Back when I was in high school, I was told I needed a college education if I was ever going to have the American dream -- you know, house in suburbia, wife who is even hotter now than before our 2.5 kids were born, a nice SUV for her, a cool truck for me, golfing, maybe a little boat to use for fishing on weekends, all that shit middle-class kids are told they'll want when they grow up.
There was one major problem with all of that. I was a decent enough student to get into a good college, but I wasn't athletic enough to get a sports scholarship, and not quite enough of an achiever in school to get any merit-based help. My folks couldn't afford to pay for my schooling, and I wasn't mature enough to consider going to school and working full-time all at once.
So, I did what a lot of kids do. I found a decent-paying job after graduation, planning to work for a year or two, to make enough money to pay for some of my schooling myself. After all, the girl I was in love with, the amazing wife-to-be, wouldn't want to be saddled with my student loans for years.
One late summer morning, everything changed. I could hear some commotion in the office. Then one of the secretaries came out crying. She looked like she had just witnessed the end of the world.
"Tamara, what's wrong?" I asked.
"Oh God, Joel, they say there may be thousands dead," she sobbed.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Go in Sarah's office. She has a news feed up on her computer. Oh, God, all those people dead!" she wailed as she ran for the ladies' room.
I had no idea what was going on when I dashed to Sarah's desk. I got there just in time to see a plane hit the second of the Twin Towers. I stood there, slack-jawed, not quite believing what I was seeing. The news commentators were speculating on the likelihood of two airliners colliding with those two buildings within less than twenty minutes, and very soon, everyone knew we were under attack. The few die-hards who didn't want to believe it were convinced when we learned about the other planes.
Stunned, I wandered outside for a cigarette. Work was forgotten for the day. Several people were certain that one of the people seen jumping, or falling, from those buildings had been our company president, Mr. Chambers, who had a sales appointment there.
A guy I worked with came outside and leaned heavily against the wall next to me. He lit up a smoke, took a few drags, turned to me, and said, "What now?"
"I have no fucking clue. Shit, does someone want a war?"
"We have to fight them. I'm so mad right now, I just want to go find those sons-of-bitches and cut their hearts out," he growled.
"Me too. I want to hurt someone like they hurt us," I agreed.
"Well, I know what I'm going to do," he said, grinding out his cigarette. "Come with me after work. I'm going to enlist."
I called my fiancee, and we talked for almost an hour. She knew what I was going to say when I called her. I wasn't sure what the future would bring, but I was raised to never take shit lying down. I went with my buddy from work and joined the Army.
At one point, I considered becoming a career military man. The life was impossibly hard, but I knew I was doing what needed to be done. I was on a mission to save the world from terrorists, to make America safe.
My glorious military career ended rather suddenly. A roadside bomb killed everyone in the Humvee I was riding in but me. I heard the blast, felt the blast, but didn't feel anything else for a couple of days. A pretty young nurse with a German accent finally got me to understand that my one leg was gone above the knee, and my other leg ended a few inches below the knee.
I was in a fog. Morphine makes it pretty hard to grasp some concepts, I guess. That same nurse had to read the month-old "Dear John" letter to me five times before I understood that no one was going to be waiting for me when I got home.
That was almost a year ago. Now I wake up in the morning in my apartment, turn off the alarm clock before it can make its awful noise, glance briefly at my Purple Heart, and start getting ready to face the day.
The army changed my life, no question about that. They did the surgeries to patch me up and gave me prostheses and a wheelchair. Better prostheses, ones that may have restored my mobility, would have required more surgery, and I wasn't sure I was ready for that just yet, so the army helped to pay for the installation of hand controls and other disability modifications in a pick-up truck I bought. Employment? Uh, not so much.
Regardless of all the laws and public service messages out there, the reality is that there are few civilian job openings for a guy whose only military-trained skills are humping tank rounds and driving a big rig, especially since I couldn't do either of those things any more.
That's how I wound up responding to an online job posting for holiday season help at the mall. Retail wasn't exactly the field I had expected to find myself in, but I was sick of the temp agencies, and I needed to get out of my apartment and re-join the living. I thought there should be plenty of things I could learn to do from my chair.
When I rolled into the mall office for my interview, the personnel manager said, "I'm Ted Haggerty, and you must be Joel Parmer. I'd salute you, but I can't raise my arm that high any more. Two years in a little cage in a North Viet Nam prison camp pretty much ended that for me. I see on your application that you're a veteran, too. I know I'm not supposed to ask you this, but we're just two broken-down old warhorses, here, okay?"
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know, sir," I replied.
"Tell me what happened, and how you're doing," he said.
"Long story short, third tour of duty in Iraq, roadside bomb, both legs were hamburger and needed to be amputated. From the field hospital they flew me to Germany, and I had more surgery there. I'd need more operations to be able to wear the fancy new-tech prostheses, and I'm just not ready for the pain. The prostheses I have allow me to stand, but I really can't walk without crutches or handrails. That's why I usually use my chair in public. I was working to save for college when 9/11 happened. I enlisted, got hurt, honorable medical discharge, been working through temp agencies at odd filing jobs since then. I'm starting college after the holidays, and any money I can earn to prepare for that will help. I'll do anything I'm capable of, sir."
"Do you like people?" he asked.
"Generally, yes sir, unless they're planting bombs."
"Do you like kids?"
"I don't have any of my own, sir, and I don't have any childcare training. Why?"
"Can you stand kids?"
"Yes, sir, I guess I didn't answer your last question. I like kids, sir, I just don't have much experience with them."
"OK, here's the thing. The mall needs a Santa. You sit in a chair wearing a costume, listen to children say what they want for Christmas, smile for pictures, that's pretty much it. There's room in 'Santa's Workshop' to store your chair, and the 'elves' can help you if you need it. Here's the pay scale and the work schedule," he said, pushing a paper across the desk.
I read what he handed me. The pay was more than I was getting from the temp agency, and the mall employee discount meant I would be able to buy a few gifts for my family along with some stuff I knew I would need to start school.
"How many shifts may I work per week, sir?" I asked.
"You're the first candidate I'm hiring this year, so you have your pick. Welcome aboard!"
That's how I came to be wearing a white wig and beard, a "fat suit", and a red costume.
