Queer -3- Corndogs (Patreon)

I stopped at Tommy’s house on the way home to lend him a bit of moral support in case Mrs. Nakamura began one of her lectures. She turned out to be in a good and expansive mood, though, and ended up inviting me to stay for dinner which was just beginning.

Amy and Emmy had prepared the meal, which might have been what put Mrs. N in such a good mood. I thought of begging off, sometimes the food in the Nakamura household was a bit weird for my whitebread tastes, but it turned out Tommy’s sisters had made corn dogs. Or were making corn dogs and the carnival smell of wieners and sweet fried cornmeal were too much for me to resist.

I called home and told my own mom I would eat at Tommy’s if that were okay. She said fine, but if I were still hungry when I got home, there’d be something to eat.

“You staying?” Tommy asked as I hung up.

“Yes,” I said. Then to his mother, “My Mom says its okay, Mrs. Nakamura.”

She nodded. “You fine boy,” she said. “Now go wash up, both of you.” Meaning Tommy and I. She waved in the general direction of the washroom and chuckled at us as we scampered past her. “Boys always smell like dirt,” she commented.

I resisted the urge to sniff at myself then decided she probably smelled the dust I had picked up at the library. “Your mom’s kind of a character,” I whispered to Tommy as we took turns lathering up to our elbows.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “She must have got some news from home—back in Japan. She’s always in a good mood if someone has gotten married or had a baby or something.”

“Huh,” I said. That was interesting.

Homemade corndogs are not the same as the ones you get at a carnival but I’m not sure what the difference is besides just the size. Carnival dogs are crunchier and spicier but what makes them that way? They’re bigger, but that’s just cause they buy bigger wieners.

Something was going on with Tommy’s sisters as they ate their corndogs. They did a lot of licking and giggling. And one of them pretended to suck on the end of her dog. Mrs. Nakamura said something to them in a sharp tone but she spoke Japanese and I didn’t understand. Tommy looked a little embarrassed but the girls stopped their clowning around.

“Good corn dogs,” I said, starting on my second one. “Thank you!” They had ketchup, mustard and some Japanese sauce of some kind to put on them. I tried that but it had a candy-like flavor that was even sweeter than ketchup. I stuck with mustard and licked a fleck of tangy yellow out of the corner of my mouth after a big bite.

I only ate two dogs but Tommy finished off a third one, then the girls brought out tiny tubs of ice cream with strawberry swirls in it for dessert. I ate mine with the tiny wooden spoon it came with and sighed in contentment when I finished.

I tried one of my few words of Japanese. “Arigato!” I said to Tommy’s sisters, which provoked giggles from them and their mother, and snorts from Tommy and his dad. Then I got into a nodding contest with Mrs. Nakamura, murmuring, “Arigato,” a few more times.

Eventually, Tommy and I escaped into the backyard where there was no evidence of holes having been dug for the disposal of bodies. “My mom only makes corndogs for like Labor Day or the Fourth of July,” I commented. “I’m glad your sisters made them and invited me. Thanks.”

“You don’t eat much,” he said. “Amy and Emma think you’re cute, and Mom doesn’t mind feeding you. She thinks you’re funny.”

“Oh, good,” I said. It’s nice to make people laugh but I wondered just what it was that I did that she thought was funny.

Instead of holes, the backyard was full of lines strung from t-shaped poles and hung with clothes. My mom had complained about having to dry clothes like this and finally last year, Dad had gotten her clothes dryer that sat next to the washer in the hallway between the carport and the kitchen. A few years before, clothes drying on lines was a common sight, but every year it became less so.

Seeing the clotheslines made me think, would it be possible to, well, steal some girls’ clothes off lines, just for experimentation? I felt myself blush just to think of doing something like that. Stealing was wrong.

I sighed. From everything I could read, being queer was wrong to most people. I didn’t see it that way myself, falling in love with someone is not a rational choice, so how can anyone be blamed for their thoughts.

But doing something about it? Okay, maybe there’s a line there. And I was pretty sure stealing clothes was over the line. Still, once I’d thought of it, I couldn’t seem to un-think it.

I’d have to do it in the middle of the night, to keep from being caught. I wondered if I would be able to talk Tommy into helping me. He could just be my lookout and not have to do any actual stealing. I blushed again to think of pulling my friend into my criminal adventures. But without Tommy backing me up, would I even have the nerve to do it?

He’d been talking about something, gophers, maybe it was? But he’d run down when he realized I wasn’t listening. “Why are you staring at me like that?” he asked in an accusing tone.

“I need your help,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Is it something that is likely to get us killed?”

I thought about that. San Diego, for all of being a big city in California had a lot of rural attitudes about things. Stealing clothes in the middle of the night might be frowned on enough to provoke someone to get out their shotgun. “I wouldn’t say ‘likely’,” I admitted. “There’s some risk but it would be a great deal less if you would be my lookout.”

“Lookout?” He actually seemed intrigued! “Is it a caper?” He grinned. “A heist?”

“You’re okay with that?” I asked, surprised.

He shrugged. “It’s got to be more exciting than taking a nap at the library.” He paused a moment. “But if we get caught, it was all your idea, and I’ll squeal like the class guinea pig we had in fourth grade!”