Caribbean Santa

Thirty-five years ago, he patrolled a stretch of beach as long as two football fields on a Caribbean Island whose name I cannot remember.

He pushed a wheelbarrow full of ice as he pranced from one end of his empire to the other, the music of his voice rising and falling over the sound of the surf.

“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it.”

His music would often stop. Then resume. Stop.

Resume. Stop.

Finally, we saw him, a tiny, native islander in his late 50’s, as slender and leathery as a bullwhip, his naked feet falling as lightly as snowflakes on the soft Caribbean sand.

“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it… I’m sorry I’m late, but…”

His song would stop abruptly when he saw a hand raised. Sprinting to that spot with his wheelbarrow, he would ask the vacationers to name the drinks they desired.

I watched him for a while. He was a genius.

Occasionally he would reach into the ice and produce the requested beverage, but usually, he would pull his empty hands out of the icy water and fly like a bullet to his shack at the back of the beach. He would leave so quickly that you had no time to tell him you would happily accept a substitute.

He would return like Santa’s reindeer, his feet barely touching the sand, with the requested drink in hand, triumphant and proud not to have let you down.

Once, as I saw him fly over the sand with cold drinks in hand, I thought I could hear the sound of sleigh bells,

“More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
‘Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!‘”

That’s when it hit me: “This sandy song and dance is the daily floor show he gives us in this magnificent tavern without a ceiling. He is making a fortune in tips, and earning every bit of it.”

I observed him long enough to decode his methods: if he suspected vacationers of feeling entitled and flinty, he would immediately pull their drinks from the ice, accept their money, and resume his happy song.

“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it.”

I was honored when he couldn’t find our drinks. Pennie and I smiled at each other as he sprinted across the sand and returned with them 90 seconds later.

One minute after that, we smiled at each other again when we saw him pull those same drinks from the ice to serve an unhappy couple 20 feet away.

Like I said, the man was a genius.

When an unpleasant person is demanding my attention and I feel like showing them the bird that I keep in my hand, I think of that happy, slender islander, and tell myself that he is still there, his hands in the ice, his bare feet falling like snowflakes on the soft Caribbean sand.