by E. F. Mulder
“What’s all this?” Rudy touched the cranberries.
“It’s Christmas.” Gideon sat, then tugged on Rudy’s sleeve to get him to follow suit. He did, bringing his knees up toward his chest. The deeply carved arrows and crosses in his treads would leave a neat pattern in the dirt or snow, Gideon thought. “So, what are you…?” He had trouble tearing himself away.
“What am I? A man…a fool…a fan…”
“I mean, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you.”
“Oh. I thought…I thought the bar might be open.”
“Before seven A.M. on Christmas Day?”
“I don’t know.” Rudy seemed ill at ease. He stretched his legs out, but then drew them right back up. “Not open, but I figured you guys might get together even if…”
“And you needed some company?”
“Maybe. I also needed to apologize.”
“Which you did,” Gideon said.
“You’re wearing the shoes.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Thank me?” Rudy quirked a brow.
“You put them under the tree at Elvis’s Sing-Along last night…didn’t you?”
“Me? Nah. It must have been Santa.”
“Why?” Gideon reached for Rudy’s knee, but stopped short.
“He’s the one who brings gifts to all the good lit—”
“No. I mean…thank you so much, but…but why?”
A shrug accompanied Rudy’s answer. “Because you wanted them.”
“So did you.”
“Eh. Maybe.” His eyes cast downward, picking at the roofing, Rudy was like a shy little kid.
“Did you come to ask for them back?”
“Of course not.” He turned slightly to look Gideon right in the eye. “I really want you to have them. And since you’re here, I also need to tell you how sorry I am for how I acted after I got that email from BuyBay.”
“That’s three times. I accept.” Gideon smiled. “Since I’m here? You didn’t know I live here?”
“You live here?”
“There’s a little apartment above the bar. Brett used to live in it, but he says it’s not big enough to get a boner in, so he left.”
“Ah. Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“Big enough to get a boner in?” Rudy looked at his shoes.
Gideon smiled some more, and looked at them, too. “For mine…barely. Brett must be hung like a horse.”
Rudy’s sharp laugh echoed around the skyscape. “That’s all I’ll be able to look at next time I’m in the bar.”
“You plan on coming back?”
“Maybe. If they don’t kick me out.”
“I’ll put in a good word.”
Silence hung in the air a few seconds after that, like heavy snow on balsam trees in Oregon.
“Me coming back today was dumb luck, honestly, I…I was trying to find Christmas again.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night with you at the piano…the singing, laughing, teasing…it was just how Christmas should sound. I thought some of it might be leftover in the air, you know? A feeling, if nothing else. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re here. Here, I mean.” Rudy pointed around the perimeter of the roof. “And here…in Vegas. I’ve come back a couple of times when the bar was open, hoping you’d come out. I didn’t dare go in. Brett said I’m not welcome, so…”
Gideon chuckled. “Like I said, I’d have had your back.” He moved across from Rudy. It was easier to have a conversation that way. “You okay if I’m over here?”
“Yeah. Thanks. And that’s good to know…the part about you having my back. I just kind of lurked a couple of times…five or…or six times. God! I’m a stalker. An abduction, stalking…we’re off to an odd start.”
Gideon looked at Rudy’s shoes some more. “We’re starting something?”
“I’d like to.”
“And by the way, it wasn’t an abduction, more like unlawful imprisonment. I Googled it.” When Gideon finally worked his gaze up the legs, over the crotch, up the torso, and eventually to the face, Rudy leaned forward.
“Unlawful imprisonment?”
“Dang it. You’re not wearing a wire, are you?” Gideon shot up to his feet.
“What?”
“Here to get evidence for a lawsuit or an arrest? Getting closer so you get it all on tape?”
“Gideon…”
“You said you were going to sue, and there…I just gave you my confession. Is that what you’re after? Brigitte’s a lawyer, you know.”
“Litigation, criminal, real estate, corporate, or copyright?” Rudy smirked.
“There are different kinds?”
Then he laughed as he stood, too. “You’re funny.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Unless you’re serious.” The smile Rudy had kept on went the other way now. “Gideon…”
“I’m not. I guess.”
Rudy took a step closer. “Want to frisk me?”
The truthful answer was yes.
“Look.” Rudy raised his shirt and his jacket. Gideon had been taken by the suede—suede on top and bottom—until he saw flesh and hair. “Nothing.”
“Something.” Right in his dick Gideon felt that something. “What about in your socks?”
“People put wires in their socks?”
“Modern technology…? Sure.”
“You want me to take off my shoes?”
Very, very much, but Gideon didn’t say so.
“Fine.” Rudy raised one shoe off the floor of the roof. “Whoa.” He stumbled.
“Okay. Never mind.”
“I’m suddenly very dizzy.”
“Come back this way.” Gideon took his hand.
Rudy didn’t turn, but rather walked backwards as Gideon led him toward the brick wall.
“Watch out for Priscilla.”
“Priscilla?” Rudy looked over his shoulder.
“My goldfish.”
“Ah. I get it. Priscilla…because you’re Elvis.”
“Right. I got her right after I started at the bar. Sit.”
Rudy slid down the bricks, then Gideon took a seat right between him and Priscilla. “I had an orange cat when I was little. Some kid was selling fish outside the supermarket for 99¢ one day, so, we’ve been together almost since day one.”
“Nice. How long have you been here?”
“Almost a year. You?” Gideon asked.
“I’m in Arizona, actually. An hour and some that-a-way.” Rudy pointed. Gideon, who sucked at giving and taking directions, had no idea if Arizona was right, left, up, or down. “Me ending up here that night…meeting you…us both bidding on the same BuyBay item…quite a coincidence.”
“Or Christmas magic.” Gideon repeated what he’d heard. “You think?” He looked up.
“Don’t you?” Rudy asked.
“Huh?” Gideon hadn’t been asking him. “Oh. Sure.”
“Again…my anger…the things I said…I can’t apologize enough.” Now Rudy looked at his shoes. “I’m angry a lot, it seems.”
“Yeah?”
“Those few hours before I went stupid, when we were singing, it was the first time in quite a while I forgot to be pissed off about something. I actually forgot to feel sorry for myself, and it was nice.”
“I repeat. I went stupid first by holding you hostage.”
“Can you say it one more time…into my shoe?” Rudy put it up near Gideon’s face. He was pretty limber, and the shoe leather smelled like new. Good thing the roof had room for his erection. Hopefully his sweatpants did, as well, so it wouldn’t show too much.
“So, who are you angry at?” A subject change seemed like a good idea.
“Myself, mostly. The world. I don’t know. You know what I was going to do with Frank Funn’s shoes before I met you?”
Gideon crossed his legs, so he could feel the Funn Family shoes
against his ankles. “What?”
“Put them through a wood chipper.”
Gideon gasped.
“Set them on fire…toss them off a cliff or into the Grand Canyon,” Rudy said.
“Stop.”
“Leave them on the subway tracks, maybe…or give them to my sister’s dog for a chew toy. King Kong destroys everything.”
“Why would you…? I don’t get it.”
“Because I hated that show. I loved it once, and then I hated it. You remember the day Skippy came out?”
“Sydney…yeah. We talked about it that night.”
“Right. And I tore him apart…lost my cool and started yelling about everything.”
“Yeah.”
“My father called Sydney a fag the morning he was on Good Morning America or whatever show it was, but Brock Anderson…Frank Funn…he supported his TV son in a way I wish I could feel just once. In that stupid show, no matter what anyone did or fought about, everything was forgiven, and life went back to being all happy, loving, and sweet at the end.”
“Yeah.”
“Real life isn’t like that, Gideon.”
“Not always.”
“I figured out I was gay when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I’m almost thirty now, and I’m still waiting for my father to say, ‘You know what? As long as you’re happy, I’m happy for you and I love you.’ Of course, happy…now there’s a concept.” Rudy picked up a cranberry that had come off the garland Gideon made and chucked it with all his might. “I’d have to get the guts to tell him I’m gay first, you know, in order for any of that to happen. To…to be myself in front of them and not have to pretend…that’s what I want. That and for Christmas morning to be like it was before I even knew, when I wouldn’t hide in my room, or in my house miles and miles away from the rest of the family. I want Christmas to be happy again.”
“I’m sorry you don’t have that,” Gideon said.
“Thanks.” Rudy looked so sad, but then he smiled. “Sitting with you at that piano…I used to sing anywhere I could, especially at Christmastime. My mom would take me to the nursing home or just to the mall. I’d stand there and sing, Gideon, in the middle of the mall like an idiot.”
“Oh my God! My sister Beth would have loved doing that if she’d thought of it.”
“So, you’re not the only singer in the family?”
“I only started because of her, really. Her and my mom. Mom always wanted me to take piano lessons. I wasn’t really interested until…”
“You play even when there isn’t one. Your fingers move.”
“Do they?” Gideon looked at them.
“Yes.”
“Huh. I hadn’t noticed.”
“I did.”
Gideon might have blushed. “I’m kind of self-taught. Beth loved to play…ish. Plus, she was in the chorus in school and was always putting on shows.”
“Me, too…until my father made me quit, because ‘singing isn’t manly.’”
“I remember you mentioning that.”
“Yeah. I get…fixated. I haven’t been back there in a while…home…the Winner homestead.”
“Where is that specifically?” Gideon already knew, but he didn’t let on.
“Little town in Utah. A hop, skip and a jump that-a-way.” Rudy pointed. Apparently, Utah was in the same direction as Arizona. “I wonder what they’re doing right now. I wonder if they miss me. I wonder if they talk about Dondre.” He shrugged. Rudy was a sad shrugger, too.
“Dondre?”
“My cousin…my lover…”
“Oh.”
“He was adopted. We could have been together. I loved him, Gideon, when we were teenagers. Our fathers…neither one of them were…accepting. They didn’t even know about Dondre and me…what we really meant to each other. I don’t think they knew. But they sure made it clear how they felt about gay people in general. The word faggot wasn’t taboo in our house.” Rudy shifted, posturing as if suddenly ready to fight. “Dad’s a politico. When The Supreme Court was looking into the constitutionality of states banning gay marriage, he was right there on the ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ bandwagon. Anything else is an abomination.’” Rudy imitated his father’s finger waving. “I dealt with all that by eventually building myself a house with big enough closets to stay in forever. Dondre, he chose drugs and alcohol.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s alive still—as far as I know—but he’s not. I had him come out to Arizona for a while. Even away from everyone else, he couldn’t be himself. It didn’t work. Last I knew, he was somewhere in California. He stopped talking to me five years ago, and I…I had to let it go.” Rudy hugged his knees again.
When the breeze made the cranberries tap against the aluminum vent, Gideon heard a tune. Rudy must have, too. He hummed a few bars of “March of the Toy Soldiers” before he started talking again.
“I think I’ve moved on.” He hummed a little more. “My kid brother, Dash, wanted to come for a visit. I told him I wouldn’t be home…so I’m not. I think I’m going to have to come out to him pretty soon. I don’t want to lose Dash for good. I can’t stand the thought of it. It already hurts like I have.”
“You haven’t, though. Remember that. I bet all he wants is for you to be happy. Brothers are like that. They fight over dumb stuff, like toys.”
Gideon could hear little Curtis’s voice in his head, maybe in the sky. “My turn! My turn! Mom, Gid won’t give me the Gameboy.”
“You don’t even know how to play. You’re too little.”
“I am not!”
“They’re there for you for the big stuff, though,” Gideon said. “If they can be.”
“You’re probably right. Dash is all kinds of awesome.”
“And your mom?”
“My mother…Let me tell you about her. She is huge into ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,’ Santa, Frosty, all of that. Rudolph…my name…not after Valentino.”
“Though that would be quite fitting. You’re very handsome.”
“And you’re a flirt.” Rudy leaned over. He took Gideon’s chin. For a kiss, perhaps. Gideon tensed. “And completely adorable.”
There was no smooch.
“I was named after the reindeer. That’s what I’m trying to get at.”
“You were not.”
“Dashiell, Danielle, Percy, Victor, Connie, Cooper, Dondre, Vicky…and Rudolph. Dashiell is the youngest, so it went in reverse order. Some claim it was planned from the start…that Mom and her two sisters would have nine kids between them. The dads weren’t totally onboard, so the family lore goes, especially Uncle Sam.”
“Uncle Sam.” Gideon smirked.
“Yup. Mom’s name is April, and her sisters are May and June.”
“No way.”
“Way. Names are…a thing for us. Mom’s brother’s in law are Sam and Ben, and my father’s name is Fester.”
Gideon’s laugh made his belly shake like Santa’s. “Now I know you’re lying.”
“Okay, so Dad’s name is Russ, and my other uncle is Kenny, but Uncle Sam is real. I could have been March or August, I suppose, if they hadn’t gone with reindeer variations. Mom found out she was pregnant with me on December 23rd, so there’s that, too. Anyway, if I am whimsical, it must be in the DNA.”
“You remember me saying that?”
“I remember everything from that night.”
The sun seemed to get a little warmer then to Gideon. “You know what, Rudy? By next Christmas, everything could be different.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No. Come on, Mr. Cynical.” Gideon tapped Rudy’s toe with his. “Think back to last December…2015. Did you imagine yourself sitting at a piano and singing next to Elvis for several hours a year later? Did you see yourself handcuffed to a bar rail?”
“You know…” Rudy tapped the end of his nose as though pondering the question. Then he tapped Gideon’s. “I did not.” He reclined back on his elbows, stretching
his feet out, offering Gideon an even better view of the boots. “I’ve never been to a place like Elvis’s Vegas Sing-Along Bar before.”
“You don’t say.”
Rudy’s smile turned to a laugh. “It was the most excitement I’ve seen in a while…unless one counts mergers and acquisitions, and escrow challenges.”
“See. Anything’s possible.”
“I guess. Where were you for Christmas 2015?”
“Still up in Oregon. My grandmother was sick. Last Christmas I sat by her bedside singing instead of at the piano. She passed away in January.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Gideon kicked off his shoes, then bent forward for his socks, removing both with one swift yank of each hand.
“Impressive, but…brr.” Rudy wrapped his arms around himself.
“I’m not used to wearing shoes much. We were always barefoot in the house growing up…except when…” Gideon set Frank Funn’s shoes right beside him. “When we weren’t. Even outside in summer…I still like to kick them off once in a while when it’s appropriate. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Nah. It’s all good.”
“It’s not as cold as Christmas in Oregon was. Though if I have to be honest, I did think it would be a lot warmer here. I thought it would actually be hot all the time—like a hundred every day—or at least eighty. It’s not. That’s why I put Priscilla in the sunny spot.”
“You’re a good fish daddy.”
“Thanks.”
“Is that why you came to Las Vegas?” Rudy leaned forward and untied one lace, causing Gideon to completely lose focus.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Is that why you came here…for warmer winters?”
“Oh. I don’t know. When I left Lakeview, I didn’t really know where I was going.”
One boot came off.
“I just drove until I…until I ran out of gas money. Then I’d find a way to earn some, and start driving…again.”
Rudy set the second boot between himself and Gideon.
“I don’t…I don’t know if you believe in any sort of mystical or spiritual stuff,” Gideon said, “but something told me to stop here, so I did. Best decision of my…”
Rudy’s feet were both bare. “Your life?” he asked.
Tearing himself away from the socks in Rudy’s hands, Gideon met Rudy’s expectant eyes. “Yeah. Nice socks.”
