Blue Streak

“I cannot fucking believe it’s snowing again. This is the tenth damned, fucking, snow in a row that has totally screwed my weekend plans.” Brian continued to curse for several more minutes, his profanity becoming bluer and more inventive as he warmed to his theme. At least something was warm, Mac thought. It was more his tendency to be philosophical about things he couldn’t change, whether it was the weather—or Brian’s temper. He’d sprained his ankle badly while running a few days earlier due to some black ice that caught him by surprise, and caused an ignominious fall. Now he was dependent on crutches, which made traversing the ice and snow outside even more treacherous, so he was spending a good deal more time inside than was his customary practice. Inside with a grouchy partner. He sighed.

“Do you want to….” Before Mac could finish the question, Brian swung away from the loft’s large window, where he’d been standing, glaring at the snow, and walked rapidly toward Mac.

“Yes. I do want to.”

“But I didn’t even finish,” Mac protested.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re getting out of here.”

Brian tossed Mac’s coat at him and then waited by the door impatiently as he struggled into it while balancing on his crutches. For all of thirty seconds, Mac considered rebelling, and telling Brian no, but a second glance at those storm clouds—the ones in the beautiful hazel eyes, not those outside the large loft windows—convinced him to go along with this latest whim. He hoped they were getting into the car that was inside the parking garage downstairs and he didn’t have to try using his crutches on the hazardous ice/snow mixture on the un-shoveled pavement.

It wasn’t too bad getting out of the building and onto the street, despite the fact that no plows had come through yet; the still falling snow was providing traction and wasn’t yet deep enough to present difficulty for the Jeep. Mac breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Brian wasn’t feeling reckless enough—not to say crazy—to have wanted to take the Corvette out in this weather; as it was, the Jeep was a small one and while it had the advantage of four wheel drive, it was not particularly powerful. Mac’s Chevy SUV hybrid would have been better but Brian hated it so Mac didn’t even bother suggesting it. He once asked Ben why Brian disliked Mac’s new Chevy so much, pointing out that it was the most energy efficient vehicle on the market, and all its other sensible features. Ben laughed and patted him on the back comfortingly.

“It’s nothing personal, Mac—you lost him at ‘sensible.’ Brian would hate anything so responsible. Your hybrid is the antithesis of his Corvette. He sees it as a breeder vehicle.”

“But, it’s much more functional than….”

Ben just shook his head and grinned. “Than his Jeep, too. I know. And it doesn’t matter. Brian is so good at marketing because he understands the motives that compel most consumers. You are not the average consumer, however, which is why he respects you.”

Sitting in the small, less safe Jeep, Mac wished that Brian’s respect for him extended to permitting him to set aside his ego long enough to opt for the SUV for this expedition out into the snowstorm. But, not being one to worry about things he couldn’t change, and Brian and the weather both falling into that category, Mac settled into his seat, fastened his seatbelt, and began to enjoy the quiet beauty of the snow-covered landscape. 

Brian glanced at Mac. Just seeing his peaceful expression was enough to calm him. He knew he should have asked to take Mac’s bigger, heavier SUV, but he was stubborn and driving that car made him feel…grownup.  Sensible. Old. Not that Mac was old, though he certainly was sensible. On Mac, sensible seemed sexy, Brian thought, his lips quirking upward, as he stole another glance at his lover. He couldn’t risk taking his eye off the road too much. It was deceptive, like Mac, he thought. The surface was ordinary—a snow-covered postcard perfect, Currier and Ives landscape, but beneath the surface, surprises lurked that could thrill, take away your breath even.

Brian was beginning to think he’d never tire of exploring Mac’s hidden depths, learning his secrets.  One thing he knew about him already was that even though he didn’t yell and complain like Brian did, the enforced inactivity of this winter, combined with his injury, was driving him crazy, so a large part of this day’s rant and ride (Brian made a mental note to save that phrase—he knew he could use it for a commercial someday) was motivated by a desire to help Mac by getting him out of the loft.

Mac looked over and caught Brian watching him. He smiled, and reached over to squeeze his thigh. “This was a good idea after all. Do you have a destination in mind or are we going to drive until we find spring?”

Brian laughed. “We should have taken the ‘Vette for that trip, as I suspect it would take a lot longer, faster ride than I’d had in mind for today. I thought we’d go in search of some of your birds. See how they’re faring. I even brought some of that special mix of yours—that stuff that looks totally disgusting but I assume the birds like.”

Mac smiled, pleased more than he could say at Brian’s thoughtfulness. This winter was hard on his beloved birds. “Down by the river would be great. There are reports of it freezing in some areas, like it did back in ’78. We can….”

One moment they were driving along fine; the next, the Jeep was spinning wildly out of control. Mac stopped talking and just held on, trying not to tense up too much as Brian did his best to bring the Jeep out of its skid. They’d left the smaller streets and had gotten onto the highway, which had been plowed, but that had only served to remove enough snow to expose the hard-packed, icier layer beneath it. Mac held his breath and said a quick prayer as the Jeep did a 180 into the on-coming lanes.

Somehow, the vehicles coming toward them all managed to swerve out of their path without losing control themselves, but he and Brian still weren’t out of trouble as Brian no sooner brought the Jeep out of that spin than he had to swerve hard to avoid a truck that was directly in their path.

Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. Mac was conscious of all the details—the cold of the window next to his face as he was thrown to the right, the twinge in his ankle as he reflexively pressed his foot down on his imaginary brake, the frightened look on the truck driver’s face, the flakes of snow clumping on the windshield before being swept away by the incessant pass of the wipers—and Brian’s cursing a blue streak as he fought to regain control of the Jeep.

Dear God, he loved that man so much, please don’t let him be hurt. He brought food for the birds, it wouldn’t be fair for him to be hurt doing something so kind.

Mac closed his eyes tight and prayed - it was a childish, babbling kind of prayer, like you pray when you are little and kneeling by your bed, but it got him through to the moment where he felt the hard thump of the Jeep against something solid. He summoned the nerve to open his eyes and the first place he looked was over to Brian, to make sure he was all right.

Brian was leaning back against the seat, exhaling heavily, his hands still gripping the wheel tightly. He looked over at Mac, his eyes anxious.

“Are you…”

“Are you…”

They both laughed weakly then reached for each other. They were still hugging each other tight, their heads on each other’s shoulder, when they heard a light rap on Brian’s window.

A big man, dressed in work clothes was leaning down, peering in the window at them. A couple other younger people stood behind him.

“You boys okay in there? If you are, I’ve got the man-power here to get you out of this here ditch.”

“We’re in a ditch?” Brian asked, somewhat stupidly, Mac thought fondly. They both looked out of the Jeep’s front windshield and realized that they had ended up against a guardrail, somewhat in a ditch, as the man had told them, and facing the wrong way, as far as traffic went. But the Jeep seemed to be more or less intact.

“We’re okay, thanks,” Brian told him, “the only injury is one my partner started with, but how bad is the Jeep?”

“Doesn’t look damaged at all,” the man assured him. “As I said, I think we can get you out if you just stay right there and we give you a push.”

Brian demurred for politeness sake but was soon convinced that it would take forever for Triple A to get out to them, and the man, Bill, and his two sons and daughter were as large and strong as their dad. They had the Jeep pushed out in a less than a minute, and refused to take anything for their help, waving a cheery goodbye as soon as they’d gotten the Jeep back on solid ground.

Brian and Mac sat for a moment, contemplating what to do next. Another tap on the window came.

“Can I give you guys a hand?”

A tall young woman stood by the Jeep, dressed in a flannel shirt, down vest, and jeans, with high leather work boots. Brian started to say something dismissive but stopped. The large truck parked behind her may have given him a flashback to those moments when he saw a truck bearing down on Mac and him and he thought they both were going to die. Mac answered instead, reaching for Brian’s hand.

“We’re not sure; we’re still trying to gather our thoughts. We had a bit of a scary slide on the ice.”

She nodded. “I saw it. The road is getting worse with the dropping temperature. I’m not one to tell someone what to do but I wouldn’t be out in a small vehicle today. A state of emergency has been declared. If you don’t have to be out, you might want to head home. But…it’s your choice. Tell me which way you want to go and I’ll help you get going that way. The way you’re sitting right now, you’re kind of sticking out into the roadway a bit and you don’t want to get hit now after surviving what you did.”

Mac and Brian took a better look at their surroundings; they’d been so focused on the guardrail that a mound of snow had prevented them from smashing into, and the snow-filled ditch that they’d been pushed out of, that they hadn’t realized they were now sitting at an angle, facing the wrong way, partially into the right lane of an icy highway. Not good. But the woman’s truck, with its flashers on, was protecting them, at some risk to her own vehicle. But it was much more visible than theirs was, especially with the rapidly decreasing visibility.

“We’re going back home,” Brian announced decisively. “That means we need to cross both of these lanes of travel.”

“Piece of cake.”

And with their latest good Samaritan, Julie, helping, it was. She radioed for the next trucker heading in the opposite, eastbound, direction, to help her stop traffic in those lanes, while she stopped traffic in the westbound lanes, and Brian made his way slowly across all four lanes to the slow eastbound lane to head back into town.

They were quiet almost until they reached Tremont Ave.

“We won’t be able to feed your birds after all,” were Brian’s first words.

Mac smiled.

“Yes we can,” he assured him. Brian raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“I’ll show you. Grab one of the bags of bird mix when we get back to the building and bring it with you to the elevator.”

Doing so, Brian followed Mac to the elevator; once inside, the professor hit the button for the roof. Using just one crutch, and leaning on Brian to steady himself, Mac went out onto the roof garden area, which was a barren wasteland in winter, covered with snow and ice, and began spreading the suet and seed mix in sheltered areas. Then he gestured for Brian to clear one of the benches of snow and the two of them huddled together.

“How long do we….?” Brian started to ask. Mac leaned over and kissed him.

“Shhh,” he murmured into his mouth.

Soon enough, a few small birds appeared. To Brian’s wonder, an actual fucking bluebird landed a few feet away from them and began to peck fastidiously at the suet. A cardinal was ten feet over, eagerly eating the seeds. Small brown birds were feasting.

Brian had always thought that birds flew south for the winter, living with Mac had taught him that wasn’t totally true. Many birds stayed around, and it only took looking for them to see how many were around all winter, even in fucking Pittsburgh.

Brian laughed. A few of the birds, startled, flew away, but most of them were hungry enough that they shrugged off the loud noise and kept on eating. Mac looked at Brian reprovingly, but humor lurked in his gray eyes.

“Do I have to tell you again to quiet down, or do I need to worry that you’re getting hypothermic and I’d better get you inside?”

“Neither. You should be glad that we came up here, even though fate almost got us killed to do it, it all worked out in the end.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, why is that?”

“Because we found our bluebird of happiness, of course.”

Mac groaned. “Okay, definitely hypothermia, we’re getting you inside.”

“No, wait, I want a picture….”

Later, as they waited for Brian to be taken for x-rays at the ER—and Mac really hoped Brian hadn’t broken his ankle when he slipped and fell while trying to take a second picture of the bluebird on the roof, a selfie—he reflected that it really had been a great day in many ways. He would have told Brian but his lover was too busy cursing a blue streak at the tech who jarred his sore ankle against the wall when he moved him to the waiting area. On second thought, maybe Mac would wait to tell him later.

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