The Gargoyle
when Santa Claus is not what he seems
While recovering from an unprovoked pulmonary embolism in the summers of 2018 and 2019, I wrote a memoir chronicling my online dating misadventures. I finished a book proposal, almost, but then the pandemic and a job change interrupted the project. I’ve decided to publish the best bits here. In this second excerpt, we’re out there in the wild, still woefully unprepared for what online dating would bring.
It was late summer, one year after the “...way past Dumbsa” incident, and my number two son, Seth, was preparing to leave for college. On a sunny Sunday in Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula, at the aptly named Better Living Through Coffee, I was sipping my dark roast drip. (“Smooth. Well-rounded. Good body. Chocolatey.”)
I was nicely settled in with a book when an older gentleman resembling Santa Claus arrived. He shuffled to a table and plopped down his newspaper. Then he pulled out a chair and paused, tipping his chin down to peer over the top of his glasses at the fella at the adjacent table. After a moment, he spoke: “Don’t... talk about baseball. Don’t do it.”
Lowering the Seattle Times and gravely gazing over his reading glasses, the other fella said: “Okay. No baseball.”
Mr. Claus sighed and said, “I haven’t finished watching the game yet.”
They chatted. I jotted some notes about their little exchange, then went back to reading.
And then Mr. Claus approached me.
“What have you learned from that book?”
“I’m only on page forty-four,” I said. “So mostly what I’ve learned is how much I don’t know.” It was Charles Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.
“Are you a historian? I see you reading history all the time.”
I was momentarily flustered. I had been watching and listening and recording exchanges in that coffee shop twice a month for two years, but I hadn’t noticed him in particular. He was one of the old men.
An, in fact, definitely not a historian. There are huge gaps in my historical knowledge, because I lost interest at about the Enlightenment, on account of it all seeming like a lot of intellectual masturbation. A lot has happened since the Enlightenment. So I found the question preposterous and amusing.
We only chatted briefly.
Two Sundays later, Mr. Claus, who had introduced himself as Sam, was there again. He sat at the next table over from mine, and I noticed he had put some effort into his appearance. We had a lively chat.
On the next visit, another two weeks later, I invited him to sit at my table.
I hadn’t at first realized that he was interested. Friendly, sure. But. You know, interested. I mean, Santa Claus. Then he invited me to lunch. And, again, because Santa, he was not sexually threatening, and I enjoyed his company. I said yes.
Two weeks later, on my next trip north, he took me to a sweet little French bistro. Sipping our café au lait, he kept up a steady volley of questions. “I’m tired of my story. I’m always interested in hearing other stories.”
For several years prior to the Santa encounter, my ex-husband and I had been taking turns on Sundays, transporting Seth to this wee, artsy-fartsy Victorian town. It was a long trek, an hour and twenty minutes from door to door on a good-weather-and-traffic day. The Port Townsend Aero Museum has a youth mentoring program, where, in exchange for one full day of work, young men and women learn to restore antique aircraft and to fly airplanes. It was a huge commitment, that drive, but worth every mile and every penny we spent on gas.
We had learned about the program by chance.
It had been our custom every summer to have an adventure day in Port Townsend. There are plenty of trails and a lovely beach and many charming restaurants and shops downtown. And every summer, as we zoomed out of town and home-again-home-again, Seth’s head would snap as he focused on that hand-painted sign, the old-fashioned red airplane: AERO MUSEUM. I promised we’d stop in one day, but it was closed on Mondays, the first year we pulled in to the lot. Before the next trip up, I checked the hours to be sure it would be open. It was.
I remember that day for several reasons. It was August, and I was wearing a skort, and my bare legs were freezing. I had lost a lot of weight when my first relationship, post-marriage split, ended in catastrophe. I was cold all the time, but I looked amazingly hot in my snazzy outfit, a vintage elbow-length cashmere sweater, bubblegum pink, the only item I’d saved from the catastrophe. It had been a Valentine’s gift. White short-sleeved tee. Sandals. Coldy-cold the whole damned day.
We had been listening to a Harry Potter book in the car, and all the while we strolled through the cavernous, drafty hangar, I was anxious to get out of the museum to get in the van, to get warm again, back to the Harry and crew, and home.
After the boys had their fill, chatting about the Red Baron and wars and flight and such like, we were finally able to head home. On the way out of the building, we chatted with William, the ancient volunteer at the ticket counter. He had a whispery voice, so I had to ask him to repeat himself a few times when he asked whether the boys were interested in learning to fly. William told us about their youth program, looking at my older son as he spoke. But the Eli was on his way back to college. It was his taller, skinny younger brother who was crazy about planes.
After many conversations and some research into the cost of driving almost three hours once a week versus the cost of flight lessons, we decided to take the plunge. The work day was 8:30 to 4 p.m. Twice a month I had a mini-vacation. The helicopter parent gene seems to be missing in me, so it did not occur to me that I could also volunteer. Instead, I developed a routine, breakfast at Better Living Through Coffee, where I would read my New Yorker until the bookstore opened, then a hike and my packed lunch, then reading and writing in the public library.
They were good days:
23 November 2013
Seth flew solo. Survived. The only excitement, aside from, you know, *flying*, was nearly hitting a bald eagle. (“But he saw me. And I saw him. And he was bookin’ it—flap-flap-flap-VROOOM!”) Well done, Seth.
I was blissfully unaware of the solo flight until after it happened. (Also well done, Seth!)
In town I was hanging out with the geriatric Harley motorcycle crowd that swarmed down main street and into the coffee shop. Lots of hand-holding couples in that bunch. Adorable.
Also had glorious weather. Entering town we saw wispy mist hanging in the valley, suspended over the frosted fields in the early sunrise. Stunning sunset over the Olympics as we crossed the Hood Canal Bridge coming home.
So. At the very end of those years, as we approached Seth’s departure for college, after countless Sundays lingering in that coffee shop, it seemed ridiculous, and somehow appropriate to my ridiculous life, to finally befriend a kind person—just a month before the end of the Port Townsend chapter of our lives.
That fall I had some major work done on the house, refinishing the wood floors, which is an almighty pain. Meanwhile, Sam and I had several lunch dates, exchanged texts, kept in touch. Lunches with a world traveler were a pleasant distraction.
Sam had a trip planned to Vietnam from December to March, because he could afford to, and because he hated the dark winters here. He had also mentioned in passing a business venture, work-related, but I was vague on that point. So I was staying open to possibilities, but more focused on the homefront than romance to a man I wasn’t especially attracted to. This was new, being the object of attention.
Sam also seemed hopeful about the future, which was curious. I was at the beginning of a post-kids-at-home life, wondering what that would look like. Sam never had children, and he loved to talk about trips he wanted to take, to Oaxaca, for instance, which he brought up by asking, “Where do you see yourself in October of next year?” Before her death, he and his wife had taken a canal trip through England, renting a flat-bottomed boat, a trip he would like to try again. He was gregarious, ready for adventure, and at a point in his life where he was financially secure and could work when and where he wanted.
We had a few small adventures, including a trip in a private plane up to Victoria, BC, where we strolled around Butchart Gardens and laughed over high tea.
One weekend we drove down to Portland together. Sam dropped me off at Powell’s Books, where I spent a happy afternoon prowling the shelves with my wheeled basket and occasionally sniffing a volume, while Sam went to an appointment with his accountant. He had various investments to discuss, and there was something about his wife’s Social Security benefits. I knew the bare, brutal facts, that nine years prior, riddled with cancer, she had died by assisted suicide. But I didn’t ask questions about the details since we hadn’t known each other all that long. It seemed kind and appropriate to listen. I kept a respectful distance from the money and wife topics.
It was early November now, and the weather was spectacular. Still no frost, and the stalwart roses offered a few lingering blossoms. The leaves were just beginning to turn, and the sun, low in the sky, cast a warm glow.
Despite a very poor night’s sleep on account of his earplug-defying snoring, neither of us heard the gunshots the next morning. But walking around near the hotel, Sam’s old stomping grounds, looking for breakfast, we came across a hullabaloo. At first I wondered if it might be a TV shoot—my Portland friends regularly posted on Facebook about seeing the Grimm crew. Although, that seemed unlikely, given the time of year.
Several city blocks were roped off. Lots of police. Eventually we passed a news crew. A woman dressed to the nines, presumably a reporter, was fiddling with an earpiece. “Nah, you don’t need a new one,” the camera guy told her. “Just shove it in there. That’s what I do.”
We kept walking until we’d circled the whole of several city blocks, trying to find access to the streets with restaurants, which were all inside the cordoned off area. Finally we found a corner cafe which, to my delight, specialized in cinnamon bread french toast. Ten minute wait.
“They always say ten minutes,” I said.
“Are you starving, honey?”
Yes. And tired.
About a dozen men in matching fluorescent orange sweatshirts were waiting in line outside. Sam asked what was going on.
“A shooting in the hospital parking lot.”
I sat on a bench half listening to the menfolk chattering while I reported this crazy story in a letter I was writing to son, Eli, by then a year into his Peace Corps gig.
Distraught man, suicidal, waving a gun, threatening to kill himself in the parking lot.
Neighbor calls 911.
Police arrive, it’s still the wee hours, dark.
They try to talk with the man, who eventually fires several shots, but the police can’t see well enough to know where.
The police shoot him dead.
“Suicide by police,” Sam said.
I am not heartless, but I have learned that there are many tragedies in the world, and this one was not my tragedy. I was sympathetic, saddened, but not shaken.
After breakfast, we were hardly out of the city, crossing the Columbia River, when Sam started to tell me the story of his wife’s death. “It took me hours to clear all that medical shit out of the house that day. But I wanted it out.” On this sunny, beautiful day, Sam told me every raw detail, and the wounds were still seething, festering.
“She never once asked me how I was doing.”
Listening, I had the oddest sensation of being adrift, afloat, as we hurtled up the interstate. Afterward, I wondered why I hadn’t asked him to pull over at a rest stop so I could get my feet under me, feel the solid ground. When we got back to my house, I thought I’d make us some tea so we could have a quiet debrief. But he deposited my bag inside the door, kissed me, and nearly ran back to his car.
He went radio silent. For a week, I heard nothing. Then:
I guess what came up in the car I realized how much I had my heart broken by Mary’s death. I don’t think I have very much to offer to a relationship. I really don’t have any fight in me either. I am sorry if I have made you angry with the responses I made to you. And the nonresponsive way I have been treating you since. I am trying to do too much at one time. I will talk to you again when I have more to say.
Two weeks later, on her birthday, Sam posted his wife’s obituary on Facebook with an “I miss you, honey.”
The “honey” stood out. I realized that he kicked me to the curb to go back to his wife. It was much easier for me to see why it would be hard for him to lay down his burden and move forward when I realized the weight of the community support for Sam the Grieving Widower. “Everyone loved her.” There was an enormous audience for him, hundreds and hundreds of people ready to carry the torch, the memory of Mary’s sainthood, into the future.
Within minutes, hundreds and hundreds of “likes.”
Two weeks later, my ex-husband was diagnosed with renal cancer and Sam posted a photo of himself with a Vietnamese woman who looked no older than twenty, his “sweetie.” I couldn’t help but notice that 637 of his friends were absolutely delighted for him.
“Congratulations!”
“You look so happy!”
“You deserve this!”
For a few days I hoped I was misreading the “sweetie” thing. I was shocked, and slow to understand. At first I thought, this is an irreparable fuckup. You don’t go AWOL because you have nothing to offer in a relationship and then immediately announce that you’re in a relationship. I had thought he was a much better man than this. He had actively wooed me, turned on the charm, then turned it off. It’s painful to learn that you have been deceived. Or was I profoundly naïve? What was even happening?
I was more astonished than hurt. Of course I respect a man’s right to choose to be with whomever he wants, whether it’s the memory of a dead wife or a Southeast Asian woman young enough to be his granddaughter. (Kidding. I don’t respect that.) But I was angry. He offered me the hope of connection and companionship and then yanked it away.
All this while, our household was in turmoil.
By then, we had whisked Eli home from the Peace Corps to be with his dad for emergency surgery. I calmed down enough to fill Eli in on the Sam situation—even in a fog of jet lag and reverse culture shock, he had been able to tell that I’d been upset about something not-cancer related.
Evidently, with his Peace Corps cohorts, Eli had coined a term for “men like that.” Gargoyles. These older white dudes, Americans and Europeans, are “everywhere” in Southeast Asia. It’s handy to have private lingo. Say, when you’re sitting in a bar and a couple walks in. Whispering: “Gargoyle at 10 o’clock.”
Distressingly, Eli added that in this type of situation, often these men use their relative wealth to gain favor with these poorer women and their families. Which was disgusting to think about. Perhaps he was feeding me in small doses, so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the horror, but, slowly, over time, during surreal moments in the car or in the hospital or in the kitchen, I learned about sex tourism in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Claus didn’t seem so jolly and benign anymore. Finally, slowly, I began to understand. Sam was likely not lying about having nothing to offer in a relationship, but he had enough fight left to pretend that he and his “sweetie” were in a relationship, when they were actually engaged in some kind of arrangement. Exploitation seemed the only plausible explanation. I was repulsed.
Three months later, Seth was home for his first spring break, and we went up to Port Townsend so he could volunteer at the museum and fly. It was a weekday, and in the past we’d always gone up on Sundays. I knew Sam would be home from Vietnam by then, but I thought it was safe to head to Better Living.
It was more crowded in the shop than I’d ever seen it, which surprised me. I suppose the locals stay away on the weekends, knowing the place will be filled with tourists. I had a hard time finding a table, but finally settled in at the bar for coffee and my New Yorker. Sam was there, his sweetie conspicuously absent. He was at a table with several other grizzled men, and I hadn’t seen him at first. I had a visceral, physical reaction when I did. I felt woozy, ringing in my ears, hot. Eventually he spotted me.
When he got up to leave, he started for the door, then hesitated, then approached. He talked to me about the Vietnamese people, and the country, and what he learned about them while he was there. “They just aren’t creative.” Too many years of living under colonial rule. Or some such. What their problems are.
A friend of mine translated for me, “In AA there’s a thing they talk about, the ‘geographical cure.’ And I think he realized he couldn’t escape himself over there. But he externalized it, and can only talk about the Vietnamese, and not about himself.”
Okay, sure, geographical cure. Whatever, you racist bastard.
For fuck’s sake.
Months later, I was over it. And, because the mind, or, my mind, cannot fully accept profoundly distorted personalities, I wrote to Sam for advice about framing a gorgeous lithograph I found for a dollar at a garage sale—he was knowledgeable about art. I also wondered if there were any unfinished business we might need to discuss. And he suggested that he’d be willing to talk to me.
I pondered whether this was a good idea until he wrote to me again, one line:
“Nicole, I’m not mad at you.”
!!!
I was so gobsmacked, I shot back a reply:
“Typically it’s the person who was dumped who gets to be mad, not the person who pulled the bait-and-switch.”
I never heard from him again.
This story hits different in 2026, and it may not have a place in the larger manuscript.
Last week I saw a comment that Gisèle Pelicot made about her husband, that everyone loved him. I doubt the gargoyle was a rapist, but he was and remains a local celebrity. I found it so hard at the time to reconcile that Sam appeared to be an affable, normal person. I still do.
Of all the stories and snippets I collected during those years, this may be the ickiest. Or, it was my only brush with a toxic narcissist, someone capable of exploitation. But the more we learn about the Epstein files, and the Pelicot horrors, it seems so many, many men are capable of harm in various degrees. Sex tourism in Southeast Asia is absolutely huge.
During that dark cancer chapter, with the boys home that Christmas, one day I had lunch with two of my girlfriends and shared this astonishing story. I had previously told them that Sam keeps a jar of cash under his house, in case he needed to “get out.” I forget the dollar amount, but it was thousands of dollars. At the time, I found this eccentric and quirky, but also — why? What kind of life must he have led that he would think this a good idea?
Anyway, my friends listened. They were quiet a moment.
Chum One: “Let’s go up there right now and get that money.”
Chum Two: “We wouldn’t take it all, just some of it. Compensation!”
Chum One: “Let’s go.”
Not as gruesome, but the ending puts me in mind of the Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." I'm sorry this guy was so shitty to you. I like your chums.
Them Narcissists are everywhere.