The Icicles

by R. W. Clinger

  Pam brings up the rear, swinging her purse at her left side, stepping carefully over and around one icy spot after the next, concerned of plummeting to its asphalt, repeatedly saying, “I don’t want to break a hip.”

  Once inside the restaurant, the Icicle family is a provided with a round table. Two seats are left empty, opposite Jonah and Sandy. The pair of seats sit between Pam on their left side and Jake on their right side.

  As Jonah studies the ruby-red-trimmed-in-gold material around him—draperies, napkins, chairs, carpet—and a petite Chinese-American waitress with pretty, black eyes who masterfully places menus in front of his family, he realizes that one of the empty seats belongs to his father, Bill, who has failed them all this evening, and most of their holidays as a family, hiding yet again inside his small, personal, and whatever-happens world.

  The other seat is occupied by an imaginary Lucas Beam. It’s the first time Jonah thinks about and sees his ex-boyfriend: model handsome, perfect posture, unblinking. Lucas with his long blond hair and shining, bright blue eyes. Lucas with his broad shoulders and soccer player build. Lucas’s all-white smile and a left dimple in his cheek. Lucas at twenty-eight, the same age as Willa, a fit athlete who once liked to talk about sports, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Cleveland Indians. Lucas far and away from the Icicle family on this celebratory evening because Pam exploded on him at Easter, telling him never to return and never to speak to her again, and preferably her son.

  Lucas gone. Lucas vanished. Over something so simple and ridiculous as a casual conversation about Pam’s Easter ham being slightly over-salty; the beginning to an end. Relationships destroyed because of opinions, a preservative, and strong wills. Such a rotten scene at the time that just so happened to rip Lucas from Jonah’s life. Such madness. A shame.

  Damn, Jonah wishes he could erase it from his memory; anything and everything concerning Lucas Beam.

  The waitress, Ching So, serves water, filling six glasses from a pitcher. In crystal clear English, she says, “I’ll give you a few minutes to look at your menus. In the meantime, I’d like to take your drink orders.”

  Following the drink orders, Pam complains about the lighting, or lack of, in the restaurant, “It’s too dim in here. Everything looks like the inside of a casket.” She also complains about the red-and-yellow decor, calling it a whirlwind and blur. She bitches about an ash scent that bothers her and how they are the only patrons in the establishment. “Is this food really good here, Willa? I trusted you when you said you wanted to come here.”

  One would think the matriarch of this family could maybe stop her antics at this point, but she doesn’t. Pam states that her flatware is dirty even though it’s not, sparkling in the light. She is also unhappy with what she calls the “Beijing Music,” which she judges as unpleasant, hurting her ears.

  No one around the table snaps at Pam, but maybe they should. She sounds more like an irritant than a mother trying to enjoy her children and their special partners. Jake, Bobo, Willa, Jonah, and Sandy hide their faces behind the large menus, refraining from going off on Pam, saying something that they could individually regret.

  Within the next few minutes, appetizers are ordered for the group: pot stickers, crab Rangoon, fried octopus, and fried snap peas. Ching So takes the family’s orders, one by one, starting with Pam, moving on to Willa, etc., until everyone at the table has placed their chosen meal.

  When the food is served, Pam complains about her sweet and sour chicken being cold. She tells Bobo that his General Tso’s shrimp smells and looks like it’s four days old. Truth is, Pam complains about everything during the entire dinner. Everything. She even bitches about the snowfall that occurs outside. The view consists of plump and wet flakes falling down from the grey-white heavens and Willa’s 4Runner.

  * * * *

  Having their bellies filled after overeating at The Flying Peking Duck Restaurant, the Icicle family is quiet on their return to Ross Street. Jake, tucked away in his small confines at the rear of 4Runner, in a fetal position, is fast asleep. Jonah rests his head on Sandy’s shoulder, blinking occasionally. Bobo yawns behind the wheel, obviously suffering from his multiple plates of monosodium glutamates. Sullenness occurs with such ease. The people within the vehicle are adult babies, happy for the time being.

  Once on Ross Street, Bobo parks the 4Runner in the driveway, next to Sandy’s truck. Everyone exits the car and, in a single file, as if they are elementary school children on a field trip, enter the Icicle residence, still quiet, perhaps reserved until the next outrageous event upon this day-two celebration unfolds.

  It is Pam who suggests they have decaffeinated coffee and the remains of a chocolate cake she purchased from Aldi early this morning before her children and their significant others arrived. She removes dessert plates from a kitchen cupboard positioned above the kitchen sink, placing them on the table. Next, she realizes she cannot make coffee because the electric is still off.

  Frustrated, she sighs, and tells the group, “The cake will suffice.”

  Willa complains about being cold since the electric is still off; the house feels like an ice box or freezer in the butcher’s shop. She decides to use the bathroom on the first floor as Jonah, Sandy, and Bobo sit down at the circular table in the kitchen. Jake chooses to return to his underground den, probably jonesing for a fresh buzz from his latest grown strand of what he calls Winter Bliss. Hungry for the dessert and something sweet, Bobo serves himself a giant chunk of cake.

  Sandy leans into Jonah and asks, “What time is it?”

  “Almost eleven.”

  “We should turn in. What do you say?”

  “Sure. I was thinking the same thing.”

  * * * *

  Nighttime at 393 Ross Street poses a strange quiet that Jonah, ever since he was a little boy, enjoys. Even as an adult, he craves how the house creates its own noises: floorboards and bricks moving; something in the walls scurrying; window glass ever so slightly shifting in their frames from the December wind. It’s not haunting or offers goose pimples, although some would say it does.

  For Jonah, the sounds sweep him back to a time before his current relationship with Sandy and his failed relationship with Lucas Beam, bridging into childhood, reaching out to a time when he was maybe twelve or thirteen years old and learning that he felt different than the other boys in the sixth grade. How bizarre those early days of his life were, comprehending puberty and questioning his attraction to other boys among his judgmental peers. How cruel that time was: learning himself and obtaining such confusing, and somewhat shocking, definitions of homosexuality, numerous erections, and a race of hormones. A tedious world then. A curtness of life that seemed impossible to get through, but he managed. He has always managed.

  Sandy whispers, “Do you miss him?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Don’t play with me. Do you miss Lucas Beam?”

  Jonah’s mind begins to race. He recalls his six-month relationship with the fresco artist: extravagant dinner parties, sleepovers all around the world when they stayed with Lucas’s friends, the many art shows they attended of Lucas’s semi-famous work, the trips to Madrid, Florence, and Rome. Wealthy Lucas making love to him in the wee hours of the morning: slowly, always slowly, with far too much eye contact and smiling.

  Jonah recalls their intimate dinners together, an extravagant shopping spree in Mexico City, and other events during their brief affair. Finally, before responding to Sandy’s question, he revisits Easter Sunday on Ross Street this past spring: Lucas and Pam bantering over her dry and salty ham; Pam calling him snooty and pretentious and almighty; Lucas simply calling her a bitch and unable to cook pork. Pam yelling at him, “If you don’t get out of my house, I will put dinner forks in your eyes!” Such an ugly scene. The worst. Something Jonah will never forget, embarrassed. Haunting. Relentless in his mind, always.

  A battery-operated candle flickers inside the room, offering minimal light, but enough
to see. A deep sigh escapes Jonah from the bottom of his lungs.

  “I do miss him. But that feels like forever ago. Now, I have you, and I have this holiday…us. It’s nice to have you here and to be with you this Christmas. You’re making the memory very special.”

  “Yes, Jonah, you have me. Here now. Tomorrow. The next day. And next year. I’m yours.”

  They are just about to make love, slipping out of their underwear and moving together, when the bedroom door—unlocked and unsupervised—opens and Bobo enters with a Bic lighter he probably borrowed from Jake’s stash. Bobo is naked like a newborn baby. His chiseled body glows in the lighter’s minimal, golden light. The man’s dick is limp.

  He beams a smile from ear to ear on his face and says, “Boys, I’ve come to give you my Christmas present.”

  “Jesus,” Sandy whispers, half laughing.

  “Bobo, are you high?” Jonah asks, noticing that the man’s eyes are somewhat lined in red.

  Bobo nods, chuckling. “Like a kite. Jake and I just smoked the best joint I think I’ve ever had. He called it Silver Bells. Great shit. The two of you should try some after you try me.” He flicks one of his pert nipples, grins. The free hands rolls down and over his rocky abs, continues its adventure southward, and wraps around his droopy cock. He begins to the stroke the dick, seeming happy with his labor.

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed with Willa?” Jonah asks. “I’m sure she wants to hang on to your big bulk tonight.”

  “She’s out like a light. As I said, I want to give the two of you your Christmas present.”

  Sandy shakes his head, still laughing. He puts a fist up to his mouth, trying to stifle the sound. “He’s out of his mind. I love him like a brother, but he’s totally a nut bag.”

  “Check out this nut bag,” Bobo says. He spreads his legs ever so slightly and shakes his dick and balls to and fro. “Talk about some jingle bell action.”

  A deep sigh escapes Jonah. “Bobo, go back to your wife. You don’t belong here.”

  Bobo has a mind of his own and doesn’t listen. He walks to the bed and slips between the two men. “We’re going to have the best threesome ever.” He kisses Jonah’s chest, now Sandy’s. Between nipple licks, he murmurs, “Yum.”

  Footsteps pitter patter down the hall: light, airy, definitely belonging to a female. There’s a feminine gasp. “Stop, Bobo! Just stop!” Willa screams at the open door. “Jesus Christ, what are you doing? Get off the bed! Now!”

  Bobo spins around. His ass becomes positioned in Sandy’s face, orbs only inches away from the man’s mouth.

  Sandy smacks the muscled buttocks with a palm. Snap! He instructs, “Listen to your wife, Bobo.”

  On all fours, Bobo yelps and slightly jumps, perhaps shocked. In doing so, his rump falls against Sandy’s face. Butt cheeks rub against Sandy’s lips; ass-slit grazes his flared nose.

  Sandy pulls away from the well-built rump, smacks it three consecutive times…snap!…snap!…snap! “Off! Off! Off!”

  Jonah who can’t stop laughing, watching the provocative scene. Ludicrous comes to mind, a comedy of errors.

  “Bobo! Listen to me! Get off their bed!” Willa yells, sounding more like a fire alarm—a high-pitched squeal exits her lungs—instead of a human.

  A buff and naked Bobo climbs off the bed and stands near its base and his wife. She slaps him in the chest with an open palm and scolds him.

  “What the fuck were you thinking? You’re naked. Your dick’s hard. They’re gay. Go to bed! Go to bed now!”

  Bobo lowers his head and trots out of the room. His bulbous and athletic bottom moves right and left, gorgeous like Spartacus’s rear.

  Willa follows behind, shaking her head, obviously heated and disgusted with her husband, once again forced to deal with his sexual antics and his condition.

  Jonah and Sandy are alone. Jonah rises from the bed and closes the door.

  “Does it lock?” Sandy asks.

  “Unfortunately not.” Jonah jumps back into bed and cuddles next to his lover.

  Sandy admits, “I don’t want to sound vulgar, but your brother-in-law has the body from hell. He’s gorgeous.”

  “He’s got you turned on,” Jonah says, squeezing the erection between Sandy’s legs, noting its hardness.

  “You’re being bad.”

  “I’m just picking up where I left off,” Jonah says.

  The two make quiet love for the next twenty minutes: lots of kissing, sucking, and handjobs. Eventually, they settle and listen to the house around them. Everyone seems to have gone to their own private room, prepared to fall into heavy dreams of animated polar bears, sugarplums, and magical fairies among the heavy scent of marijuana.

  * * * *

  Christmas Day Morning

  Jonah hears clawing at the bedroom door, which wakes him from his fantastical and extraordinary dreams. With one eye barely open, he sees the time on his cellphone: shortly after nine. The clawing continues as he takes in the winter white hue within his childhood room. Strangely, he thinks of Lucas Beam and how they slept together in this bed, and made love. He wonders where Lucas is this Christmas: Venice, showing off a new painting; Liverpool with his close friends, Bunny, Levi, and Tim; Los Vegas with a new lover? Wherever Lucas is, he’s probably happy, in love, and living an astonishing life filled with good things and a very handsome man, Jonah forgotten. Jonah’s heart tells him Lucas is doing just fine, having survived the unbearable and humiliating wrath of Pam Icicle.

  Good for him, Jonah thinks. I never wanted any harm to come his way.

  The clawing at the door becomes consistent, drawing Jonah away from his thoughts of Lucas: click, scratch, click, click, scratch.

  Awake, facing the ceiling, Sandy grumbles, “What the fuck is that noise?”

  Before Jonah can answer, the clawing becomes tyrannical, and the door swings open. Hornfuzz lets out an obnoxious bark, runs to the bed, and leaps. The poodle lands on Sandy’s chest and starts yapping. The canine begins to hump the mound of bedspread, panting.

  Sandy sits up with the speed of Superman. “Jesus Christ, he’s trying to fuck me!”

  “Calm down. Just calm down.” Jonah laughs. “He can’t help it that he likes you.” He calls out the dog’s name and removes the horny canine from the bed. He carries the still-thrusting and big-eyed dog into the hallway, places him down, and escapes back to the bedroom. Once inside, with the door closed, he hauls his piece of luggage in front of the door, hoping it will deter Hornfuzz from a second invasion and attack.

  “That little fucker needs a girlfriend or boyfriend,” Sandy says from the bed. He has the edge of the bedspread pulled up to his neck. “He was going to rape me.”

  “It’s an eight-pound miniature poodle, Sandy. I’m sure you were fine.”

  “I feel dirty. I feel violated. I feel—”

  “Are you done with the dramatics?” Jonah asks, standing at the edge of the bed.

  Sandy shakes his head. “His pink pecker wanted all over me. Everywhere. You’d feel dirty, too, if he attacked you.”

  Jonah ignores him, over the excitement. He tells Sandy, “I’m going downstairs for coffee. You coming?”

  “Only if that furry rapist isn’t down there.”

  “I’ll put him out. Someday, the two of you will love each other and have a perfect relationship. This is just the rocky stage.” Jonah kisses his lover—sweetly, just enough tongue, nothing wild. After dressing in the same clothes he wore the previous day, he exits the room and heads downstairs.

  * * * *

  The electric is back on, and Willa makes pancakes at the stove in the kitchen. Smoke rises from a skillet. Bobo sits at the kitchen table in nothing more than a pair of running shorts. A cup of steaming coffee sits in front of his left pec and hard nipple. Pam is to his right, drinking tomato juice and what smells like vodka. Jonah hears Jake snoring in the basement, suffering from clogged sinuses. As usual, Bill is nowhere to be found, probably enjoying a walk around the snow-covered city wi
th a plastic travel mug of java in a gloved hand, pondering the world.

  “Merry Christmas,” Jonah says.

  In unison, the Icicles reply with a sing-song, “Merry Christmas.”

  As Jonah fetches a cup of black coffee, sitting at the table on his brother-in-law’s left side, Pam bitchily calls out to her daughter, “You’re burning the pancakes! And you’re going to catch the house on fire!”

  “I’ve got this, Mom,” Willa snaps back, turning the burner’s heat down.

  “Of course, you do,” Pam says, deciding to down the entire cocktail, chug after chug, and fetching herself a second one.

  * * * *

  Following breakfast, leaving a pile of dishes in the sink, it is Pam (semi-buzzed and smiling more than usual) who suggests, “It’s snowing. Let’s all take advantage of this and go outside. We need to find Bill.”

  No one objects, including Sandy, who seems to be enjoying Jonah’s family up to this point.

  The Icicles dress in heavy coats, boots, gloves, hats, and other whatnots to protect them from the cold outside. Eventually, they exit the house like minions, one after the next, in single file.

  The weather is a crisp twenty degrees; a typical winter’s day along Lake Erie, nothing shocking. The sun hides behind a gray-blue blanket of clouds, similar to Bill’s actions: present but not viewable.

  Near the vehicles, it is a childish Bobo who throws the first snowball, plastering Willa in the back.

  Willa returns fire with her own snowball, misses her husband, and hits Jonah in the right shoulder. What transpires is a chain reaction of throwing snowballs at each other and an epic snowball fight. Crisp, white snowballs hit cars, the house, the mailbox, and anything else in the vicinity. The Icicles become targets for each other. Snowballs fly left and right. Screams mix with laughter. Even Pam, setting her third cocktail down near the end of the driveway, bombards her children, careening one after the next snowball through midair, becoming ferocious and mighty, a small but substantial woman.