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The Santa Express

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Santa was doing about 300 pictures a day when Eddie McGregor stopped by. He had black hair, a black goatee and that irrepressible positive attitude. He seemed to be Jeff Angelo's clone. At break time, Eddie followed Santa back to his locker and said as he lightly clapped his hands, "I've seen the little thing you do with the candy cane and the hugs and the whole schmear, and I think you've got great things going on. But we have a few things to discuss, and that's the financial end of the Santa business. We're about 25 percent off where we need to be."

Santa Bell told Eddie that he appreciates the importance of what he's saying, "but there's an appliance in here that's even more important," and he headed for the toilet.

A minute later, when he returned, Eddie told him there had been some staff changes. A new manager would be working the set, and "what we need to do is not take away the love or the magic, but step it up a bit." Need to get a picture in the first ten or 12 seconds. Santa can have his "magic time" while the picture prints. Eddie would talk to the staff, but he needed Santa's commitment to get with the program.

Santa Bell nodded. Eddie looked around and asked if he had been spraying antibacterial agent on "that thing," by which he meant the red suit. Santa kind of grunted this time, and Eddie, having said all he'd come to say, gave his firm handshake and went about his business.

Isn't it funny?" Santa Bell said afterward. "It's like a training tape for the power of positive management. I've seen it in the Marine Corps, in construction, and now they're trying to bring it into Christmas."

Eddie was the third manager who had told Santa to speed it up. Santa felt a conflict of interest, since time and attention were really all that he had for a child. Nonetheless, he condensed his conversations. He ceased asking a child's age and also began assuming the child had been good. The new manager urged him to pick it up, pick it up, even when the line was short. She arrived with a reputation for meeting her quotas and reminded Santa of an old drill instructor.

Two day-care centers came through one afternoon, desiring no paid portraits. The manager turned Santa into an assembly line then. No sooner had the child touched the lap than she removed him. Santa Bell's mood darkened considerably. He began referring to management as "the glucose gestapo." He did not hug them, or the elves, either.

He's not the sweet, amicable person away from the stage he needs to be," Angelo observed. On December 9 the CEO decided to make a personal visit to First Colony to sort out Santa's problems.

Santa recalls it as "another glucose session." Angelo told him again he needed to have less "interface" with the children. Perhaps it was best if he didn't talk about gifts at all. "Your real job is to hold the kid, so we can get a good picture."

Bell trudged back to his throne. These motivational talks did nothing for him. He was a beard and a lap -- nothing more. He thought it could get no worse, when at precisely seven o'clock, it did. Mall security opened the doors, and around the corner came dozens of people with dozens of dogs.

"What's this?" Santa Bell asked.

Dog and cat night, said Angelo. Surely someone from marketing had told him?

No, in fact, he was never told anything about dog and cat night, and it was not in his contract, either. He had agreed to provide services only to children, and it seemed wrong for the children to wait while he sat with a dog. "Dogs and cats have nothing to do with Christmas and kids, so I tell you what -- this will be my last shift."

"You're kidding," said Angelo.

"No, I'm not kidding," said Santa Claus.

Angelo tried to say that some people think of their pets as children, but Santa would not hear of such absurdity. "That's their problem," he said.

He hugged black Labs that night and German shepherds, and even a fat beagle attired in wings and a halo. He smiled with them all, and long after Angelo had given up on him, he had opened his abundant lap to a little girl, her mom, her dad and the family hound. As one of the elves reached over to adjust the girl's dress, the dog sank its teeth into the elf's arm. Santa Bell recalled a younger day when he had broken the neck of a biting dog. He quickly located the trachea of this one. When the dog released the elf, Santa threw down the dog. He placed his scroll of good boys and girls under his arm, and he went home.

He quit just before the Christmas rush, when Sepia would realize 75 percent of its profits. The company was not badly wounded. By the next morning the throne was occupied by another man who looked very much like John Bell.

As for Bell himself, he reckoned that quitting would probably make it hard to find employment next year. He said this with a HO-HO-HO! and didn't seem very worried about it.

He was last seen driving his pickup down the highway, with his very own throne in the back. It was the night of the Christmas party of the Galveston County Foster Children Association, for which he had built this throne and during which he would be able to say whatever he pleased.

At a stoplight, a man in the next lane rolled down the window.

"You look like the real Santa. Do you ever go into the stores and take pictures with kids?"

"Not anymore," said Santa Bell. "I tried that. Not anymore."

E-mail Randall Patterson at randall.patterson@ houstonpress.com.

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