Authors: Holiday Outing
time. A woman with massive breasts waved an American flag and wore a red, white, and
blue G-string, nothing else.
“That’s brave,” I said. “Bringing porn on your family visit.” I took the magazine and
flipped through the pages, Ethan at my back, looking over my shoulder.
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We both started laughing. There is a fine line between erotic and ridiculous, and this
magazine excelled in repeatedly crossing it. It didn’t help that the subject matter wasn’t to
either Ethan’s or my tastes.
Ethan cracked up at one spread and grabbed the magazine from me, turning it several
ways before settling on a specific angle. “There,” he said. “Now is the cola really necessary in
this shot?”
“That’s not cola.” I laughed. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell a beer bottle when
you see one?”
Ethan squinted, and then turned the page.
Now we were in a section of the magazine that included men with the women, and my
mood altered as we stared at the photos.
Ethan drew closer to me. His hand rested lightly on my shoulder, but it felt heavy and
hot, like a weight, sinking through my body. A slow, warm arousal spread through me and
the magazine lost its hilarity as my desire grew.
“I didn’t think you could have hard dicks in soft porn,” Ethan said, his voice husky.
“This does not qualify as soft,” I told him. His hand stroked down my back invitingly.
“I can tell that your list of vices to be ignored includes not only smoking but pornography as
well.”
Ethan tilted my face toward him and kissed me.
I kissed him back, enjoying the slow, lazy pace he set. The magazine tumbled from my
hands.
Rachel popped her head in.
“Have you seen --” She froze.
Ethan and I bolted apart.
“Sorry!” she said, turning bright red. She fled the room.
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I wiped a shaky hand over my mouth. Ethan stared at me, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry too,”
he said.
“It’s okay,” I said, but I didn’t feel it. My stomach knotted. I had no idea how Rachel
would react. “I better go talk to her.”
“I don’t think we’re going to find the pushke in here, in any case,” Ethan said. He was
slightly pale, and I felt bad. All this sneaking around was obnoxious, especially for someone
openly out.
Ethan put back Uncle Al’s belongings exactly the way we found them, and I went in
search of Rachel. I found her downstairs by the fire, sitting with my mother. When I came in
she blushed again and looked away.
I sat and chatted with them both until my mother declared it time to think about
dinner and left for the kitchen. Rachel got up to help but I reached for her arm and held her
back.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.
“Sure.” She sat down beside me, in front of the fire. It smelled like cypress -- my father
must have moved on to burning his exotic woods collection.
“Sorry about that,” I told her.
Rachel shrugged. “That’s okay.”
“I hope you aren’t shocked.”
“Nah. I think it’s cool.” She smiled shyly. “You guys look really happy together.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a swelling of emotion I hadn’t expected to feel from such a
simple complement.
“There are a few gay men in our neighborhood,” Rachel went on to explain. “Our
neighbors are a nice couple from Louisiana. They have a really great dog too. I’m going to
miss him when I leave.”
“Leave?” I asked. “Where are you going?”
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“To college,” she said, rolling her eyes. I felt shocked by this. Of course I knew she was
eighteen but somehow the fact that my little cousin was already college bound seemed
surreal.
“What school?”
“I got accepted at the University of New Hampshire, but I’ve applied for scholarships
and am hoping to go to Reed in Oregon.”
“Reed’s a good school,” I said.
She nodded. “I just want to get away.”
“I know exactly how you feel.”
Rachel shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway -- it’s not like I’m going to be missed here.”
“That can’t be true,” I said, although the self-pitying spiel sounded a lot like something
I would say -- something I had said.
“My dad’s ignored me ever since my mother died. He doesn’t even discipline me
anymore. Last month I was out all night and never told him where I went, and he didn’t
even care. It’s like I don’t exist. Even my feelings about the things we share -- my mom’s
stuff, the pictures -- it doesn’t matter.”
I nodded, and she continued, but I only half listened. I realized that my quiet,
withdrawn cousin had a secret motive for taking the pushke as well. She had been shocked
when she learned he was giving it away. Maybe she took it, just to spite her father? To get
the attention she clearly craved? Or to claim the right to something she thought of as her
inheritance?
When my father and Uncle Al returned from their voyage across the frozen landscape,
their moods had soured. They must have fought the entire time, and the Dektors, their own
situation equally precarious, only provided a few candles, one roll of toilet paper, and a bottle
of Maneschewitz.
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“You should see the main arterial!” my father complained. “There are cars stuck in the
ditches with ice over their windows. George’s son works at the police department and said
they are urging everyone to stay at home until the roads are plowed.”
“That’s not what he said,” my uncle complained. “You are misquoting people again.
You always do that!”
“I do not,” my father replied. “You just can’t hear, that’s your problem.”
“I hear fine! You warp the truth! Always it is like this with you!”
I left the two of them arguing to have a smoke and wondered how much longer we
would be able to endure each other’s company without relations deteriorating completely.
At least I had Ethan. I took a drag and smiled to myself. Something good had come out
of this, at the very least.
Given that my father and my uncle were now at war, and everyone else seemed to be
huddling away from the tension near the fireplace, I found it easy to escape to my room
without guilt or detection. I wondered how quietly Ethan and I could fuck. I wanted to see if
he would be up to it. I grinned as I walked into my bedroom, and saw Ethan lying on the
bed, finally getting a connection on his cell phone.
“I love you too.” Ethan’s voice was low and husky. He looked away from me, but
smiled sappily.
“Yeah,” Ethan continued. “Jonah? He’s fine.” Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know…I don’t
know. I guess. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Numbness, leftover from the cold outside, leftover from high school, leftover from my
birth. A numb nothingness. Goddamn it, I had let that bastard hope inside, hadn’t I?
Ethan glanced at me. He sat up immediately. “Gotta go. Yeah. Okay. Love you too.
’Bye.” He shut the phone and stared at me.
I stared back. I wanted to punch him, but instead I just crossed my arms.
Ethan held his phone up. “Phone’s working again.” He smiled.
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“So. This is just a holiday fuck then, is that right?”
Ethan’s eyebrows came together. “What?”
“Who the hell was that?”
Ethan looked at me like I was insane. “My dad!”
“Your…” I frowned in confusion. “Your dad?”
“Yeah. Who did you think it was?” Ethan looked at me with curiosity.
“No one.” I scowled. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” My response sounded a lot like
what Ethan had just said. Jonah? He’s fine…it doesn’t matter to me. What had he meant by
that?
I wanted to ask him, but then I realized it would make me sound like an insecure
stalking loser who hung on every word of his partner. I wasn’t like that. Was I?
Ethan grinned crookedly and stood, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t be
so paranoid. I don’t have another lover, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not worried,” I lied. I wasn’t worried that he cared about someone else. I worried
that he didn’t care about me.
Despite Ethan’s easy smiles and flirtatious expression, I still felt anxious as we made our
way downstairs for dinner. My anxiety increased when I realized the truce between my
father and his brother had officially ended.
Daniel’s attempts to try and smooth relations over dinner failed. My mother snapped at
my uncle, and in return, he turned and snapped at me.
The meal was not satisfying, the anger radiated off my parents (although at least it was
not directed at me), and the magical quality that had lifted my spirits and filled me with a
sense of timeless presence the night before disappeared, leaving only cabin fever and hunger
to remain. I missed vegetables. I missed chocolate. I missed hot water, being outdoors. Hell, I
missed television.
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My mother tried to spruce up the meal by serving the Dektors’ donated Maneschewitz
in martini glasses and garnishing the drinks with olives.
No one was fooled.
We’d moved to burning my father’s damp wood, which filled the room with smoke
and made us all gag. I had a suspicion that my mother had used the butane stove indoors
without opening the window, as she had complained about the cold.
And it seemed the fact that a family heirloom had officially been missing for five days
was proving too much for my uncle, who once again mumbled about thieves in his own
family and glared at us all in order, with an extra special look of suspicion reserved for me.
“Whoever took it will just put it back on the mantel when they leave,” my mother said
loudly, hoping to diffuse my uncle’s wrath.
“What are you talking about, Helene? Someone here has taken it, and hasn’t fessed up
to it for five days! You think they’re just going to hand it over now?”
“Who wants to play cards?” Daniel said, looking between his father and his aunt with
mounting apprehension.
“No cards!” my uncle bellowed. “No more games!” He turned to me. “It’s time to come
clean, Jonah. Give back the pushke!”
I had been nursing my Maneschewitz cocktail unenthusiastically. Now I swallowed it
down with an angry gulp. I threw my hands up. “Why would it be me, for God’s sake?” I
finally asked him. “Why the hell would I steal it?”
“You’re unsuccessful!” my uncle reasoned, pointing at me. His face, illuminated by the
menorah, looked almost sinister. “You have no money! No career! No pride!”
“Now wait a second --” I started.
“Everyone calm down!” My father’s voice rose. “Al, you have no right to accuse my
son!”
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“Of course it’s him! Who else would it be?” my uncle reasoned. “Besides, he’s the only
one in the room who’s a convicted criminal!”
This was, I suppose, technically true. The fact that my crime was indecent exposure,
and not theft, didn’t seem to matter to my kin. And I wasn’t about to tell them the real
reason I ran buck naked down a Bridgeport street in the middle of the night either. I wasn’t a
pervert; it’s just that my boyfriend at the time’s mother came home two hours early and
surprised us both. I had to sneak out the bedroom window, sans garments.
“I didn’t take it,” I told him.
“He didn’t take it!” My mother defended me.
“Well neither did I!” Uncle Al yelled.
“This is ridiculous!” my mother yelled back.
“Does Moe have it?” Aunt Goldie asked.
“Oh, shut up!” Al yelled.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” I snapped back.
Matthew watched it all in a daze, along with Rachel and Daniel.
“Someone here is guilty, goddamn it, and I’m going to call the cops if they don’t confess
now!” Uncle Al made a leap toward the phone.
“Great, Al, good use of the police in a time of national crisis!” my father shouted.
My uncle turned. “Well if you aren’t going to call out your son for being a thief, I will!”
“What about Daniel?” Ethan asked.
Everyone went silent. Even I stared in shock.
Ethan glared at my uncle. “Have you even questioned your own son? He’s got a paper
bag full of coins from the pushke in his room.”
All eyes swiveled to Daniel, who turned bright red. “I didn’t take it. Honestly!”
Rachel shook her head. “Danny, I told you that coin was from the pushke.”
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“Maybe, but I didn’t steal it from the pushke!” Daniel sighed. “I found it in the trash.”
Ethan’s eyebrows crumpled. “What?”
“When I took the trash out that first night, there was a whole bunch of change on the
top. I just scooped it out and took it to my room.” Daniel swallowed.
Uncle Al shook his head. “Why steal the pushke and dump the money?” He looked at
me. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Yeah, why would you?” Daniel asked.
Everyone turned to me.
“I’m going to take the trash out,” I announced suddenly.
My mother frowned. “But it’s not full, and --”
“If I stay in here one more minute, I’m going to kill my uncle, and that seems like a bad
idea.”
Without another word, I buttoned up my coat and stepped out on the back porch.