The Future of a New Memory
The Future of a New Memory
Etchings on a Star
December 3, 2020
Cracked Sidewalks
Godfrey Calpurnia Jackson is walking briskly. He has to catch the train to get downtown to dress up like Santa Claus to stand in the department store window to wave to the kids, the first Black man to get the honor.
He was supposed to be in the same room with the children, of course, the first Black Santa in the store’s history to have the children sit on his lap while parents took photos and everyone breathed holiday dreams. But this Christmas is different not just for the first Black Santa but different for everyone and everything and so Godfrey Calpurnia Jackson will break new ground in a socially distanced way.
“Always somethin’, Black Santa,” he laughs at the thought.
He hustles toward the train station, happy to suck the cool December air into his lungs knowing it will be a good Christmas, it will be a happy day of waving and smiling because he will make it so. The children, on the other side of the glass behind their masks, will make it so. Santa and Mrs. Claus and their helpers will all be wearing masks, too. Just like Santa.
It’s going to be three weeks of fun and hope, Godfrey Calpurnia Santa Claus Jackson knows and his pursuit of the train and a day of joy is suddenly interrupted. He has reached two freshly paved squares of sidewalk. They are still wet. They are perfect and he nearly stepped on them. He gingerly slides around them and then sees that someone has tarnished the wet cement.
COVID 20.
That’s what someone has scrawled into what soon will be hard memory. Godfrey Calpurnia Santa Claus Jackson, in a few cold moments, imagines the brand new graffiti being burned in the sidewalk for decades, a vestige of one of the coldest Christmases ever.
The image rests in Black Santa Claus’ head as he sprints for the train that will not wait and the children who won’t cry. –TK
Thursday, December 3, 2020