by Forest, Will
Is that Santa Claus? On a bicycle?
But he had no beard, no belly…A clean-shaven man, maybe East Asian or Native American, middle-aged, his wide-open Santa jacket flapping in the wind, rode along bare-chested in red pants and black boots, with a cardboard sign attached to the back of the bicycle seat: WILL SING NAKED 4 $1. He waved and smiled through the rush-hour traffic, weaving through the buses as they pulled away from the curb in front of the high school. She lost sight of him for a few hundred yards as she advanced toward the next stoplight, only to see him again in her rearview mirror as he pedaled determinedly up the hill. Sweaty Santa. Stinky, sleazy Santa. Other drivers whistled or shouted while teenage pedestrians repeated the words on the sign over their cell phones. But no one stopped him to sing.
Tabitha chuckled in spite of herself. Why so cheap, she wondered, beginning a line of philosophical questioning. What will he sing? Does he take requests? Where will he sing? On the street corner, it would seem? Or under what sordid conditions? Isn’t he cold? Does he mean that he’s already naked when he starts to sing, or that he strips while singing? Is it some television spectacle, or sociology experiment, to see how people react? Is he near the high school on purpose? Would the police stop him merely for riding around with that sign? But surely that is not illegal. Is he new to this country? Where on earth did he get this idea? A one-man-show version of Naked Boys Singing? What if I persuaded him to change the sign to WILL TEACH PHILOSOPHY NAKED 4 $1? Does he really think he can make money this way? Above all, will anyone take him up on it? Who, and why? On a whim, she rolled down the window.
“Hello? Umm…excuse me?”
The light turned green. Quickly she scanned the businesses ahead. She fired her eyes at him a little too intently. “Meet me at that Frostee Fort, will you? I’m going to pull over there.”
The Santa cyclist smiled and nodded as the driver in the car behind Tabitha’s honked the horn.
After she had parked in the restaurant lot, Tabitha checked her hair and teeth in the rearview mirror by force of habit. Soon Santa had pulled up beside her window. He stayed astride the bike with his feet on the ground.
Tabitha remembered to smile. “Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Why…why are you doing this?”
“Why not? Is it illegal?”
“I don’t know, don’t you?”
“I don’t think so, not advertising. If I stripped and sang on the street, well, then there’d probably be trouble. But I still don’t know that would be illegal.”
“Do you know Christopher Ross? Did he put you up to this?”
“Who?”
“Christopher Ross. I work with him.”
“Never heard of him.”
Tabitha believed him in spite of herself.
“Ma’am? Are you going to request a song?”
“No, sorry.”
“Half-price. Two for one. C’mon, at a dollar a song I’m practically giving myself away!”
Why so cheap, Tabitha wanted to ask. “No, I…”
“Look, you asked me to pull over here. What’s the deal?”
He wants me to pay him to expose himself completely. Completely: both body and singing voice. “OK, OK, look, I’m going to pay you for your time. I’ll pay for three songs, but I don’t want you naked or even singing. Just tell me, where do you go to perform?”
“You have to tell me.”
“What?”
Santa took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me a public place where nude singing is not a crime.”
Having no answer, Tabitha fumbled through her purse for the three dollars.
“So, is this a great country or what?”
“Thanks for your time.”
Santa hesitated, as if he didn’t want to take the money, on principle, but he finally did take the bills and said, to justify the act, “Well, time is money, they say.”
“Bye.” Tabitha began to close the window and pull forward, but Santa rapped on her door. She stopped and opened the window halfway again.
“Open up,” he said.
“What?” She looked quickly to verify that her car doors were locked. Santa had remained calm and held no weapon she could discern.
“Open up, lady. Give of yourself. You know you want to, or you wouldn’t have stopped me.”
“Yeah, right. Thanks.” This thrills-for-bills Santa thinks he’s giving me a lesson.
The window had almost sealed when she heard, “Merry Christmas!”
As Tabitha drove toward campus, she thought of Christopher…how interested he would be by this little occurrence, was the way her thought was going to end, until she forced it to veer off into traffic like the saucy Santa cyclist: I’m not telling Christopher, why stoke his flames? But…is the fire really his? What is this intense interest in public nudity, particularly, it seems to me, on the part of men, like the bicyclist? Isn’t he, aren’t they all, just exhibitionists and voyeurs? It can’t be fair for me to compare my colleague to that…flasher, that man was almost a flasher, with his open top as preview, and almost a stripper, with his crude sign promising the rest of the show for easy money. No, Dr. Ross is not like that. But he and the cyclist are tapping the same source, which, I have to admit, even though it makes me uncomfortable, is a legitimate focus of inquiry: the contexts for nudity in society.
Who was that ancient Greek philosopher, she tried to remember while turning past the Tholos replica onto the main campus drive, the one who was always naked in public—well, male public nudity was common at the time—so, what did he do to challenge the norm? He masturbated, of course, she recalled as she arched her eyebrows. But what was his name?
Twenty minutes later, seated at her desk grading her students’ final exam essays on Plato and morality, it came to her: Diogenes. One of the cynics, Diogenes had questioned the supposed naturalness of modesty by saying that humans ought to be more like dogs, enacting their bodily functions without shame. Was the pedaling Santa a modern-day Diogenes? Had he denied that Christopher set him up to it? Stop blocking the sun, Diogenes had told Alexander the Great, don’t step between me and the light. Don’t close me off in your cloak of shadow while you ask me what I need, Tabitha imagined Christopher-Diogenes saying, I need for you to move your humanity so mine can be open to the sun, to receive the source, to be one with the warmth and the light. Let there be light, fiat lux as those Romans will say, and let me be open, un-closed, uncloaked, un-clothed, to bask in it. I may not know what vitamin D is but I know I feel good in the light, my skin smells sweet in the sun, and if you would just step lightly now, all I need is another shot of sunshine. Illuminate me, Alexander, and I will thank you for fulfilling your offer for anything I might need. Alexander the wish-granter. Santa the gift-giver. WILL SING NAKED 4 $1 WILL UNVEIL 4 $1 WILL REVEAL 4 $1 GRAND OPENING 4 $1 SEE IT ALL, IN ALL ITS GLORY AND HEAR IT TOO, COMPLETE AND TOTAL DEMYSTIFICATION 4 $1. PHOTO ON SANTA’S LAP 4 $1. OPEN FOR BUSINESS BUT CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP. Too open, too cheap.
By this point in her flow of associations, the perceived vulgarity ran too deep for Dr. Lasseter-Peebles. Once more, she let it veer off, to put this whole matter behind her, not to be mentioned to Dr. Ross. She gazed out her window, searching for something else to focus on, but could not avoid imagining her students, dollar bills in hand, mobbing the Christopher-as-Diogenes-as-Santa provocateur, forcing him to flee across campus on his bicycle, leading the precious children from the town of Hamelin. Where was he taking them?
But even as she pondered this, she absorbed the late afternoon light through her high window. The office door was closed. She frowned and rubbed at her neck, fidgeted with her buttons, and then impulsively removed her blouse and bra to the sun. Within seconds, an expansion of heat rippled out from its core under Tabitha’s breast as she felt the sun warm a spot stretched thirsty and taut. She arched her back to welcome a more direct angle, and then she separated her breasts with her hands, and lifted them and pulled them, in her desire
to expose every pore to the rays. In her confidence that no one could see her, she removed the rest of her clothes and leaned back in her chair to prop her feet on the window ledge, resting one knee on her desk and the other against the wall. The sun kissed everything between her legs, and she felt a deliverance too delicious to be indecent. How could something so frankly guileless, and so delightfully intoxicating, feel shameful? Ah, but she turned her head: she had to check again that the door was closed.
Open up.
Community Service
That damn college wench pulled me out of the line-up. My fake name didn’t work at all, because of her fuckin’ uncle Tucker! If he hadn’t noticed me taking those extra shots at the precinct that last time we hauled in the nudies, I wouldn’t a even been on the fuckin’ line-up! But that college girl was nothing compared to that other bitch smeared her blood all over me. What the fuck? She said I waved my gun at her. I did not, all I did was heft it around in my hands a little, make her cooperate. But hell, that was my mistake. If I’da known she was gonna be such a bitch I woulda let her speed on by. If I’da known she was having her fuckin’ period I wouldn’ta given her the time o’ day. Soon as I made up that part about driving while menstruating being a Class A Misdemeanor I knew I’d gone too far with that woman. She yanked her pad out and threw it at me. Now it makes me laugh, thinkin’ about it, but at the time it wasn’t funny. But when she drove off she must a been so upset she didn’t do squat, she didn’t ask for a written report, she must not have copied down my plates or nothin’. Until somehow she found out about the other charges against me. Maybe she has a nudie friend. Somethin’ tipped her off, then she marched in here four months after the fact and testified and I’ll be damned if she didn’t finger me out of the line-up too.
Well, fuck ‘em. We cops, we protect our own. It’s our code. The sheriff, he’s a good man, no sense bribin’ him with the photos. He felt obliged to defend a cop doin’ his duty. So he didn’t fire me. He had to at least slap my hand, though, so I got a $5000 fine—hell, that’s only a couple weeks income from the website I put those photos on. And I have to perform 100 hours of community service. All that means is 100 hours of free baseball games standin’ around as unpaid security. The worst was puttin’ me on administrative leave indefinitely at reduced pay. But he told me later that just because he had to say “indefinitely” to the public didn’t mean that he couldn’t define it himself. Turns out “indefinitely” means about three months.
I’m supposed to learn a lesson, or repent, or somethin’, says Brother Sean. The only lesson I learned is to be more careful next time. The way I see it, if you’re gonna run around naked, and there are people out there who’ll pay for photos of naked folks, then you’re just askin’ for it. And if you’re a beautiful woman pushin’ the speed limit, you might as well start takin’ your clothes off as soon as you see the flashin’ lights. Make things easier that way.
The Synecdoche Trap
“Today we will be moving beyond spatial aesthetics—the space of a painting or sculpture—to observations relative to time. Specifically, a portrayal of the body in words represents a challenge to the temporal nature of literature and oral narrative. A body spelled out in groups of letters cannot be perceived as immediately as a body brushed onto a canvas, a body wrought in marble or wood, or even the body in motion of a dancer or actor. Stringing readers or listeners along through the time it takes to participate in the act of reading or listening, the writer or storyteller must assume a greater precision or a greater generality, or both: precision in naming and describing, generality in assuming the audience’s knowledge of bodies.
“Perhaps the writer will commence with an overall description of the body as form: The bulk of a man appeared in the mist. Maybe the author will begin with a certain body part: When he surfaced, the first thing Jake saw over the edge of the pool were Susan’s pudgy toes. At the writer’s discretion, the portrayal may be dispatched in a few lines or verses, or may cover several pages or even chapters. The portrayal may commonly favor visual elements, or it may alternate with tactile and other sensual descriptions.
“The fact that the writer and the storyteller can return to the body over the course of the text strongly confirms the temporal essence of narrative. The aging of a body, for example, can be related after a certain amount of narrative has suggested the passage of time, or the corporeal effects of an accident or operation can be described such that a before and after comparison is achieved. A body, or a body part or group of such parts, can build up symbolic resonance (through repeated reference) to become a metaphor, and the body itself may serve as an allegory. Certain bodies may be played off against others for symbolic reasons, or bodies may be used collectively. It is also entirely possible to have characters without ostensible bodies. No body is ever described, and the reader must choose whether to assume bodies for the characters.
“In some literary contexts—the murder mystery, the vampire novel, the bodice-ripper, the epic battle poem—the human body may assume genre-specific meanings and qualities in which muscular force, sexual expression, graphic violence, corpses, or metamorphoses delineate the corporeal norm for the genre. Such bodily depictions maintain a tension between the two-dimensional nature of their predictability and the often lurid details that make the scenes jump from the page. Successful genre experimentation instigates new freedoms for the body, especially in the metaphorical potential of bodies as the animate repositories of national, regional, or ethnic traditions.
“A practical example: Let’s say you’re a writer who wants to describe the people in this HUM 200 seminar. Let’s assume we’re nude—when should that be mentioned? Should that fact be rendered simply with the word “nude,” or some other, perhaps indirect, way? What differences might result? What if you want, now, to focus on the description of one person in particular? What attitudes or worldviews can be indicated by a choice to describe the area of this person’s torso and loins before describing the face? Or one area in greater detail than another? Any such choice can be justified by plot or mood or theme, but the necessity of temporal description cannot be avoided.
“This necessity is what I call the synecdoche trap. It means having to construct a body part by part. It is no different than any other description with words, because some words simply must come before others in the flow of the narrative. But the description of bodies in words is especially interesting because all of us readers and listeners inhabit bodies ourselves, and we yoke those bodies, through our eyes or ears, to the rhythms utilized by the narrator. We feel these rhythms internally, even when we read in silence. And this is a great and significant difference from the way we perceive the static visual arts, in which we are relatively free to roam at our own pace.
“I’ve got to get out of the shower. Why do these lectures always come to me, complete, when I’m in the shower? Must be the stimulation of the skin, the rinsing, the lathering and rubbing. It’s full body contact with the ideas raining down from the brainstorm! Is there such a thing as a waterproof laptop?”
Honeyed Poison
“Have you ever wanted to change something about your body? Have you ever considered plastic surgery? I always used to be self-conscious about my bust. But I am so glad I went to see Dr. Ziegler. He explained everything to me about breast enhancement and made me feel comfortable with the idea. I was able to increase from a size 32B to a 36D overnight! My husband always used to say it didn’t matter to him how big my breasts were, because he was a legs man. Wasn’t that sweet of him? But you should have seen the look on his face when he saw the new me. So what are you waiting for? Fill out that bikini! Stop by to see Dr. Ziegler and Associates for your free consultation today!”
Cleaning a tabletop near one of the porthole windows of The Dive, Daphne listened to the actress delivering her sassy lines over the radio and decided she had never heard a plastic surgery ad aimed so directly and mercilessly at women’s body-image insecurities. What bald manipulation! Of course the
re had been no mention of price, just sheer wish fulfillment, making it seem like magic…It didn’t help that lately she had been contemplating the topic herself, imagining her own makeover, including breast augmentation and liposuction. But she always found something to get her out of it: save money, improve credit score, start a new diet first, read that latest article about a complication resulting from plastic surgery. But this ad sliced open her resistance with the efficient precision of a scalpel. Struggling to erase the actress’s saucy taunts from her mind, she summoned her own voice for her latest customer.
“Would you care for something to drink, ma’am?”
One look at the woman’s barrel chest, pudgy body, swollen eyes, sniffling nose, and uncontrollable frown, as she laboriously slid her body into the booth, and Daphne knew she hadn’t been the only victim of the radio ad’s honeyed poison.
“Boobs…who needs ‘em?” Daphne tried to sound carefree and confident.
The woman, in turn, tried to prevent the corners of her mouth from pulling her face down. “That was just nasty, wasn’t it?” She looked at Daphne for a moment. Finally, a smile broke through. “Maybe I’d want a set of implants if they’d bounce me out of bed in the morning!”
Daphne laughed. “They say the real plastic surgery is what happens to your credit card!”
After a few more chuckles Daphne learned her customer’s order: appetizer sampler with breaded cheese sticks, fried okra and fried mushrooms; the deep-fried ham and cheese sandwich with onion rings; and a Coke. Daphne tried not to think about it, but she couldn’t help it. What is that, 3000 calories? No wonder she looks like that. Holy cow. And she’s got a cigarette pack peeking out of her purse. Alright, this calls for action.
A few minutes later, Daphne fibbed that the Coke machine wasn’t working, and meanwhile would the customer care for water with a complimentary carrot and celery plate?