Keeping Up with the Icicles

Chapter 3

Ricky Malonni, Jonah’s first boyfriend when Jonah was sixteen, sends him a text: Here you’re visiting Channing for three days. Maybe we can hook up for Christmas? Can’t wait to see you. Hit me back.

The word here should be hear, but Jonah doesn’t correct the mistake via a returned text. He knows Ricky isn’t the brightest LED bulb in the pack, but he’s famous and gorgeous and rich by Channing standards. Ricky might be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, playing for a team in Florida, but he’s not a brain surgeon. He’s big, bulky, and can pass as Tim Tebow’s twin, and he’s surely not the same boy Jonah blew in Mr. Grandy’s biology lab at Channing High School during his eleventh year there. Ricky’s an adult now, supposedly mature. Honestly, Ricky’s beautiful and brawny and ballsy and blatant. And he likes Jonah a little too much; this is what Jonah has learned in the past few months through the texts he receives from Ricky; a huge surprise for him…but not really.

What Jonah knows: In the last year, dating and sleeping with Sandy on a daily basis, making love to the man, and heedlessly falling for him, Ricky has reached out to Mrs. Pam, Jonah’s mother, as he used to call her when he was just a child. He obtained Jonah’s cellular number from her and started texting Jonah around the Fourth of July.

They were simple texts like: practise season is hear; when in Miami, look me up; can’t wait to sea you again.

Jonah responded to the texts so he wouldn’t come across as being rude. And thinking clearly, or not-so clearly, he wasn’t really sure at the time, he shared the texts with Sandy, keeping their relationship honest and real.

Thereafter, the men talked on the phone and Jonah had learned that Ricky was no longer with his wife, Kris Masonweather, divorced from her after seven years. No children. During a dinner in downtown Pittsburgh (Ricky was in the city on business, playing the Steelers on a Sunday afternoon in Heinz Field, sometime late September) at a high-end restaurant called The Poor Belly, Jonah and Ricky met.

An illuminated candle sat on the table between them. The view was spectacular, Jonah recalls: all three rivers, the city’s downtown skyscrapers, an abundance of colorful bridges.

Semi-drunk, enjoying too much bourbon on the rocks, Ricky confessed, “I’m different these days.”

Jonah c****d his head to the right, looking puzzled and gaining a full view of the pro football player. “How so? What do you mean by different?”

“I’m the way I used to be in high school.”

None of it made any sense to Jonah, and he told Ricky, “Lay it on the line. What are you getting at? How were you in high school?”

So Ricky spat his spiel out, “Remember how you used to give me blowjobs back at Channing High, and how I enjoyed them?”

Jonah didn’t deny such wonderful moments with the jock during his eleventh- and twelfth-grade years. Any queer at Jonah’s age with high testosterone and an unstoppable level of hormones would have loved Ricky Malonni’s plump and thick d**k in their mouths. Jonah wasn’t an exception during his mouthy rounds of play in Room 218 at the school with Ricky. He coveted Ricky’s d**k like a college football star covets the Heisman trophy. He’d have lied to Ricky if he didn’t admit such a fact, and Ricky would have caught on in a nanosecond to his blundering foolishness.

“And?” Jonah asked, all eyes, and ears, on full alert with whatever Ricky wanted to tell him. No longer was he hungry or interested in the steak on the plate in front of him, basically pushed it away.

“I left Kris because I like men. My emotions for them are inevitable. I’ve tried to force myself to believe that I’m straight, but I’m not, and never have been. I’ve finally come to terms in my life during the last two years that I enjoy the company of men. Everything about them, which you’re probably not surprised to learn since our blowjob rounds in biology lab. And…honestly, I would really enjoy the company of you, Jonah. I can’t get you out of my head, or my heart. You’re constantly with me. You’re a better part of me that I want and need in my life.”

Proper and polite, Jonah let Ricky down with, “But I can’t be your company, as you call it. I’m sorry. I’m flattered, but sorry. You must know here and now that I’m seeing someone. His name is Sandy. He’s a scientist of sorts.” And Jonah spent the next fifteen minutes during their drying steaks and replenished beers, raving about the current guy in his life; a certain somebody he was falling in love with day after day and wanted to keep his relationship with the man solid and unbroken.

Ricky understood. Sad…but he understood.

Jonah didn’t provide him with any other option. In the end, the two men finished their dinners and continued to be friends. Ricky rambled about his affairs with a number of football players in the NFL. There were also other love interests: a doctor, a politician, a professional wrestler, and a mechanic. None of the men had landed his heart, though. Not like the emotions and attraction he had for Jonah.

Jonah pretty much ignored Ricky’s spiel about being his soul mate. Instead, he talked about his writing job and family.

Eventually the dinner ended with a handshake between the two men. No hugging. No kiss to a cheek. Nothing intimate. They parted.

* * * *

Jonah doesn’t respond to Ricky’s text, at least not yet. Maybe later he will. He simply reads the text a second time, and his mind becomes an abyss of blackness mixed with nothingness.

“Who’s the text from?” Sandy inquires, half driving with his eyes on the road, and half turning his head in Jonah’s direction to see exactly what’s happening in the passenger seat. He tries to get a glimpse of Jonah’s phone screen but can’t.

“Ricky Malonni. He wants to get together while I’m in Channing.”

“No joke. He’s head over heels for you. You can’t take all those blowjobs back you gave him in high school. The guy wants your d**k like a porn star. Maybe you should tell him you’re now giving someone else blowjobs.”

It’s history in his life that Jonah wishes he has never shared with Sandy. None of it. But Jonah doesn’t like to keep secrets from the men he dates and calls his lovers. Solid relationships are built on the blocks of truth, layer after layer. This is what Jonah believes in, and always will. Lies create chaos and turbulence in any relationship; something he doesn’t want with Sandy, even unintentionally. Not today. Not tomorrow. And certainly not on Christmas while visiting his family with Sandy at his side.

“If you dump me for him, I get it. He’s a gooey everything.”

“You wouldn’t fight for me?”

Sandy shrugs. “Come on. He’s a quarterback for the NFL and he’s rich. Plus, I know what he looks like. He’s good looking as hell. Tim Tebow all the way. I can’t compete with a guy like him. I might as well just put my tail between my legs and run the other way. He’s ten times better than I am.”

It’s not true. Sandy has a lot to offer Jonah: love, care, civility, faithfulness, compassion, and strong conversations like this one. He’s never boring, always puts Jonah’s needs before his own, and tells Jonah that he loves him, almost every day. Plus, he’s exciting on road trips, enjoyable to travel with, no matter where they go together. Sandy is never a dull time, and never has been. Jonah would be a fool to let him go.

Jonah sighs but he doesn’t know why. “I’m not going to text him back.”

“Maybe you should. It’s the decent thing to do. You don’t want to come across as being rude.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I really want to text him. He needs to enjoy his family and I need to enjoy mine.”

“I’m not pushing you away, or telling you what to do, but maybe later you can text him back, Jonah. Think about it first.”

This he will do. Definitely. But he can’t promise anything and won’t.

* * * *

They reach Channing at approximately five in the evening on December 23. Snow falling down from the heavens prevents them from a clear view of the small, lakeside town. Population: 2,564. Cupcakes Bakery. Local bank. Post office. Ma & Pa Hardware. Hallmark. McDonald’s. Two stop lights. The First Baptist Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. None of these establishments can be visibly seen because of the current snowstorm.

Jonah feels as if he’s in a snow globe that some giant shakes. He asks Sandy, “You remember where Ross is, right?”

“Like the back of my hand. Turn left on Dryer. Make a right on Spiel. Then a left on Ross.”

Jonah’s happy and impressed that Sandy remembers, although it’s hard to forget since the Channing water tower sits two blocks from his parent’s house; a massive and metal and turquoise ball approximately fifty feet off the ground; a hideous eyesore that resembles something out of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Unfortunately, the tower isn’t of any help this evening because of the storm, somewhere lost in the snowy whiteness. So much for a handy landmark.

When Sandy pulls the truck parallel to the sidewalk at house number 393, Jonah takes in the Hummer three doors down and across the street. Ricky’s man magnet of a vehicle that uses too much gas and has shitty mileage is parked in his parent’s driveway. The metal beast is a navy blue hue with factory tires, steely handsome, and…dammit, let’s face it, Jonah loves the Hummer and has always wanted one, preferably in a forest green, and he drools over the thing. To his loss, he can’t really afford one. Besides, a Hummer is a nuisance in the city. Too big for the narrow streets. Hard to park. One of the worst vehicles one can own while being a city resident. Totally impractical and not worth the cash. But the beast looks great, and it works for Channing, and for Ricky.

“He’s here,” Sandy says, turning the truck’s engine off.

“What? Who?” Jonah shakes his head, pulling out of his Hummer daydream.

“Ricky. He’s home for the holidays. You told me he has a Hummer. I see it in his parent’s driveway.” Sandy points down Ross, over the steering wheel. “Isn’t that his parent’s place, Dale and Dalia’s?”

Jonah twists his stare in Sandy’s direction, surprised. “You remember his parent’s names?”

“Come on. It’s easy to remember their names. Don’t you think that people would remember us if we were named Sandy and Sanford? Or, Jonah and John? I think they would.”

“Point made,” Jonah answers.

“Don’t forget, I’m not just a handsome face,” Sandy teases, climbs out of the truck, obviously ready for this visit…something.

No, Jonah thinks. Sandy’s not just a handsome face. But maybe not as handsome as Ricky’s face. Hmmmm. As soon as this thought flits through his mind, it’s gone. He’s happy with Sandy. They’re good together, and strong. Honestly, he tells himself that he wouldn’t have his current boyfriend any other way. Perfection to him.