Sunday stories – It’s a Date

And once again, Facebook has decided my short story must be spam. So here’s the story for Sunday Dec 1, 2024.

(Note – there is now a part 2 to this story here on my website – link is at the bottom.)

 

It’s a Date

Marshall

I could tell he was a newbie at one glance. His hair was clean, for one thing. He sat at the table in front of his tray of Thanksgiving food and stared at it, for another. All around him, the rest of us dove into our decent turkey and overcooked green beans, while he looked down at his plate like he’d never seen food before.

I picked up my tray from my usual spot, sidled around the tables, trickier than usual since they’d put out extra for the holidays, and squeezed into the spot between him and Bill. Bill gave me a frown when my shoulder bumped his, but scooted over a few inches. He was a pretty mellow guy, a veteran but not one of the ones left jumpy at the slightest touch.

The newbie flinched away from me, which didn’t do my ego much good. Still, unlike him, I wasn’t as clean as I preferred to be, and I knew what my face looked like. I didn’t take it the wrong way.

“Eat,” I encouraged him. “Someone else is waiting for your seat when you’re done. The beans are mushy but they’re good for you. The rest is tolerably tasty, unless you’re used to Michelin five star.”

He shook his head, forked up a bit of potatoes, and ate them. Then, as if that bite of starch and gravy flicked an on-switch, he plowed through the rest of the meal. At a guess, he hadn’t eaten for a couple of days, maybe longer. He still had manners, though, still chewed with his mouth shut, kept his elbows off the table, and muttered “Excuse me,” when he burped.

About two thirds of the way in, he slowed down, and when the main meal was gone, he eyed his slice of pumpkin layer cake with a different expression. I figured a little downtime was what he needed.

“Grab your cake plate and fork,” I told him, demonstrating with mine. “Bring your tray and the rest to the cleanup window.” I got up, slung my pack over my shoulder, and carried my licked-clean plate and mug on the tray to the bins. It took just a minute to toss the paper trash and bus my stuff while balancing the cake in my left hand.

Newbie followed like an obedient duckling, doing the same. His face still looked blank, for the most part, although as we moved away from the hatch along the wall, he looked over the crowd seated at the long tables. As he scanned from Artie, whose wild gray hair was almost bigger than his whole withered body, to some toddler being fed by their mom, something dark moved behind his blue eyes.

I caught the edge of his coat sleeve in my fingers, careful not to touch his arm. “Come on, this way.”

When I opened the “Staff Only” door, he balked. “Should we be back here?”

“I used to volunteer here, before,” I told him. “I still do a bit of work for the shelter now and then.” They couldn’t afford to give me a full time job, but they threw some money my way when a repair didn’t take more tools than they had on hand. “Gets me a few privileges.” I was stretching things, bringing a stranger out of the common room, but something about this guy rang my bells.

The narrow corridor wound past doors to the utility room on one side, the kitchen area on the other, and on back to the rear door with its small enclosed porch. The alarm would be off for the day, though the door locked from the inside. I eyed Newbie as I pressed the bar. “Anything you’re leaving behind? We’ll have to walk all the way to the front to get back in.”

He shook his head, which was kind of what I was afraid of, because he had nothing with him except the clothes on his back. At least the coat looked warm, with a hood. He wore nice new sneakers, which were fine now in November, but wouldn’t be in another week or three.

“Are we allowed to bring these out?” He lifted the cake plate and fork.

“As long as we return them.” I was technically pushing the limits of “not off the premises,” but then I was never great at following rules. I let the door click shut behind us. In the summer, I might prop it open, but not in this weather.

The air inside the porch was a lot colder than inside, amid the steam and warmth of cooking and the shelter’s wonky-but-faithful furnace. Still a lot warmer than outside its windowed walls, where a breeze whipped the leafless branches of the single tree. A maple, I knew, scraggly and opportunistic, somehow finding a foothold in the beaten dirt of the tiny yard. In early fall, its leaves turned a glorious red, triumphant against the gray and brown grit around it. Right now, the bark blended with the November gloom, and faded fallen leaves drifted across the ground. Still, that tree was life, persistent and unquenchable, right?

I sat on one of the benches that ran the length of the side wall and set my plate on the window ledge. After a long hesitation, Newbie mirrored me at the other end of the seat.

“Cake’s decent too,” I said. “But I need my stomach to settle before digging in. More food than I’ve had the last couple of days.”

He nodded and turned to stare blankly out the window.

“Not a lot of green space here downtown,” I mused. “And I’m not sure who thought fifteen-foot-deep backyards would change that. They get, like, zero sun half of the year, except at high noon. Grass don’t grow. Still, I like to sit here sometimes.”

He cleared his throat. “I figured there’d be an alley and a dumpster. Seems like that’s the normal.”

“On the side.” I gestured to the left. “Some optimist did this layout.”

“There’s a tree.”

“Yep. Never gives up.” I let that observation sit there and stared out at the yard alongside him.

Eventually, he shivered and seemed to come back to himself. “I’m supposed to be studying. Exams are in two weeks.”

“College?” I was hoping not high school. On the one hand, there were a few more resources for the underage kids who found themselves on the street. On the other, losing your home at the age where you should be safely supported by adults did something to a person’s mind, or maybe heart. I don’t think those kids ever really got over that breach of trust.

“Yes. Sophomore.” He gave a hoarse laugh. “All-A student, Dean’s list, if you can believe it.”

“Why not? You think other smart-as-hell people don’t end up here?”

“I guess.” He turned to me, scanning a look up and down. I knew what he saw— a face badly scarred up one side, making my beard uneven and motheaten; winter clothes and heavy boots that were blessedly warm, but far from clean; corkscrews of red curls peeking out from under the beanie I wore as long as I could, into early summer, because the gaps in my hair were worse than my beard. Thirty-one, and I probably looked fifty to his eyes.

“Marshall,” I said to break his stare, and held out my hand.

He blinked a few times, but took it, his fingers soft against my callused ones. “Colton.” When we let go, he said, “Have you been…” He gestured around. “Out here long?”

“‘Bout a year,” I said, as lightly as I could to cover how that ate into my gut. “Since the fire.” To stop him wondering.

“Oh!” Colton glanced at my face again, then away.

“Yeah.” I tugged at my beard below the biggest gap where the scars wouldn’t grow hair. “I can’t decide if it looks worse shaved or with the beard, but I know which one’s easier to maintain.”

“It’s not that bad,” Colton lied, determinedly meeting my eyes. His were a clear blue, young eyes meant to be bright and shining, not clouded like now.

I snorted, but went on, “Lost the shop, my apartment over it, everything I had.” All the insurance payout on the shop went for my medical bills— vanished into that deep pit of debt because health insurance had been one expense too far. There was no rebuilding when I finally took shaky steps out of those hospital doors. Still, I was healthier than I had a right to be, and alive, and I had a slice of pumpkin cake with whipped filling in front of me. I picked up my fork and gestured. “I’m ready to dig in. You?”

He turned to his dessert and we ate in silence, taking slow bites to savor the richness and spices.

“This is good,” he said with wonder in his voice.

“Maria in the kitchen.” She’d lost more than I ever had, but she channeled her love into baking for us. “She could make a mint somewhere else with her bread and cakes and pies, but she loved a guy once, and he vanished into the streets. I think she feeds all of us in his name. Fuckin’ meth.”

Colton flicked me a look. “I don’t do drugs.”

“Didn’t think you did.” I’d got good at recognizing that look. “You don’t owe anyone your story.”

He sucked the last scrape of filling off his fork and then said, staring at the dormant maple, “My folks kicked me out. And I know I’m twenty and I should be able to get by on my own, but…“

“But it was a shock, and your brain screeched to a halt, and maybe you realized how little you had that wasn’t theirs?”

“Yes!” Colton turned to me eagerly. “Exactly. I had a student credit card they cosigned on, but when I went to use it at a motel, Dad had reported it stolen. He said my laptop was his, my phone was his, took them from me and shoved me out the door. They were gifts.” He bit his lower lip.

“Takebacks suck.”

He jolted as if that phrase struck him oddly. At least he quit chewing on his damned lip. “Yeah, they do.” Like that was all this was, not his dad ripping his heart out.

“I can give you some advice from my thirty-one years of experience.” Yeah, I snuck my age in there. Sue me. “Or I can shut the hell up. Your choice.”

“Advice.” He turned further toward me. “I feel like I’ve been stuck in this, I don’t know, giant sticky marshmallow of inertia ever since my folks’ front door shut. Or maybe when the motel turned down my card and suggested a shelter when I said I had no money.”

“Did you stay in the shelter?”

“Not yet.” He hunched in his coat. “It’s not that cold yet.”

It really fucking was, but he’d obviously survived his choices. “How long ago was that?”

“Monday. Three days.” He blinked hard.

“Eh. Three days is nothing. I was in a fog for a good two months after I left the hospital.” I’d been damned lucky to survive the resulting infection, and more debt, and— I forced my mind away from those days. “So here’s what I think. You got friends at that college of yours?”

“Some. Not really close friends.”

“Too bad. Either way, you go to them and ask if you can crash on someone’s floor. And you go to the library or wherever, and study, and pass those exams. Two weeks, you said? Maybe you don’t get your usual As, but you finish the classes and save the credits. Yes?”

Colton was chewing on that lip again. “They’ll all ask why I got kicked out.”

“And?” I raised an eyebrow, then figured I recognized the look. “You’re not out to them, huh?“

He flinched back. “How—? Uh.”

I didn’t like the panic in his eyes. I didn’t see any bruises, but that didn’t mean his dad hadn’t given him any. With a huff, I pushed my sleeve up from my wrist and stuck out my hand.

Colton eyed the small, rainbow infinity symbol tattooed between two of the thicker scars on my arm.

“I am infinitely gay,” I told him, hoping my gaydar hadn’t failed me.

“Oh! Good!” He almost smiled, then dropped his gaze. “I mean… I’m not sure what I mean.”

“You mean, us queers should stick together and also you’re glad this tough-looking homeless guy isn’t going to beat your gay ass.”

“I guess.”

“Not in the least what I like to do with gay asses.”

He flushed at that, but I didn’t read too much into the heat in his face.

I went on, businesslike, “So you figure out who you can come out to, or you lie and invent some other reason. This is a liberal state and a big-city college. You’re probably safe with the gay shit, but it’s no one’s business if you don’t choose to. Tell them he found out you didn’t vote the same as him and hissy fitted you out the door for your sins.”

“Could even be the truth,” Colton agreed. “Then what?”

“You also get yourself to your college’s financial aid office. A brilliant, gay, premed, Dean’s list student? Someone will have an interest in figuring out how to keep you in school. Maybe you’ll have to take a term off while you get ducks in a row. Good bet you’ll have to take on more debt than is healthy. But a boy who’s going to be a doctor will be good for the money.”

“I’m not a boy,” he said.

I was kind of tickled that was what he focused on, like he cared what I though of him. “No, you’re not. But you’re young and smart, and not yet locked into this death spiral of Catch-22s. Asking for help is shit, but you buckle down and do it. Before the windows close.”

Instead of replying, Colton reached out and set a fingertip to the rainbow on my wrist. “Did you get this tattoo before the fire?”

“After.”

“I thought you were broke.”

That set my teeth on edge. “Yeah, I was. Am. Sometimes I scrape a bit of money together. First time, I got a burner phone, because you’re nothing without a contact with the world. But then I had a hundred bucks last summer, and I could’ve spent it on three days in a motel. Showers and clean beds and safety would be awesome, but then three days later, I’d have been on the streets again. It would’ve changed nothing but the level of grime worked into my skin. A tattoo is forever.”

“I guess.”

“Folks get all snooty when a guy like me doesn’t spend my money on something basic. Cheap food, generic clothes. Well, I was losing myself. Felt like, every day, I was less the man I once was and more this gray entity drifting around the streets. The tattoo helped. I could look at it and know it made me different from the guy next to me.”

Colton was kind enough not to say my scars did that all by themselves. “Makes sense.”

I tugged down my sleeve. “Anyhow, you still have options if you can man up and ask for them. Remember Mr. Rogers? Look for the helpers.”

“I never watched Mr. Rogers.”

“Me neither. Jeeze, how old do you think I am? I was like ten when he died and the show was long gone.”

“You said you’re thirty-one. That just ten years older than me, almost.”

Eleven, but I liked that he said “just.” I smiled. “Anyhow, Mr. Rogers was right. No matter how shitty things are, no matter how the deck is stacked against you, there are folks trying to help, somewhere. That financial aid office? Look for the door with the rainbow sticker, or the person who stops and smiles when they see you waiting. There’s no doubt mercenary shitheads there, but there’s probably someone who’ll go to bat for you. If you ask.”

“Like you did. You’re one of the helpers.”

“Hah. Can barely help myself these days.”

“What difference does that make? You’re helping me.“

I stared at him, then scooped my small plate off the ledge, hanging onto the fork. “Come on, lets take these around front and hand them back. Don’t want to be caught stealing silverware.”

“For sure.” He followed me out onto the packed dirt of the yard, through the gate, along the alley, and up to the front of the shelter.

I held out my hand. “Give me those. I’ll bus them in. Where will you stay tonight?”

“I don’t know. I could ask a friend, like you said, but most of them went home for the holiday.”

“Wait here, then.” I pointed at the sidewalk by the steps. “Stay right there.”

I half expected Colton to be gone by the time I’d dropped our plates in the bin and hurried back out but he still stood there, huddled in his coat, his hood up.

“Are you staying in the shelter?” he asked as I reached him.

“Nah. Don’t get me wrong, it’s better than freezing, but it’s not great and there are others who need the beds more. I got a place.” I hesitated just a moment, but if he was a con man, I was Madonna. And I couldn’t sing a note. “Just a squat. No heat, but it’s sheltered enough and we’re still north of freezing. Only got one mattress but it’s big enough for two and I’ve got blankets. It’ll do you overnight and tomorrow’s a new day. Maybe you can start hitting up your friends by then.” The kind of friends with central heating.

“I don’t know.”

I tried to read the uncertainty in his face. “I’m not going to jump you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t need to pay for a bed with your ass. I’m not that kind of guy.”

Colton reached out and brushed his fingertips across my sleeve. “No! I didn’t think that. I just… Yes, okay, thank you. I appreciate it.”

He smiled and for a moment, I kind of wished I was that type of guy, because damn, he was pretty when his eyes lit up like they were supposed to. But if I could give Colton just the little bit he needed to head off his downward spiral, that would be better than any begrudged blow job. “Right. Do you need the john before we go?” I gestured at the shelter. On Thanksgiving Day, a lot of my go-to places would be closed.

Colton flushed. “Went already.”

“Good plan. Never turn down a bathroom when it’s handy.” I turned left down the sidewalk, tugging my collar a bit higher. “It’s a bit of a hike, but hey, we’ll walk off that cake, right? You can tell me about college while we walk. I never went. Do you guys really play beer pong and have toga parties?”

His laugh warmed me as much as the collar of my jacket. We fell into easy unison, trudging down the holiday-deserted street side by side. And as he hesitantly told me about frats and classes, I kept noticing the little folded lump in my right sock. Forty bucks wouldn’t buy anything but the cheapest burner phone and a few minutes. Still, it could get him that much. A link, a way to get to the help he needed. A way for the college to get hold of him. And if I bought the phone for him, I’d have his number. Some kind of connection. Maybe he’d check back, now and then.

Colton bumped the back of my hand with his. “Did I lose you? College isn’t all that great.”

“No, I like hearing about it.” I nudged him back, my shoulder against his. “And I can’t wait to fuck up your old man’s plans to leave you dependent and out in the cold. I hope he one day needs, like, prostate surgery, and you’re the only doctor who can do it, and he has to beg you.”

I grinned at Colton’s bark of laughter. “I do like the way you think, Marshall.”

“Call me Marsh.”

“I usually go by Colt.”

“Fair enough.” I picked up the pace. “Come on, Colt, let’s go plot the downfall of homophobes everywhere.”

Colt matched me stride for stride for a silent couple of blocks. Eventually, he just said, “Mr. Rogers would like you.”

As long as you do. I was the farthest thing from a saint, but I did try, sometimes, to do right. And I was already a bit scared how much I wanted Colt to see that part of me. “When you’re a wealthy surgeon, you can come and serve Thanksgiving dinner at the shelter with me. I plan to be on the other side of the tables again by then.” I’d let my dreams fade, but pushing Colt woke some kind of new fire in me. I’ll do better. Gonna try, anyhow.

“It’s a date,” Colt said.

There were a ton of years and pitfalls and challenges ahead, and yet, I suddenly had a flash of that someday Thanksgiving evening. Of a dozen conversations echoing off cinderblock walls and the kids grinning over Maria’s cakes and steam rising from the warming pans. Of Colton and me, side by side, dishing out potatoes and stuffing, and hope. “It’s a date,” I agreed.

Come hell or high water, I was gonna make it so.

 

#### the end ####

 

Now find part 2 – Keeping the Date –  here: https://www.kajeharper.com/?p=3828

 

 

—