Uncle Sam's Ghost of Christmas Present

By Francesca Lo Basso
Collegian Editor
December 6, 2006

Oh, America, look at you in your Sunday best, all a-glimmer in a choker of Christmas lights and tinsel. Your polished patent leather boots sparkle, the rubber soles softened and smoothed by the pressure of a million toothless smiles. Like an 18th century rent-boy, you herald a pose of sweet seduction, curls sweat-soaked and matted, a spicy perfume of nutmeg and cinnamon shielding the world from a cough of cigarette smoke and gasoline. Your fragile arms tremble in the winter wind, veins as delicate as gold-leaf doilies. Your eyes are beautiful black pearls, hollowed and cored like the best Mackintosh apples. Your skin’s a silvery gun-metal gray, the translucent flesh showing a brilliant onyx heart glittering under the glare of the streetlamp.

And, oh, what hands! As clean and silky as satin, look at the graceful way they clasp those green paper chains, pulling them from bank accounts and wrapping and curling them around department store windows. How glorious it must be to take those green strips and exchange them for shiny new plastic baubles and beads while, across your yard, bombs fall like snowflakes and soldiers decorate the ground in crimson. What lovely presents debt makes, as flexible and malleable as Silly Putty, wrapped in the brilliant pink bows of unemployment slips.

And still you stand, steadfast, during the nighttime rush hour, arms supple and opened, as you wait oh-so-patiently for a shiny new Hummer to lower its tinted windows and invite you into its warmth and light.

How immaculate you are on bended knees, mouth open wide like a choir boy’s as you sing gospel hymns to the green-eyed god and his sister, Servitude. The clear notes echo and bounce, like the ringing of silver bells, in the empty landscape of your soul. A land where the ground is frost-covered and gleaming white, all trees and brush cleared away to leave uninterrupted conformity.

You flash dry eyelashes in the direction of the driver and wink coyly, as though you’ll see him again, and saunter away, perfect hips swinging in flawless unison with the tinkle of dropped bullet casings and the baritone grumble of empty stomachs humming across the distant waters.

How peacefully you fall asleep at night to such a cacophonous soundtrack – the faultless curves of your ears must not be as delicate as I thought. America, enjoy your bed of silky satin sheets as soft as a bride’s dress the night after her wedding. Embrace the cold champagne that subdues your nerves into pliancy, and the chocolate-covered treats that satisfy a hunger that’s never there. Devour it and smile graciously, for you are free.

lobassof1@lasalle.edu