by David Connor
“This isn’t a toy store.” I rose.
“No.” He grabbed my wrists. “It’s an everything store. That’s even better. We have toys, and clothes, and food, and sports equipment, and kitchenware, and shoes. Maybe I have a fetish.”
“For shoes?” There were still so many new things to learn about one another. “Do you?” I asked with a chuckle.
“No. I can if you want me to, though.”
“It’s fine. I only have three pair; sneakers, these boots,” I raised one up off the gray speckled tile, “and dress shoes I wore just once to my sister’s wedding.”
“Those are some sexy snow boots.”
“I don’t think the word sexy has ever been used to describe anything that fastens with Velcro.”
“On you, the word fits. So, here’s something funny,” Patrick added with a tap to the tip of my nose.
Patrick’s joy was contagious. I smiled, too.
“When you imagine Jefferson,” he started walking and brought me along, “what’s he wearing?”
“Well, you’ve seen my drawings. Often, he’s naked.”
“It’s too cold to be naked all the time during winter in New York. I like the sketch where you have him dressed like he’s living with us now. Let’s pick out some clothes for them.”
“What?” I laughed, because Patrick was silly and giddy and wonderful.
“Come on.” We were headed toward Men’s Apparel. “It’s the perfect way to start our night, to have them join in. I’ll pick out something for Calvin, and you can pick out something for Jefferson. Let’s bring them into the twenty-first century, from the bottom up, socks to hats. We’ll do Calvin first.” We were in the underwear section.
“Wait.”
“Are you going to be a party pooper?”
I set Wilbur down on the floor. “Not at all.” I’d had an idea. “I can do you one better. Follow me.” I took off at almost a run, with Wilbur hot on my heels and Patrick not far behind.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“You’ll see.”
I took Patrick down the center aisle of the store, way to the back. From there, holding his hand now, we went past the Employees Only section.
“We’re being naughty, Goose Tucker.”
“We’ve only just started, Patrick O’Hanlon. It’s like a snow day when we were kids, all rules are meant to be broken.”
“You had way more fun on a snow day than I did, by the sounds of it,” Patrick lamented.
We stopped just past a pair of orange swinging metal doors, where I turned to face him. “Don’t tell me this carefree, fun, and playful man who stands beside me now was the kind of kid who did homework on a snow day.”
“Not at all. My homework was done the night before, when the assignment was given. On a snow day, I engaged in extra reading, something literary, or maybe going ahead in my text book.”
“Extra reading! I barely read what I had to.”
Wilbur, impatient with the conversation, slalomed in and out between our legs.
“As for homework,” I continued, “anytime The Weather Channel was calling for winter precip, I didn’t do it out of hope. If my storm prayers came true, there was no way I was going to waste a bonus day off on school stuff, not when my father was out at work, and there was snow tubing, snowball fights, snow forts, and snowmen building to do. That meant I had to scribble out my book report in a rush the day after—unless that was a Saturday. Then, I did it Monday morning on the bus. Man, being a kid was awesome.”
I was leaving quite a bit out. My sister, Shelby and I grew up in a home where being a kid wasn’t always awesome.
Patrick gasped. “On the bus! I was a geek, a dweeb, a dork, and a nerd. That’s why I suggested we act like two over-grown ten-year-olds tonight. I have a lot of fun-free days to make up for.”
“A nerd and a slacker…are we too different to make it work?” I looked down at the concrete floor.
“Hey.” He brought me back to him by gently raising my chin. “I know you’re kidding. You better be kidding, because I feel like this is working just fine.”
“Even if I can’t get over my past?”
“We will get over it. Together. I’ll be by your side as long as it takes, wherever you go.” He took a beat. “So, where are you going?”
I smiled. It was a little forced, but I meant it once I’d made it happen. “Okay. One more door. Close your eyes.”
“The path ahead is unfamiliar.”
“You’ll have to trust me, then.”
Patrick covered his entire face with both hands. “Done.”
“Give me one of those.” I reached for his shirt sleeve. “Unless you want me to get behind you and push.”
Sweet Patrick figuratively bit his tongue, while literally biting his lip.
“Come on.”
In less than ten more steps, we’d reached our destination.
“Ta-dah!” I flipped the light switch.
“Whoa.”
There were eighteen mannequins in the far corner of the huge storage room in back, ten were female.
“I hope we can find two that look right. Jefferson has dark hair. He said in the diary his was the opposite of that flaxen jerk, Thomas.”
Three of the fiberglass forms in the correct gender were also brunette. I waited for a sign as to which one I should choose. Patrick was looking over the three with the right skin tone to represent Calvin. He reached out, closed his eyes, and touched one’s hand. I watched intently as he did the same with the other two, and then went back to the first, to start the process again.
“I wish I had paid more attention to what Jefferson looked like when I’d had the chance,” I said one more time, as I tried the same tactic.
Somehow, that fateful autumn day, I’d been transported back in time to The Civil War. From a reenactment in 2018, I’d fought with Jefferson, side by side at the actual Cracker Line Battle along the Tennessee River in October a hundred and fifty-five years earlier. We’d sailed on pontoons and constructed a bridge to bring food and supplies to starving soldiers. I still had no idea how it had all come about. There’d been lightning. Had I been struck? Had the thunderstorm opened up some sort of passage through time? Months later, answers still eluded me. I knew I had been there, though, and wished with all my heart I could recall every feature of Jefferson Eaves’ face. I couldn’t, though. Maybe because it had been dark, or because we’d been dodging enemy bullets. I refused to believe my adventure hadn’t been real, even if that was the most likely explanation.
“Are you getting anything?” I asked Patrick.
“Not sure. I might—Whoa! Did you see that?”
Chapter 2
It took a moment, but I finally answered. “I saw it, I heard it, and I felt it.”
Two of the mannequins had rocked ever so slightly, clunking against the floor when they’d settled. The one beside me had gently bumped my shoulder while forward. The one beside Patrick had done the same to him. Some would say the high-powered ventilation fan in the ceiling and the uneven floor were the cause. Patrick agreed with my thoughts. “I think they picked for us,” he said.
“They’re into it!” I lowered my voice. The echo in the storage room was a bit much. “You’ve been stuck in those Union uniforms too long, huh, guys? Time for a fashion show.”
Patrick danced Calvin down the narrow, carpeted aisle as we headed back to Men’s Apparel. Humming a waltz, its off-key melody barely recognizable, he would stop sporadically to high five the mannequins on the sales floor, or a children’s jacket or woman’s sweater on a rack. Whether Patrick was making up for his bookish childhood ways or not, I admired him for being brave enough to act a third his age when appropriate. It filled my heart how comfortable he was about doing it in front of me. Life could be tough. Everyone blew off steam in their own way. The fact Patrick was willing to play giant action figure dress-up while we were snowed in made me one lucky slightly immature dude!
Drowning out Patrick�
��s tune with the Olympic theme, I raised Jefferson over my head, like a figure skater. “Look! We’re Duhamel and Radford! No. We’re Adam Rippon and Radford!” I turned in a circle with the mannequin in the air, and then gently set him down. Pumping both fists, I shouted, “And the crowd goes wild!”
“Gold medal!” Patrick clapped. Then, we stopped and put our hands over our hearts while I sang the national anthem. “You should do all the singing. You’re way better at it than I,” he declared.
“But can I do a cartwheel?”
“I don’t know.” Patrick lowered his glasses, like a detective looking at a clue. “Can you?”
After trying, we discovered the answer was no. Patrick did one, though. It was nearly perfect.
Despite what I’d said earlier about breaking all the rules, I knew we had to be careful and respectful with the merchandise.
“Alrighty, then.” Patrick rubbed his hands together with anticipation as we stood there among row after row, hanger after hanger, bar after bar of shirts, pants, sweaters, slacks, and jeans. “‘Queer Eye for the Queer Guys.’ Let’s do this.”
“You know what we need now? Stay here.” I kissed Patrick goodbye in amongst eight or nine different brands of denim. The quick peck on the lips was meant to suffice, but then I went back for seconds. “Stay here.”
I was getting a lot of exercise. This time, I ran all the way over to the courtesy desk. From figure skating ice, to somersaults, to sprinting, to pommel horse, I vaulted over the counter.
“Attention shoppers,” I said into the PA microphone.
Patrick jumped slightly at my echoing voice. Then he spun around twice in a very small circle. “Jefferson? God?”
I could see him in a bank of monitors that captured the entire store. I wasn’t worried about the security cameras at all. The ones in the main section didn’t record. Management watched what they showed live during business hours, keeping an eye out for shoplifters. The ones at all the entrances and exits were taping activity, though, on the lookout for criminal mischief or other oddities. If Patrick and I were going to act like goofballs, we would have to avoid those.
“We can’t have a fashion montage without music,” I declared. “I’ll be too busy to sing, and what would Julia Robert’s shopping spree be without Roy Orbison?”
“Absolutely!” Patrick spun around some more, then finally spotted me way across the store. “Hey, handsome,” he shouted.
“Hiya.” I waved, “You’re handsome,” and spoke into the mic. Foreplay had never been so loud.
Recalling ZZ Top’s “Sharped Dressed Man” video from a recent PBS special about the eighties, I chose that decade on the satellite radio receiver, filling the empty store with synthesizers, electric guitars, and the dulcet harmonies of Duran Duran’s “Rio.” Was I disappointed the song in my head hadn’t somehow come on, perhaps by some sort of other worldly means? Yes. But we had all night. It could pop up eventually. I’d always liked eighties music. My mother would play it all weekend when Dad had to go out of town on what he called “business.” Shelby and I would dance like maniacs, to that song and every other one that came on, whether the dance moves fit or not.
Slightly out of breath by the time I jogged back to Men’s Apparel, I set up the ground rules, taking in hefty doses of oxygen between words as I led Patrick to the place we would start. “Okay. We can’t open sealed plastic or take underwear off the hangers. So, either Jefferson or Calvin go commando, or we choose their drawers from the underpants mannequins on display.” My hand was on the plastic waist of a dummy all ass, hips, and crotch.
“Gotcha.”
Patrick, like a general inspecting his nearly naked troops, walked up and down the row of them, studying fabrics, colors, and impressive fake packages. One half-body form was wearing light blue boxers, another black Calvin Klein boxer briefs. A third had on a pair of tighty-whities, the fourth a red thong.
“The thong is mine,” I called out. “Jefferson wanted to know about thongs.”
Patrick laughed. “He did?”
“Yup. He and I had a whole discussion about the evolution of underwear.” I recounted the conversation as I stripped the silky scarlet pouch with just a thin strip in the back off and twirled it on one finger. “I told you that.”
“I remember, now.” Patrick snatched the thong but gave it right back. “Yes.”
“I think he’d like it.”
“I’m seeing Calvin as a tighty whities kind of guy.” Patrick took them off the transparent backside. “Do you dress and undress these muscular, plastic half fellers on a regular basis?”
“Nah. Not my department. I just clean them.” I flicked my make-believe feather duster.
“Kinky.”
“I can break it out for real later on, if you want.” I was better at flirting than I had been a few months earlier.
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
“We’ll see.” My follow-through still sucked. “Let’s do the rest of our shopping for Jefferson and Calvin on the down low and surprise each other at the end. Deal?”
“Deal,” Patrick said. “I’ll start with shirts, you start with pants?”
“You got it. See you back here in ten.”
“I’m a slow shopper.” When Patrick brushed the dark, shaggy hair from my eyes, my knees went weak. “Make it twenty,” he said.
“Anything for you.” My kiss was proof the words were true.
“How about one more kiss, then?”
I obliged, then tore myself away. With Wilbur’s fleece throw in one hand, I ever so gently dragged my Jefferson mannequin over to the sweater section. Jefferson seemed like a sweater man to me.
“You going to help me pick something out?“ I asked him. “Or am I on my own, here?”
Jefferson offered not even the slightest hint.
“Okay. I’ve never picked out clothes for anyone else before, except the Hawaiian shirts I get Rip for Christmas every year, shirts I’ve never seen him wear. Tom once told me I dress like a toddler.” At that very moment, I had on black jeans and a red and black striped long-sleeved T-shirt. I was either Linus Van Pelt or Freddie Kruger. “Oh.” The light blue blanket I’d been carrying and and now laid out for Wilbur sealed my fate. “Forget the sweater. We can do better. I’m thinking…”
Suddenly, I had the entire outfit in mind, plain white T-shirt, jeans, boots, a motorcycle jacket, and a cowboy hat. I collected them one item at a time, and then took everything back toward the shoe department. Done way faster than the twenty minutes allotted, I rocked Jefferson back and forth to the final few measures of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross’s “Endless Love” while waiting for Patrick.
“I’d love to watch you dance with Calvin,” I whispered. “On your wedding night, under your oak tree down in Tennessee. I wish I could make it happen for you. I hope it did happen, on the next step of your journey. Even if it did, I can’t help but wish you had lived to know what happily ever after was here one Earth. l also kind of wish I could have been standing beside you when you took Calvin’s hand and said, ‘I do.’”
The large snowflakes falling in the arc of illumination from the light poles outside created the look of a fluffy white waterfall. The window was visible from almost anywhere in store. I’d always liked that.
“It’s beautiful, huh?” I pulled Jefferson’s jacket together in front to keep him warm. “Is there snow in heaven?” I asked.
One of the bright greenish bulbs out there winked at me.
“Were your eyes green? Why can’t I remember?”
“You almost finished?” Patrick loudly called out to me. “I think you and Jefferson are going to dig what Calvin and I came up with.”
“Where are you?” I shouted overtop “Welcome to the Jungle” playing loudly enough to make the glasses over in Kitchenware rattle. “Give me a hint.” Each section of the store was huge. The men’s department alone was bigger than my house and my two neighbors’ houses combined. “Marco!” I yelled.
Pat
rick hollered back. “Polos.”
I picked up Jefferson and carried him, as opposed to dragging this time, in order to protect the heel of his spanking new cowboy boots. “Marco!”
“Polos!”
We continued toward Patrick’s voice. “Marco!”
“Polos!”
We were close. “Marco.”
“Polos.”
Almost there. “Marc—Oh.”
Patrick was standing beside a huge wall rack of short sleeved Ralph Lauren shirts with little horses on the chest. He shrugged. “Polos.”
Calvin was behind him, totally obscured. Since my mannequin was taller than I, he was only partially hidden, despite my best efforts.
“Voilà!” I moved my hand, like Vanna White revealing a new puzzle. “Motorcycle cowboy!”
“Nice.” Patrick stepped aside to show his handiwork. “What do you think?”
“Wow.”
Calvin—our representation of him—looked amazing in gray pinstripes, an eggplant colored dress shirt and a pink tie, and a fifty-dollar gray wool felt fedora.
“I pictured him working his way up to the top,” Patrick revealed, “and then helping others get a leg up, right? Calvin would be one of those self-made philanthropic types who never had too much, because he’d give back every chance he got.”
“Yeah. Definitely.” I couldn’t stop smiling.
“I think he finds Jefferson’s motorcycle cowboy outfit pretty hot.” Patrick wrapped his arm around my waist. “You know who else would look hot in it?”
“Who?” I gazed up into his eyes.
“You. I’ll buy it for you.”
“Oh, yeah? In a smaller size, of course.”
“And the thong, too?”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll pass on that.”
Suddenly, a ballad started to play. The deafening rock song hadn’t even finished, or maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention. To my ear, it cut off in the middle, though, and a slow, sweet Heart tune came on.
“Dance with me, Jefferson?” Patrick pushed Calvin forward.
