In helpless disgust, Timothy watched the rich men parade through the city’s plaza, plump and sunny in the cold air, complacently afternooned, calling secretaries for assignations, calling wives with excuses, not calling children, and Timothy thought back to when he was one of these men, before he had failed at every task he had set himself, from the business that he had founded (“inventive,” a fellow millionaire had said, and Timothy had chosen not to hear the derision in his tone) to the marriage he had attempted (“I do,” she said, and all he could hear was the derision), and then on through the canvases he had, casting off his cloak of wealth, learned to paint, through the songs he had composed, through the sculptures he had fashioned with ever-weakening hands, right up to the moment when he had despaired of ever making anything of beauty and tried to take his own life, missing the vital artery by a mile. Now he stood. He bumped a plump man. “Hello, Santa,” he said, even though the man was wearing a slate-gray suit and talking a mile a minute about investments. “Merry Christmas, Santa,” he said.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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