by David Connor
“I d-do.”
Manny smiled again. “Thank you. Anyway, if you’d say more, I wouldn’t be spilling my guts, airing so much of my dirty laundry. I feel stupid doing all the talking here.”
“S-s-sor-sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just try. How bad can it be?”
“P-pretty b-b-bad.”
“You get down to Mexico often?”
AC nodded.
“Use your words, amigo. It’s not like we have anything better to do for the next two hours. How often is often?”
“Almost every Christmas,” came out eventually, also butchered.
“Cool. I thought about heading down there this year, myself, to see my madre y padre. Not sure they want to see me, but I thought about it. Posadas, Pastorelas, Nacimiento, Noche Buena, and nochebuena, all of that is still Christmas to me. There’d be a dozen of us in the kitchen making tamales and drinking ponche. I brought some of the traditions here for my kids. My parents might not be here much longer. You never know.”
“W-why didn’t y-y-ou g-go?”
“Long story.”
“It’s not like we have anything better to do for the next two hours,” AC wanted to say. “W-what y-you s-s-said,” he tried.
“Huh?” Manny didn’t get it. “Oh.” He smiled yet again. “We don’t have anything better to do for the next two hours?”
AC nodded.
“I guess. Well, I found the band, instead. I’ve followed them on YouTube several seasons. The inkling was there, I guess, to perform and be out and myself. I auditioned online last January. Little did I know, as I started all that, I wouldn’t get to spend after Christmas with the kids either. I hoped all year something would have changed by now. No such luck. Even the two that speak to me do it on the sly, so they won’t upset the others.” Manny shrugged. “They also think playing in a gay drum band is a bit over the top. I was looking forward to showing them video. I doubt they’ll want to see it.”
“I’m s-s-sorry.”
“Thanks. I don’t know what the right thing would have been to do. Something other than what I did, I guess. It’s my first Christmas where no one wants me around.”
No wonder Manny was grumpy.
“At least I have these cabeszas. Thank God for them.”
As Manny took a break to hum another recognizable Mexican carol, AC got an idea. At the next stop, he’d have to make a call.
Chapter 3
Emery: Two stars. Snot green shirt. Sneezy little guy. Blamed Spud before even getting in the van. Blond. Short. Big wild hair. Facial scruff. Small feet. Small dick? Chatterbox. Probably talks the whole time he’s fucking.
“Hi. Nice to meet y—A-achoo!”
Emery wiped his nose on the hem of his T-shirt. He had a hairy belly, all golden and thick. AC would have given him five stars just for that had he seen it earlier. It might be worth a rating update somewhere along the journey, maybe one for Manny, too, who didn’t seem nearly as grumpy by the end of two hours.
“I know we met once.” Emery smiled. “Out in the parking lot before we took…” He was distracted by something on his phone screen and picked up where he’d left off after a few seconds. “Off. Before we took off.” He still kept his head down, even when speaking to AC. “You don’t have to pee before we pull out?”
AC had stayed in the van while Manny switched with Emery and six out of twelve drummers took a whiz on the side of the road. “No.”
“Okay. Cool. It’s nice to meet you again. I’m still Emery. Achoo! You’re still AC, I assume, or is it Atticus?”
Pausing at the stop sign before entering the street, AC reached over to grab some tissues from the glove compartment and shrugged.
“Either or?”
He nodded as Emery took the tissues.
“Cool. Thank you, man. I have allergies. I love cats. My histamine level, not so much. I took a pill. I guess it’s wearing off. Can’t take another for two more hours.”
Emery looked like a teenager, or maybe more like Dennis the Menace, with his messy hair, overalls hooked only on one side, and gold wire rim glasses. Not that Dennis wore glasses, to the best of AC’s recollection. Maybe Emery looked more like a blond Harry Potter, surfer geek Harry.
As they rolled down the highway, when Emery wasn’t sneezing, he was typing a blue streak. What a difference a few years made. AC used his phone a hundred times a day, but the Gen Z kids, they never put theirs down. That was okay with AC. It meant he didn’t have to say much.
“I’m on break from college. Achoo.” Sniffling, sneezing, talking, and typing. “Sophomore year. Time to pick a major, and I have no clue, ya know? I’ve thought about teaching. Music, maybe. Stone’s a teacher. He teaches art. Manny teaches English as a second language. No hablo Espanol. Yoshi’s a neurologist. I like the idea of being a—Achoo!—a nurse, or a newscaster. See. Too many ideas, I guess, would be more accurate than no idea, right? Achoo! Ricky runs a weed store. No one knows what Carl does. He never talks about work. I think he’s a spy. Then there’s Murphy and Terrel. They work as chefs. Not together or anything. If I ever knew what the rest of the dudes do, I must have forgot. Manny, Rohan, Rick, Yoshi, Carlton, Hewlett, Rob, Ixaax, Stone, Terrel, Murphy.”
AC had seen a program from the drummers’ last gig. Ixaax? Stone? Who named these people, he wondered still, as Emery rattled off the lineup again, counting on his fingers.
“Manny, Rohan, Rick, Yoshi, Carlton, Hewlett, Rob, Ixaax, Stone, Terrel, Murphy.”
Ixaax, apparently, was pronounced like Isaac with an S on the end, even though there was an X there, as well as one in place of the traditional S that came after the I.
“Manny, Rohan, Rick. Achoo.” Emery had to start over, counting in his head. “Eleven. Manny, Rohan, Rick, Yoshi, Carlton, Hewlett, Rob, Ixaax, Stone, Terrel, Murphy. There’s one more. Who did I miss?”
AC smiled. “Y-y-yourself.”
“Oh yeah. Me. Achoo! What do you do?”
Fuck. A question. AC looked around to see if he had a business card handy. Voila! There was one in the cup holder between them. AC pointed.
“‘AC Maughan Art,’” Emery read aloud. “‘Specializing in carvings and figurines.’ That’s cool. I bet you’ve done a lot of your cat. What’s her name?”
“H-h-his. Spud.” For whatever reason, there were several words AC could say without stuttering. Spud was currently one of them.
“Aww. Hey, Spud.”
Spud let Emery pet him, but then got up and moved across AC’s lap to the opposite side, likely startled by a hearty sneeze. AC had to shimmy closer to the right edge of the driver’s seat to make room.
“I guess he doesn’t like me.”
If AC didn’t know better, he’d have thought Emery was talking to someone onscreen. He never once looked over. “C-c-cats are ob-ob-ob obst-st—”
“Obstinate?”
AC nodded.
“Do you hate that? When people finish your words for you?”
AC shook his head no, even though he did.
“Good. Achoo!” Emery used his shirt again. Maybe he figured no one would notice because of its color. “I’ve had allergies ever since I was a kid. Back then, I had asthma, too. At least that’s mostly gone. I missed so much school in first and second grade, I had to repeat both.”
So, he’s a little bit older than he looks, AC thought.
“That’s life, eh?”
When Emery went back to his phone without waiting for a reply, AC went back to when he was younger, way younger.
* * * *
Seven-year-old Atticus had been going to speech therapy three times a week since the beginning of his second year in kindergarten. His therapist, Wendy, was a jovial woman not much bigger than he. Her demeanor remained, even as the work they did together didn’t seem to be doing any good. When Christmastime rolled around during his initial try at first grade, Wendy suggested he try singing. “Many people with a stutter find it goes away completely when singing,” she claimed.
“R-r-r-really?” Little Atticus liked the sound of that. His parents had started taking him to church that same year. His favorite part was when the choir sang. “Make a joyful noise!” their leader would often say. Atticus loved the choir director’s enthusiasm and wanted to do as she said.
“Yes, Atticus. Really,” Wendy said, putting her forehead to his.
Later in life, AC had come across reports from her to his parents, stating the supposed benefits of singing, and why it would allegedly work.
There is now evidence that the brain functions differently for singing than it does for talking. In singing, we use our vocal chords, lips, and tongue in a different way than when we talk. Plus, there is no time pressure in singing nor is there any communicative pressure. With music, we can learn the lyrics by heart. “Word retrieval” and searching for words may cause stress that can play a role in stuttering.
AC had read the note hundreds of times over several decades.
Wendy started by putting on CDs, so she, and eventually Atticus, could sing along. “If you learn all the words before you start singing, it will make a very big difference.”
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” was an easy tune to memorize, even for a seven-year-old. After listening to the recording only twice, Atticus was certain he had it down.
“Okay, Atticus, go ahead.”
“R-r-r-ow y-y-your b-b-boat.” He ended up way behind the melody.
“That’s okay. We’ll try again.”
“R-r-r-row y-y-your b-b-boat.”
Every damned time!
“It will get better, Atticus. It will.”
Why would Wendy lie? She and Atticus’s first grade teacher, Mr. Mayer, had enough faith to conspire together to have Atticus sing with his classmates at a holiday extravaganza. The song they were to perform was “Silent Night.”
One week before the show, the students started rehearsing in Music class. Mrs. Eichorn, the teacher, put Atticus right up front. He practiced the carol every single night at home as well. To Atticus’s amazement and joy, the tactic finally seemed to be working. Though he never could master “Comet, Cupid,” the song lyrics came out right once in a while—not easily, but right. Singing was better than talking.
“L-l-listen, M-m-mom!” Though it took a while to get her to stand still and pay attention one evening after dinner, when she did, Atticus started to sing. “Sleep in heavenly pe-eace.” The four words were all he offered, in order to surprise her at the show. He stared up at her, proud and expectant.
Atticus’s mother smiled. “That’s beautiful. I can’t wait to hear the rest!” She hugged him.
Atticus couldn’t wait either.
Standing on the first step of the risers, six classmates on either side and the rest in rows behind him, Atticus stared out into the crowd on the afternoon of December 15, 1991. There had to be at least a thousand people in the audience. Though he would realize once older his estimation was off by quite a bit, at age seven, it sure seemed like a thousand.
Mrs. Eichorn began the introduction to “Silent Night” on the piano. Atticus was eager to belt out the lyrics as loud as he could. It was almost time. She was on the last note before the joyful noise of a couple dozen children would fill the room, his the most joyful of all. Finally, she nodded. That was their cue.
“S-s-s-si…S-s-si-il-l-lent N-n-n-night.”
Everyone else was on the second sentence before Atticus even finished the first. He tried to catch up.
“A-a-all i-i-s c-c-c…”
People were looking at him, his mother, Mrs. Eichorn, Betsy Brill, and Kimmie Wallen, who were standing one on his left and one on his right. Kimmie scowled and nudged him hard in the ribs. It was the “Reindeer in My Kitchen” fiasco all over again.
“R-r-round y-y-yon…”
Atticus’s dad hung his head, and then covered his face.
“T-t-tender and m-m-m…” Every word was coming out wrong.
Wendy looked so sad, and Mrs. Eichorn was mouthing something. “Stop singing!”
Stop singing? Atticus wanted to sing more than he’d ever wanted to do anything before in his life, for his parents and everyone else in the audience, for Santa Claus, and for God, who, according to Atticus’s mother, loved “Silent Night” and would shine glory upon anyone who sang it.
They were supposed to go through the song twice. “S-s-si-i-l-lent n-n-n…” The same verse, two times.
“Stop singing, Atticus!” Mrs. Eichorn whispered it. She shout-whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear during the rests between words, when the only one still singing was him. Mrs. Eichorn looked really angry. “Stop singing!”
So, Atticus stopped.
* * * *
“They’d hardly ever let me go to gym class.” Emery was chattering away again. Whoever was texting back must have taken a break. “I loved sports, but the asthma kept me off the field and the—A-achoo! The court. I couldn’t play an instrument, either, not a woodwind or brass, so, drums it was, and here I am a bunch of years later, still doing it. My dad snuck into the show out in Denver.”
“S-s-snuck in?” AC asked.
“Oh. He paid and everything, but he had to lie to my mom. Told her he was going on a business trip, for, like, the first time in his whole life.” Emery wiped his eyes, instead of his nose. “Dad’s okay with the whole gay thing. Mom hates it. I told him not to get in trouble with her, ya know? Achoo!”
“B-bless y-you.”
“Thanks, man. See, I didn’t want Mom to think Dad was having an affair or something. ‘You let me worry about that,’ Dad said. ‘I’m gonna be there for this performance just like I was there for all the other ones.’ They were, too, until I came out at sixteen. Dad missed a couple, but I didn’t call him on it. He tried.”
“Y-yeah.”
“You good with your parents?”
AC nodded.
“Good. A-choo! When I was a kid, I always wanted a cat. My best friend had one…my best friend who lived right next d—Achoo! Next door. My best friend, who was also my first, but that’s another story.” Emery sniffled and wiped his nose one more time on the bottom of his shirt. “So, I’d go over there, and then come home with red puffy eyes and sniffles. My mother would be mad. Anyway, Santa brought me this beautiful, real-looking toy cat one Christmas. It was called ‘Little Miss Pretty Paws.’ Mom yelled at my dad. That was the year I started wondering about Santa. Achoo! She had a fit. ‘That’s a girl’s toy,’ she said to Dad. ‘You’re going to turn him into a…”
AC wondered if another sneeze was coming, but Emery was just trailing off, trying to avoid the word every gay person had likely had hurled at them at one point or another.
“She threw it out.” Emery rooted about in his seat. “Tossed Little Miss Pretty Paws out in the trash. I saw her in there and asked why.” He sniffled. “Even as a little kid, I knew I wasn’t boy enough for Mom.” And sighed. “I’d named my pretty kitty Achoo.”
It wasn’t a sneeze. AC looked over, and Emery was smiling.
“Yep. Achoo, because, you know.”
“Y-yeah.”
“Dang! What made me think of all that after so many years, I wonder?”
Christmastime was supposed to remind people of family. Not every memory was a happy one. The red light they got to was fortuitous. AC reached up to the mirror and took down the ornament that hung there. “H-here. I w-w-want you to h-h-have this.”
“The kitty? You made it, right? An AC Maughan piece?”
AC nodded. It was an original, not from a mold, like the ones he sold, not a prototype, either, for reproduction. It was handmade, one of a kind, and AC wanted to pass it on.
“No, man. I couldn’t.”
“Y-yes.” AC put the five- inch Spud replica in Emery’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “M-m-mer—”
“Merry Christmas?”
AC nodded. “Y-yes.” At their next pit stop, he was going to have to call his brother, Gabriel.
Chapter 4
Rohan: Two stars. Lavender shirt. Quite bashful or quite stuck up? I hate arrogance! Tall, dark, and handsome, though. Thick, and beefy. A lot of hair on his head, half up, half down. Yay or nay on the man bun? Not sure. Indeterminate DNA, but the beautiful skin tone and long gold and coppery coils work. Busted tooth might be a deal breaker. Why hasn’t he gotten that fixed?
The end of hour four meant another change of passenger. Actually, it was close to five hours. AC and the drummers had lost nearly a whole one switching places twice and using the roadside facilities. Spud was way faster when it came to potty time than Murphy, Manny, Emery, and the others. Plus, Rohan, the next one up front, had decided to buy everyone snacks and drinks from a vending machine. It took much longer than it should have for twelve men to choose between Snickers or M&Ms, and Coke or Sprite.
It did give AC more than enough time to text his brother, though. Gabriel handled all of AC Maughan Art’s business dealings and was also an eBay fanatic.
Gabriel: You’re coming home for Christmas!!!!!! After all these years????
Atticus: Ease up on the punctuation, bro.
Gabriel: LOL :) Excited is all.
Gabriel went on to say he’d be happy to help AC with his plans, which left AC smiling as Rohan finally climbed in.
The busted tooth made an appearance right away, when Rohan smiled back, in place of a verbal salutation. He was quiet. Like with Emery, except without the phone, there was very little eye contact. AC got a look at them though, when he and Rohan both glanced up into the rearview mirror at the same time, and then both smiled sheepishly.
Rohan’s eyes were beautiful. They were amber, sort of orangey in the middle, near the pupil, surrounded by light brown and gold, kind of like his hair. Now that Rohan was closer, he looked like he might have a few years on AC. There were lines at those striking eyes and each corner of the mouth. AC didn’t mind an older man. He did prefer one with all his teeth intact.