A big SUV monster went roaring by kicking up a mean flash of slush and gray snow. He felt a bump and fell into the snow and slush filled gutter, flat on his face. Just as he was getting back up, something heavy fell on top of him with a loud grunt and a string of curse words that he’d never heard before. He wasn’t hurt—he laughed at the fact that his extra pounds had cushioned the fall for him. His gloves were soaked through though and—Wait, what the heck was going on here?
“Dammity sludgecrawling, sewage drinking, piratical son of a blossom—well crapoeffinglola,” said someone, someone in a heavy gray coat, who rolled off Danny into the street. All right, a man then, a small, heavy man who had been riding a motorized wheelchair, which was now lying on its side, top wheel spinning, motor growling. Ice cold slop flying everywhere. After getting a faceful, Danny had the sense to turn away.
The man in the street said, “Hit the red button. It’ll turn the Fokker off.”
Danny didn’t know that a Fokker was an old airplane used in both world wars.
Danny found the button and pushed it, getting more ice and water all over him. He then turned back to the man.
“Hoo hah, haven’t had this much fun since Miss Nelly closed the whore house in Melbourne!”
Danny smelled something funny. Was it beer? Was the man drunk? He heard a growling and whirring sound and chills went up his back. Oh my God, the wheel chair—it’s haunted. Nope, just another car coming. Oh shit! These were Danny’s thoughts, but his actions seemed to come from an unknown side of himself, something that held the sunshine and warm feelings he had been filled with since meeting Whit/Dusty. Okay, maybe I should just call him/her Dustwit. As he thought that, he also pulled the man by one arm and one leg out of the road, up over the curb, and onto the sidewalk. Then he stood up and put the chair back on its wheels and dusted his hands together like Superman or some other hero, or maybe just a trained monkey. He giggled. What a weird day and what a weird situation, not to mention weird person.
The man grabbed his hat out of the snow and crammed it back onto his head. He wasn’t much to look at, small features, one eye not looking straight ahead like the other, a ruddy well-used looking complexion and gray hair that stuck out in spikes from beneath his sopping wet knit cap. “Well kid, you just saved my useless life. In China that means you have to take care of me the rest of it. Just hold the Fokker steady and I’ll get back in it.”
Danny did as bid, and soon the man looked more like a man and less like an agile, talented monkey. He looked Danny over approvingly. “My name’s Rodger. Thank you, young man.”
“I’m Danny,” Danny said. “Where were you going?”
“Your mother’s place. Naw, that’s a joke for an adult. You’re just a—you’re an adult. I can see it in your face. Crap. Piece of shit.” The last few words came out when he pushed the big green button and the motor emitted a dying, gritty, gasp.
Danny couldn’t help it. He laughed. “My mother’s place, ha-ha! She passed away six years ago!”
Rodger’s face flushed. “She didn’t happen to live in Melbourne, did she?” he muttered.
“I can push you where you’re going,” Danny offered, almost astonishing himself with his idea. Somehow, his usual crippling shyness had forgotten to show up this afternoon.
“Aye. All right. I hate this,” said Rodger.
“You’re real independent, aren’t you?” Danny said, adding a couple of oofs and grunts as he got the wheelchair started.
“Hah. You have no idea,” Rodger grunted.
“The end of the block and turn right. It’s the big building at number 405. The Hotel California, run by Nurse Ratched and her evil twin sister, Nurse Cratchett.”
Danny didn’t recognize those references either.
Rodger quirked a bushy eyebrow at him. “No? How about The Nearly Pushing Up Daisies Home? No? Huh. Kids these days. “I call it the Highway to Hell Home for…” and his voice trailed off with a cough.
It was slightly uphill. Danny was too out of breath to comment, but he realized that Rodger was trying to be funny, in his own, old-fashioned way.
“Yes, sir, here we are,” Rodger breathed, pushing a button to open the doors. “You know what a Retirement Home is? No? Well I’ll tell you. It’s a roadblock to a quick and easy death.” The door closed silently behind them. “Push me down that hallway on the left, will you? Door number two. I mean, room 102. Yep.”
They reached the door. Danny didn’t know what to do, but Rodger just pounded on it. “Come in for a minute. Meet my partner. And call home, if you’re running late. I don’t want you to get in trouble for helping an old fart live for another day.”
One door down the hall opened an inch, two inches, and part of a face peeked out. “Drunk again, you old mooch?” snarled a voice. The door slammed shut. Across the hall another door slid open and an old lady in a long blue gown stood in the opening, majestic, royal. All she did was elevate her chin, and sniff. Danny just caught Rodger’s grin.
Then his own door opened and—someone, something—stood there with a hand on its hip. “There you are!” the person shrieked. “Oh honey, I’ve been so worried! Did it take long at the police station again!” She, at least, it sounded like a woman, shrieked this last part in a voice she projected all down the hall. She meant it to be heard. “Did they beat you this time!” she bellowed. Then she pulled Rodger, chair and all, inside, and Rodger just had time to grab Danny’s sleeve and pull him inside behind him.
“Oh how adorable, is this for me?” the partner exclaimed, raising her glasses and bending down. She attempted to kiss Danny on both cheeks but his eyebrow began to twitch badly and she backed off.
“This—harridan,” Rodger said, smiling, “Is my husband, Bernard. Or Bernadette when she’s on stage.”
“I’m always on stage,” Bernie smiled again. “Now look at you, you’re both all wet. Was there naked mud wrestling?” Her green eyes twinkled.
Danny knew this person was really more Bernard than Bernadette but he was amused and liked her instantly.
“There’s the phone. Let your folks know where you are.”
Danny dialed his father’s cellphone. Once again he wished he had a cell; it was just a matter of money, his dad said. When his father picked up, Danny started to say what had happened, but he was interrupted by his father practically shouting in his ear. “I’m on the way to the airport. Horrible roads. Wherever the hell you are, stay there for the night. Then get home tomorrow. Or call Dexter Wilton, next door, he’s always willing to have you, and stay there.”
Danny cringed. “I…” was all he got out before his father hung up.
“Ooh, business trip,” cooed Bernie, who had been listening. “What an asshole. It’s probably monkey business.” Rodger made hushing sounds but Danny was used to this sort of thing. He was highly embarrassed, however.
“Who’s this Dexter Wilson? Wilton?”
“The next door neighbor.”
“And he’s just dying to get his hands on your ass after driving in the blizzard to come get you?”
Danny’s eyes got big and he nodded. “Er, how’d you know that?” he stammered, taking her comment literally.
Bernie smiled viciously. “I saw his name on the sex offender registry.”
Danny was speechless. Impressed, but speechless.
Rodger sighed. “You’re stuck with us, unless you have a better idea.”
“We are not on the registry, except at Macy’s, for when we get married.” Bernie looked at her nails, bit a cuticle. “Could be worse, you might have been at the cop shop.”
“Go on in the back there and take you a hot shower,” Rodger said. “Let Bernie know if you have any bad bruises or whatever. He was a medic in the war.” The two looked at each other over my head and then burst into laughter. “We always argue about which war that was!” Bernie said with affection. “Thank you for bringing the old lug home. It’d be too damn quiet around here without him. I told you, Hercules, not to go out.
Didn’t I tell you not to go out in that slop?”
“Don’t call me Hercules.”
“Ya big lunk.”
“Boy—I’ll lay some dry clothes out for you by the door. We’ll throw yours in the washer and dryer after din-din. All right? Is there anyone else you want to call?”
Danny thought about Whit—it must have showed on his face. He’d never had anyone else to call before. Just his dad. Whit, he thought pleasantly, Well, I’d call her after supper, if they really meant it, and why not?
“Oooh, someone’s got a girlfriend!” sang out Bernie, putting on an apron that reminded him vaguely of visits to his grandparents’ farm years ago.
“Well, not exactly a girlfriend!” Danny blushed, wondering how to explain Whit to these—uh—he laughed. He knew they’d get it. “She’s gonna be a he as soon as she can. She’s trans,” he finished proudly.
Bernie applauded, threw herself (himself? With that apron on, definitely her) on Rodger’s lap and kissed him soundly. “Family!” they laughed.
It didn’t occur to Danny that maybe Rodger should go shower first, him being old and everything. He might catch sick. You couldn’t tell with old people and most of them didn’t like to complain, or at least, not to kids, Danny thought. Some though…like Mr. Dexter Wilton on the registry. “The few times I’d had to be around him he’d complained about everything, including his back. He always wanted me to rub his sore back. I never did,” Danny said quietly, shuddering.
Half an hour later Danny appeared back in the warm kitchen. He looked like a refugee from a depression-era cross dresser’s boot camp. Still, he liked these guys so much, and he could smell dinner, and a cat was now sitting on Rodger’s lap getting petted, so he twirled around like a ballerina and let them laugh at him. It wasn’t a mean-sounding laugh, and he felt happy that he could make them feel good.
Danny’s mind was full of happiness and he so badly wanted to share his thoughts with Whit. You might think I was stupid just blindly staying with these people, but the alternative was much worse, and somehow, I just trusted these guys. Sometimes, you had no choice. I knew I could choose, and that’s part of the reason I chose to stay. Besides, I realized, I liked the idea of family—chosen family. They were like me, though I had to giggle as I realized I wasn’t too much like them—at least not like Bernadette, though right now, you couldn’t tell that by looking at me, since the clothes she had left out for me included a brightly colored silk kimono with frills and lace in odd places.
Rodger went to go shower. He was already in a robe and there was a washing machine going at it somewhere off the kitchen. Together Danny and Bernie set the table, and when they sat down the cat jumped up on Danny’s lap. “I always wanted a cat,” he said, “but Dad said all they do is stink up the place and shed. This one doesn’t stink, and I don’t care if it sheds. She’s sweet.”
Bernie got him a soda and said, “Go call your friend and let them know where you are, just in case your dead body washes up tomorrow in the bay.” He smiled when he said that but Danny winced anyhow, thinking of Mr. Wilton.
Then, without knowing he was going to, he started to cry. “I’m sorry, Bernie. But my Dad, he’s all I have and he’s so—careless about me. I know he thinks I’m almost an adult and all that, but I’m not. I’m still in school and I miss my mother. I don’t have anyone else but Dad, and he’s hardly ever home. I don’t even feel close to him and I don’t think he wants, or doesn’t want to figure out how to be close to me.”
Bernie started to sing. At first Danny thought it was a lullaby and it filled him with warmth. He could feel the love flooding over him. It was overwhelming, and he buried his face in the cat’s fur. After a bit he could make out what Bernie was singing. He blushed and then laughed. What she was singing, was, “Jack and Jill went up the hill, so Jack could lick her candy, but Jack got a shock when he found she had a cock, ‘cuz Jill’s real name was Randy.”
“Don’t you tell Rodger what I just sang! He didn’t like that one when I sang it on stage, either! He’d sit in the dark in the back of the bar, or wherever we were, and pout and drink. I had a ball. And I always went right back to him. I didn’t have to; I just wanted to.”
Bernie came over and knelt down by Danny’s side. “Nefertiti, here, my kitty; she’s rather fond of the old galoot, too, aren’t you kitty? We’ve been together a long time—all three of us.” Bernie lifted beautiful blue eyes. They had tears shining in them. “I’d be lost without Rodger—Rajah I call him. He’s my everything. I owe you so much for bringing him home safely to me. He’ll say he was fine and could have done it himself, but he’s not as young or as agile as he likes to think he is. Oh look at me, I’m ruining my mascara.” She rubbed Danny’s head the way she had the cat’s, then went back to the stove, and dried her face on her apron. She raised her chin at the phone, and said, “Go on, call your friend.”
So Danny did. He told Whit what had happened—the short version, and said unless there was a snow day tomorrow he’d see her at school. “You’ll recognize me; I’ll be wearing the same clothes I had on today. Or else, well, never mind!”
The three had so much fun that night. Danny learned how he’d look in make-up—and they took pictures of him dressed and pretty. They laughed like maniacs. Danny slept on the couch, with the cat. He had found one cut on his hip, and when he’d dressed in the hand-me-down pajamas (luckily there wasn’t a spare nightgown), he asked Bernie if he’d really been a medic.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “It was the best part of the war.” She laughed, “You see…”
Rodger got all red and said, “Bernard! Not in front of the boy!”
Danny could easily imagine what he meant, but still an imp took control of him and he laughed and batted his eye lashes. “Would you look at this—thing—down here?” he said, simpering for the first and last time in his life. He pointed at his crotch, though the cut wasn’t there, but over on his side. It was really funny, and they all laughed—and Bernie even blushed.
In the end he did look at it and it was all very professional, except for Rodger raising one eyebrow and saying, “Ooh, very nice…” while Bernie put on antiseptic and a band aid. “Your war wound,” he smiled. “Don’t let the cat lick it.” And then Rodger guffawed and Bernie blushed even harder and Danny just shook his head. Adults were just big overgrown children, he thought, and somehow, that made him think maybe his dad wasn’t as bad as he seemed.
* * * *
It wasn’t a snow day. At breakfast, which was chocolate-banana pancakes and bacon, Rodger told Danny to come back that night if his father still wasn’t home, and if he was, to call and let them know he was all right. Bernie added, “I’m giving you two presents. One is, in case you hadn’t noticed, that little bit of eyeliner I put on you is permanent. And the other is, I’m going to teach you how to do an uppercut, and how to do just a bit of a secret-Ninja-assassin sidestep knee-kick with throat block, oh and three, an Aikido forward roll. This won’t take but two minutes. Come here.”
It took more like twenty minutes, but, Danny thought when he left, that with the permanent eyeliner, he was going to need those other moves. He shuddered, but he had seen his face and thought he looked hot, like a movie star or a famous singer. Hawt.
Danny thought about Bernie’s parting words. “Always avoid a fight if you can. But if you can’t, always make it look like the other fellow started it. Then finish it for him.” He liked the off-sidedness of it, the ying/yang as Bernie put it. “You use the other fellow’s offense as your own defense,” Bernie said.
After the door closed behind Danny, Rodger said, “Bernie, you can’t make a woman out of that boy.”
“Maybe not,” Bernie replied, “but that eye liner—and you and I both know it will wash right off, but he doesn’t—and that old one-two combination can sure make a man out of him.”
* * * *
Whit was the only one of the three sisters who was glad there wasn’t a snow day. She was looking forward to seei
ng Danny and being with him in Mr. Jay’s art room. Just having one good friend like him, and one great, safe class like art, made the whole school thing seem doable, and even pleasant. It almost made their family rule of everyone eating breakfast together bearable. And today, of all days, there was even drama—and it wasn’t hers. If anyone was going to cause a stir, she would have expected it to be Lisa, but today it was, apparently, Nancy’s turn to be queen for a day.
Their dad was on a roll. Whit knew it was because he hated driving in the snow and was actually frightened to have to do so, so he covered it up with jollity and jokes. Dad jokes, as they are known, are usually very bad and his jokes were no different. Their mother just tried to remain invisible, making Brady family pancakes and eggs and trying not to let them notice her eyelid twitching in eagerness to get away from it all and go to work, where she was her own boss. She worked for the county government in the politely called Solid Waste department. And she didn’t mind driving in the snow.
Anyhow, Dad was ready with his first joke/cover-up as they all sat down. “Hey, have you kids heard about the movie Constipation?
He really wanted someone to say I’ll bite but nobody did. Finally out of an urge to just get it over with, Whit said, “No, I haven’t.”
Dad smirked. “That’s because it hasn’t come out yet!” He beamed around at his women. His girls, as he called them, or gals, ladies, molls, etc.
Nancy said, “Oh Father, puhlease.”
Lisa giggled, trying to hide it, since she felt she was getting too old to enjoy potty jokes, though secretly she was memorizing the joke to use at school later.
Dad, whose real name was Dorchester, and whom his friends called Chet, still preferred to just go by Dad at home. He had quite often been called Dork. “Whoa, Nancy-Prancy,” he said, “I promise I won’t tell that in front of any boyfriends you bring home.”
The Sun Seekers Page 3