He believes in Santa until the day he starts to learn multiplication in second grade. Regular curriculum pegs it as third grade material, but even then his family is recognizing how fast he soaks up information. You do not let the seed sit in the dirt. You cultivate, harvest, and dig trenches into the mind to hold more. He thinks his parents are secretly relieved for the excuse to push him towards something else. They watch him closely and he loves them for their understanding and hates them for their pity. He has been held back a grade; he cannot afford more mistakes, this is understandable even at a young age.
But he continues to make them: He keeps getting caught in his mother's closet, wearing her clothes, fiddling with her makeup; he is eight or nine and curious. His mother is a dark-eyed and wonderful woman, clearly the best at her job where she bosses people around for her boss (he doesn't know exactly what secretary means other than it's Important). No matter where she goes, she walks with confidence and a click click of her heels. He is convinced it is in her clothes somehow, rubbed into the fabric like fairy dust or her perfume. He learns to love the smell: Pure Orchid, sometimes accompanied by smoke if laundry hasn't been done. In her too big coat and too big shoes, he click clicks around the bedroom and stains the air with flowers and lights a candle for smoke and pretends to have the same confidence he loses in school every time he sees his old friends sit with the third graders.
But his parents are scared when they find him like this. He sees it in their eyes just before it is masked. He tells them he doesn't want to go to school anymore. They tell him it's okay. He is okay. They insist on having him study things his young brain struggles with, eager as he is to learn. They tell him things in bite sized pieces: It's just a phase, time will pass. He is smart. It's okay to be shy. Being held back isn't uncommon. It doesn't mean we're disappointed. We only want what's best for you. But umma doesn't want to see you in her things without permission. You are a boy, Bong. You cannot dress like a girl.
He tries to tell them but appa has the news and umma has the garden and these make sense to them and that is what they pay attention to. He bows his head and feels a deep shame that never quite leaves him. Then eventually confusion joins it. (Why not?) Then anger. (He knows he's a boy, he's not stupid.) Then resentment. (Why won't they listen?)
He retaliates by fixating on the mythical being Santa. When his grasp on math becomes more solidified, things stop adding up. He leaves scrawled calculations for his parents to decipher, X's marking out the fact that a man cannot travel the world faster than the earth rotates, cannot possibly account for all children who born, die, and grow old, cannot stretch himself past times zones and live and breathe and accept only sweets for the extremely strenuous job. He asks why Santa is the moral judge of people when appa believes in a thing called God whose child is also the same? He theorizes the number of people required to span the globe and how widespread and ancient the secret group must be. He googles similar figures in other cultures and compares them: St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, even going as far back as Odin, the Wild Hunt, and the Yule. He is baffled momentarily when a letter sent to The North Pole is actually answered, but he is naturally suspicious; a well established conspiracy always has contingencies (which he calls Plans B1 through Z20 before he learns the word).
His parents plead him to just have faith when they grow tired of it, and because they ask he refuses. He demands proof. He needs Santa himself telling him it is a good idea to believe before he will.
He is embarrassed for the family friend Walter when he dresses up and ho-ho-ho's his way through a jolly routine at the Christmas Eve dinner. He knows he can keep his mouth shut and let them believe it's okay. He understands Christmas is about the kindness of humanity and that his parents just want him to believe in something magical about the world.
But then he remembers that they stripped him of his comforts without bothering to believe that they made him feel better. He remembers how little kindness there was when he was caught with a pair of heels after the fact. They want him to be happy with the lie because it is convenient for them, not because it would somehow make life better. So he bitterly strips them of their parental holiday joy in return because he is a child and they are adults and he doesn't know what else he can do to hurt them yet except to ruin the experience for everyone. Including himself.
(Deep down he did want to believe in something more than facts, but he is learning quickly that it isn't how the real world works.)
He yanks Walter's fake beard off, hears his name gasped, hears the flatter of fork on plate, sees Walter's bug eyes and skewed spectacles, sees movements in his peripheral, snatches Walter's hat as a souvenir, and excuses himself to his room. He makes it four feet before his parents stop him, force him to kneel and apologize and bow until the startled Santa says it's okay and dinner continues. Later he is lectured on his behavior, and he tearfully accepts the slaps of the belt across his bottom. His grandmother watches and his mother doesn't as he loses his initial spark of rebellion and gets it back again and again. Stupid, ungrateful child! Are you happy? You were an embarrassment to us all.
From then on, he resolves not to be ever again.
But he continues to make them: He keeps getting caught in his mother's closet, wearing her clothes, fiddling with her makeup; he is eight or nine and curious. His mother is a dark-eyed and wonderful woman, clearly the best at her job where she bosses people around for her boss (he doesn't know exactly what secretary means other than it's Important). No matter where she goes, she walks with confidence and a click click of her heels. He is convinced it is in her clothes somehow, rubbed into the fabric like fairy dust or her perfume. He learns to love the smell: Pure Orchid, sometimes accompanied by smoke if laundry hasn't been done. In her too big coat and too big shoes, he click clicks around the bedroom and stains the air with flowers and lights a candle for smoke and pretends to have the same confidence he loses in school every time he sees his old friends sit with the third graders.
But his parents are scared when they find him like this. He sees it in their eyes just before it is masked. He tells them he doesn't want to go to school anymore. They tell him it's okay. He is okay. They insist on having him study things his young brain struggles with, eager as he is to learn. They tell him things in bite sized pieces: It's just a phase, time will pass. He is smart. It's okay to be shy. Being held back isn't uncommon. It doesn't mean we're disappointed. We only want what's best for you. But umma doesn't want to see you in her things without permission. You are a boy, Bong. You cannot dress like a girl.
He tries to tell them but appa has the news and umma has the garden and these make sense to them and that is what they pay attention to. He bows his head and feels a deep shame that never quite leaves him. Then eventually confusion joins it. (Why not?) Then anger. (He knows he's a boy, he's not stupid.) Then resentment. (Why won't they listen?)
He retaliates by fixating on the mythical being Santa. When his grasp on math becomes more solidified, things stop adding up. He leaves scrawled calculations for his parents to decipher, X's marking out the fact that a man cannot travel the world faster than the earth rotates, cannot possibly account for all children who born, die, and grow old, cannot stretch himself past times zones and live and breathe and accept only sweets for the extremely strenuous job. He asks why Santa is the moral judge of people when appa believes in a thing called God whose child is also the same? He theorizes the number of people required to span the globe and how widespread and ancient the secret group must be. He googles similar figures in other cultures and compares them: St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, even going as far back as Odin, the Wild Hunt, and the Yule. He is baffled momentarily when a letter sent to The North Pole is actually answered, but he is naturally suspicious; a well established conspiracy always has contingencies (which he calls Plans B1 through Z20 before he learns the word).
His parents plead him to just have faith when they grow tired of it, and because they ask he refuses. He demands proof. He needs Santa himself telling him it is a good idea to believe before he will.
He is embarrassed for the family friend Walter when he dresses up and ho-ho-ho's his way through a jolly routine at the Christmas Eve dinner. He knows he can keep his mouth shut and let them believe it's okay. He understands Christmas is about the kindness of humanity and that his parents just want him to believe in something magical about the world.
But then he remembers that they stripped him of his comforts without bothering to believe that they made him feel better. He remembers how little kindness there was when he was caught with a pair of heels after the fact. They want him to be happy with the lie because it is convenient for them, not because it would somehow make life better. So he bitterly strips them of their parental holiday joy in return because he is a child and they are adults and he doesn't know what else he can do to hurt them yet except to ruin the experience for everyone. Including himself.
(Deep down he did want to believe in something more than facts, but he is learning quickly that it isn't how the real world works.)
He yanks Walter's fake beard off, hears his name gasped, hears the flatter of fork on plate, sees Walter's bug eyes and skewed spectacles, sees movements in his peripheral, snatches Walter's hat as a souvenir, and excuses himself to his room. He makes it four feet before his parents stop him, force him to kneel and apologize and bow until the startled Santa says it's okay and dinner continues. Later he is lectured on his behavior, and he tearfully accepts the slaps of the belt across his bottom. His grandmother watches and his mother doesn't as he loses his initial spark of rebellion and gets it back again and again. Stupid, ungrateful child! Are you happy? You were an embarrassment to us all.
From then on, he resolves not to be ever again.
