O Little Box of M4M

The Gift of the Gay Guy-3

“Oh, right, yeah, sorry,” Lee mumbled, re-folding himself into something more like a sitting position. “We’re already here?”

“Already?” Derrick laughed. “I never got above twenty miles an hour. I’m surprised we ever got here.”

“I must have fallen asleep.”

“Well, I knew you weren’t dead; that’s quite a snore you got on you. So this brother...?”

“Oh, right, yeah, sorry,” Lee said again. “It’s not too far, actually. Keep going past downtown...”

St. Paul born and bred, and fifteen years away from Minnesota on top of that, Derrick didn’t know Minneapolis well, and once they were off the freeway, with its giant signs and clearly marked exits, Lee was not an especially helpful navigator. He gave directions like, “You’re gonna turn left up here by where Louise Burrell used to live.”

“I see. Who was she?”

“Oh, this girl I knew in junior high.”

“Uh huh. And where did she live?”

“That was it right there, actually.”

“You know I don’t actually know any of these people, right?” Derrick vented as he negotiated yet another U-turn. “Do you know the names of any of these streets?”

“Do you?” Lee retorted. “If I tell you to turn left on Clifford, do you know where that is?”

“Well, no, but at least there’re signs. Where’s Clifford?”

“That was it right there, actually,” Lee said as they sailed through an intersection. He laughed. “I didn’t do that on purpose, I swear. But we did need to turn there.”

Around another block Derrick went. “I’m never gonna find my way out of here,” he grumbled. “Do you think Louise Burrell would let me call her? Maybe she could help me at least get back to her place.”

“Don’t worry about finding your way back to Louise Burrell’s place,” Lee counseled. “Her mom is crazy. When I picture Christmas at their house, I definitely picture mashed potatoes flying through the air.”

“I could go for some mashed potatoes about now,” Derrick said.

“Well, if there’s any at my brother’s house, I’ll toss some out at you.”

“Thanks. I don’t suppose we’ve whizzed past his house in the last couple blocks?”

“No.” Lee laughed. “But we’re close. Go right up here where the day care center used to be.”

“Okay,” Derrick said. “Any idea what landmark might be there now?”

“I thought you were from here.”

“I’m from around here, yeah, but it’s not like we grew up together. I don’t s’pose you know the name of the street?”

“It’s the next one,” Lee said, one noodle arm unfurled to point towards the corner. “Oh, look: it’s a day care center again! For doggies now, it looks like. Okay, Chuck’s house is two blocks up, it’s gonna be on the left, big mint-green mess.”

“And who’s Chuck? What do I do when I get there?”

Lee laughed again. “Chuck’s my brother. You let me out, then go home.”

“If I can find it.”

“If you can’t find it, come back here; I’ll throw some mashed potatoes at you.”

Derrick was laughing when Lee swung his arm around to point to the mint-green mess in question, a rambling ranch house perched on its lot at such a tilt that Derrick imagined a pile of family photos and other knickknacks on the floor next to every flat surface in the house from which it seemed they must eventually all slide. Like every driveway on the block, Chuck’s was piled high with fresh snow, so Derrick executed another five-point, mid-street turnaround and pulled up next to the snowbank through which Lee would have to wade to get up to the jaunty porch. “Good thing you got them long legs,” Derrick teased.

The reference to two especially charming parts of Lee’s body abutting the moment of Derrick’s separation from them ushered an awkward silence into the rental car. Derrick sought to avoid Lee’s recessed brown eyes, but couldn’t resist a last look at that face. How can a guy so goofy-looking be so hot? he wondered again, until Lee tossed off a sexy wink that made Derrick worry maybe he’d said it aloud. Should I say something? he asked himself. Ending as their frolic had, “Thanks for last night” seemed inappropriate; he didn’t want to come across as madly desperate, nor as passive aggressive.

“Thanks for the lift,” Lee said helpfully. “I mean it. You didn’t have to. I’m sure you didn’t want to.”

“It’s fine,” Derrick said. “You’re welcome. I hope your brother, you know…I mean, I hope you get…it’s just, if you really...” Derrick was fumbling, annoyed that he was flustered. He hardly knew this kid. He’d helped him out more than was necessary and he probably looked like a rube in the process; there was no need for goodbye to be this hard. He took a breath and changed tack. “Merry Christmas, is all.”

A smile crept across Lee’s face as he leaned in to kiss Derrick, first on the cheek, then on the mouth. “Merry Christmas. And thank you.”

Derrick dug his phone out of his jacket pocket, partly to have something to look at besides Lee, whose big mouth he wanted back pressed against his face. “I think I might try to GPS my mom’s house, in case Louise Burrell isn’t home.”

Lee laughed. “Good idea,” he said, opening the door and unfurling himself into the Winter Wonderland outside the car. “Take care, Meat Ball.”

Never a small guy, Derrick had gotten more sensitive about his weight in recent years as he’d gotten older and it had seemed to increase with such determination. He was surprised by quite how warm and fuzzy it made him feel to be called Meat Ball by this doofus. He waved goodbye as Lee slammed the door. He watched the doughballs of Lee’s butt slosh around in his jeans as he trudged across the untouched blanket of blizzard and up to the house, but then turned his attention to his phone, eager to appear casual in the event Lee should look back.

Born and raised right across the river, from a main street in Minneapolis, Derrick probably would have been able to find his way at least to the highway. Once he was on track to St. Paul, the drive to his mom’s house was more about muscle memory than about paying any kind of attention. But he was wholly unfamiliar with Chuck’s rundown, outskirt neighborhood, and Lee really had given terrible directions—he’d made so many U-turns and gone around Louise Burrell’s block so many times he didn’t know if he was ten miles from the highway or ten feet, and so the Twin Cities native found himself entering the address of the house he grew up in into his phone’s map app. He knew his brothers would rain merciless mocking down on him if he copped to being lost this close to home, so the text message he sent to his brother Chad was short and sweet: Dropping off a friend. Almost there.

His phone chirped back almost immediately. Hurry up. Chad advised. I want eggnog.

Derrick rolled his eyes and smiled. It was typical, and rather sweet, he thought, of his family to wait to officially kick off a celebration until everyone was gathered ‘round, so he shot back a quick Me too. Here I come. to his brother’s phone and tapped back through to find his driving directions.

He didn’t recognize the neighborhood or any of the street names any better in map form, but the directions were not elaborate. He figured even allowing for the shitty weather and the bad drivers it invariably drew to the roads, he’d be out of his coat and into his eggnog inside forty-five minutes. He looked over his left shoulder to make sure the quiet road was clear, tossed one last reminiscent look up the path Lee had forged across Chuck’s yard, and put the rental in gear. He’d actually started to pull away before he registered the fact that Lee was still on the porch. Not standing patiently waiting for the door to open, either, but rather leaning against the front of the house. He had his head back against the wall and his eyes closed; even from the street Derrick recognized the Now what? in the breath Lee eventually pushed through his chipmunked cheeks.

* * * *

“And who’s this?”

To her credit, Editta Halvorson was cool as a cucumber in a twin set when she opened the door to Derrick and Lee. If Derrick hadn’t described the inevitable scene on their drive across town, Lee would never have even suspected that the little dynamo in sensible shoes had been frantically running about the house for the last thirty minutes, swearing in her own father’s quasi-Norwegian as she crammed another place around the pinecone-strewn table and rifled through the upstairs linen closet for an extra set of towels to set at the foot of Derrick’s bed. The consummate hostess, she would have slathered her own hand in sauce and thrown it on the barbecue grill before ever allowing a guest to feel the slightest bit unwelcome or unexpected. Even though Derrick had practically begged her not to bother, he could tell by the bemused eye rolls his sisters-in-law offered at the door like party favors that she had been nothing short of a whirling dervish right up until he’d skidded the rental car into the curb moments before.

She smoothed her hair—as if it had ever exhibited the temerity to go askew in front of company—and bade Lee a warm welcome.

“And as for you,” she said, giving Derrick’s cheek a playful smack. “You continue to insist on gaining weight, I see.”

“Only to annoy you, Ma,” Derrick quipped with an eye roll of his own.

“Now, Derrick,” she scolded. “You mustn’t talk like that in front of your little friend, here. He won’t know you’re joking.”

“Not to worry, Mrs.…um…that is…Dirk’s Mom,” Lee stammered. “He’s told me only wonderful things about you.”

“It’s ‘Mrs. Halvorson,’ dear,” she informed him unceremoniously. “And I’m Derrick’s mother.” She turned to Derrick. “How did you say you two know each other again?” she queried unslyly.

“I didn’t,” Derrick reminded her.

“Well, I’m sure we’re all on the edge of our seats,” she said.

“At least let them inside, Ma,” Derrick’s brother Chad said, lumbering into view from the kitchen. The youngest and largest slab of Halvorson meat, he held sway with Editta that neither Derrick nor their older brother Randy ever had, and she stepped marginally back from her post at the door to let the new arrivals inside. “They had a long night and a long drive,” Chad, who would have been Derrick’s ride from the airport the night before, reminded her. “Maybe after a couple of eggnogs we’ll play good cop/bad cop, you and me, get some information out of them.”

“Ten thousand comedians out of work,” Editta Halvorson lamented, quite possible for the ten thousandth time, “and what do my children want to be?”

“Chad’s a cop in Minneapolis,” Derrick told Lee.

“Yeah,” Lee said. Peering across the room at Chad through narrowed eyes, he added, “I know.”

Did I already tell him that? Derrick asked himself, but Chad surprised him by asking, “Lee Neustetter?” in an incredulous tone and charging across the room to shake Lee’s hand. “It is you. Wow, small world. How’ve you been?”

Lee shrugged. “I’m not at the top of my game right this second,” he admitted, “but big picture, stuff’s good.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” Chad said.

“You two know each other?” Derrick recapped. “How?”

A look passed between his brother and his guest, followed by a non-answer from Chad. “Back when I first started on the P.D.”

“Yeah, definitely a while back,” Lee said with equal commitment to clarity.

“You look…you look good.” Chad said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Lee said. “Definitely gettin’ it together.”

“Good.”

“You, too, I see,” Lee said. Jerking his chin at the kitchen apron stretched tight across Chad’s muscle-marbled chest. “Glad to see you’ve ‘got more time for misbehavin’.’” he teased, reading the catalog apron’s outdated declaration.