Sunday Stories – Keeping the Date (2)

This is part 2 for It’s a Date that I put up last week. You can find part 1 here: https://www.kajeharper.com/?p=3825

Folks on my group wanted something more solid for these guys than the tentative hope at the end of last week’s story, so here’s a follow-up.

Do read part 1 first.

 

 

Keeping the Date

Colton

I pulled a hairnet down over my ears and tucked in a stray bit of hair off my forehead. Natalie passed me blue nitrile gloves, and I put them on. As usual, the fingers were just a little short for my hands. By now, that was almost another touchstone of the familiar. Three years I’d done this now, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Besides that first year when I’d sat on the other side of the serving counter, staring at my turkey and potatoes, stunned and cold and hungry and alone.

So alone. Until an older, scarred, rough-looking dude in dirty clothes sat beside me, and turned out to be a guardian angel in disguise. Marsh would’ve laughed at that description, but it was the honest truth.

I’d come back here every Thanksgiving since, fully aware that without his intervention when I needed it most, I might well still be seated at the long scuffed tables, thankful for one full meal in a month without.

Where are you, Marshall? I hope you’re safe and warm.

I wasn’t a doctor yet, although my med school acceptance letter sat in my pocket. I’d brought it, just in case. In case this is the year he shows up again, with that scar-pulled crooked smile and greasy riot of red curls and bushy beard, and the kindest eyes on the planet.

That burner phone he bought me was a lifesaver. So was the advice. Turned out, while none of the financial aid counselors had a rainbow sticker on the door, one of them did have a progress Pride flag in her pencil holder, and a queer kid at home. I slept on a couple of friends’ floors, before finding a shared room and a minimum wage job. I missed a semester, before I got finances lined up. But I spent two weeks in the library and aced those exams in Marsh’s name. And when I got back in, I knew how little room I had for failure and I kept my straight As, even dead on my feet from my job hours.

I patted my pocket, feeling the shape of the envelope. On my way.

Natalie said, “I’m putting you on the mashed potatoes again.”

“I can handle that.” I hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Marshall recently?” She’d know who I meant. This wasn’t the first time I’d asked, or the tenth.

Her gaze softened for a moment. “Not in a long time. Sorry.” We both took a moment, knowing that when a guy vanished from the streets, it often wasn’t a good thing.

But we had a hundred people sitting at the tables or lined up in the chill, waiting for food. Today had to be about them. Natalie handed me a scoop, looked around at the other volunteers, and said, “Right, it’s time. Let’s serve.” She rolled up the metal shutter that closed off the kitchen, and we took our places.

I’d dished out a dozen scoops of potatoes and generously ladled on the hot gravy when I heard a disturbance behind me, voices raised although not angry. I made sure the gravy pouring from my ladle didn’t land anywhere except on the plate in front of me, then turned.

Marsh strode toward me, settling his hairnet over the kit cap he still wore. Maybe not the same cap- this one was clean and Christmassy- but still pulled low over his forehead, with just a few curls escaping.

He grinned when he saw me. “You are here!”

A rush of something hot and angry flooded me, mixing with intense relief that made my knees weak. “Yeah. Where the fuck have you been?”

He looked away. “A bit of a story. Maybe later. How about you? Are you still in school?”

I grunted, “Yep.” I wanted to pull out the letter and wave it at him, and I also wanted to punch him in the face for three years of worry and fear.

Natalie saved me by calling, “Fight later, feed the people now. Marshall, you remember how to hand out plates of pie?”

He grinned, the scar pulling his lip sideways like I’d almost forgotten. Like I’d never forget. “Making me the popular favorite. Thank you.” He tugged blue gloves onto his hands and settled into the line.

The dessert station was two down from me, so we weren’t side by side. Probably just as well. I heard the occasional snatches of his voice but didn’t have to feel him there at my elbow. He greeted a lot of the older folk by name, and they muttered stuff like, “Good to see you,” and, “Hey, Marsh.” And kept moving, because the line was still long.

We took a break about fifteen minutes in. The tables were full, although the first dirty dishes would be coming back soon, freeing up spots. I thought about walking seven feet to my right. Instead, I pulled off my gloves and used the john. By the time I came back, the dirty dish bins were filling up. I swapped them for empty ones, and then second wave was ready to launch.

More mashed potatoes, more gravy. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. Steam rose from the warming bins, and Natalie kept the heat up in the hall, knowing that some of the folks at the tables would head out into the cold for the whole night, carrying only the warmth they could suck up now. A table by the door held donated hats and socks and mittens. It would be empty long before the last meal was served.

Too many kids in the hall tonight. Programs feeding and housing the poor had been cut recently, and the effects were written in the faces going by. More people than last year. We almost ran out of food last year. I scraped the edges of the potatoes bin with a rubber spatula, not wasting a bite. One of the kitchen helpers set a new full batch in the warmer in front of me. We were still in business.

Two hours later, we’d served four rounds of meal and my wrists ached from the repetitive motion. A couple of last stragglers made their way down the line. Some years, we’d have heaped their plates higher, but this year we dug in the corners of the bins and added an extra bread roll to make up for no stuffing left.

The last guy could’ve been thirty or fifty, his face half-toothless and lined, pale under the layer of grime with sores that spoke of poor hygiene or meth, likely both. He paused in front of Marsh, his voice clear over the fading hubbub of the diners. “Marshall Stevenson, holy shit. Where you been, Marsh? We figured you were dead. Held a wake for you and everything, Christmas last. I’ll have you know, I said some touching things.”

Marsh cleared his throat. “Sorry. I was out of town for a bit. I’m back now.”

“And too good to come see your old friends?”

The woman between me and Marsh stepped back, and I could see Marsh’s profile, saw him press his lips together. “Wasn’t like that. I’m here now, right?”

“And on the other side of the fucking tables again. You got money now?”

“A little. Not a lot.”

“Might share with an old buddy though, right?”

Marsh glanced over his shoulder. “Come on, Billy. You know Natalie’s rules. No panhandling the volunteers.”

“You’re not a volunteer. You’re my friend. Or were once. No time for us now, huh?”

Marsh frowned. “You clean, Billy? Can you promise me that? Like you said?”

“Well, fucking Thanksgiving to you too.” Billy scooped up his loaded tray and stomped over to the farthest table.

Marsh sighed, loud enough for me to hear.

Natalie said, “Okay, folks, time to pull down the window. Thanks, everyone.” She hit the button, and the metal shutter rolled down, closing off the serving hatch. In the steamy kitchen, we all stepped away from the line, rolling shoulders and twisting wrists. She added, “Who all’s staying for cleanup?”

Several people mentioned places to be and hung up aprons, heading out into the cold with Maria’s thank-you hand pies in paper bags. The rest of us bellied up to the sinks and dishwashers, rinsing and loading. When we had the first round going, I said, “I’ll get tables.”

Marsh immediately chimed in, “I’ll sweep, if someone wants to mop.”

“I can do that.” Cara was a motherly woman in her senior years, well able to handle a mop and bucket.

The three of us headed out into the main room with cleaning supplies. The smell of cooked food and unwashed people lingered in the air. I sprayed the first table, and the chlorine-and-lemon scent came sharp to my nose.

Marsh hovered at my elbow. “I need to get the floor, but…promise me you won’t vanish when we’re done? I really want to talk to you.”

“Promise.” I really want to talk to you, too. My anger was fading, but hurt had begun replacing it. He was alive, and apparently healthy, and hadn’t been in touch since a couple of months after we met. By choice, I guess. Which was his choice and maybe I’d been just a rescue project for him. For all I knew, he befriended new people all the time and spent four days with them, sharing his space and quiet conversation, and bought them the thing they needed most. Maybe he really was a professional guardian angel and had moved on to his next project and forgotten me.

Still, despite his newly solvent appearance, I wanted to know he was okay. I had zero extra bucks, but if I was a rescue, I damned well wanted to pay that back somehow. Maybe the anger wasn’t all gone.

I scrubbed tables clean, my hands swimming in the plastic gloves. A couple more volunteers joined us, cleaning chairs and folding the extras away. Eventually, the room was clean and tidy, waiting for the normal breakfast that was all the shelter served on regular days.

Natalie came out of the kitchen and clapped her hands. “Let’s call it a day. Dave and I will finish the last load in the dishwashers and lock up. Thank you everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget your baked goods.”

Maria moved up beside her to say, “Anyone with kids, I made some minis to take home. Bags with the red hearts on them have minis.”

We stripped off gloves and hair nets. I caught Marsh out of the corner of my eye, tugging his knit cap straight. He’d even slept in it, back when, but I saw him without once as he ran a comb through his hair. Ginger-red hair, thin in patches where reddened scars marked his scalp. He’d caught me looking and jammed the hat back on fast. I hadn’t had the words then to reassure him that the scars couldn’t hide the man he was inside, or that I was partial to gingers.

Our baked rewards were set out in small paper bags on the ledge of the serving window. Maria made a new dessert every year and this year had been mini apple pies, folded inside the pastry crust. I opened my bag to take a sniff and sighed. Marsh had managed to line up behind me and he chuckled. “Still and always the best.”

We collected our coats and boots from the staff lounge and headed for the door. Out in the brisk air, I moved out of the way down the front steps and then turned to Marsh. “Where?”

“Not a coffee shop,” he said. “Even if one was open.”

“Agreed.”

“We could sit in my truck.”

“You have a truck?” I didn’t even have a car, but then, I didn’t need one around campus.

“Yep. Over this way.” Marsh led us down the sidewalk at a brisk pace.

About fifty feet down, Billy stepped out of the shadows between the shelter and the hardware next door. “Hey, there. Natalie’s not here now to say no.”

Marsh stopped, bit his lip, then dug in his pocket for his wallet. He passed over a folded bill, and then, more slowly, a second one.

Billy looked at them. “Thanks, Marsh. You always were a gentleman. Happy Thanksgiving.” He scurried off down the sidewalk, not looking back.

Marsh sighed. “He’s going to spend it on meth. I gave him enough to hopefully get himself breakfast in the morning as well, but odds are he won’t.”

“Was he a good friend?” I wondered belatedly if I should’ve said is not was. The man wasn’t dead.

But Marsh shook his head. “We lived in the same squat for a while, when I first hit the streets. He’s not a bad guy, can be funny as hell, but even then, he’d have sold his mother for a hit when the cravings got strong. I’m actually surprised he’s still around.” He shrugged and began walking again, his steps slower.

I matched his strides, not sure what to say.

We rounded the corner and he headed for a van parked at the curb. The side read “Helpful Hank. 24 Hour Service.” Marsh popped the locks with a remote.

“Who’s Hank,” I asked as he opened the passenger door for me.

“A friend.” He circled the hood as I got in and climbed up beside me.

We turned to look at each other, said, “So tell me–” in unison, and stopped. Laughed awkwardly.

Marsh said, “Are you still in school? Or maybe graduated now? I forget.”

I wanted to say, “If you hadn’t stopped responding to my texts, you would know. If you hadn’t let me think you were maybe dead, I could’ve shared how it went.” But it was hard to hang onto my anger with Marsh there, scarred and battered and still looking older than his years, even if he was now clean and well fed. Let the man explain, I reminded myself.

I dug the envelope out of my pocket and passed it over.

Marsh pulled out the page, read it through, and cheered out loud. “Yes! Fuck, yes! Congratulations, Doctor…” He paused and scanned back up to the top. “Doctor… Reed. Colton Reed, MD.”

I realized he never knew my last name, anymore than I’d known his when I’d searched online, the month after his last text. Those texts had been a fragile lifeline, before it broke. I said, “Thanks, but let’s not count our medical chickens.”

“Nah, you ‘ll be great.” He passed the letter back. “I bet you still got straight As, am I right?”

I had no defense against the glow of approval in his hazel eyes. “Um, yeah.”

March crowed. “I knew it. Three days around you and I knew how fucking smart you were.”

“Four days.” The words slipped out. “It was four days.”

He sobered. “Yes. I do remember.”

“You didn’t answer my texts. You haven’t been at the shelter for years.” I couldn’t keep the hurt from flavoring my tone.

“My phone got stolen.”

I wasn’t expecting that and it stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t keep myself from touching his forearm. “What happened?”

He hesitated, turned to look out the windshield. “Let me start the engine. It’s fuckin’ cold in here.” He turned on the ignition, fiddled with the heat, letting the first cool blast go to the windshield. Eventually, he said, “When you texted me you’d made it through the financial aid process and had a bed that wasn’t going to vanish overnight I…” He ran a hand over his shorter, tidier beard. “I figured I should get my ass in gear too, find a job. But it didn’t work out that easy. Even cleaned up as best I could, I look like I look.”

“That shouldn’t matter!” I burst out.

“To be fair, I also had worse than zero credit score. All that debt didn’t go away when I ducked out of society. Any employer who did a search would see that. So I tried, and failed, and then, well, I should’ve let that damned phone go but it had important shit on it so I fought back and ended up in the ER again. Lost the phone anyhow. Things were… bad for a few months after that.”

“I’m sorry. I wish you’d let me know.”

He raised a scar-split eyebrow at me. “Last I’d heard, you were sharing a small room with a guy who snored like a train and trying to score a second job to pay for it. Still waiting on financial aid to get back to you. Not much room in that life.”

“I’d have made room.”

Marsh nodded gravely. “Thanks, but I couldn’t have done that, not even if I’d known your last name or remembered your number that went west with the phone. I needed to make something of myself first. Be enough.”

“You were always enough. You were the reason I was still breathing. Four days, you listened to me and made me feel like I mattered, when I wasn’t sure that was true.”

“I’m glad. But… in the end, I bit the bullet on the other piece of advice I gave you. Ask your friends for help. Always easier to tell someone else. All my life, I was the fixer, the helper. It was harder than it should’ve been. But I went to Hank.”

I glanced around the truck. “And he gave you a job?”

“More than. A job, a couch in his rec room over his wife’s objections. He said I used to cut him discounts, when I had the shop and he was starting his handyman business. I’d worked with him for free on a couple of jobs that needed two people. He said there was no one he’d rather have with him. Hearing that–” Marsh pressed his lips together.

I figured it was the same as what he did for me. Someone believing you were worth the trouble. “I’d like to shake that guy’s hand.”

“Right?” Marsh took a long breath. “It started a bit slow. He didn’t have need of a full time second man, and I had to go through the bankruptcy process if I didn’t want the hospital to garnish what money he could pay me. But his wife had been bugging him to spend more time with the family, with the kids getting bigger and another on the way. He wanted to expand to nights and holidays, when no one else will come out. And I still had my plumbing license. That let us expand the work we were allowed to do. So once all the paperwork was done, I went from working for room and board to actual money. He’s letting me buy into the company, a little bit at a time, because that helps with the licensing.”

“I’m so glad it’s working.” One other bit he said echoed in my head. “Nights and holidays? Was that why you didn’t come to Thanksgiving the last three years?”

“Part of it, yeah.” He rubbed his beard again, staring away from me. “We’re busy in the off hours. Folks appreciate a leak being taken care of at midnight on New Year’s, or the hour before everyone shows up for Thanksgiving, so they don’t have to turn the water off and wait. But also.”

The silence dragged out so long, I nudged, “Also?”

“It’s weird, coming back, right? After a long time on the other side. You only were there at the tables once. For me, those are my friends, or at least acquaintances, so many experiences together on the other side of the serving tray. There, but for the grace of God, you know? Lots of them remembered me today. I’m not rich, to hand out money to everyone who needs it, but I want to. And they see me and must wonder why I got out and they didn’t.”

“You can’t be the first to make good.”

“No. And a lot of them don’t come back, and I understand why. They maybe send Natalie a bit of money, if they have it. And then there was you.”

“Me?”

He turned an intent gaze on me. “I hoped you’d be there. I was afraid you wouldn’t, and no one would know why. And I needed, I guess, to be where I am now. Solid, in an apartment of my own even if it’s tiny, with a job I’m not afraid will vanish. If you were there, in school, on your way to great things, I needed to match you.”

I wanted to say no, he didn’t. But I understood. I’d hesitated, that first year, because I was just back in school, still juggling work and classes, still sharing a small room. I had 2 Bs going on my grades, and was afraid I couldn’t pull them up in the finals. I’d wanted to live up to his vision of me too. But more than the fear, I’d wanted to see him again.

“Anyhow,” I said. “Here we are. Both on the good side of homeless and broke. What now?”

He pulled out his phone. “I know you must have a ton of other friends, but would you give me your number again. I’d like to stay in touch now and then.”

“Sure.” I rattled it off, and he entered the numbers. “Send me a text.” I froze, waiting till I heard my phone ping, then relaxed more than I had in a long time. “Cool. But no, I don’t have a ton of friends. Some. But no one like you. No one I trust the way I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t. You know nothing about me.”

“I know you spent four nights holding me against the cold, and four days propping me up till I could stand on my own two feet. I know you spent money you couldn’t replace on the thing I needed most.” I took a deep breath and added, “I know that I remembered the color of your eyes and the sound of your voice and was comforted, when I woke afraid in the night, for the last three years.”

“Like a father figure,” Marsh muttered.

“Not in the least like a father.” Daring, I set my hand on his thigh, feeling solid muscle under the denim, where he’d been lean and stringy behind me under the blankets, three years earlier. “Like a knight in battered, threadbare armor, still fighting the good fight to protect someone else, because he couldn’t deny who he was down to his core.”

“You shouldn’t idealize me. I’m nothing near perfect.”

“No. But you are a really good man, in a world that doesn’t have enough of those.” I didn’t life my hand. “Good and strong and kind, and hot.”

“What?” He looked shocked.

“I was half-destroyed when you took me in, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hiding a hard-on, time to time, through those four nights.”

“That’s biology. I’m no one’s dream guy.”

“You are. My dreams. Not just the scary ones but the ones I woke up hard enough to pound nails. Your hands, your chest, your ass.”

“There’s a lot more scars under these jeans,” he said. “It ain’t pretty.”

“I don’t need pretty. I need strong. I need you.” I held my breath, because I couldn’t put myself out there plainer than that.

“You should be dating college boys, all handsome and smart.”

“Don’t want boys. I want a man.” When he had no reply, just wide dark eyes there in the shadowy truck, I added. “Can I kiss you?”

He licked his lips. “You really don’t know me.”

But I caught the lean of his body toward me, and unfamiliar confidence rose. “That’s what dating is for. To get to know each other. But I figure, we know enough for first base. So can I?”

“I guess.”

I slid my hand from his thigh, up his chest and neck, to cradle the side of his face. His beard was soft against my palm. Very slowly, not to spook him, I leaned in and fit my mouth to his. We kissed gently at first. The twist of his lip was a firm knot against mine. Gradually, heat rose. I opened my mouth and he touched my tongue with his, making the kiss stronger before breaking off and leaning back.

“I haven’t kissed anyone since the fire,” he said. “Hand jobs, a few blow jobs. Fucking a couple of times. No kissing.”

“Their loss.” I rubbed his unblemished lower lip with my thumb.

“You seem pretty confident for a young guy.”

“I’m not twenty anymore. And I’ve fucked around a fair bit.” College made it easy to get some, although usually fast and gone, given me intense schedule. “Nothing more than that. And I plan to give you the full benefit of my experience.”

“Punk kid.” But he grinned.

I moved my hand from his face with an effort and sat back. “Now we could call it a day and plan our next date. Or we could investigate the fact that I have roommates, but you, apparently, live alone. Are you on call for work?”

“Not today. I traded with Hank. I told him today was important.”

Joy swelled in me, because I was sure he didn’t just mean seeing Natalie and his homies. “And does that apartment have a bed. Or a couch. Or a table?”

Marsh’s bark of laughter was the best thing I ever heard. Well, other than the little moan as we kissed. “One of each,” he said. “Want a tour?”

“Absolutely.” I gestured forward. “Lets get this reunion tour on the road.”

“Hah.” He put the truck in gear. “And you seemed like such a quiet one. What did I unleash on the world?”

“You and me,” I said, riding that wave of confidence. “The dynamic duo. When someone trips and breaks their garden gate, you’ll fix the gate and I’ll splint the broken leg.”

“We could call it Boards and Bones,” he quipped.

“The Marsh and Colton show.” I turned to watch his profile in the light and shadows through the window, that forehead and nose and mouth that had featured in a hundred dreams. “On unlimited reruns.”

“You know, I could be bad in bed,” he said.

“Not a chance.” I’d figured out that generosity and paying attention were the things that made a guy a great lay, and Marsh had those in spades. “But I can’t wait for a chance to find out.”

He sped up just a bit as we hit the main road. “Happy Thanksgiving to me.”

“To us,” I told him. “Happy fucking Thanksgiving to us.”

 

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