Catching Christmas by Lee Benoit

Ingenuous Petey left home under a cloud only to find friendship and purpose among a band of itinerants. Now it’s Christmas Eve and Petey has left his friends behind to try to spend the holiday with the family that rejected him. When Petey must finally admit that you can’t go home again, it’s his traveling friends who pick him up, dust him off, and bring him to a church basement to help serve a holiday meal to those even less fortunate than Petey himself. There he meets the mysterious Woody, who expresses a surprising interest in young Petey. Is Petey in over his head -- again -- or will the two wanderers find in each other a home for the holidays?

Buy the e-book Go to Lee's GLBT Bookshelf main page Visit Lee's Web site

Related Freebie!   Click cover to read!

 
Here is an excerpt from Catching Christmas:

"That you, Petey?"

Petey hadn't expected to be recognized, and the pair he saw approaching him brought an equally unexpected smile to his face.

"Hey, Sledge," he got out before a tiny whirlwind of arms and legs enfolded him. "Pest!" he greeted the limpet-like person, Sledge's constant companion, and his friend.

"You gotta come with us," Pest said, speaking as though there hadn't been a weeks-long break since they'd last been together. "It's gonna be great."

"What is?" he asked, freeing one arm to offer an awkward hug to the more reticent Sledge.

"Party!" Pest said. "After serving supper at the food bank.

It really was as though he'd never left his friends. "Will Mole and Ab be there?" He'd left his other friends behind further south, where Mole was doing some advocacy work with migrant tomato pickers and his lover Ab was taking the most amazing photographs. Petey didn't imagine their work was done, nor that they'd have had enough time to hop a train north, so he wasn't surprised when Sledge shook her spiky head.

Missing Ab and Mole was harder than Petey would have credited, even a few days ago. The two men were like big brothers to him. Well, like he imagined loving and proud big brothers might be. He looked out over the slushy yard and spotted a glow here and there where other itinerants had fires. Amazing how many folks stayed north at Christmastime. "Mole and Ab have the right idea," he said as he fell into step beside Sledge with Pest clinging to his back, skinny legs banging the backs of his knees with every step.

"You know it," Pest trilled, too loudly in his ear. "Too fucking cold here."

"Your fault we're here, though," Sledge reminded Pest with the air of an old argument worn toothless with repetition.

"Gotta visit my Grams for Christmas, don't I?" Pest replied. "Ain't no one else gonna."

Petey slid into the comfortable role of silent partner. No one needed him to say anything, to make any decisions. Deciding to come back to Sister City on his own had been the first decision he'd made in the months since Mole rescued him from some bad men, and look how that was turning out. Pest wriggled on his back and Petey smiled to himself -- well, in the last five minutes that decision was moving into the not-so-bad column.

A few other kids Petey didn't know slunk out of tents and abandoned shipping containers when Sledge called out. A few months ago these scraggly folk would have sent Petey running -- and some of them were still pretty scary -- but Petey knew what was what now, knew how to greet them without giving away how green he still was, knew Sledge had his back if it came to that.

The walk to the food bank wasn't too long, and before Petey knew it Pest was hopping off his back and bouncing down the steps into St. Sebastian's basement fellowship hall where Petey saw more folks he knew, including grumpy Sister David who ran the food bank for the parish.

"Back in one piece I see," she said by way of greeting. The tough old nun passed Petey a pair of oven mitts and pointed him and Sledge and Pest towards the giant laundry sink to get washed up before getting to work.

"She's happy to see you," Pest teased. "All she did was toss me an apron and walk away. Come on."

…

He didn't notice how hungry he was until some time later when Sister Jean d'Arc directed him to the dining room to eat before it was time to clean up.

Pest and Sledge grinned as they filled Petey's plate with lasagna, salad, and warm bread, but they couldn't take a break yet -- the line of hungry folks snaked right back up the stairs of the basement hall. "Try that table," Sledge said, pointing with a tomato-drippy spoon. "Guy's a friend'a Mole's, I think."

That was good enough for Petey. Sitting with strangers would have been daunting in any case, but on Christmas Eve the sad old vets and broken-down moms and wraithlike little kids were too much for him to bear. What would he say that wouldn't make things worse for them, or worse, set them off? Over at a table near the kitchen door, where it was hotter and noisier than the rest of the hall, a small round table shimmed with pieces of cardboard listed toward a skinny guy who hunched over his food like a lion at a kill. Or a con, Petey thought uneasily before berating himself for jumping to conclusions.

"Share your table?" Petey asked. Some deep-down part of him wanted to add ‘sir' to his request.

© Lee Benoit

Note: I wrote this as a little author extra for the release day of “Catching Christmas.” Find out more about the Catching Out world at my website!
________________________________________

Petey arrives at the rail yard hungry and alone. In his gear he has a battered old stewpot and very little else.

His friend Pest bounces up and asks, “What’s in the pot, Petey?”

“Nothing,” replies Petey with a forlorn sigh.

Undaunted, Pest grins. “We’ll fix that! Hey, Sledge, you got that water pump working?”

For such a wee person, Pest sure has a set of lungs!

Pest’s burly girlfriend hollers back that the old water pump is finally running clear so Pest and Petey hie over with the pot.

“What about a fire?” Petey asks.

“First things first,”” Sledge cautions. “Gotta get some’a these folks to give up some fixin’s. What do you say, Woody?”

Woody’s been on the road longer than anybody and catches Sledge’s drift right away. With a wink, he pulls his guitar out of his gig bag and sets himself down on an overturned milk crate. “What do you want to hear, boyo?”

Petey thinks for a minute. His favorite song is kind of embarrassing. “Do you know ‘The Unicorn Song?’” he whispers in Woody’s ear.

That ear twitches as Woody grins. “Good choice! Gather round, folks!”

By the second chorus, a few other travelers have wandered over and a few even know the words:”There were green alligators and long-necked geese, humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees…”  Whenever Woody sang, “but the loveliest of all was the unicorn,” he looked right at Petey, until Petey felt he could heat the water in the stewpot with just his burning cheeks and the fire in his belly.

“Dude, play ‘The Hammer Song!’” one guy calls out as Woody finishes ‘The Unicorn Song.’

Woody fixes the guy with that Woody stare, halfway between friendly and…not. “No request unless you give up something for the pot.”

The guy grumbles a bit, but digs around in his pack for a bit with his back turned. Out come two knobby potatoes. “Was savin’ ‘em for special,” the guy says.

Woody nods respectfully. Pest collects the ‘taters from the guy and carries them over to the pot, careful not to let the guy see his offering all alone in the water – he’d be liable to take it back then, wouldn’t he? Petey and Sledge make the rounds of old hoppers and coal tips gathering gravelly lumps of coal and the odd bit of wood. Before Woody can “hammer out a song,” there’s a humble fire going.

Franklin and Dino come up with some onions from the community garden and request “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” which is a long enough ditty that by the time Woody’s played the last chords, the water in the pot is bubbling and the taters and onions are chopped and dancing.

If Woody’s sweet tunes weren’t enough to bring folks round, the good smell from the pot grabs ‘em for sure. Coupla carrots from Crazy Nell -- tops and all, for flavor, Pest insists -- follow a can of navy beans from Old Jim into the pot. Petey dips into his precious salt and pepper stash and soon the pot smells like  supper and the music makes the old rail yard sound like home.

A little of this, a little of that, and the song requests come fast and furious. Petey’s just thinking how nice some chicken or something would be in the soup when -- wouldn’t you know it -- somebody comes up with a sack of frozen chicken wings he cadged from the pizza place on River Road. It’s a coupla days past expiration, but that sack earns the fella two songs anyhow.

There’s not a song Woody doesn’t know, and he only takes a break to accept his share of the soup in his old enamel cup. He and Petey eat together, crunching through some hoarded Saltines to fill in the extra places in their bellies.

Petey doesn’t need the crackers, though. Stone soup and singing right past dusk with his most special friend fill him right up.

© Lee Benoit

KEYWORDS: gay book, gay bookstore, gay fiction, gay literature, gay writers, gay book reviews, m/m, manlove, gay romance