Page 36 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“Ha.” Casey pulled them to a stop again. They’d almost made it to the exit of the park near Market Square, but he held Joel back, just out of the brighter light of the street lamps. He touched Joel’s chin gently. “Some guys just don’t get how sweet a grumpy asshole can be.” He glanced up then, dropping his hand quickly. He nodded at an elderly man and woman who stepped onto the pathway.
Joel got a distinct anti-gay vibe from the looks sent their way, but the couple said nothing, continuing their romantic Christmas walk without the taint of completely ruining someone else’s.
“So, this show I saw. It was just filthy,” Casey went on as they crossed the street from Krutch Park and into Market Square.
He described the art show at the Armory on Park Avenue, getting more and more animated as he did. “There was a video art component to it, with films on a loop, showing the most disturbing things you’ve ever seen. Snow White having sex with all of the dwarves and smearing herself all over with chocolate syrup, wearing a diaper. And then in another room, there was a video of Snow White’s princemasturbating, and I just…couldn’t look away. It was depraved, but I sat on the bench across from that screen and watched him for as long as I could stand it. It was compelling and somehow more intimate than porn. Like exhibitionism without the exhibitionist actually being present. People came and went, but a few women stayed to watch it too.”
“That sounds messed up.”
“It was. I didn’t know anyone in the city at the time, so I was by myself. It was an intense thing to see alone. I had no one to talk it over with.” He smiled, his teeth shining in the low light from the streetlights along the square. “Thanks for letting me tell you about it now.”
“No problem, man. Happy to listen.” And maybe a little aroused by the depravity.
Joel let go of Casey’s hand as they immersed themselves into the nighttime of Market Square. The revitalized downtown center was alive with Christmas shoppers and kids eager for their turn on the small outdoor skating rink set up every year just after Thanksgiving until the second week of January. Luckily, it was a cold December. Some years, when the temperatures were in the sixties or even the seventies, the ice had to be put down every hour, and even then it was often covered in an inch of water within minutes.
Tonight the weather was a sweet, chilly forty-two, and while it was far from cold enough for snow to stick, it wasn’t so warm the ice rink was a puddle either. Casey stayed close by as they walked around the square slowly, taking in the scents of the restaurants and glancing in the decorated windows of the stores. Piped Christmas music from the speakers stacked around the rink bounced off the low buildings and sent “Jingle Bell Rock” ringing out all around the square.
“So, Tomato Head or Tupelo Honey?” Casey asked after they left the oldest store on the square: Earth to Old City. It’d been there since Joel was a little kid, and he remembered his mother taking him inside to smell the handmade soaps. He’d spent some time smelling them tonight, thinking of her, while Casey explored small tea sets, mumbling something about still needing a Christmas gift for his aunt Courtney.
“Whichever,” Joel said. “You choose.”
“No, you decide. I wasn’t sure which you’d like better, so I made reservations at both. And I’m not picky either way.”
“Well…” Joel confronted the reality he’d somehow avoided thinking about while he’d gotten ready for their date and up until this exact moment. How was he going to pay for dinner? He didn’t have the cash, and the idea of not paying his own way felt wrong. “I’m not that hungry. So you choose. I’ll probably just have water.”
Casey shook his head. “No, no. It’s a date. I asked you out, and I’m going to pay.”
“I said I wasn’t hungry.”
“You also said you went down on Ally Cartwell and that she was a real blonde.”
“That was in high school. What does that have to do with dinner?”
“Eating.”
“Oh, good lord. Fine. Whatever. I’ll let you buy this time, but I get the next meal.”
Casey’s face broke open with his smile. “So we’re doing this again?”
“How else are you going to unlock the date where you’re allowed to ask me hard questions?” Joel rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you watched any movies? Read any books?”
Casey jerked his head toward the corner of the square across from a gaudily decorated Urban Outfitters. “Tupelo Honey, then. They make a mean rosemary lemon drop. I used to steal sips of my mom’s.”
“Girly drinks? Really?”
“Don’t be a sexist, Joel. You’ll lose all the credits from your self-taught liberal sociology course and then what’ll happen? Besides, I thought you’d come so far since you used to throw girls’ reputations under the bus for your social gain back in high school.”
“Fine. I’ll have two rosemary lemon drops in penance. Okay by you?”
“If you get drunk, can I still kiss you?”
“I won’t get drunk.”
“Aw, so what does that mean?” Casey raised a coy brow. “I can’t kiss you?”
“Don’t act all desperate for my honey now. I like a man who plays hard to get.”
Casey guffawed. “Right.”
