Free Blame It on the Fruitcake by Pat Henshaw Page A

sink. It was time to face the fruitcake.
    Carefully I unwrapped the present, not wanting to mar its beauty. If the fruitcake was really bad, I could rewrap the box and then imagine something else was in it. It was the only present I’d be getting, so why not?
    Fruitcake, at least according to Jay Merriweather’s grandma, appeared to be a solid brownish mass with bits of fruit and nuts in it and smelled like a pint of Jim Beam. The thing reeked. This was holiday food? Shit, it should be served at the bar downstairs. It’d fit right in with the lushes who try to stay afloat all night.
    I took out my pocket knife and cut off a thin slice. I figured the stuff probably wouldn’t kill me, since if it was lethal, it would’ve done in Jay Merriweather a long time ago. As I bit into it, I thought about the name Jay Merriweather. It sounded happy, merry like Christmas.
    Then my mouth exploded.
    Hot damn! Fruitcake was great. Shit. How’d it gotten such a bad rep? Talk about not fair. This stuff was deadly.
    I picked up the rest of the piece and started to polish it off. Then I stopped. No, wait. If I ate it all now, I wouldn’t have any for tomorrow or the next day.
    Course, if I went to the party Saturday night, maybe I could boost a few more pieces to take home with me.
    With a plan firmly in place, I washed up from dinner, put on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, and joined the lushes at the bar. I couldn’t decide whether I should share my great discovery or sit and listen like I usually do until my bullshit meter registered in the overload zone and I went back home.
     
     
    O N S ATURDAY the noise started about eight, a whole hour before the invitation said the party began. I tried to decide if I’d go down the hall early. The memory of the fruitcake I’d polished off last night made my feet move before my mind decided what to do.
    I got to the door just as a good-looking guy stepped up from the stairwell.
    “Hey! You going to Jay’s?” he asked. He had a little poinsettia plant in one hand.
    Oh shit. Was I supposed to bring something? As usual I blamed the Home for my social fuck up.
    “Uh, yeah. Sam McGuire.” I nodded.
    “Dave Myers. One of Jay’s coworkers,” he said as we stood at the door. He juggled the little plant, and we shook hands. I turned back to the door and knocked.
    “I live down the hall,” I explained as we stared at the door.
    We stood in silence, shoulder to shoulder, waiting. The party noises pulsed around us. After a few minutes, when the music seemed to get louder and our silence quieter, I tried the doorknob. The door opened. I pushed it just as someone inside pulled.
    I nearly landed on a slender short guy with styled hair, makeup, and the brightest red pants and green shirt I’ve ever seen. He put some of my designer bikes to shame.
    “Oh good!” he screamed. “I forgot to put this up.”
    He waved a piece of paper in front of us. “Don’t knock. Just come in” the sign read in multicolored block lettering with hand-drawn holly circling it. He slapped it on the door and slapped down the pieces of tape that were dangling from each corner.
    “Hi! You are?” He was nearly dancing in front of me. Yeah, he definitely looked like what I thought a Merriweather would look like. He bounced and jiggled and exuded happiness.
    “Uh, I’m, uh, Sam, from down the hall. The fruitcake was great.”
    He beamed and said something I didn’t quite catch. All I heard was “…give it away ’cuz it’d be the only fruitcake anybody’d ever get from a fruitcake!” He laughed and looked behind me. “Dave! You came!” Then he about fell over himself giggling.
    Yup, it was shaping up to be the same as every other party I’d been to not given by one of the guys in the shop. I was kinda hustled aside as the little guy and Dave cozied up. I had no clue what to do next. So I just stood there like a dumb fuck with a pop remix of Christmas tunes and some sort of loud club music wrapping me in