Carl went back to work on the first day of the Hindu festival of Diwali.
He wouldn’t have known this if there hadn’t been an Indian family living in New Prague in the eighties. That was the first time that the town had had any ethnic diversity whatsoever, and, in their cultural fervor, the administration gave New Prague High the Festival of Light off of school. Though the Ramachandrans had long moved away, the tradition lived on in Diwali drinking parties and various other functions Carl wasn’t invited to.
Babcia had finally decided to let him breach informal house arrest in order to become a man who could provide for himself—not only in the form of cash, but also in ice cream. To prevent her grandson from running away, she had put a dog collar around his neck and walked him to Dairy Queen. Carl would have objected if he had a social life consisting of more than three people. Instead, he bowed his head and promised her he wouldn’t leave until she came back from flirting with Mort-the-Butcher at the end of his shift.
Her efforts would prove to be in vain––not even Christians came to the Dairy Queen during Diwali, and so he sat behind the counter, bored. Every few minutes he flipped his phone open to see if Todd had texted him. Sukie claimed sprained thumbs.
There was a particularly cryptic note in his inbox:
I need you.
It was grammatically correct. Not, i need u.
I need you.
Followed quickly by another:
Your grandma still at Morts?
Until end of shift.
The bell above the door jingled.
Carl’s heart exploded with joy. “Todd?”
He stood up to the counter, feeling slightly lightheaded. Even in his uniform—especially in his uniform?—he was beautiful and smiling and tousled-looking from the wind. He took off his sunglasses and folded them into his pocket. “I’ve been thinking about you all fucking day,” he said, grinning. “And then Laura started talking about you, and how much I hang out with you, and how dorky you are but how cute—and I was like yes, bitch, that’s my boyfriend, except not really because…” He shrugged and kissed Carl on the mouth. “Because you wouldn’t know if some chick was hitting on you, anyway.” Carl pulled away and looked at him, so elated he couldn’t speak. It was still astonishing to him that he had a boyfriend, let alone one who ‘thought about him all fucking day’. “Carl…Carl, you’re looking at me weird.”
Carl would have squealed, but was aware of what a strange noise it was. “I love it when you talk like a straight person.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s true.”
Todd swung his legs over the counter and wrapped his arms around Carl’s waist. “Happy Diwali,” he said, their lips so close together that Carl could feel the individual syllables as he spoke.
He closed his eyes, but quickly opened them again. “Wait, don’t you have school today?” he said into Todd’s shoulder.
“I do, but one of the buttons on my shirt fell off, so Mrs. Peterson bought some lame excuse about having to run errands for Father Solomon.”
“You’re such a slut.”
“Not my fault they only put three buttons on the uniform.”
Trembling, he ran a finger down the center of Todd’s chest. He’d fastened his shirt with a tie tack. “I wish I was Catholic,” he breathed. “I’d get…” His mind died as Todd slipped his similarly withering hand into the gaping hole between tie tack and button. “Free bread and stuff.”
“Your grandmother goes to my church.”
He could feel the notches in Todd’s breastbone.
“Yeah, but my dad’s too cheap and--” Todd began to kiss Carl's neck. He was warm and slightly wet—the ideal breeding ground for cooties. “—a-and he thinks that public school girls might not have morals and stuff, so they’ll uh, sleep with me and make me not––” He pulled away. “Can we like, do this where there’s not a window?”
“That’s all the thanks I get for rescuing you from your boredom?”
“Oh, no, no, thank you, I just—making out, windows, it’s––”
“Whatever.” He pulled Carl by the apron to the counter next to the Blizzard machine, which was covered in various dried fruits to be mixed in for the Health Your Blizzard! promotion. Even Mick had caught onto the fact that Health Your Blizzard! was one of the world’s great oxymorons, somewhat akin to jumbo shrimp. “This your scar?” he asked, running his finger along Carl’s upper lip.
“Uh-huh,” Carl squeaked. “Uhm, careful of the raisins.”
“You’re such a good employee.”
“You’re such a good…lipper.”
Todd laughed and tugged at Carl’s belt loops. “What the Hell is that?”
“I don’t think we should talk for awhile,” Carl said. Todd laughed and slipped his tongue into Carl’s mouth, pushing them both back into the counter until Carl could feel his vertebrae go numb.
He couldn’t have asked for a better Diwali, there in the Dairy Queen kitchen with a pretty boy who tasted like gummy bears and who had indecently exposed himself in order to cut class, just for him. He didn’t care if he was going to sustain lasting nerve damage; there wasn’t anything in the world that could have made him—
“What the Hell is going on here?”
Carl’s hands involuntarily flew backwards, pushing a container of raisins towards the edge of the counter. He watched them slide, in slow motion, towards the edge and slowly tip, spilling their contents all over Todd’s feet. He closed his eyes.
He opened them to the Sheriff, standing behind the Dairy Queen counter. The Keen Eyes of the Law were wide and bloodshot, arteries like silly string sprayed on twin full moons. He was holding a coupon book open, but his hands had frozen in place.
“There’s nothing going on here, Sheriff,” he breathed, heart pounding. Todd had long leapt away from him and was standing in the corner, smiling somewhat absently. “My, uhm, brother was just––”
“You’re a homo?”
“No, my brother was––”
“You’re a brother-kissing homo?”
“I…I wouldn’t take it that far, sir, I––”
“It was the girl’s fault, sir,” Todd said. “The Japanese girl. She’s got this…Japanese mind-control ring, and I don’t know, in their country they like some pretty sick stuff.” He wiped his mouth on his blazer. “I can’t believe what I’ve been doing, these past few days…it’s awful, just––”
“Japanese mind-control-ring my ass,” the Sheriff said, and threw his coupon book on the ground. “You little shit. You lied to me.”
“I, uhm, I didn’t––”
The bell jingled and Babcia stepped in, swinging Carl’s collar from the loop around her wrists.
“Little Pig, it is time for us to be going home,” she said, pushing the Sheriff aside. “You have had too long to be––” She stopped and lifted the bottom of her shoe. Two raisins fell away. “You dirty pig!”
“Babcia, I’ll clean it up, just give me five minutes, I swear, I––”
“I leave for good friend, you leave big mess. You are just like your father.”
The Sheriff put his hand on her shoulder. “Your boy is a pervert. I came in and he was gettin’ all comfortable with his brother on the counter––”
She looked at Todd, horrified. “Big Pig has new children and does not tell me?”
“Babcia, I can explain––”
“—kissin’ and makin’ a scene like one of them nekkid movies––”
“Little Pig was kissing new children?” She laughed. “This is not so! Little Pig is engaged!”
Todd punched Carl’s shoulder. “You’re engaged?”
“Babcia thinks—“
“Babcia has picked out nice girl Zuzanna for Little Pig,” she said, beaming. “They will make happy children, yes.”
Carl covered his face with his hands. “It’s the Curse of Diwali,” he moaned.
“Curse? This ain’t no curse, punk—it’s choices that make people––”
“Hush,” she said, tapping the Sheriff on the shoulder. “Little Pig is not allowed to talk when he has Little Pig leash.”
Carl bowed his head and let her slip it around his neck.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.