Christmas Tales - Brandon Witt Page 0,17

selfish thoughts correctly, but he trudged on, without letting me dwell on it.

“I bet, after you’ve seen what all I do to the house, you’ll wanna do the same thing. I’m gonna get a wind turbine, and be totally off-grid.”

I stuffed the food in my mouth before I could comment about a wind turbine in the backyard. A fucking wind turbine!

He must have been waiting for me to blow a gasket. His eyes widened in surprise when I finally swallowed and spoke. “It’s strange to have an environmentalist who hunts out of season.”

It only took a moment for him to regroup. “The environmental effects are great, but that’s not really why I do it. I want to be off grid. Don’t want the government watching me any more than they have to. None of their damned business. I won’t have internet or phones or cable. So the little electricity I use will be more than covered by wind and sun.” He grinned again and took a bite of his dinner.

“You know, you’re kind of as strange as your uncle, just in a different way.”

He laughed. “Well, as long as we’re not the same kind of strange, I’ll take that as a compliment. Lord knows, traveling the US, I’ve been called a lot worse than strange.”

I latched on to the topic. “How long have you been living in the Winnebago?”

Raymond paused, and I could tell he was far away for a moment. “Well, I got that monster right after Maggie left. No, wait. That’s not true. That was just when I left Boulder.” He tapped the fork on the table. “Oh that’s right. Robert and I got our first Winnebago when we got together, so pushing thirty years.” He let out a little puff of a breath and shook his head. “Wow. Long time.”

His expression was one I’d not seen from him yet. Maybe sadness. Almost. It nearly made me stop talking, but I couldn’t. For some inexplicable reason, I needed to know. “Who’s Maggie and Robert?”

His blue gaze focused on me. Yep, sadness. “Maggie was my wife, and Robert was my husband.” It was said matter-of-fact. Any other tone from him and I would’ve thought he was just being his playful self. But he was serious.

And wife?

“You were married to a man and a woman, at the same time?”

He gave a breath of a laugh. “No. I was married to Maggie for a few years. She split on my twenty-eighth birthday. I’ll never quite forgive her for doing it right then. Though I don’t suppose it matters at this point. And Robert was never really my husband. Couldn’t do that sort of thing back then. But that’s what he was.”

I couldn’t keep myself from asking. “He left too?”

He nodded, slowly. “Yep. Didn’t even know he had it until it was too late.”

I waited. There were tears brimming at the corner of his eyes, though I didn’t understand them.

After a moment, he wiped at them and seemed to return to the present once more. He smiled sadly. “Robert died of AIDS. We had well over a decade together, traveling the world, well, the country. After I lost him, I just never quit traveling.”

I started to say I was sorry. Ask him if he needed a Kleenex or something stupid. Instead, I just sat there, feeling my own eyes burn.

We ate in silence for a bit. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it just was.

And then it began to feel like it was too long. Like if it kept going, it would get suffocating. I chose what I hoped was an easier question. “So, why are you stopping the traveling now? You’ve been waiting for your uncle’s house?”

He snorted. “God, no. That was just, well….” He gave one of his shrugs. “You know, maybe it was just the universe telling me it’s time. I’m not going to quit traveling, but the trips will be few and far between. I’m not sick or anything, but it’s taking a toll on me, the constant moving. I’d actually been thinking about slowing down for years. That jackass dying just forced my hand, I guess. And strangely, as much as I despised that fucker, he was the one bit of blood I had left, you know? Suddenly, I felt the need to put down roots.” He laughed, somewhat bitterly. “Sixty-seven and finally feeling the urge to put down goddamn roots.”

Again I didn’t know what to say.

Raymond’s smile returned. “Although, if I’d known how hot the faggot neighbor was, I’d