David and Andrew Book 1: One Night in December

Chapter 1: It All Began this Way-1

Chapter 1: It All Began this Way

“Holy s**t!” I cursed out loud as I crawled along the interstate at a snail’s pace. Only a few truckers and I had not taken the warnings of an impending ice storm seriously. They whizzed by me like they were invincible. Macho assholes! I swore silently.

If only it were a few degrees colder, this would be snow, I thought as I looked at the dangerous precipitation. It should have been snow. It was December, for Christ’s sake—almost Christmas. That’s why I was out so late on this wretched night. I’d stayed at school to finish the skit for the school holiday assembly the next day, the last day before winter break. My eighth grade homeroom had chosen to do a parody of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, using school staff as the victims of Santa’s errant steeds. The kids, of course, had all the good intentions in the world, but as anyone who works with adolescents will tell you, their follow-through was not always what it should be. I’d decided to stay and finish it up myself. It was probably the most Christmas I’d have, so why not?

Now here I was creeping along the expressway, hoping the truckers really did have the control they seemed to think they did.

Christmas hadn’t been fun the last few years. Not since my wife of thirty-one years passed away the week before the holiday. Since her passing I hadn’t done much with Christmas. After giving me a year to grieve, our kids had encouraged me to continue with the holiday traditions, but I couldn’t. Patti and I had loved Christmas—the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the whole nine yards. Without her, there didn’t seem to be much point in it. Oh sure, I did my thing for my kids and the grandkids, going to visit, bringing presents, taking pictures. But at home—in the house, as I referred to it now—well, I just couldn’t.

Another strange thing happened after Patti was gone. When she was here (I couldn’t use the words “alive” and “dead” with regard to her) I had several men friends with whom I played, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups, on a regular basis. With them I met my needs for man-on-man contact. Yep, that meant s*x. I had no qualms about it. I figured it was like going out with the boys to golf, bowl or have a few beers.

It had nothing to do with Patti; it was just a fact of my life. I was gay and that side of me needed attention. I had made the decision to be married, but soon after found I couldn’t put aside the need for men in my life, despite the love I had for Patti and the kids. I had told her I was gay before we got engaged. I felt that was only fair. Patti accepted it and said she could live with it. I never told her of my guy friends and she never asked, so I don’t know whether she suspected or not. It didn’t seem to be important. But after she…died—there, I said the word—I was overcome with guilt. I felt in some way I would be dishonoring her. I couldn’t do those things anymore. See my friends, that is.

In the first year it was easy, as I had no libido at all. Soon the guys stopped calling and writing. It didn’t matter. I no longer cared about that. What a strange turn of the screw. When I was married and should have been faithful, I had all the s*x with men I needed. Now that I was free to have it, I didn’t want it.

After a year things started to change. About that time, the old feelings began to stir again. I found myself checking out attractive guys and even resumed visiting some of the old Internet sites I had used. I decided maybe someday I would venture out and try it again, but for now I’d keep a lid on it.

That was actually why I was on the interstate on this awful night instead of taking a safer, longer way to the house. In late fall, an obviously homeless man started showing up at the base of my exit ramp. I don’t know why he intrigued me, as I could barely see any of him. He wore a beat up old coat with a hood that covered most of his face. All I could tell for sure was that he wasn’t overweight. Well, he was homeless, apparently, so that wasn’t a big surprise. The sign he carried confirmed it:

Please help

Will work for food

Please

Man, that tore me up. Every time I went by, I looked for him. Every time I saw him, I was in turmoil. Should I pick him up and feed him? He looked so vulnerable. He either sat on a box or stood with his little cardboard sign. His shoulders were slumped and his head was down. Next to him sat a knapsack and a couple of plastic bags full of all he had in the world. I never picked him up. It was partially because I’d heard so many stories about how homeless people are just too lazy to work, or how they’re junkies or drunks and they take advantage of you. But the real reason was I couldn’t separate my compassion from my feelings of s****l desire for this unknown, unseen man. My fantasies would run wild. I wasn’t ready to take the risk. Every time I went by and he wasn’t there, I was relieved, glad someone had given him some help. But I also felt something that could be described as jealousy. What was going on with that? Every time I went by and he was there, I was again relieved, this time that he was still okay (or at least somewhat okay)—but the conflict remained. So it went.

This is stupid, I thought as I approached my exit now. He’s not going to be there on a night like this. You’re taking your life in your hands driving on this f*****g road just to get a glimpse of some vagrant. You’re a piece of work, all right.

As I exited onto the ramp and my wipers cleared off the spray some daring trucker had doused me with, my heart leapt. There was someone at the bottom of the ramp. Wait, there were two someones—no, three. What was going on? Two of them threw the other into the roadway, then picked up something I couldn’t make out and ran off toward the overpass bridge. As I approached the bottom of the ramp and skidded to a stop, the guy in the road got up and started running after them, but he tripped on the curb and sprawled spread-eagled on the muddy, icy ground. I turned on my flashers and was out of the car in an instant.

“Hey, man, are you all right?” I shouted.

“My stuff! They took all my stuff,” he half yelled, half sobbed.

Oh, God! What am I going to do? I thought. Then I ordered, “Come on, get in the car!”

He started to obey, but then held back.

“Get in the car, damn it!” I yelled. “We can catch them if you move it!”

He complied this time and I put the car in gear, ran the red light at the bottom of the ramp and turned left. We went under the overpass bridge.

“Where do you bums usually stay?” I asked, not thinking of the effect these words might have on my passenger.

“Sometimes we sleep up there,” he said in a near-whisper, pointing to the top of the space under the bridge.

I stopped the car and turned the flashers on again. We ran up the side of the overpass and checked the space under the bridge on both sides of the road. Nothing. We got back in the car and drove further.

“Anywhere else?” I asked, checking the sides of the road as far as I could see in the dark and the rain.

“No,” came the dull reply.

“Okay.” I turned the car around.

As we passed the light at the exit ramp he looked back, then turned to me and said with some apprehension, “Where are you taking me?”

I looked straight ahead and said, “Home.”