Nicholas Scott's Blog

We used to go out every Wednesday night. It was Boys Night Out, no literally, that's what they called it at the club, Boys' Night Out. You had to go, at least in the beginning, when they first started it. Boys Night Out, was the night to be seen. Saturdays were pretty much a given, no school, no work, and those of us who weren't near heathen, you could count on one hand, so waking up for our weekly religious inoculation wasn't really a problem.


But Wednesday night had that special something extra. Three words: Conquer The Box. It was a contest, with that Queer As Folk feel to it, half naked, gorgeous hot boys all gyrating and grinding, the music pounding and ethereal, the atmosphere electric and lust filled, by the end of the contest, there were three guys left and the winner was usually glistening wet from pouring a bottle of water over his head and down his chest , probably had a studded black belt which he would run sensually between his legs, thrusting his hips, probably no shirt, sometimes no pants just a pair of really small cute underwear and more than likely drunk as hell. The winner would be proclaimed, confetti would be blasted from small cannons onto the dance floor and the whole floor would go wild, while the winner did a final dance waving a giant check for 500 as his prize. It was something to see, in the beginning anyways.


"Where's Jessica?" Dalton looked at his watch, pacing back and forth. With each pass in front of the mirror, he'd check again, to make sure his hair was still properly coifed, his ass still looked fine and the two unbuttoned buttons revealed the right amount of tanned chest. He tested again, unbuttoning a third, then re-buttoning it back. Then unbuttoning one of the bottom buttons instead to reveal the black belt with the silver belt buckle shining. "It's ten. We have to leave now to get in for free."

"Would you shut up about getting in for free. It's five bucks. Besides the way she drives we'll be there in time. You should know this by now." Jeremy was the club veteran. He'd been going to Village for about two years and the mere mention of going out there drained the animation from his face. He says Village has an expiration date, You go there long enough, you curdle like milk. Jeremy had slowly soured on Village, but it was my birthday and I wanted to see shiny wet gyrating grinding boys, see, feel, taste and touch, let's not forget touch and so Jeremy had relented.

I've not been to Village but for the last six months, tops. But my timing couldn't have been better. They started Conquer the Box, the first night I went. I was mesmerized. Especially since it took an act of God almost, though that may sound a bit blasphemous to say, to get me out there. Actually, if you call it what it really was, it was an act of Billy.

I'm in love with Billy. Not lust, though there is a great deal of that too, but love; an honest, well honed, overwhelming desire and want that I like to call love. He doesn't love me, though. Well not in that way, anyways. "You're Matthew, you're my best friend." That's what he said, when I first told him that I loved him, out on the balcony, the alcohol a little too much to keep my inhibitions from getting the better of me. They were hard words to hear, at the time, harder words to remember. I always catch myself looking at him, in that way. I can't help myself. The word adonis comes to mind when I look at him. His face finely sculpted, strong jaw bone, deep blue eyes, a lovely neck. He doesn't like the ridge of his nose, but I'm reduced to pathetic sighs when catching a glimpse of him. I'll be the first to say he's not perfect, unless I'm plied with alcohol, then I'm apt to drop the negative from that statement.


"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday, dear Matthew, happy birthday to me." I smiled at myself in the mirror. My eyes weren't near as deep blue as his, bur rather shallow pond blue, my jaw was not so much squared but looked rather like someone had taken a lathe to it, to square it up a bit. And I would trade the ridge of my nose for his, any day. It's a good thing I don't suffer from vanity issues.

"You look cute in that shirt." Billy looked at me, appraisingly, spinning me around, looking at my ass, then spinning me more and running a hand down my chest and abs. "Yep, you're ready. Let's find you a man." I hated it when he said things like that.

I don't take compliments well, they always take me by surprise. "Thanks." I could feel the blush in my ears, which were always the first things to turn red. Horrible give away.

"Come on, let's go. Screw Jessica." Dalton wedges his way in front of the mirror again, pulled down his shirt which had started to ride up and bunch under his arm pits. He looked at his face from both sides and smiled a white toothed grin. He wasn't an ugly person, really. There was something rather repulsive about him though, something in his personality which bled over into his looks if you studied him too long.



"Are you gonna drive?" Jeremy asked, knowing the answer before any of us could blurt it out.



"No!" I yelled.



"No!"



Dalton always looked offended when we answered like that. He'd had a little fiasco a couple of years back, involving alcohol, a bridge and his car. I would assume he'd understand where my "no" came from. I was in the passenger seat, watching first hand as the car spun out of control, round and round, slamming into the railing and then watching the front half of the car being devoured by the cement barrier. The air bags had deployed like white powdery magic, which seemed more distracting at the time as I was putting my arm in front of him to keep him from slamming into the steering wheel. It wasn't his brightest moment.



"Hey guys." Jessica was the prerequisite fag hag. She preferred the term fruit fly, which seemed more apt as she hung around a lot of us, flitting back and forth between us, like we were overripe grapes. Fag hag is more a territorial position she'd said. She loved us all equally. She held open her arms. "Hugs."



"We don't have time for hugs. We have to go. We have to go now. Five bucks buys three drinks before midnight."



Jessica rolled her eyes as Dalton whined.



Jessica's hugs were nirvana. She's soft, in all the right places, smelled sexually floral and in her hugs she says all the right things. "Matt, you looks fucking adorable."



"Marry me and have my babies." I laughed It's an automatic response, that laugh. A nervous response that's become more pronounced since I came out..



Billy stepped forward for his hug. "She can't. She's having mine and Brad Pitt's babies for us."



Do I get to sleep with Brad Pitt?" Jessica asked.



"NO, I sleep with Brad Pitt, you get the stretch marks from carrying our love child. Besides, I'm the only one pretty enough plus I'm sure he's gay and wouldn't have you."



There's one thing you have to know about gay men, well most gay men, well okay all the gay men I know, they're all under the impression that they're gods. I missed the class where they handed out the god complex assignment and have failed at it miserably. But Billy, he aced it. It helps that he looks the way he does, but the attitude, the walk, the talk, he's it.



"Come on, let's go before Dalton slips into a coma from lack of alcohol." Jeremy already has that look of resignation, that 'let's get this over with look', but he puts on a smile for me and I have to love him for it.



The trip itself is quick, though it seems to take forever tonight. I can feel the music already, the rhythm beating. The first time it was a bit overwhelming, deafening, but now, its inside of me before I get out of the car.



Village is under remodel and has been for a couple of weeks. The Rose Room has been torn down completely, so no more drag shows. Again, a first for me, one that surprised and titillated. You wouldn't think it possible, but then the music would start up and some mother's baby boy would part the crowd and start belting out Whitney Houston, well lip syncing really, in a sequined dress all sparkles and makeup and all you could do was laugh and cheer and woot and wave a dollar bill or two. But the Rose Room is gone, closed until they finish the club. Labor Day is the grand reopening, which seems far away. But we've all decided, it's a must attend event.



We head directly to the bar. Missy, a man in his forties, balding and a little on the pudgy side, turns glasses in one hand and sets them on the bar, bar napkins already in place, a bottle of vodka already pouring into a shot glass, already eyeing us for our order.



"Vodka punch, a cherry vodka sour and a Missy's punch." He grabs down three more glasses as soon as he serves the last drinks he was preparing for the previous guy, a bear of a man, decked out in black leather. Sorta makes me shiver. Missy deftly pours and mixes and shakes until there are three glasses filled to the brim with wonderfully alcoholic elixirs.



Jeremy hands him his credit card over my shoulder and leans into me. "Happy birthday Matt."



I can't help but smile. I have a crush on Jeremy too, but it's just a crush."



We take our drinks to the rail that over looks the dance floor and all three of us light up a cigarette. The dance floor is a barren waste. The three boxes in the center, outposts yet to be conquered. The lights are search lights which carry my eyes with them as they work their way through the smoky haze in search of bare chests and perfect abs and beautiful faces. We watch, the boys walking past, drinking till our straws signal empty and time for refills. "Let's walk." I don't know who says it, but we cruise through the club, stopping at the bar, then go outside on the patio, downstairs and through the dance floor. Britney is on, but nobody's dancing.



"It's dead tonight." Billy seems somewhat let down by this fact and looks around the club in hopes of catching someone's eye. I watch him, unable not to because it doesn't take long. Walking through the club, anywhere actually, the eyes follow him like some celebrity. It's an attractive thing to see everyone looking at him, and him looking at nothing at all. He's oblivious to his affect on people. Guys and girls. He knows he's beautiful and he'll say it if you aren't quick enough to stop him, but still, there's a part of him that's in denial.



Three guys get out on the floor, laughing and drunk. They dance, if that's what you want to call it, bumping each other, eyes closed, moving to the music. I'm too self conscious for that because it doesn't look like dancing to me, plus, well I don't dance. I do what they do, but it doesn't feel like dancing to me at all.



One night, I had gotten out there with some friend from work. We had arrived late and had to make up drinking time. So after thirty minutes and six drinks, I was drunk and ready to dance. But normally, that doesn't happen.



Jessica perches her head on my shoulder and wraps her arms around my front. "Happy Birthday Matt." She kisses me on the cheek. I lean back into her and smile.



"You sure you won't marry me? We can elope. Billy doesn't even need to know." We laugh and I try to kiss her back, accidently bumping her jaw with my forehead.



Slowly, the club fills up, slowly the boys come in, slowly the dance floor becomes populated and slowly people hop up on the boxes. I'm suddenly mesmerized by a blond beautifully tanned boy who's taken his shirt off and thrown it to his feet, pulled off his belt and unbuttoned the first button of his khaki shorts revealing cute boxers. The lights are shifting dramatically over him and his chest is sparkling with perspiration.



"Oh my fucking God. He's gorgeous." Dalton grabs Billy by the arm and pulls him towards the dance floor and then in front of the box. He pretends to dance with Billy for a bit, but then turns his attention to the box boy. From the edge of the dance floor, I'm torn between who I want to watch. Billy or the boy on the box, sparkling in his own sequined manner. Jeremy joins Billy and Dalton on the floor and I watch them, leaning and talking and laughing at what ever was said, smoking their cigarettes and moving to the music. None of it is dancing per se, but the looks on their faces, the euphoric bliss of the music and the motion makes it dancing.



"Come on hot stuff." Jessica grabs me from behind, taking my hand and dragging me onto the dance floor. "It's your birthday. Let's dance."



I follow, half willingly. Billy turns and gives me a radiant smile as we approach. Sometimes when he dances, he looks like he's boxing. I pointed this out to him once and he's tried to remedy that. Right now though, he's a little tipsy and he's in his boxing stance and I smile, thinking how gorgeous and sexy he looks and I'm hoping to go a few round with him on the dance floor.



But like I said, I don't dance. My hips don't seem to want to work that way, my feet grow roots and my dancing seems to be a mix of Nazi goose stepping and the final few muscle spasms of a hanged man. Not a pretty sight, so it's easy to understand why I don't do it. I can feel the drinks in me, and the music is in me and the box boy is over Dalton's shoulder, oblivious to Dalton's shimmying dance. His eyes, naturally, are on Billy. But I look at him as he dances, his abs and chest luminous. He smiles down at me and whatever rhythm I might have, is gone, just that quick. He winks and I laugh and he laughs. He has a beautiful mouth, his lips are full and red and luscious and my eyes don't know where to land on him. He signals me to come up and join him on the box but I shake my head, my heart racing like I'd sprinted from home to get to the club. He leans down towards me, wanting to talk. "I'm Bryan." He holds his hand out to me and I reach to shake it.



"Matthew," I respond.



He pulls me forward and up on to the box. I look over my shoulder in astonishment, my eyes probably huge with surprise. Billy, Jeremy and Jessica are laughing gloriously in the smoke and flashing rainbow lights. Dalton gives me a tight lipped smile. All I can do to that is laugh and I do, I throw back my head and laugh at the ceiling, to all the faces along the railing on the second floor, at the giant video screens with blurring video, at the whole world. The music takes hold of me and in my hanged man dying throes and Nazi goose stepping, I lean into Bryan, smelling the scent of his cologne, the musky scent of him of sweat and pheromones a scent more feral and more intoxicating than anything dreamed up and poured into a bottle and whisper. "It's my birthday."



He kisses me then and after a moments hesitation, my hands resting on his chest, I kiss him back. He pulls back and I'm surprised to see him smiling. "Happy birthday Matthew." I laugh again, I'm practically giddy and drunk. Not from the alcohol, though that is having its affect on me, but more the adrenalin rush. I feel his arms around my waist and he's pulling at my shirt. I pull his hands away, gripping both of his wrists in one hand in front of me. He leans in and kisses me again and I hear an inner voice yelling. That's Not Billy! I even feel myself hesitate mid kiss, his tongue in my mouth and tasting of alcohol and I think I even try to pull away. But he's gotten his wrists away from me and his arms hold me tightly to him. He's gyrating and I'm lost in the moment, feeling free and unshackled from something that is beyond my grasp but that I've been grasping at for a long time.

"Billy? You awake? I want to talk to....”
I watched him, wondering if he slept, or if he played at sleeping, unwilling or unable to talk. He lay so still, so quiet except for the faintest hint of a snore. I step into his room.
A used paperback copy of the Scarlet Pimpernel lies open face down on his desk, its
pages tattered and dog-eared and yellowed with age, its black spine cracked and creased with white lines. A copy of the Cliffs Notes I bought for him still lies in the plastic bag, the receipt sticking out like a bookmark.
Several scented candles line the top of his desk, their wicks burnt black, cooled drips of bulbous wax clinging to the sides. An empty box of Ohio Blue Tip matches lies on the floor next to a coffee can covered with a lithograph of Currier and Ives: a snowy scene with couples skating on a frozen pond, mounds of fluffy snow surrounding the shiny blue gray surface of the pond. The can holds the ashy remnants of matchsticks and paper. I imagine it to be love letters or the teenage equivalent of state secrets, read then destroyed. Lipstick mars a wall mirror with the words ‘love you’ in garish red. Notes, pictures, cut out comic strips of Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield and a blue and black bumper sticker with the words Fleeting Youth frame the mirror.
A copy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with the movie poster art on the cover sits alone on the small bookshelf over his bed. A pair of Levi blue jeans, the little red tag the same color as the lipstick on the mirror, lies crumpled at the foot of the bed along with a white T-shirt. My son lies sleeping in a tangle of forest green sheets and a comforter, with several pillows pushed to the side and on the floor, his face flat to the mattress. I turn off the lights and pull the door closed.
I leave the house feeling old, trying to think back to when I was his age, when that might have been me and my most important worry was reading a book for Sophomore English. Was it ever that easy?
It is dark out but I am able to make out the shadowy branches of the towering trees against the black velvet sky, dotted with so many stars and lit by a low hung moon which glimmers in the dew.
The Chevy Lumina is cold and quiet. For the umpteenth time I look at the visors overhead, the question in my mind the same. The car starts on the first try and Bryan Adams is singing Summer of 69. I sigh to myself, wishing it were so, wishing that Five and Dimes still existed that summers did last forever and that I could be young and restless all over again. In the dark street I watch a cat scurry across, its eyes afire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How ya doin' Johnny?" I look at Johnny Mac sitting in his old dilapidated easy chair; its faux leather cracked and split, revealing stringy cottony strands. He leans forward in his chair spitting a string of tobacco juice into a brass spittoon at his feet. He coughs, quietly first then louder. He waves me to sit and wait until the coughing passes. An uncomfortable second or so
stretches by as his face shades to red, his coughing harder, and his face a grimacing mask of pain. Then he quits. "You been to a doctor?"
He waves the question away. "Somethin' ta drink?" He pulls himself up and out of the chair, his clothing draping him like drop cloth. "I got soda, orif'n you want something stronger. I got that too."
"I'll have what you're having."
He nods and disappears into his dark little home. A small amount of light manages its way out of the kitchen. His shadow crosses in front of the window and when he opens the refrigerator, the light silhouettes him through the sheer curtains. I hear his slippers slide across the old wooden floor, getting quieter and then louder again. He holds two ten-ounce bottles of Coke, the green glass glistening with condensation.
"Ain't too cold. 'Frigerator's not workin' too well. I had someone out last week ta look at it, but..." he shrugs his shoulders, the care insignificant.
He turns and puts the head of one of the bottles to the windowsill and gives it a quick jerk. The metal lid flips away and rattles onto the wooden porch. He offers the opened bottle to me as he opens the other bottle. "So?" He takes a drink. "What's it you want?"
I smile. He is a man of few words, direct and to the point.
"Come on out with it. I ain't getting any younger sitting here like this."
His mortality shines in his eyes as he nods knowingly. "How's the boy doin? He doin' okay in school?"
The psychologist had told us both that if it had affected him in anyway, it would show up in his schoolwork first. It seemed too early to me. I can only nod.
"You talk to him about it?"
I shake my head and take a drink; happy I have something to do.
"You know, just cause he's a child, don't mean he cain't talk about it. He's feelin’ what you're feelin’. What we're all feelin'. Mayhaps even more. Was his mother after all. This here is something the two of you will have ta talk about. The sooner the better." He pulls himself forward and grips my shoulder for support, but I wonder if it's for me or for him. "You gone to
see her yet?"
I can only look down at the Coke in my hands, studying the condensation as glistens in the moonlight.
He claps me on the shoulder and nods. "You go on and see her. Talk to her. She'll straighten things out better'n I can."
I look at him. His eyes are a piercing blue, almost out of place in his aged wrinkled face. I reach for his hand and hold it, gripping it as strongly as I think possible. He smiles and nods again, his eyes glistening. "Go on now. It's past my bedtime. Gotta get my beauty sleep, ya know." He primps at his gray wispy hair, like he's looking in a mirror. We laugh together because it's
easier than the alternative.

#

The cemetery is quiet, except for a soft breeze shaking leaves and rattling the small branches in the trees overhead. Outside the cemetery, a few cars whisper by along the freeway and in the distance a train whistles its approach. The horizon hints at dawn as I look at my watch wondering how long I've been standing in this spot, doing nothing but staring up at the hill. With a sigh I step forward.

The grave still looks fresh, the mound of earth still settling, and the grass greener than the surrounding turf. I kneel and look at the headstone.
Jessica Elizabeth Melbourne
Beloved Wife and Mother
We love you Still
1978 - 2014


"I went to see your father today. He won't go to the doctor. I guess I see where your stubbornness came from." My voice startles me in the dark and I smile and in my mind's eyes she smiles
too, mischievously with light in her eyes. I fell in love with that smile, with those eyes, so deep and searching and sitting here, I couldn't understand how I would live the rest of my days without her. I ached for Billy.
"Billy is doing fine." My voice faltered. I felt like I was trying to put her at ease. "I think. I haven't talked to him yet." I shake my head and close my eyes. "I don't know what to say to him. It would be easier if you came back to us. To me." It's funny how I hear her voice. " I know. You're not coming back." I look down at my hands and laugh. "Who's going to shade my eyes when I drive into the sun? I guess I'll have to get new visors." I laugh again and I can hear her laughing with me, visions of her struggling with the Lumina’s defective sun visors and then giving up and raising her hand to deflect the light from my eyes. On long drives she would reach into her purse and hand out sunglasses, a pair for each of us. On Sunday mornings on
our way to church we looked like the FBI. Every little thought was one more loss.
"I guess I should get going." I hear my voice, a whisper. Maybe tomorrow, I'll bring Billy. After we talk.

#

Pulling into the driveway, the false dawn is brighter. The kitchen light is on in the window. I grab the paper from out of the bushes on my way in. Billy is sitting at the breakfast table his hands wrapped around a steaming cup. On the table in front of him is a wooden picture frame. I know what the picture is. The three of us sitting in the log ride at Six Flags, me in the front, my hair dripping wet and plastered to my skull, Billy in the middle and Jessica at the back her arms wrapped around Billy, but one hand straying to my shoulder. Our eyes are wild with excitement, our faces, masks of joy, our laughter captured for all time. It was less than a month ago.

Billy looks up at me. I notice suddenly that he has his grandfather's eyes. "I had a dream about her. She was singing in the kitchen like she always does when she makes breakfast. Trying to wake us up. I came in to see her. But she wasn't here." His voice grows softer. His eyes are shining and deep, the questions I can't answer so prevalent within them. He grips the picture frame for a moment. "It's like she still here. But I can't find her anymore." He rocks back and forth, his cup forgotten, his eyes red and wet.

I sit down next to him and pull him to me. "I know.” I whisper. “Sssshhhh. I know. I know." Like him I can only rock back and forth, listening to him sob into my chest. All the words I want to say how it was going to be all right, how she is better now and happy, anything that I wanted to say sounded hollow. But I knew his dream and had had it myself, waking with a start, my
heart hammering at the possibility that the cancer had been the dream. That she was downstairs in a kitchen smelling of waffles with maple syrup and melted butter and crispy fried bacon.

The kitchen is a blur to me. And my struggle to support my son is not near as great as the struggle to stay and keep from running from the room, wishing I had someone who would rock me back and forth and let me cry in their arms.

She was already dying before we knew. It was that same day, the day we drove to Six Flags, sunglasses in place, the windows rolled down, the wind through our hair like in a million songs of summer. It would be the best day of our lives together. So close to the day I saw her and knew I loved her, to the day that we married, to the day that Billy was born, all nine pounds of him.
But this day we each knew it was the best day, all three of us. It was a conscious understanding that I could see in their eyes and in my own when I looked in the mirror as I drove home after. Billy was asleep in the backseat.
He still wore his giant foam hand that declared him to be number one. He won it in the ring toss; a game I was certain was fixed. Jessica sat next to me. She held my hand, her thumb caressing the length of my index finger. And she looked at me. She was always beautiful to me. Always making my heart stop when I saw her. I hated to say she was most beautiful that night, but she
was. She looked over her shoulder at Billy asleep and then back at me and in that instant something inside of me knew what was coming. Her smile faltered as she contemplated the words she had to say.

"I went to the doctor yesterday." Her eyes glistened which scared me and I felt the car slow as I reacted to her words. "It was only supposed to be a checkup. I've been tired." Her grip tightened around my hand. "Everything looked good." Her words were coming softer and softer. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure Billy was still asleep and caught the headlights of a car far back in the distance. Loneliness overpowered me. "Dr. Barnard called this morning before we left." She shook her head. "I couldn't tell you." She was suddenly wracked with sobs. I pulled the car over and pulled her as close to me as I could. She felt fragile. The car that passed was
just a blur of red lights. We sat there in the dark along the freeway, her whispering the details, me holding on for dear life and my son oblivious to he sudden end.

I looked over at the picture, the still life in it vivid. I could hear the screams of glee as I splashed water back at them as our log bobbled in the calm part of the ride. It had taken three short weeks before the cancer took her from us. Three weeks filled with her determination and strength to make sure we would carry on when she was gone. I felt her with me, as if my arms around Billy were covered with her arms around both of us. She was gone. But she was with us still.

Evil Sprites and Butterflies.


Truth be told they zipped and whizzed and quite a few of them dive bombed like a squadron of warplanes. I think it was because they could smell the blood and the fear. Not literal blood, of course, but the fear; well the plume wafted. It was my first time on the ice and I’ve decided my ankles are not fit for the thin metal blades that give grace and elegance to most skaters.
These kids though, they were diabolical dervishes, slipping in and out of the slower, more remedial skaters like they were an obstacle course. I fancy I looked rather like Frankenstein’s monster, my arms stiff out in front of me, and my legs rigid, moving one slow jerky inch at a time. Perhaps they intended to put me out of my misery; though I imagined them much more as angry villagers with pitchforks and flaming torches. Before I knew what was happening, they were all about me.
I tried to hurry out of the way and off the ice, but it was like a horrible dream sequence. Those metal blades sliced against the ice but my movement was glacial at best. I jerked my whole body in hopes that I could move faster. I looked up for help, but my fellow ice skaters were unaware of my peril, most I believed, consciously oblivious. I was the weak crippled wildebeest on the African plain about to be mauled and devoured by a pride of lions.
The first time I saw him zip by, he was graceful, elegant, and captivating. I looked away quickly, and the motion sent me veering uncontrollably to my left and further out onto the ice. I could have sworn I saw his right cheek turn up in a grin. He relished in my misery, I was certain. I snuck another quick glance, trying to locate him, but he was nowhere. I dared not look back, my periphery was but a 90 degree range of vision, if I turned my head too much, I feared it’d be much like a boat tiller sending me further away from the safety of the sidewall for which I longed so desperately.
The warplanes were back, strafing me with shaved ice from the rinks surface. I looked about for help. Pools had lifeguards. Wasn’t this much like a pool? Didn’t these maniacal devils deserve a time out for roughhousing?
He flew past again, a miraculous bird on ice. This time he looked at me as he passed and then skated backwards so he could watch me further. I must have looked rather pathetic because he turned quickly and raced away.
The one thing I’d accomplished rather well while on the ice was a knack for falling, gracelessly and without provocation. You’d have thought the gang of ice devils and their frosty shenanigans would have sent me down, but I persevered, albeit without panache. But a seemingly innocent patch of ice proved to be my undoing.
I thought I was in the clear. The ice imps had whipped past on their third sortie, faster than I thought possible, I could feel their draft actually dragging me on the ice. I moved faster than I was able to accomplish on my own volition. The sidewall was fast approaching and it suddenly occurred to me that I’d made every effort to accomplish the task of motion but was suddenly fully preoccupied with Newton’s First law of motion: an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. That external forced looked pretty hard and I was fast (relatively) approaching it. I flailed my arms. What I must have looked like. Not only was the sidewall growing nearer by the millisecond, but also the silver-heeled sprites were approaching from behind. I heard their delight and gaiety, ringing off the ice like a gleeful dirge. I said a prayer, much like the one I said when I first stepped on the ice, but this one held a wee bit more desperation.
I think the first rule they should tell you when you’re out on the ice is to not close your ice. It seems like common sense, I know, but I had already envisioned a collision with such carnage, that the idea of watching it unfold before my very eyes seemed like self-flagellation.
That patch of ice was terribly slick; my feet had drifted from parallel to a sudden V that quickly approached a right angle. My left foot slipped straight left and my right, straight in front of me, and my ass, straight down. It was my most dignified collapse of the day and I was feeling relatively accomplished. My prayer had been answered. I sat for a moment relieved, breathing heavily. I glanced over at the sidewall and I have to admit, the temptation to crawl on hands and knees did cross my mind. I had even started to maneuver into position when a cloud of ice crystals engulfed me like a cold wet wind.
He towered over me, looking down with friendly Nordic eyes. He wore a black knitted beanie; his blond hair peeking out. His other features were strong, his jawline, his nose, even his mouth with a deep cupid’s bow. He offered a hand. I took it rather inelegantly, my feet slipping out from under me twice before I was able to stand fully and then I grabbed onto his shoulders to the point where he nearly fell as well. “Thank you.”
He leaned into me, intimately and I felt them, those butterflies, zipping and whizzing around inside my stomach.
“I’m sorry.” He apologized.
I stood stock still as he didn’t pull back.
“They were only supposed to…”
The whistles and catcalls drew my attention. The boys, all of them were perched on the wall.
“You set them on me?” I accused and he smiled.
I latched onto him; and just that quickly and easily, we fell.