The Christmas Knife

by Jackie North

  Pleased with himself he used the heel of his hand, protected by the glove, to scrape most of the snow off the logs. By the time he opened the door, he was cold from his knees down, which was the only part of him not covered.

  Without thinking he opened the front door as if he lived there, and felt the warmth of the interior of the house flash out at him. It felt so good that he sighed in pleasure as he piled the logs in the foyer before coming in himself, closing the door behind him.

  The sight of the Christmas tree all lit up was the same, but now, more, he knew what was on offer. Soft Christmas music, the scent of oranges and cloves, the lights on the tree, the gold and silver garland. And Kyle puttering around as he laid presents beneath the tree. Also, something in the kitchen smelled mighty good.

  "What are you making?" asked Clayton as he stomped the remainder of snow from his boots and hung up his borrowed outdoor things. "It smells amazing."

  "I told you, waffles," said Kyle. He turned to look at Clayton, smiling. "But I've folded egg whites with vanilla and a little bit of sugar, that's what makes it smell so nice."

  "I'm impressed," said Clayton.

  He came into the living room in his stocking feet, enjoying the sensation as the outdoor chill was replaced by indoor warmth along his legs. The tree drew his eye, now that it was plugged in with all the white lights blinking, and the star on top glittered. Then, seeing the presents up close, he realized that one had his name on the tag.

  "Is that for me?" asked Clayton. "But I don't have anything for you."

  His jaw worked as he contemplated the idea of being so rude as to have not brought something, even though there was no way he could have known where he'd end up.

  "I'm just giving you my presents for Brent and Richard," said Kyle. His voice was obviously meant to be soothing and he reached out with another one of those long, slow pats to Clayton's shoulder, where his hand lingered, leaving a trace of warmth. "They have everything, you know, and I'll just get them something else later."

  "But I don't have anything—" Clayton stopped, unsure how to go on. He couldn't insist on getting Kyle something, too, when there was no way, no way in hell, he could get to the store in time. He was stuck here with empty hands.

  "You brought me you," said Kyle, his eyes soft as he looked up at Clayton. "I mean, you brought me a guest for the holidays. You let me give the knife back to you without being mad about it. You brought in firewood. You're eating all the food that I bought."

  "That hardly seems like a gift for you," said Clayton. "More like a gift for me."

  "It's a gift for both of us," said Kyle, deciding. "I like to eat too, and having a guest lets me do something fancier than I normally do, so don't worry about it, okay?"

  It didn't seem like the discussion could do anything but escalate into something more heated, without either one of them being able to do anything about the situation. Clayton let himself be led into finishing up the popcorn strings while watching the second run of A Christmas Carol with Mr. Magoo. Then he let himself be talked into doing a quick load of laundry, once Kyle found out, somehow, that Clayton was running out of clean clothes.

  "I thought I'd be at Sarah's by now," Clayton said.

  "We'll you're here now, and the washer and dryer are in that little room off the kitchen."

  Clayton insisted on doing his own laundry, and wore his sweatpants and t-shirt while everything dried, then it was agreed that he could wash those in the morning.

  This activity involved way more discussion than Clayton was used to having about laundry, but it made him smile to watch Kyle earnestly point out the settings and dials on his space-age looking washer and dryer. Normally he'd tell whoever was showing him this that he wasn't a fucking idiot, but with Kyle, it felt better, nicer, to nod his head and just let the demonstration happen.

  When supper was ready, they sat down in the warm, bright kitchen to eat the most brilliant waffles Clayton had ever tasted. Kyle had told him the secret was to fold with egg whites with vanilla extract and sugar, and he was surprised that such a simple addition to the batter would make such a difference. Clayton shook his head in amazement and ate three waffles covered in butter and real maple syrup, and had a stack of bacon all to himself.

  "We can have eggnog and rum while we put the popcorn strings on the tree," promised Kyle. "And eat more freshly-made popcorn, of course.

  Which was the only reason Clayton didn't have four waffles covered in butter and real maple syrup.

  Chapter 9

  It was mutually decided that they'd have something else on the TV while they put up the popcorn, and though more Christmas music would have been just as nice, Clayton thought it was a nice gesture when Kyle ran through the channels and settled on the Patriots vs. Steelers game. Which he quickly found out as they started laying strings of popcorn, wasn't a gesture. Kyle was a football fan.

  "I don't know how this game is going to go," said Kyle. "But it should be good, even though Johnson broke his leg and can't play." Kyle rolled his eyes to show how foolish a thing it was to break your leg when you were on one of the Super Bowl-worthy teams.

  "Yeah, should be good," said Clayton. He followed the Denver Broncos, of course, but they weren't in the running this year, so any game would be fun to watch. "You like football?" he asked.

  "I do," said Kyle, frowning as he laid a string on an evergreen branch and then tweaked the pine needles so the string wove between them. "I prefer baseball, to be honest. I like to go to the games, order a beer and a bratwurst with mustard and sauerkraut, and enjoy the evening air. The best part is the seventh inning stretch, of course."

  "How about basketball?" asked Clayton, as he held the string up for Kyle so it wouldn't get tangled. "Follow any teams?"

  "Actually no," said Kyle, shaking his head, his whole attention focused on what he was doing. "Too much running up and down, too much hype. Too much indoor, if you know what I mean."

  "Yeah, I kind of do," said Clayton.

  He'd watched a few basketball games on TV, attended a few when he could afford the tickets, which wasn't often, and even then, he'd been in the nosebleed seats. It was always noisy and chaotic, and he compared that now in his mind to what a baseball game would be like, to go in person when the weather was nice, and to sit in the stands with somebody you liked to watch the game unfold before you.

  "Maybe we could go sometime," said Clayton, speaking before he'd fully thought this out.

  "To a basketball game?" asked Kyle. He frowned at the popcorn string in his hand and looked dubious.

  "No, to a baseball game," said Clayton. "We can catch a couple of tickets on the corner by the stadium by some guy who's selling them—" He stopped himself because it sounded very much like he was asking Kyle out. Like on a date.

  "Isn't that illegal?" asked Kyle. "I've done enough illegal things this year."

  "What?"

  "The Bowie knife and Indian beaded sheath," said Kyle. "They were stolen goods. I'm practically a felon!"

  Clayton laughed out loud, feeling it in his belly, and almost dropped the popcorn string. Kyle was the least likely person to ever become a felon that Clayton had ever met.

  Quite soon, they both decided that the game was too noisy. While they rearranged the silver tinsel to fit the newly draped popcorn string, they turned off the TV and built a fire with the wood that Clayton had brought inside.

  Kyle put on Christmas music, which played softly in the background while they worked. It was fitting, then, in the glow of the living room, decked out for the holidays, that Kyle served them glasses of eggnog with rum.

  After a little while, Kyle stepped back to examine the tree, his head tipped to one side. He looked sweet in the light of the Christmas tree and the glow of the fire, his russet hair lit up with gold, the planes of his cheeks rosy with pleasure. Clayton shook his head because he shouldn't be thinking that about his host. Not when they were just about strangers to each other.

  "So," said Kyle. He moved toward t
he tree to turn one of the bubble lights more upright. "Why didn't you go to your sister's wedding, six months ago? Did you object to the groom?"

  Clayton sighed, and shook his head as he took another slug of eggnog with rum. He figured it might come to this, that as Kyle was an over-sharer, he was also an I-want-to-know-you kind of guy as well. But since the hour was late, and the rum had soothed him down to his bones, he figured it might be okay, maybe, to open up a little.

  "When my nephew Shawn was eight," said Clayton, trying to begin that way. Then he coughed and began again. "Well, two years ago Sarah was married to this guy, and he seemed okay, a little bossy maybe, but he treated her well. I thought I'd come out and be honest—"

  "Do you mean out, as in literally out?" asked Kyle, who had been paying very close attention indeed.

  "Yes," said Clayton, for there was no sense in denying it. Besides which, Kyle had mentioned his two friends from Chicago who were a couple, you know, so he probably wouldn't mind. "It's my nature, as Uncle Bill calls it."

  "Your nature?" asked Kyle.

  "Uncle Bill likes to use his own terms for things," explained Clayton. "Well, anyway, Sarah's ex, he didn't like it and kicked me out of the house, told me never to come back. And the thing was, she took his side."

  "Aw, man, that sucks," said Kyle, and there was so much sympathy in his voice that Clayton almost couldn't bear it.

  "When she divorced him it was on account of she'd met Luke," said Clayton, talking as fast as he could to get it all out. "I don't think she would have had the strength without him to do it. When they got married, her and Luke, I was still hurt by it all and didn't go. And now I regret that."

  "But she's forgiven you, right? And you her?" asked Kyle. He served them both some more eggnog and rum, which, at this point, was less eggnog and more rum. "She invited you to Christmas, right?"

  "She did and I did, I think," said Clayton, slowly, taking a long slow sip. "But you miss out on some things, and you can't ever go back to them. I screwed up, and it just eats at me. Ever since."

  "Hey," said Kyle. He scooted close and brushed Clayton's forearm gently, and the gesture moved Clayton to his core. "She knows the effort you've made, with the knife, with driving through a blizzard. She knows you care about her."

  "You think?" asked Clayton, without any heat in his voice.

  "Yes," said Kyle, in a burry, low way that soaked into Clayton's skin. "I know."

  On impulse, Clayton laid his hand on top of Kyle's for a good long minute, and then moved away. You didn't just go into a guy's house and start pawing him, especially if you didn't know how he was inclined.

  "How about you?" asked Clayton, turning the tables as he took the red woolen blanket from the arm of the chair and folded it before placing it back. "What's a guy like you doing out in the middle of nowhere?"

  "My parents threw me out at the end of my junior year at college because I was gay," said Kyle, and it didn't surprise Clayton one bit, not that Kyle was so honest and, actually, not even that he was gay. "I wanted to get away, far away; Brent and Richard let me stay with them in their beautiful apartment—"

  "Where did you know them from?" asked Clayton, interrupting, taking another small swallow of eggnog.

  "They came to the campus and did one of those presentations, you know, do you want to be a CPA, do you want to be a high-priced lawyer."

  "Is that what they are?"

  "Yes," said Kyle, laughing. "I was doing software, so I finished with that. They make a lot of money, but they're always working, it seems, too much to enjoy their own apartment. I came out here where there are a lot of software jobs, and found one where I could work from home. I bought this property last year, or maybe it was a year and half ago, fixed it up, and here I am."

  "All alone," said Clayton.

  "Yeah," said Kyle. "But I have my dream, you know the one."

  "Yeah, I do," said Clayton, and the idea of it seemed to make more sense now. Kyle was getting himself settled in his own head, probably still reeling after the rejection of his parents the way Clayton had after the rejection of his sister. It took time to get over something like that, and he was glad that Kyle had had such good friends to help him out.

  They finished decorating the tree to Kyle's exacting standards, and turned off the music. Kyle popped more popcorn on the stove, sprinkling it with salt, drizzling it with butter.

  "There's an older black and white version from 1938," said Kyle as he settled near Clayton on the couch, tucking the bowl of popcorn between them. "But I like this one better." Using the remote, Kyle switched on the last of the versions of A Christmas Carol, the old black and white one from 1951 starring Alastair Sim.

  "Sounds good," said Clayton. At this point, Kyle could have regaled him with stories of his dreams of the open road, or made him watch a documentary on the history of fishes and it wouldn't have mattered. He was more content and relaxed than he'd been in years, since before his parents had died, making all the Christmases that followed seem a waste of time.

  The movie was a really good, enjoyable version, which surprised Clayton, but at times the story got short shrift as they floated in and out of conversation, always with the bowl of popcorn tucked between them as they sat close on the couch. Clayton told himself he'd moved toward Kyle so that he wouldn't have to lean to see around the Christmas tree branches, but really, it was nice to be close, sitting just like this, listening to Kyle talk. He stretched both his arms, holding the glass with eggnog and rum gently cupped in one hand. The other hand just about brushed the middle of Kyle's warm back.

  Kyle described the truck he was going to get to haul his 28 foot Airstream with a pair of twin beds in the back. And how one of the twin beds would be turned into a workstation, where he could do his leather work and keep his tools all in one place.

  "I'll keep my supplies in the back of the truck, I think," said Kyle, whispering a little as though they were in a movie theater with other patrons who might be disturbed by the level of detail in Kyle's dream life.

  "Why don't you just get the Classic," said Clayton, whispering back, not taking his eyes from the TV screen, though all of his attention was focused on Kyle. "You'll have more room to store your stuff without taking up a whole bed for your supplies and tools."

  "You know Airstream trailers?" asked Kyle, not whispering now, his voice rising with surprise as he turned on the couch. As he did this, he nearly upset the popcorn bowl, which Clayton steadied with one quick hand that he dropped between them.

  "Sure," said Clayton, talking normally now. "I drive so much in the company truck, I get a hankering to slow down and stay at some of the lovely places I see on the road. Every now and then I stop at the dealers to take a look at the new models, you know? Just to appease my wanderlust."

  Kyle was watching him with those wide eyes of his, the blue of them touched with silver from the glitter on the Christmas tree and the black and white images on the TV screen. He had beautiful eyes and a lovely, quirky mouth, and such a passion for everything that Clayton found himself leaning towards him as if they meant to kiss. But at the last minute, he realized that he'd had too much to drink, and that he ought not to be hitting on his host, not if he was being a good Christmas guest, which he promised himself he'd be.

  Instead, he leaned back and groused to himself about missed chances and never being able to go back to that moment. Then again, he'd only known Kyle a little more than twenty-four hours, and it wouldn't do to make a pass. Kyle deserved better, and it was then that Clayton realized he needed to remove himself from the situation if he was having thoughts like that.

  Keeping that in mind, he casually relaxed into the couch until the movie was over, and stretched when Kyle got up to turn off the TV and the Christmas lights.

  "I have stockings," said Kyle, with a little laugh. "Of course I do, but they've got Brent and Richard's names on them. And mine, also."

  "That's okay," said Clayton as he got up from the couch. "I don't need a stocking."


  "Oh, yes you do," said Kyle, firmly, in that way of his when he wanted what he wanted. "I'm a good Christmas host, and you shall have a stocking. Look, they're right here."

  With a bit of laughter, they hung up the three stockings because it seemed to please Kyle to see them there just as he'd planned.

  "What about presents?" asked Clayton. "Is Santa going to bring those as well as fill the stockings?"

  Kyle dropped his head and rubbed his cheek, seeming upset about something. But when he lifted his head, he was laughing.

  "I forgot to make the Rice Krispies treats to leave out for him," said Kyle, his lovely mouth smiling.

  "We can leave him some eggnog and rum," said Clayton, meaning to soothe Kyle. "We'll leave a little glass for him. You'll see, it'll be great."

  "But then Santa will be driving while intoxicated," said Kyle, his eyes wide as though he were aghast at the prospect, though when he laughed at their little game of make-believe, Clayton joined in.

  "He's got some heft to him," said Clayton. "I think he can take it."

  With some ceremony, they left a small glass, the last in the carton, of eggnog, and Kyle doctored it with a healthy swig of rum. Then Clayton absently followed Kyle around while he turned off the lights, and checked the stove. Lastly, they went to the front door and opened it to welcome Christmas in.

  The snow had stopped coming down, and though there was cloud cover, a low, grey sheet in the sky, it was easy to see in the stillness of the near-darkness that the blizzard was over. Even if the sun stayed behind the clouds the next day, it was going to be a white Christmas. The plows could start scraping the roads, and within a day or so he'd be headed to Sarah's. As to what might become of this little interlude between him and a guy who'd purchased stolen goods, he didn't know. But he might want to find out. No, definitely, he wanted to find out.

  Chapter 10