Page 34 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“I’ve never been inside a mobile home,” Casey said finally.
“They’re pretty much like they look in the movies. Nothing exciting.”
“Are you embarrassed for me to come inside?”
Joel sighed. “What do you think, Prince Moneybags? Of course I am.”
“We should address this. It’s not healthy. Ann calls this sort of thing internalized self-loathing, and most of us have some, but I don’t want you to have it about where you live.”
“Oh, what should I have it about then?”
“I don’t know. Smoking?”
“You want me to loathe myself for smoking?”
“No!” Casey blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t want you to loathe yourself for anything. But if you have to internalize some kind of self-hatred, then maybe hating yourself over smoking is better than hating yourself over where you live?”
“Tell your therapist—what’s her name? Ann?—tell Ann to get a new job. And tell yourself to never, ever,everconsider psychology as a future ‘passion career’ because you’re terrible at it.”
“I’m just saying that I’d like to be invited into your home, Joel. That’s all.”
“Weird. It sounded like you were judging me for my smoking and suggesting I must hate myself for where I live, but if all you really meant is that you want to come hang with me for a while in Down-Class-Burbia, then I can issue you an engraved invitation tonight. Maybe you can attempt to impugn my honor while appropriating my poverty and indulging your classist savior fantasy.”
Casey bugged his eyes out. “Wow, are you sure you didn’t attend my liberal sociology course up at NYU? Because you’d fit right in.”
Joel scrubbed a hand over his face. “I should have invited you in for a beer and to hang out with Bruno a little. Yeah, okay, fine, I’m embarrassed about living in a trailer. It’s not that I’mashamed. There’s a difference. I did what I needed to do for my father, but I’m not exactly proud of my circumstances either.”
“At least they’re your circumstances, created by your own choices.” Casey’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “My circumstances are handed to me, and I don’t even know if I want them or not.”
“I didn’t choose my father’s stroke.”
“No, but you chose how to handle it, and I’m proud of you. I think you’ve done a good job. You’ve kept Vreeland’s going, and you have a shelter that keeps you warm, a dog that loves you, and I’m guessing you’ve taken the best care of your dad that you could.”
Joel narrowed his eyes. “This conversation sucks. It feels more like a therapy session than a date.”
“What would you know about dates? Or therapy sessions? Have you ever been to one? And yeah, I know you went on a lot of make-believe dates in high school, but have you ever been on a real date?”
“I’ve seen them on TV, and they don’t go like this,” Joel said, rubbing his hands on his jeans again. “No one starts out talking about their hardest, deepest, darkest thoughts and fears. Not on the first date anyway. Maybe at the end of, like, the second or third date. Just before they kiss.”
“I’m doing things all out of order, apparently. I already kissed you. Twice.”
Joel flushed hot as the memory of both those kisses swept over him. In the span of less than twenty-four hours, he’d gone from never-been-kissed to having Casey Steven’s tongue in his mouth two entirely different times, and now he was on adate. Life was weird. He didn’t even know if he liked the way that it was weird, but he was on the ride for better or worse now.
Rather than park in the garage near Market Square, Casey used his father’s pass to pull into the private underground lot reserved for bigwigs at the petroleum company that held the top five floors of one of the tallest office towers in downtown Knoxville.
When they exited the echoing, empty garage onto a side street that led to the main road through downtown, the happily named Gay Street—inspiration for teenage boys’ homophobic queer jokes for over half a century—Casey’s hand brushed the back of Joel’s. For a shivery moment, he thought Casey was going to take hold of it. In public. Like a couple.
His mind galloped with the idea, and he wondered if it was even possible. Knoxville wasn’t the worst place in the world to be gay, but he didn’t exactly see men holding hands in the city either. Not even the men everyone knew were gay because of their flamboyant hips and flying, birdlike hand gestures. What would happen if he and Casey held hands? Would anyone care? Would someone say something?
The sidewalks were more crowded than he expected for a Tuesday, but when they crested the hill and got a glimpse of Gay Street proper, he understood why. It was the night of the annual Christmas parade, and folks lined up and down the sidewalk, cheering as pickup trucks full of grinning cheerleaders and slow-moving floats of waving Boy Scouts drifted past.
Christmas carols combined and clashed between floats and trucks, rattling down the street and echoing from the buildings in a clamor of bells and horns. Almost against his will, a festive feeling descended, quickening Joel’s heart, and his lips lifted in a closed-mouthed smile.
“Oh, look, baby ballerinas,” Casey whisper-shouted in his ear to be heard over the cheers and music.
A class of about six five-year-old girls and two boys marched—or rather pranced, skipped, jumped, rolled, danced, and sang—their way down the street. They wore red, green, and white leotards, tights, and sweaters, and all of the girls and one of the boys wore white, glittery tutus. Five adults trying to corral them and keep them on track surrounded them on all sides.
“Cute,” Joel said, laughing at the boy without the tutu. The child had shoved his hand into his tights to scratch his privates without a care in the world.
