I Brake for Christmas

by Michael P. Thomas

  “I see.”

  “So it was either go home and pretend like nothing ever happened—which would basically amount to agreeing to go through life pretending the same thing—or sit this one out and let it blow over.”

  “That kinda sucks.”

  He shrugs; it does kinda suck. “My parents are pretty rigid, but they’re not bad or mean. We love each other. They’ll come to terms. Just maybe not tomorrow.”

  “Still…”

  He passes me a peanut butter-dunked cracker.

  “What about you?” he asks. “You out to your parents?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d that go? How old were you?”

  “It was last summer. There’s this Mexican restaurant we like on Pearl Street. We were there one night, sitting out on the patio, all five of us, right? We’re eating chips and salsa, waiting for our food, and my mom goes, ‘So, Brent.’ She goes, ‘You’re gay, right?’

  “I flinched for a second, just ‘cause it was so out of the blue, but everybody was looking at me, super casual, right? Like she just asked me what’s my favorite color. And I was like, okay, this is how we’re playing it. I mean, it was hardly an Earth-shattering revelation. More of a formality, really. So I go, ‘Yeah.’ And my sister says, ‘Told you.’ And my brother’s like, ‘Who’d you tell?’ To my sister. ‘Who did you think might not know?’

  “So I eat a couple more chips and my dad goes, ‘Are you safe?’ And I say, ‘Yeah.’ I mean, at this point I’ve had one boyfriend and like two hand jobs, right? So I go, ‘Yeah,’ and my dad’s like ‘Good.’ And then our food came and we ate it and poof! I was out.”

  George is laughing. “You’re not that obvious,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t grow up watching me re-enact the Miss Universe pageant with a yellow towel on my head for my glamorous blonde hair. If we’re gonna be doing much more of that whole kissing thing, you should probably know: I’m pretty gay.”

  George shrugs. “Yeah, well, if we’re gonna be doing much more of that whole kissing thing, that’s probably a good thing. Speaking of…” He points to a sign for an upcoming rest stop.

  I pull over when we get to it. And we do a lot more of the whole kissing thing.

  It’s after nine o’clock by the time we roll back through Vegas. This time we stay on the highway; we’ve got a solid three and a half hours yet ahead and I’m starting to get a little tired of the car. My legs aren’t so long, but by the time we get back to Inland I’ll be about ready to unfold them.

  Which is partly why, after we speed by the fourth billboard advertising some casino’s twenty-four-hour, ninety-nine cent steak-and-eggs breakfast, we agree to stop at the state line again on our way back out. “We don’t have to hang out,” George says. “But I’m hungry, that’s cheap, and I’ve had to take a shit for like the last two hundred miles.”

  I laugh. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Well, it’s not very romantic, is it?”

  “Not very,” I agree.

  “Not very,” he says again. “But now we’re at the point where it’s coming, romance or not.”

  “I get it,” I insist, laughing again. “So we’ll stop.”

  Once we’re parked, George bolts for the bathroom. I take a second to shake my legs out and enjoy a couple lungsful of air that smell of something other than car, feet, and cooped-up man, then I follow him into the sprawling casino.

  The maze to the 24-hour cafeteria leads us through fields of dinging slot machines, past over-lit black jack and poker tables, around a massive faux-stone fireplace bedecked with pine boughs and Christmas stockings, and past an animatronic diorama of elves and Mrs. Claus decorating a flocked tree with offers of free slot play.

  Our server is in a decidedly un-festive mood, jaunty Santa hat notwithstanding, but I for one am packed when we get up from the table, and the ten dollar bill George leaves on the table is mostly tip.

  “That was pretty darn good, for two bucks or whatever it cost,” George says. “Look how full I am.” He pushes his stomach out playfully, which I take as an invitation to rub it. He smiles. When he mutters, “That feels good,” I pull my hand away. It feels damn good, but if I’m not gonna undress him right here on the casino floor and revel in his every naked curve in front of gamblers and cocktail waitresses, then I need to stop touching him.

  “Put that away,” I say, giving his swollen pot a smack. He sucks it in with an obliging grin, then makes a great show of rounding back out when he exhales.

  “I can’t,” he says with an artificial frown.

  “Well, get it away from me,” I say.

  But George’s backside is of course no less inflammatory. I give him a two-step head start for the door, then follow him just to appreciate the bounce and roll.

  “Should we play for a little bit before we go?”

  I shrug. “I got a couple bucks,” I say. “This place was lucky this morning.”

  “Here look,” George says, striding over to a cluster of slot machines near the sports bar. “These ones are only a nickel. And this one’s called Santa’s Reindeer. On Christmas Eve, that’s gotta be lucky.” He plops the butt in question on the stool in front of the machine. “Gimme a dollar,” he says, sticking his hand out, palm up.

  I oblige. The dollar bill gets him twenty credits, once he slides it into the machine.

  He pulls the handle once, then again, then again. The wheels spin, and symbols whir by, but besides the number of credits dropping down, nothing much else happens.

  “You have to play five credits per pull to win the jackpot,” I tell him, reading this off the side of the machine.

  “‘Cause I might win the jackpot? How do you do that? Each time I pull it, it just takes one credit away.”

  “Press this,” I say, pointing to and then myself pressing an illuminated button marked Bet Max Credits. George pulls the handle. The wheels spin. A bell lands on the line in the first window; a seven lands on the line in the second window; nothing lands on the line in the third.

  “Now it’s just taking credits away five at a time,” he says. “This isn’t very satisfying.” He pulls the handle again. Wins three nickels. “Do people really come here to gamble? Why would you?”

  “You just won,” I say.

  “Three nickels, big whoop. Cost me five nickels to win ‘em.” He pulls the handle again. “Why wouldn’t you just cut your dollar bill into twenty shreds and then throw them away five at a time? And what’s with the siren?” He pulls on the handle yet again, but nothing happens. He tries again, but it’s frozen. “And now it’s broken. Forget it, Brent. Let’s just go. ‘Wait for attendant,’” he says, reading a blinking button on the machine’s front console. “What does that even mean?”

  I look at the line of jolly smiling Santa Clauses across the machine’s face, then read the table of winning combinations above George’s head. “Um, I think it means you just hit the jackpot.”

  “What?”

  I point to the table of winners, and we read it together. One Santa face is worth forty nickels. Two Santa faces on the line are worth five hundred nickels. Three Santa faces win the progressive jackpot which, according to the digital sign perched above the entire cluster of machines, is just a few nickels short of eight hundred dollars.

  “Eight hundred bucks? Sweet!” George’s face lights up like…well, like a guy who just found out he won eight hundred bucks for two minutes’ worth of work at a slot machine. “Shouldn’t there be nickels raining out of the machine? Hand me one of those coin buckets.” He points to a stack of plastic casino-branded cups. “We’re rich! Oh, hey, excuse me!” He hails a passing cocktail waitress in a mini elf-themed costume. “Champagne, please,” he says, once her facial expression indicates he has her attention. “For me and my friend, here. We’re rich, you know!”

  “Congratulations,” she mutters, making a notation on her little white pad and sashaying away.

  “But seriously, Brent,” he says, swat
ting at the side of the machine. “Where are all my nickels?”

  “I guess that’s the ‘attendant’ we’re waiting for. Maybe they’ll write you one of those big checks. They’ll probably take your picture.”

  “Looking like I’ve been sitting in a car all day.”

  “Hey, for eight hundred bucks I’m sure you could afford a stylist for the picture if you really wanted to.”

  “No way, dude. You know what this money is? This is Christmas in Vegas money! We’re rich!”

  * * * *

  The hotel suite is one of those two-story jobs like you see when a sitcom shoots their Very Special Vegas episode, complete with panoramic Strip vista, brass-railed spiral staircase, and even a grand piano on which I plunk out a few Christmas carols for the enjoyment of the butler that comes with the room as he sets the vast table for our brunch. Having awakened in a round bed with George in my arms, my quads worn out from a rapturous night of fat-butt fucking, I’m full to bursting with comfort and joy, and cannot help but sing out tidings of same. We’d planned on finding a Christmas brunch buffet, but the hotel’s handsome night clerk had been most insistent—in this suite, the buffet comes to you. Hot fresh eggs and coffee, cold fresh fruit and juice; a veritable trough of meats, potatoes, and cheeses alongside a tower of waffles, breads, and pastries.

  Accompanied by my sonorous rendition of “Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light,” George descends the spiral staircase in nothing but his flannel pants, his big-eater belly leading the way, as if impatient for the forthcoming feed. He’s carrying a meticulously wrapped gift, and I leap up from the piano bench at the sight of it.

  “Is that for me?”

  “It is.”

  I scamper a considerable distance across the room and pelt his face with kisses. “Thank you, baby. But you didn’t have to buy me anything.” I take great handfuls of his great butt and knead them, saying “You gave me an amazing present last night. And this morning.”

  He gives my attentive crotch an affectionate Hello squeeze and murmurs, “And I hope that gift keeps on giving. This is just a little something to mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  “You sweet thing.”

  “Go on, open it.”

  “I can’t wait to, baby,” I assure him with yet another kiss on the cheek. “But first, let’s have a toast. Where’s that champagne?”

  * * * *

  “I see her coming,” George says, yanking me back to reality of the state line casino floor. Oh the ways we can spend these eight hundred dollars…This is but one of the fantasies I’ve allowed to unfold in the few minutes we’ve been waiting for our friend Attendant. A fistful of free money and Las Vegas a mere half hour back up the highway? We’re limited only by our imaginations, and mine’s running wild.

  Following the trajectory of his pointer finger, I see our elfin waitress making her way to our little corner. We seem also to have drawn the attention of three hulking Pacific Islander men in matching sport coats, and they walk toward us with a purpose.

  “Which one of them do you suppose is carrying the check?” George asks nervously.

  “Maybe it’s somewhere in an office. On a related topic,” I say casually, “do you happen to have an ID on you somewhere that says you’re twenty-one?”

  He rolls his eyes. “My fake ID’s a disaster. It says I’m six-foot-two and thirty-three. It works at pretty much one bar in town, and that’s ‘cause the owner’s a Pi-O. It sucks. I don’t exactly carry it around.”

  “Okay. If they ask, I was playing. Binh, don’t fail me now,” I joke. I’d hoped for a splash of bubbly confidence, but one of the large men signals to the waitress that he’d like to make his presentation before she offers hers, and she acquiesces without expression, turning her attention to the small stack of cocktail napkins on her tray.

  “Congratulations, gentlemen,” intones the smallest of the large men, who easily still outweighs George and I together, probably along with the cocktail waitress.

  “That’s a big win for nickels,” affirms the larger of his two large partners. His neck is bigger around than my waist. “We just need to see some ID, please, and we’ll get you fellas squared away.”

  “Of course,” I say, taking care to fish the Connecticut driver’s license rather than the Colorado one out of my wallet. I repeat the mantra of Binh Vo’s birthday in my head, February 28th, 1969, as I hand over the laminated card. Makes me twenty-two. “Can’t be too careful, and all that. We understand.”

  He barely even glances at “my” ID. “Thank you,” he says, handing it back. He turns to George. Patiently; nobody’s demeanor is accusatory in the least. Says, “Sir?”

  “Who, me?” George says. “You need to see mine, too?”

  “Please. Video says you’re our winner.”

  Video? So much for that idea.

  “Yeah, but…” George pats the pockets of his pants. “Um…it must be in the car.”

  “Of course,” says the smaller man. “Please, feel free to go and get it. We’ll walk you out.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll see you to the door.”

  “Yes, but…the money.”

  “The money’s not at issue, sir,” the security guy assures George. “We card everybody who looks to be under forty. You are under forty?”

  “I am, yeah.”

  “So you understand. You’ll just bring us your ID, we’ll give you your check. It’s our pleasure.”

  “I’m sure,” mutters George. “The champagne?” he asks. A last-ditch effort.

  “As soon as we see ID.”

  “Right.”

  “Shall we?” All three men advance toward the exit in a way that sweeps us along ahead of them. There’s no way around or between them, and if there was? It’s not like there’s anywhere to go. We’re busted, period. Between slabs of shoulder I see our waitress shrug, then start sipping our champagne.

  “No hard feelings, fellas,” the big neck assures us once we’re out in the parking lot. “Come on back with a couple real IDs,” he slaps me on the back to show I’m not imagining the emphasis, “and we’re glad to have you.”

  “Guess we’re not rich,” George says.

  “Not tonight,” the man says. “Merry Christmas, though. You boys drive safe now.”

  The glass doors swing both ways for easiest possible access to the rainbow-carpeted lobby and the gaming floor beyond. He can’t actually slam the door on us, but his point is not lost.

  “At least we ate first,” George silver-lines. He takes my hand in his and grins. “Where’d we park?”

  It’s only a couple hours back to campus, but coming, as they do, at the end of a long day of driving, they require a bit of slogging through. We stop yet again for fast food, mostly for a bathroom break and a boost from the bright lights. George offers to drive, but I insist I’m okay; I pull off at the very next exit and say, “Actually, that’d be great.” I can take over again in a few miles, I tell him as we’re swapping spots. I just need a break from paying attention. It just feels good to put my head back for a minute and close my eyes.

  Shortly I open them again, feeling much refreshed. I say as much to George. “Whew, I needed that. I can drive again whenever.”

  He flicks on the signal for a right turn as I’m saying it; he must be tired, too. But he doesn’t just ease off the road. He makes a hard right turn. I sit up a little straighter in my seat. “Where are we?”

  “O’Donnell,” he says.

  “What?”

  “We’re home.”

  “Wait, already? Did I fall asleep?”

  “If the last forty-five minutes of snoring are to be believed.”

  “Oh dang, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. You drove all day.”

  “Yeah, but…how’d you stay awake?”

  “It was nothing a little rolled-down window and a turned-up radio couldn’t handle.”

  “Well, thanks. I guess I was tireder than I thought.”

&nb
sp; “Don’t sweat it.” He smacks my thigh. “Tell you what, though: that was a long fuckin’ drive just to end up where we started. Let’s get the fuck out of the car.”

  “God, yes,” I say, practically rolling out my open door. “I think I’ll walk back to Chambers. I’ll come get the car in the morning.”

  “Walk back?”

  “Dude, I can’t get back in the car.”

  “Yeah, that I get. I was just…you know…‘cause my roommate’s gone…”

  “For real?”

  “You should come up.”

  Now the butterflies in my belly are awake, too. I had sort of braced myself for, What happens in the car in the middle of nowhere stays in the car and the middle of nowhere. “I don’t know…”

  “What?”

  “It’s just…I need a shower, for one thing.”

  “We got one of those,” he says. “Suitemates are gone, too. I got me a private bathroom until I think January third, when Henry comes back.”

  “The luxury!”

  “So come take advantage.”

  “Of the luxury?”

  He cocks a grin at me. “Of whatever you want.”

  “I mean…”

  He comes around the car. He takes my hand in his. “No pressure, okay? If you wanna go back to your room, I’ll walk you back to Chambers.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But I will. I want to. What I’m getting at, Brent…what I’m trying to say…I’d kinda like it if we could hang out. If you want to. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but I mean, you know, like…not in the car…”

  I swallow. Hard. Look at my feet. The car. The back door of his dorm. “I’d like that, too,” I manage to croak out. I don’t dredge up the nerve to look at his face until I know he’s smiling.

  “So come up.”

  “You sure?”

  He nods. He smiles. He takes a step, tugging gently on my hand. “Come on, I think I even have a clean towel.”

  The room smells like unclean underwear and hard-worn athletic shoes, and looks like a tornado blows through it about once every two weeks. George strides casually from the door, through the maze of cast-off jeans, flip-flops, and dining hall plates, and cranks open the window above an unmade twin bed, onto which he plops, declaring it his own.