.”

  Max stepped out of the men’s room waving his one arm as he walked to the center of the North Pole in the middle of the mall. “HO HO HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!” He bellowed sounding drunk. The children waiting outside the North Pole clamored, and some clapped as he approached. There were no elves or other staff around the North Pole. Must’ve been on break, too. A ramp with hand rails lead up to his throne-like chair. Behind the chair were two twenty foot Christmas trees decorated with lights. Surrounding the ramp on both sides were layers of faux snow blankets with white lights mixed together. Max sat down in the giant red chair.

  The first child walked up to Santa. She looked like she was seven or eight with long hair that hung down just over her eyes. She kept looking up at her mother to see if she was paying attention to her. The mother rarely looked at her child deeply, but she kept a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The mother shot glances at other parents and people in the mall to see if they were looking at her in a way that suggested embarrassment or disapproval.

  The little girl climbed up onto Santa’s lap and asked, “Santa, what happened to your arm?” She quickly turned around to her mother. She was on her cell phone.

  Max took a deep breath. “It was a much colder month than I or the reindeer or elves had ever expected. Food supplies ran out. I mean, you would think that living at the North Pole, the elves, Mrs. Claus, and I would be prepared for extreme cold temperatures and the food needed to keep us alive, but we were not prepared for a storm like this. Everyone was going to starve to death. The elves were emaciated little skeletons. There was only one thing that we could do. I told Mrs. Claus to get the Christmas Axe and to prepare a fire. I told her it would taste better if it was cooked. She said no at first, but I insisted. I told her no one was going to starve to death on Santa’s watch; they had all been so good that year. I told her I would be fine because I have this protective layer of blubber. I passed out from the pain, and Mrs. Claus, like a pro, stitched me up real fast.”

  The child’s eyes grew wide from under her hanging bangs. “What?” She moved her head back from Santa and moved the hair out of her eyes in disbelief.

  “Mrs. Claus chopped off my arm with the Christmas Axe. She counted to three and let the axe fall. The hard part was that she didn’t take it off clean on the first chop, but I don’t really remember the second one. So, I lost an arm,” Santa shrugged. “Not a big deal because I saved my elvin workforce from starvation. My big arm was enough for them to eat for almost a month.”

  The child’s face scrunched up in puzzlement. “The elves ate your arm?”

  “They did. So, when you wake up on Christmas morning and you’re opening the presents, remember all the effort and sacrifice the elves and I put into making those toys. Now, what is your name and what would you like for Christmas, my dear?”

  “My name is Tina and I want… um… a Bratz doll set.”

  “Oh. Which one is that?”

  “That’s the one with the people with the big heads and big eyes.”

  “Oh wait, I know, the ones with the famished little bodies?”

  “What does ‘famished’ mean?”

  “It means they are extremely thin because they are starving, kind of like the way my elves were.” He looked at his stump and shook it at her.

  “Yeah. They are the skinny cartoon girls.”

  “Okay. But don’t you think a doll set inherently conditions you to reinforce the gender roles that many women have worked hard to escape and that the Bratz dolls in particular might encourage some kind of eating disorder?”

  “Um… I dunno.”

  “Is there a reason why you need dolls even? Boys and girls don’t have to always like different things, you know.”

  “Girls rule and boys drool.” She gasped, “but not you, Santa.”

  “Okay…” Max wanted to keep with his line of questioning, but, disarmed by the little girl’s non sequitur, he was speechless.

  “Um… I have a lot of other toys I want. Can we hurry this up a little?” Going on eight years of age, Tina was all business.

  “Oh ho. Well then, you better tell me now.”

  “Can you say it loudly so my mom hears?” she whispered.

  It became clear to Max that this little girl was not as dumb as he expected all children to be. She had no illusions about a jolly man in a red suit delivering toys; the discomfort solidifying around her face came from sitting on a stranger’s lap, especially an armless stranger. And her repeated glances directed at her mother every few seconds were not out of fear, but instead to ensure her mother heard what she wanted for Christmas. “Of course.” Max felt deflated in his role, disheartened that the child did not believe in him or his arm and axe story.

  “I want a gold necklace, a puppy like the one in the window, and a black purse to carry the puppy. And a set of paints so that I can paint the puppy to match whatever outfit I’m wearing that day. Can you make this happen, Santa?” Again, she looked over her shoulder at her mom.

  “Why would you want a dog that fits inside your purse?”

  “Easy storage. I saw some TV people with little dogs in their purses.”

  “You don’t have to be like the people on TV.”

  “I know, but I want to. I want to be rich and have people take pictures of me and my puppy everywhere I go. Remember to say it so my mom hears,” Tina whispered.

  “You don’t think you’d ever get tired of people taking pictures of you?”

  Exasperated, she rolled eyes. “No, Santa.” She sighed and looked back at her mother. “You’re not helping me here,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

  Max felt a little used, but also sad for the girl. “So. You want a puppy, a purse for the puppy, and paint to color the puppy according to what you’re wearing that day,” Max boomed, getting the mother to look up from her phone. “Well, I’ll make a note of it. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to get everything on your list. Puppies can be difficult to carry in my bag.” The little girl rolled her eyes again as she hopped off his lap. “But we’ll see,” Max said as the girl walked away, towing her mother by the hand.

  The next tiny human climbed onto Max’s knee. “Santa, what happened to your arm?” asked a round, red-headed boy with green eyes.

  “There was a battle between a polar bear and myself. I thought he was a friendly polar bear, but when I went to give him the secret, friendly polar bear handshake, or paw shake, the way you always do to let friendly polar bears know you’re a friendly human, I discovered the polar bear was not friendly at all. As the polar ice caps continue to melt, the bears continue to move in on my territory…. We had to put that polar bear down. Donner and Blitzen impaled him with their horns, but not before the bear took my arm.” Max paused and shrugged. “What can you do…?”

  “Polar bears? You’re serious?”

  “Yes. It was actually just one polar bear. Those teeth will tear through your flesh and bone like this.” Max clapped his fingers into the palm of his hand and saw the boy’s eyes light up. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Tom.”

  “What is it that you would like this Christmas, Tom?”

  “You don’t already know?”

 
; “No. I don’t. You have to tell me.”

  “I didn’t tell you last year and you got me everything I wanted.”

  “My psychic abilities come and go. If you don’t tell me, there’s a chance that I won’t get you what you want.”

  “Okay. I want a fire truck.”

  “Just a toy fire truck?”

  “No. I want a REAL fire truck.”

  “I don’t think a real fire truck will fit under the tree.”

  “You’re Santa. You can do anything. Just do it. My mom got a Mercedes-Benz last year, and you put it outside in our front driveway. Just put the fire truck out there.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see. Is there anything else you want?”

  “That’s it. Just the fire truck.”

  “Alright. I’ll see what I can…” Max paused. Who was he to rattle a kid out of his dreams, to tell him his desires were morally justifiable or not? By his way of thinking, a few factors came into play when determining whether a desire was morally justifiable.

  The first factor was originality. Did someone else drive this desire, or was it purely his? He would assign a value of zero to ten, with zero being, “I bought it because a celebrity said it would get me laid,” and ten being, “It doesn’t yield any results when you search it on Google.”

  The second factor was how much he was willing to expend in order to carry out his desire. He would give a value between zero and ten with zero meaning, obviously, that he was willing to spend nothing. A four would be a wild amount of currency like $100 dollars or more. A seven would be currency and jail time under a ridiculous, outdated law. An eight, currency, jail time, and mild bodily harm. A nine would be currency, jail time, bodily harm, and possibly death. A ten, a suicide mission.

  The third factor was human benefit. He would give a positive value for helping or a negative value for harm. Max consistently aimed to make sure his actions stayed in the positive, or at least zero. He added up the scores for each factor and if the final score was above fifteen, he considered it the right thing to do. If it was below ten, it was probably not worthwhile. For an economist, this scale would likely go the other way around since an economist would want to maximize benefit and minimize cost, but Max was not an economist. He wanted only to minimize boredom.

  Max double-checked the scale with his decision to impersonate Santa. Just a few minutes ago, he was a regular guy in a t-shirt, sweater, and jeans. Then he desired to be Santa Claus. This was not terribly original by Max’s thinking. Other people definitely desired this before him. But his intention of speaking raw truth to children without entirely dismantling their ability to imagine was somewhat original. He gave a six for the first factor.

  The second factor was somewhere between a seven and an eight; he considered bodily harm a possibility. Fines and jail time were possible, too, if the situation could not correct itself. He had to add one because Terese and Bartholomew were also involved. As his best friends, he would instantly do just about anything for them or their entertainment. Human benefit? If the children learn something… three tops. The final score on Max’s Moral Justifiability Scale (MMJS as Max decided to refer to it) was around fifteen or sixteen, meaning the situation was morally justifiable.

  Tom scored rather high on originality. A full-sized fire truck is an original desire. He got a six there. But for the second factor, he received a zero because he appears to automatically expect that Santa is going to produce the desired results at no cost. Plus, the harm-to-others factor is at least a negative three because an unmanned fire truck means there could be a fire somewhere with no fire truck to stop the flames. So, Max responded by saying: “No, Tom. There’s no way I’m going to get you a full-sized fire truck. There are several reasons. One, the elves have never been successful with the production of diesel engines. Two, you’re five and you can’t drive, which means the fire truck would just be sitting there. That’s called a waste. It’s when you have something but you don’t or can’t use it. Three, the price of diesel fuel is skyrocketing and will likely continue to go up, which means your mommy or daddy will not have the ability to pay to use the fire truck. Four, as magic as my Christmas bag is, it will not fit a full-sized fire truck. I tried once, and we almost had to cancel Christmas. So, you’re not going to get a real fire truck.” Max broke eye contact to see two security guards standing at the front of the line.

  Little Tom disagreed. He pointed a finger. “My daddy is a firefighter, and he said you could do anything. I asked him about you going through the chimney, and he said you could do it. I asked him about you knowing what I want without me telling you in person, and he said you could do it because you know everything and you’re always watching. I asked him if you could get me a real fire truck for Christmas, and he said you could do it. Now you tell me you can’t do any of those things? Either my dad’s lying, or you’re not the real Santa.” The boy jumped off Max’s knee, and the security guards moved closer. Max was left pondering the validity of MMJS.

  A security guard with a golden, metallic name badge that said G. Thompson stepped up the ramp and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He’s not the real Santa. He seems to be confused.” He looked down at the boy. “Go ahead and get out of here. We’re gonna have some words.” The boy walked out of the North Pole without looking back.

  G. Thompson looked colossal enough for Max to worry about the structural stability of the North Pole’s plywood stage area, which creaked and begged for mercy under the weight. G. Thompson looked like an offensive lineman or an ex-military type who gave himself free range with Twinkies and Doritos and chicken pot pies, traces of which could be detected on the corners of his mouth. G. Thompson wore those wrap-around sunglasses with the gold tint which looked like one solid piece of curved mirror with a cut-out for his nose. Max always associated that style with Iraq war vets. Max saw his reflection in the sunglasses and noticed his beard was slightly crooked.

  Max asked, “And what can Santa bring you fine gentleman on Christmas morning?” as he adjusted his beard.

  The second security guard’s golden, metallic name badge read H. Foster. He looked like G. Thompson’s little brother. Same diet, but softer. Has authority, but maybe doesn’t have the skills to support that authority. H. Foster spoke. “Santa, I think you need to come with us.” He sounded like a lame imitation of every TV cop ever. Max saw H. Foster make a fist. It looked like a carved ivory cannon ball.

  Max smiled through the fake beard. “Really. Now why would that be?”

  G. Thompson looked up at the second floor of the mall. “Because we know you stole the suit you’re wearing.”

  H. Foster leaned in and whispered, “We know you’re not the real Santa.”

  Max made his eyes wide. “How dare you call me an unreal Santa! Do I look like a figment of your imagination?”

  G. Thompson shook his head. “Don’t make a scene here, please. It won’t be good for the kids or for business, or for anything.”

  “I will not leave!” Max pointed down to the stage of the North Pole. “This is where I BELONG!”

  H. Foster put his hands up in a stopping gesture. “Hey. We’re just doing our jobs here, alright? You can’t be here because we don’t know who you are.”

  Max raised his eyebrows as he looked up at the two security guards. “Well, I’ll tell you who I am.” He pointed at his face. “I’m Santa Claus.”

  G. Thompson’s face lost all expression. “You’re a liability is what you really are. It only takes one kid and one lawsuit to destroy Christmas. Now, please. Let’s go and we can discuss this in the office.”

  H. Foster leaned in toward Max. “We don’t want to make this ugly, but we will if it comes down to it.”

  Max leaned towards them and whispered, “I guess it’s going to get ugly then, gentleman, because I’m not going anywhere.”

  G. Thompson took a step towards Max. “You’re asking for this
, here, Santa.”

  Max frowned. “No. You’re asking for this.”

  G. Thompson grabbed Max by his lone arm, and Max went limp, which did not appear to be much of a problem for G. Thompson. H. Foster grabbed his leg, and the next second they were dragging Max out of the North Pole.

  As they dragged him, Max hollered, “Children! Please listen! You do not need any of the toys you think you need! You’ve all been brainwashed by your cartoons to want to buy things! But you don’t need any of it! This marketing dreamland will haunt you all through your life as you get older, telling you how you need to buy new cars and new homes and new clothes and new cell phones, but the truth is that you don’t!” His voice echoed over all the bells and ringtones and holiday choruses surrounding the North Pole. Max closed his eyes for a second. He was the Santa Claus Che Guevara—the romantic one, not the executing one. Bartholomew and Terese watched from the second level laughing hysterically as Max continued, “Why? Why, I ask you, would you waste your money on CRAP when you could buy tools to make something on your own? Be producers, not consumers, children! Be a pro— GZZZAAAAAHHKK!”

  G. Thompson tazed Max while H. Foster put up his hand and proclaimed, “Sorry, kids. This is not the real Santa Claus. This man is clearly a little out of his head. Sorry, folks.”

  Max let out a deep whooping cough and caught his breath after twitching uncontrollably for a few moments. His shout rose to a wail. “THIS MAN IS A LIAR, CHILDREN! HE’S GOING TO PUT SANTA CLAUS IN PRISON AND THEN THERE WILL BE NO CHRISTMAS! IF YOU BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS AT ALL, YOU SHOULD ATTACK THIS MAN AND HELP SANTA GET FREE! I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO VISIT YOUR HOMES ON CHRISTMAS UNLESS YOU HELP ME NOW!”

  Children started exchanging glances uncomfortably, some of them tearing up.

  “AREN’T YOU TIRED OF DOING NOTHING? CHRISTMAS IS GOING AWAY FOREVER! ARE YOU JUST GOING TO STAND THERE HOLDING MOMMY AND DADDY’S HANDS FOR THE REST OF TIME? YOU CAN DO SOMETHING NOW OR WAKE UP TO AN EMPTY CHRISTMAS MORNING! THINK OF ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN WHO WILL GO WITHOUT CHRISTMAS IF YOU DON’T DO SOMETHING NOW! COLLF!” G. Thompson hit him in the stomach with his nightstick and again in the ribs, making a horrific, low, smacking rumble that resonated through all of Max’s innards.