“True crime podcasts. Statistically speaking, if someone is killed by poison, the culprit is seven times more likely to be female than male.” Iggy placed a dramatic hand on his left hip. “You didn’t piss off an old girlfriend, did you?”
Uncle Howie chuckled. “Nah. Did it m’self.”
“So I heard.” After he got the call from Malcolm, Iggy had called the hospital and spoken to Uncle Howie’s doctor. Iggy had signed a power-of-attorney years ago, after Uncle Howie mistook a bad case of heartburn for a heart attack, and he’d wanted Iggy to make decisions for him. Something had gotten screwed up during the admitting process, and since Malcolm didn’t have Iggy’s number to give as a next-of-kin or emergency contact, Iggy hadn’t been immediately notified.
He’d been caught up, though, before his flight west. Through what little communication they’d managed with Uncle Howie, and after a careful house search by Malcolm, they’d determined that canned chili was the source of the poisoning. Uncle Howie had admitted to eating it straight from the can (an old, very-outdated can), which had allowed the toxin to grow.
A can didn’t have to be bulging or leaking to be dangerous.
If Iggy hadn’t already been a bit overzealous about food safety and proper cooking, everything he’d relearned about botulism last night would have sent him over the edge.
“I am cleaning your kitchen and your pantry before you come home,” Iggy said. He put the paper bag on the foot of Uncle Howie’s bed, then sat in the closest chair. “All new food, period. Healthy food, too. Your body’s going through hell right now.”
Uncle Howie rolled his drooping eyes. “No shit. Feel it. Glad y’re here. Missed you.”
“Me too.” Iggy squeezed Uncle Howie’s forearm, disliking how cool and limp it was. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.”
“Busy.”
“No, I’ve feared some big, bad bogeyman who doesn’t exist. When Malcom was driving us through town today, I kept waiting for one of them to jump out from behind a tree. To run in front of the truck and hit the hood and tell me I can’t live here, no one wants queers like me around. But that bogeyman is just in my head.”
“Still real. In your head.”
“Yes, it is. But my head doesn’t always tell me the right thing. I told myself I’d never come back to Chance, but I did, and I’m still here. Still standing. Malcolm and I even had a good conversation. Not anything specific, but he apologized.”
Uncle Howie’s left eyebrow went up; his right still seemed unresponsive. The muscle paralysis would take time to diminish. “Y’forgive’m?”
“No, but I realized after he left that I want to. Forgive him. I’m exhausted of blaming him. I’m thirty-four-years-old. I can’t keep allowing this awful thing that happened when I was seventeen to control my life. It’s not fair to either of us. Not to me or Malcolm. And not to you, either.”
“Ne’remind me.”
“Yes, mind you. You gave me the first stable, loving home of my entire life, and I let the events of one night, the bigotry of a few small-minded specks of garbage, scare me away, and keepme scared of stepping foot in this town for years. We missed so many holidays and birthdays, and it wasn’t fair to you.” Emotion thickened Iggy’s throat, and his eyes burned. “I’m so sorry for that.”
Uncle Howie’s eyes brightened. “Love ya, boy.”
“Love you, too.” He pinched his inner thigh so he didn’t turn into a blubbering mess. “So, ah, the saloon’s been getting some attention on social media. More people trying to beat the bull and win that saddle?”
“Yep.” It took Uncle Howie a minute to get out his next few sentences, but Iggy got the gist that he’d heard gossip that the Snow Creek Ranch folks were considering hiring an influencer to come out and do more publicity. Iggy had interacted with dozens of influencers in his career (real ones and the ones whose influence was just in their over-inflated heads), and he hoped whoever the ranch owner eventually hired was good. Iggy wouldn’t mind showing off some of his own skills for the guy or gal, if it helped business for the saloon.
“Hope th’don’ mind m’attitude,” Uncle Howie finished.
“They’ll probably think it’s charming. Some people think saying ‘take your own pickle off if you don’t like it’ is unnecessarily rude and overbearing, but there are actual restaurants where the whole shtick is that the staff verbally abuses the customers. You literally pay them to be rude to you.”
Uncle Howie chuckled, then tried to convey a story about the cook going onto the floor to manually remove the sliced white onion from the complaining customer’s burger and drop them into the guy’s half-full beer glass, but he was shutting down. Exhausting himself with the brief visit. And Iggy didn’t want to chance any relapses or setbacks.
He checked his phone while Uncle Howie slept, mostly replying to some emails from the temp agency that he’d signed up with a few months ago. He’d done a lot of temp workat area bars and restaurants that were short-staffed or whose bartenders had emergencies. He liked traveling around, meeting different people, learning new cocktails and mixing methods. It got him out of the bubble he’d established for himself as a popular mixologist in Providence, and it gave him some degree of anonymity.
Anonymity from the second-worst dating experience of his life.
Chance was as good a place as any to stay for a while and re-evaluate his next steps. He couldn’t temp forever, after all. In nine more months, he’d be halfway to forty. While he didn’t necessarily want to leave mixology behind, he wasn’t sure the life of high-end cocktails, fancy bars, and expensive dry-cleaning bills was where he still belonged.
Maybe if he finally faced his childhood bogeyman, if he settled the tumultuous parts of his past, he would see a new path forward. A path toward a calmer, settled life where he wasn’t constantly running from what he believed was chasing him.
When lunchtime rolled around, Uncle Howie woke long enough to eat most of his basic plate and drink his juice, and then he fell back asleep. Iggy got word that they were preparing a regular room for him, though, so he was being moved out of ICU—a huge step forward. He texted Malcolm about the change, and that he would still call when Iggy had a time to eat, but also that Malcolm didn’t have to wait on him if he was hungry.
By two o’clock that afternoon, Uncle Howie was settled into the window-side of a two-person room—the other bed was currently empty, the patient probably out for a test or something—and Malcolm had arrived with a pair of submarine sandwiches and sodas for them. They picnicked by the window while Uncle Howie slept. Malcolm had gotten them each a turkey and Swiss sub, which had been Iggy’s favorite back in the day. He stillordered it occasionally, but this was the first time he’d had one made with local lunchmeat in too damned long.
Ittasted like nostalgia…
