by Rick R. Reed
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By Rick R. Reed
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An Open Window
By Rick R. Reed
Two men. One Christmas Eve that changes the courses of both their lives.
Henry’s homeless and only wants a warm place to sleep on the coldest night of the year. A forgotten open window in a darkened house entices Henry inside with the promise of warmth and comfort. He knows it’s bad, but he promises himself he’ll be out before the owner wakes on Christmas morning. Except he oversleeps and the homeowner, Jim, discovers a bearded stranger sawing logs under his dining room table. When the shock and the drama that ensues dies down, Henry and Jim discover that they might have found, quite unexpectedly, the Christmas miracle they’d both been longing for—love and home.
EMBERS FLICKERED, orange and yellow, in the hearth. Jim and Henry sat in front of the fire, wrapped in two things—a yellow-and-white afghan, worn soft, and each other’s arms.
The heat of the dying flames still gave off a little warmth, and when Jim looked over at his husband, his best friend, his soul mate, his outrageous lover, he saw him again as a very young man. A fire’s glow can do that, erasing lines, warming the complexion, and adding a subtle hint of magic to almost any face.
But even without the enhancement of firelight, Jim would have felt the same about Henry, regardless of time’s relentless march across his features.
Jim touched that face, because even after all these years, he couldn’t keep his hands off this man. This man who’d come into his life in such an abrupt and unexpected way twenty years ago tonight.
“Merry Christmas, honey,” Jim said softly, looking deep into Henry’s warm and soulful brown eyes.
Henry touched the tip of Jim’s nose and smiled. “Not quite yet.” He glanced at the old grandfather clock near the front door. “One more hour until it’s official.” Henry moved away for a moment to pour them some more wine, a Sicilian red. He shook the bottle a little to empty the last of the wine into Jim’s glass. “Another one bites the dust.” He set the wine back down and returned to Jim and his warm embrace.
They sat for a long time, staring into the embers, which were almost like orange/golden eyes staring back. Jim was just starting to get sleepy when Henry said, “Remember?”
He didn’t need to say more. Jim laughed and nodded. “The night we met? Of course, how could I ever forget?”
“It was the night before Christmas,” Henry started.
“Oh, there was a creature stirring all right!”
They pressed their foreheads together, laughing and remembering. It was easy to laugh now, but back in 1997, Henry wasn’t laughing much, and if he’d been told back then that he would one day laugh about the predicament he’d found himself in that particular winter near the end of the twentieth century, he’d have called you crazy.
Certifiable.
Ready for the men in the white coats.
“It was horrible,” Henry said. “Horrible and wonderful all at once.”
“Isn’t it funny how things work out?” Jim asked. “Sometimes the very best gifts life gives us show up in clever disguise.”
“I don’t know how clever my disguise was, but it sure scared the wits out of you that Christmas morning.”
They closed their eyes. Two minds, as one, drifted back twenty years.
IT WAS freezing. It had to be close to zero.
All around him, Henry knew everyone dreamed of a white Christmas. They were certainly getting their wish, here in this small town in western Pennsylvania. The snow had started in the early afternoon, after a morning of ominous-looking dark gray clouds and the smell of precipitation in the air as some kind of nasty omen. Henry looked up at those winter skies with dread. White Christmases were all well and good for those who could look out on them from warm houses, with flames flickering in a fireplace, with cups of eggnog dusted with nutmeg, and with the sound of Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” or Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in the background.
If Henry was hearing anything holiday-related in his own head right now as he trudged through the six inches that had accumulated since the snow had begun falling around noon that day, it was “Christmas Time is Here,” from Charlie Brown. The melancholy of that one perfectly suited his mood. Something almost dirge-like reflected his current life situation better than anything else.
How he’d found himself homeless and looking for shelter on Christmas Eve was a long story, and one he didn’t care to revisit, not when he felt the cold and damp seeping into his very bones. Suffice to say that the loss of his job, his car, and his home were part of a domino effect that he realized most people like he had been, living paycheck to paycheck, were in constant danger of.
He’d been on the streets of his small town for a little more than three months. It hadn’t been too bad. Until tonight. He’d couch surfed for a while, until what few friends he had grew weary of his presence and began making up excuses for why he was no longer welcome. Sleeping in his Nissan Sentra wasn’t exactly comfortable—or warm—but it was better than a cardboard box in a store doorway, as he’d witnessed one man doing downtown.
But the car, like the apartment and the job, quickly fell victim to loss when Henry could no longer make the payments. He thought maybe the repo man wouldn’t find him—an advantage of homelessness and no longer having a permanent address—but he was wrong.
One morning he’d emerged from a gas station restroom he’d used to wash up, to find the car simply gone. He might have thought it was stolen if he hadn’t looked east and saw it being towed, growing smaller in the distance.
He knew to run after it would be a fool’s errand, hopeless.
And now, tonight, when it seemed everyone in the world had shut their doors to his plight while they celebrated home, hearth, and family, Henry looked despairingly at the relentless snow coming down. It showed no signs of stopping. He wondered if some poor soul would find his frozen body come morning. The prospect contained elements of both terror and relief.
He glanced once more at the house, a neat little bungalow, its windows dark. There was a porch swing out front.
He hated to do it. The very idea was creepy and not at all within his character. But Henry had done something similar before—snuck into a place, trespassed, if you will, to shelter himself from the elements. But those places were public, not someone’s home….
Once it was a boarded-up storefront downtown, vacant for years. There was an opening in the back, if you knew where to look, where one could pry aside a board and crawl into the damp and musty retail space. That was harrowing! Henry wasn’t the only soul to find shelter there—and the others huddled in the grim storefront, some smoking crack, were simply not the kind of company Henry was used to hanging around. One of them even tried to steal his shoes. Off his feet—as he slept!
Then there was the toolshed on the outskirts of town, barely warmer than the outside, but at least he stayed dry when there was sleet tap, tap, tapping relentlessly on the shed’s aluminum roof. There were a few other places—a Catholic church, the local high school where the janitor had forgotten to look the gym door….
It became easy. Partly because Henry was desperate and partly because he realized that when one was homeless, he was invisible.
But tonight Henry found himself running up against barrier after barrier, at least in public spaces, for shelter.
And now, as he walked along the bluff overlooking the river, he eyed the houses facing the slow-moving body of water with envy.
And maybe a little hope….
Nope. You can’t do it.
But desperate times call for desperate measures! I don’t want to freeze to death, for cryin’ out loud.
His ideal Christmas Eve gift would be a house where someone had gone away for the Yuletide holiday. Yet it seemed like every person in his little burg had decided to stay home.
Save for one. He’d walked by it twice now, surprised that in this chill, with the snow coming down so heavily Henry could barely see his hand in front of his face, someone had actually left a window open.
When God closes a door, he opens a window.
Why on earth would someone forget to close a window? Why would they even open it in the first place at this time of year? The draft coming in through it would be arctic. Unbearable!
But yet someone had, right at the front of the little wood-frame bungalow, behind the porch swing. Curtains hanging at the window blew inward, and Henry wondered if it was an omen, a kind of cosmic invitation from the universe.
Maybe they’re the ones who actually did travel out of town. To grandmother’s house they went! Still, do you really want to stoop that low? Trespassing in someone’s house?
That thought, plus the wind chill, made him shiver extra hard, made his teeth chatter.
Henry’d lost his watch a long time ago. All he knew was that it was late and that the cold, uncomfortable earlier, had now grown painful. He wondered what frostbite felt like. Did hypothermia have warning signs?
He paused in front of the dark little house and made a decision.
I’ll only do it this once. And if there’s anyone in there, I will be out before they even wake up. If no one knows I was there, no harm done. Right?
Henry started up the three steps leading to the front porch, wincing when one of them creaked. He caught his breath, expecting the porch light to come on. He considered, for a second, simply turning around, toughing it out—somehow.
A gust of wind out of the north cemented his decision. That wind, Henry swore, had teeth.
He stooped and wriggled inside—a stranger’s house. Funny how need made one do things one would’ve never dreamed doing, Henry thought. But those boundaries were in another life, another time.
JIM SAT on the couch that Christmas Eve, morose because of two things—the smell of a burned top sirloin roast still hanging in the air, despite the pine-scented candles he’d lit, and the closed front door, which only reminded him of what a lousy holiday this was turning out to be.
The closed door represented everything he’d hoped for—finding someone to love who would love him back. Barry Michaelson, he knew now, was not that person, but, oh, how Jim had dreamed he might be! He’d placed all his hopes on the magic of Christmas to cement their union, even if they’d only had four dates so far. But the dates had been wonderful—and the sex amazing.
Jim had thought tonight, with the dinner he’d made, the “dessert” he planned to serve—upstairs, in the bedroom—and the presents he’d wrapped and placed under the modest pre-lit artificial tree on his coffee table in the living room—would be the night he could officially start looking at Barry as his boyfriend. He could brag to his friends, call his ma and tell her to let the joyous news be spread—ding, dong his singlehood was dead. And it certainly was time for Jim to find someone. He was pushing thirty and had yet to have a real relationship. And he’d kissed more frogs, in pursuit of just one prince, than he could count.
He’d envisioned it all—the perfect dinner, the wine getting them a little tipsy, heading upstairs afterward, Jim leading Barry by the hand. They would make passionate love, over and over, while the snow came down outside Jim’s window. Candles would flicker on every surface. George Winston’s December CD would drift softly up from downstairs. They’d wander off into an exhausted slumber, Jim’s head on Barry’s chest, and wake to bright sunlight, more snow, and the promise of unwrapping presents downstairs. Jim even had the eggnog chilling in the fridge and the Christmas cookies—family Italian favorites—ready. He’d played these scenes on an unending loop in his mind so many times, they already had the feel of memory rather than anticipation of the future.
Never mind that Barry had yet to spend an entire night with Jim. Never mind that Barry had never once suggested they have a date outside the confines of Jim’s little bungalow. Never mind that Barry always seemed reluctant when Jim asked if he could meet his family or friends.
The closed front door, out of which Barry had exited, seemed like a shut door on Jim’s own life. His love life, anyway. But when Barry had seen the wrapped presents, the mess of the kitchen in preparation for Christmas Eve dinner, and Jim’s loving and seductive eyes, he must have finally gotten scared. Or finally been seized by guilt, as any man with a proper conscience would be. And getting scared, or feeling ashamed of himself, meant Barry finally had to blurt out the truth—that he was married and had two kids, a little boy and a little girl. Toby was seven and Claire was nine. His wife, of course, didn’t understand him. Jim had to bite his tongue not to say something like “Well, of course she doesn’t. Most wives don’t take kindly to the idea of hubby sucking cock!” Jim kept the snark inside his head, even if Barry deserved it.
Barry told him he really needed to be with his family on Christmas Eve. There was a bicycle to assemble for little Toby, milk and cookies to be laid out for Santa. Surely Jim could understand.
Oh, Jim understood all right. Understood that he’d been had—in more ways than one. And that his dreams of everlasting love with Barry were nothing more than visions of sugarplums dancing in his head.
Jim sighed. What the hell are sugarplums anyway?
Jim had kind of soured on the whole Christmas idea that night. He thought he might never celebrate the holiday again.
He groaned a little as he stood to go upstairs and face his full-size bed alone—once again. He needn’t have bothered to change the sheets! Hell, he needn’t have bothered with a shower and putting on the olive-green cashmere sweater he’d splurged on because he thought it brought out the color in his eyes.
As he was halfway up the stairs, the aroma of burned meat wafted back to him. He needed to do something about it, so he wouldn’t regret it in the morning. “Oh fuck.” He turned to head back down.
He’d have enough regrets in the morning. Doing something about the smell was one of the few things in his control.
He continued down the stairs and into the dining room, where he tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The air, arctic, blew in. Jim didn’t care.
He stood there for a few moments, almost basking in the chill, like something he deserved. He briefly entertained the idea of throwing on a coat, gloves, and hat and heading out into the silence of the blizzardy Christmas Eve. He pictured himself wandering the streets for hours, until dawn brightened the hilly landscape and he perhaps heard the Whos over in Whoville singing their song to “Welcome Christmas.” Jim laughed, but it was bitter. And he wondered if tonight, combined with all his other disappointments in the romance department, would now combine to make his heart do the opposite of what the Grinch’s had done—and shrink three sizes.
God, he hoped not. Disappointed or not, he prayed he still had the capacity to care, to nurture, to love.
Suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep. He turned away from the window and resumed his journey to bed, feeling numb, unloved, and a little chilly. Ah, well, the heat would kick in to combat the open window. It wouldn’t be so bad.
In the bedroom, Jim undressed and stared outside. The driveway at the side of the house bore no evidence of where Barry’s pickup had been parked. The snow, falling heavily, had erased his tire tracks. It was as though Barry had never been there.
Jim wished the snow could do the same for his memory.
He pulled his clothes off and let the pieces land where they may. In one of his fantasies, he’d imagined undressing much the same way, as a kind of striptease, under the lustful gaze of his new love. He could even see it in his mind’s eye right now, and it felt like his heart broke a little when reality cut in
, showing him this cursedly empty bedroom.
Naked, he went into his en suite bathroom and brushed his teeth, though he didn’t know why he bothered. No one was around to care if he had fresh breath. He splashed some water on his face. In the bedroom, he pulled out a pair of flannel boxers and slid into them. He lay down and arranged the pillow next to him alongside his body and clung to it.
Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself! It’s Christmas!
Snug with the bedclothes up and over himself, he thought it would take forever to fall asleep, yet that thought was followed quickly by blessed oblivion.
WHEN JIM woke in the morning, the room was blindingly bright. The illumination was practically surreal. He almost forgot, for the cruelest and tiniest of seconds, that he was alone. For just a moment, his sleepy, dream-altered wakefulness conjured up Barry’s head on the pillow beside him, his dark and curly black hair a sharp contrast to the crisp white linen of the pillowcase.
Jim snorted with grim laughter as his head became clearer and he realized he was alone. On Christmas morning. Cut it out, now! You’ll eat some cookies. Drink too much coffee. Go over to Mama and Pop’s and spoil them with the video recorder you got for them.
The reminder of his bachelor status on Christmas didn’t really lighten his mood. Yeah, maybe that vision of Barry’s head on the pillow should be with the head detached. Oh, Jim, get a grip!
Jim stood up, stretched, and walked to the window. He’d left the blinds open the night before, which helped to explain why the room was so bright, as though it had been lit up by klieg lights. When he looked outside, he understood even better, because his neighborhood below was literally buried under a blanket of pristine white. The parked cars were little more than white hulks. The street itself didn’t even have any tire tracks.
And the snow was still coming down. It was breathtaking.
Jim shivered—which reminded him that he’d left the window open downstairs. Oh Lord, his gas bill would be sky-high for sure! He went into the bathroom and grabbed his flannel robe off a hook on the back of the door, and then slid into fleece-lined slippers, remembering sadly there was an identical pair gift wrapped for Barry under the tree.