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  “Whichever one of us gets more listeners on our side….” Deke was thinking hard now. “I know. A blind date. The guy who loses must spend an evening with someone the winner chooses.”

  “Yuck. I’ve seen your taste in sex partners.”

  “You just insulted half our audience.”

  “You’ve slept with half our audience?” Mindy asked.

  “So much for the theory that getting laid puts people in a good mood,” Dudley said.

  “I don’t have to be pleasant. I have a big—” A lighthouse foghorn bleeped out the word “cock,” keeping it from going out over the airwaves. “So the ladies don’t care.”

  Dudley laughed. “I guess you left it at home on Naked Gardening Day. The only tool I saw would fit in better in one of those mini Japanese Zen gardens.”

  Deke shot Dudley a disgruntled look. He was supposed to be the dirty, funny one. Dudley was the straight man, at least in one sense of the word.

  “We’re getting a little off topic here,” Mindy prodded from the booth.

  “Okay,” Deke said. “By December twenty-second, we count up all the videos we receive, scour the comments, and tabulate the Christmas haters versus the Christmas likers. Whichever dude comes out on top, he has to have the perfect date ready for the other one on December twenty-third. Can you fit my big, hairy… date into your tight, firm… schedule?”

  “I… uh….” Dudley doubted he could.

  “For the show?” Deke held out his hand for the confirmation shake.

  “Your idea of the perfect date for me is a little scary, but… you’re on. Never let it be said I’m a poor sport. Come on, Dudley Do-Righters, don’t let me down. I’m pretty sure I can’t lose this one. As busy as Christmas can be, when we all get around that tree on Christmas morning with family and loved ones, it’s pretty sweet, right? Post some holiday happiness and send the Deke Suckers and their hate-spewing leader here a message.” They’d named their own fan bases, and most of their admirers wore their respective labels proudly. “They don’t call it comfort and joy for nothing.”

  “And on that cavity-producing drivel,” Deke said, “we’ll be back after this.”

  “Cut to commercial,” Mindy called. “Back in two.”

  “Who wants a turkey sandwich?” Deke asked, reaching for his satchel.

  “Me!” Mindy pounded on the glass she sat behind, desperate for her morning feeding like a contained shark after chum.

  “And one for you.”

  The squishy white square wrapped in plastic landed with a thud in front of Dudley. “What is it?”

  “Best thing ever between two slices of bread,” Mindy told him. “We get one a year. Try it.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Dudley carefully unwrapped the messy mess, closed his eyes, and took a big bite. “Oh my God.” Immediately, he chomped down for more, in the throes of a taste-bud orgasm.

  “You’re gonna polish it off, aren’t you?” Deke asked.

  “Yup.”

  “After two doughnuts and nine dildo cookies.” Deke shook his head. “Why isn’t your gut bigger than mine?”

  “Good metabolism, I guess,” Dudley said with his mouth full. “I want Mindy’s too.”

  “Forty-five seconds, guys. And I’ll rip your arm off.”

  The sandwiches were a thing of beauty. Turkey, stuffing, a thin layer of mashed potatoes spread like mayo on each side of homemade bread, cranberry sauce, even gravy. Who’d have thunk cold gravy on a sandwich would be anything but gross, but it wasn’t.

  “I could skip real Christmas dinner and just have one of these,” Dudley said, polishing off the rest. “Please tell me your mom roasts another turkey for Christmas.”

  “Chinese food and sitting home alone in my underwear watching Die Hard—that’s my Christmas. No family. No turkey.”

  “I’ll make one. You’re invited. Give me the recipe. I usually do prime rib, but….”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’re never going to change his mind about Christmas, Dudley. He’s always hated it and always will,” Mindy said.

  “He still hasn’t offered a reason why.”

  “I think I just gave you a hundred.”

  “Yeah, but… it’s got to be something a lot more… personal.”

  The On Air sign started to flash. “Back in three… two… one….” It went steady.

  “So you’re the type, then,” Deke said the moment they returned live to the airwaves, “whose yard and house is decked with boughs of holly and every other god-awful, tacky bit of light-up, animated, inflatable, musical crap a person can cram into one place and still walk around, huh?”

  “Spent the long weekend setting it up. It’s all timed to music. I have Santa and all eight reindeer… nine, counting Rudolph, actually, plus animated singing carolers, spinning skaters, polar bears, penguins, Scrooge, and the Grinch…. We could stick you right between them—a real ‘Bah humbug!’ three-way. We light it tonight. The whole neighborhood’s invited.”

  “I hate you guys.”

  “Aww. Frowny face!” Dudley said it and made one.

  “Damned Christmas jackals… backing up traffic fifty cars deep with your crap-tacular illuminated eyesores, forcing us to stop when all we want to do is get home and piss.”

  “I won’t see you at the party, then?”

  “Go suck a sack of chestnuts.”

  2

  DUDLEY THOUGHT kindly of Deke as he roasted some chestnuts over an open fire in his hibachi. “Here you go.” He handed some to a neighbor whose name he didn’t know. “Nice and warm.” It was a good suggestion despite the unfriendly way it came about. Dudley couldn’t wait to tell Deke. He scoured the gathered crowd to see if maybe his partner had dropped by after all. “Idiot.”

  Dudley’s unrequited crush on the hairy grouch had been practically instantaneous and, nearly one year in, showed no signs of letting up. It would always be just that, though—a one-way thing—and nothing more. At least they were friends. Maybe they were.

  Moving east for the job, Dudley left all of his real buddies back in Nebraska. He’d worked in radio there as well, and when the call went out for someone to come in and sit next to Deke, he sent in a tape. Two days later he was in his SUV with his grandfather and three cats, leaving everyone else in his life behind. The gig was that good, the huge bump in salary well worth it, and the move, so much closer to New York City, hopefully extremely beneficial.

  “Hey, Blitzen. You having fun?” Dudley had acquired a Great Dane since the move, one he named after part of Santa’s team, even though they’d adopted one another in March. That was how much Dudley loved Christmas. “I wanted you to meet Deke. I guess he’s not coming.”

  At least Mindy had an excuse for skipping out on his shindig. Her daughter, Jessica, had an elementary-school concert. Even without them the roadway was packed. Nearly every man, woman, and child who lived on the street was milling about in scarves and mittens they didn’t really need but wore for festive effect per instruction via their invitation. It was relatively mild. Snowflakes that occasionally floated down were only visible beneath the streetlight, more felt on Dudley’s nose and cheeks than seen.

  The huge box he would set out each evening to collect nonperishable items for the local food bank was already half-full on night one. Dudley would drag it to the curb for the next several weeks after work and then back to the garage before turning in, so people driving by to get a look at his huge holiday display could drop in a can or a box. It was something he’d done every year back in Falls City. The joy of delivering the goods in early January to help replace what was doled out for Thanksgiving and Christmas was the giving feeling he’d spoken of earlier, and there was nothing like it.

  Past light displays always brought folks in from adjacent neighborhoods as well, and everyone always seemed to be in a generous mood. Dudley met a ton of new people each holiday season back home. He had hoped it would be the same in Chappaqua, but everyone
seemed self-focused and scattered so far. Even as they mingled about, looking at the decorations, they were all on their phones, talking to people not there instead of their host or other guests.

  “I think it’s almost dark enough.” Dudley was more excited than the little kids eagerly checking out the various North Pole vignettes surrounded by plastic snow.

  The people-size gingerbread house with huge lollipops lining its walkway seemed to be a particular favorite with the children. Dudley had put out bowls of multicolored gumdrops, candy-coated chocolates, chocolate nonpareils, and peppermint bark inside, and on a table set up in front of Santa’s workshop was a huge coffee urn filled with hot chocolate and wreathed by trays of cookies from the local bakery. He’d share his homemade goodies later in the season in the form of a gift basket left on every doorstep up and down the street.

  I can’t wait, he thought, and then he shouted it. “Let’s start the countdown.”

  Every year, Dudley liked to grab some Dickensian-looking moppet from the crowd to actually push the button to bring the display to life. They were hard to come by these days, what with all the obscene T-shirts and hoodies, slouched shoulders, and earbuds. He’d made up his mind ahead of time to ask little Allen Erickson.

  Letting Allen throw the switch was something small that Dudley could do for the poor kid. Allen would likely be moving away soon because his parents were divorcing and neither could afford the mortgage on their own. This was all according to cul-de-sac scuttlebutt told to Dudley by Randy, the hot neighborhood UPS man. Other than Mindy and Deke, sexy Randy was the closest thing Dudley had to a new friend. Those TV shopping channels Deke hated? Dudley loved them. That meant Randy visited often.

  Dudley found his little helper and gently took his arm. “You’re on, Allen.”

  Even smiling, Allen seemed somewhat sad. Dudley understood all too well. His parents had split when he was six. He’d rarely seen his father throughout most of his childhood and not at all for the past seventeen years. Dudley’s mom had passed away just a few years ago. He lived with his grandfather now. Suffering from Alzheimer’s—so far, relatively mild—Gramps could no longer live alone. Technically, he lived with Dudley. In order to spare Gramps’s feelings, however, Dudley usually said it was the other way around.

  “You ready?” Dudley positioned Allen behind the big red button connected to a hundred extension cords, a thousand lights, and a million volts—give or take.

  “Ready,” the third grader said.

  “Three… two… one. Hit it!”

  Allen eagerly slapped the control. Nothing happened. He kept smacking. “What the…?” Maybe he slapped it too hard.

  “Uh-oh.” Dudley’s gut did a flip-flop. “Umm…. The lights inside are okay, so we didn’t trip the main breaker.”

  Allen didn’t seem to care for the explanation. He just kept hitting the button. Whack! Whack! Whack!

  “I don’t think it’s going to work.” Dudley pursed his lips. “Let me check the….” Check the what, he wondered? He pretty much plugged this cord into that one, et cetera, et cetera until several hundred feet of thin green and thick orange wiring all met up at one multi-outlet connector. Every single test had gone successfully, including one that afternoon, following hours of layaway shopping for some special recipients. “Sorry, Allen.” Dudley was crushed.

  “It’s fine,” Allen’s mother soothed. “Stuff happens. Especially this time of year, right?” She rolled her eyes. “One thing after another.” Dudley wondered if Paulette Erickson was a Deke Sucker.

  “I have no idea what the problem is.” Dudley turned the switch upside down for no good reason as the flurries turned to drizzle and quickly to a steadier rain. “Oh. I hate to do this, everyone,” he said loudly, “but with the weather and all, maybe we should put this off until tomorrow… or maybe the weekend. I apologize… and thank you… those who donated canned goods tonight.” The cold rain not a single weatherman on TV or radio had predicted started coming down harder. “We’ll try again soon.”

  No one was listening. People had already begun to scatter toward their dry, warm homes, totally disinterested in Dudley’s speech.

  “Okay. Good… good… night.” No one was left—or so Dudley thought.

  “Need a hand getting crap inside?”

  Dudley turned. “Deke. You did come.”

  “Eh. Nothing better to do. Come on. We’re getting wet.”

  “Grab the cookie trays. I’ll get the urn.”

  Gentleman that he was—though he did a good job hiding it most of the time—Deke grabbed the huge coffeepot, leaving Dudley with the much lighter cookies instead, as the sky opened up.

  “Shoot.” Cold, jagged pellets started stinging Dudley on every inch of exposed skin. He rushed for the back deck, right behind Deke, who slipped in the wetness on the bottom step.

  “Fuck!”

  “You okay?”

  Deke grunted a response as he recovered and reached for the door. The first one in, he set the urn on the kitchen counter and then pulled up his shirts—three layers, two sweatshirts and an undershirt—to expose his furry gut.

  “What happened?” Dudley put down the cookies and stepped up beside him.

  “I guess I splashed some cocoa. It burns a little.”

  “Oh no.” Dudley reached out toward the injury. He couldn’t really find it, though, because of all the hair. “I’ll get some… cream. Show me where it hurts.”

  “It’s no big deal.” Deke lowered his shirts.

  Dudley immediately wished he hadn’t. “Really. We should put something on it. Why don’t you… maybe take ’em off?”

  Deke looked at Dudley as if he’d suggested they put on toe shoes to perform a scene from The Nutcracker. “Really, Dudley, I’m good.” Then he looked down at Blitzen, who was panting and drooling. The dog was so obvious.

  “Okay. As long as you’re sure.” So Dudley just stood there as the kitchen schoolhouse clock ticked—one second, two, three. “I have a dog,” he said nervously, stating the obvious.

  “Really?” Deke patted Blitzen’s head. “I thought he was a horse.”

  “You’ve never been here before.”

  “Nope.”

  “His name’s Blitzen.”

  “Ah.”

  “That’s what I should have said.”

  “You talk about him on the show all the time, Dud. I knew you had a dog, and I know his name.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you listened when I talked.”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  Blitzen took off then, as bored with the conversation as Deke was, apparently.

  “Let me see your chest.” Dudley hoped he could pull off bossy. It must have worked. Deke pulled all three layers up over his head at once. The black elastic of his underwear showed above his jeans, Joe Boxer written in white. “There. Happy?”

  “Did the cocoa splash… anywhere else?”

  “You want me to take off my pants?”

  “Only if….”

  “If what?”

  Dudley swallowed hard. “If you… need to.”

  Deke barked out a laugh. “Sounds like you need to. How long has it been?”

  “Dudley?” a voice called from upstairs. “Where are you?”

  “In the kitchen, Gramps. That was Gramps.”

  “I didn’t think it was the dog,” Deke said.

  “Deke hurt himself, Gramps. Can you bring down the burn cream from the medicine cabinet?” Dudley moistened a paper towel at the sink and passed it over. “Here…. So it’s clean when Gramps gets here,” he said.

  “How’s he doing?” Deke asked quietly, dabbing at his wound.

  “Good days and bad moments, just the way I like it.”

  “Yeah. It’s going to suck when it’s the other way around.”

  “With any luck it never will be. Maybe they’ll come up with a cure before then. We started a program down in the city last month. He’s a great candidate, they say. Not all that old. Still in pretty good—Gr
amps.” He entered then, so Dudley clammed up. “You remember Deke, from the WXMS picnic last August?”

  “I do.”

  Dudley’s grandfather handed over the first-aid kit. Blitzen, who’d followed, dropped a roll of toilet paper at Deke’s feet.

  “Hey, Mr. Moss.”

  “Stop picking on my grandson.”

  Dudley’s heart stopped until his grandfather smiled.

  “I’ll try. We won’t have much of a show, but….” Deke reached for the Charmin, his eyebrows asking what it was for.

  Dudley shrugged. “I guess he likes you. Plus he’s kind of a kleptomaniac.”

  “You two going to have sex?”

  “Gramps!”

  “Not the Alzheimer’s, Deke,” Gramps said with a smirk.

  “What’s that?” Deke looked to Dudley again.

  “His go-to phrase whenever he acts like a smartass,” Dudley explained, “just so I know it’s on purpose.” Dudley’s cheeks were as red as his swooping bangs.

  “I’ll be in my room with the TV up loud… just in case.” Gramps’s smirk was still present, “On, Blitzen!”

  “Not many guys come over,” Dudley said once he and Deke were alone.

  “Which would explain why you were in such a hurry to get me out of my clothes.”

  “Yeah.” Dudley faked a smile. “You figured me out.” He looked at Deke’s chest. “Wow!”

  “I’m hairy.”

  “Yeah. No. I knew that. I see the redness now. It’s pretty bad.” Dudley unscrewed the cap on the ointment. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

  “Dude…. It’s cocoa. I didn’t take a bullet. I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Gramps doesn’t know you’re… you know…,” Dudley whispered, “…gay.”

  “You haven’t told him?”

  “No. Why would I? He was just… teasing me. I haven’t told anyone.”

  Only a few people knew, Dudley and Mindy among them. Deke had never come out on the air. The subject hadn’t even come up with Scott. People likely just assumed they were both straight. Deke played it that way—all crude, macho, and sexist—then and now. With Dudley relatively open with his sexuality, Deke was afraid revealing he was gay too would change the whole dynamic of the show. Their prickly banter would be seen as something else—romantic bickering or squabbling at best, and at worst “hunty bitchery” or a couple on the verge of a really nasty breakup. He was certain station management would agree, and therefore planned on keeping his attraction to men under his hat.