This
is a work of
fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the
author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living
or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Warning: This story
describes sexual acts between consenting adults. If it is illegal for
you to
read such stories, or if you do not like to read such stories, please
leave
now. Also, there are brief descriptions of violence that may be
troubling to
some readers.
This story is
copyright 2006
by the author who retains all rights.
Any comments or questions are
welcome at: carl_holiday@att.net.
A warm
thank you goes out to all who
write. I appreciate knowing someone is actually reading this stuff,
whether you
like it or not. I try to answer all emails, even flames. (I’m a writer,
I live
for rejection.) Although sometimes it takes a little time to get back
to
you, I do
try to answer. If I'm remiss in replying to yours, I apologize.
Flight to Syracuse
by Carl Holiday
Chapter
2 – Detour
There is nothing
like waking
up in a bed with someone else holding you close to them which was what
David
was doing when my last dream changed into a desperate need to empty my
bladder.
Except, he was holding me like a kid holds his teddy bear and when I
tried to
extricate myself he held on tighter. I never figured him to be that
strong, but
then I’d never actually seen him naked or with so much as his shirt
off. I had
no idea what kind of muscles were keeping me in that wonderful embrace,
but
things were quickly going critical.
I might have had a
piss
hard-on, but it was only a cork in a very shaken bottle of champagne
and I’d
already taken off the wire. The little Dutch boy might have had his
finger in
the dike, but it wasn’t that big of a finger and there was a big ocean
out
there. My bladder had a job to do and it wasn’t the least interested in
hearing
that the rest of the body was now a little boy’s teddy bear.
I did a bit of a
struggle,
but the vise grip was only tightened. The little boy behind me wasn’t
playing
fair at all. So, I pushed. What else was I supposed to do? I wasn’t
getting
anywhere pulling out of his hold on me. If you can’t get anywhere in
forward,
put the damned thing in reverse; and, damn it, gun the silly thing.
Suddenly, I was on
top of
him. I was held just as tight, if not a little tighter, but I was on
top where
I could apply a bit of pressure in the same place where I was having my
difficulty. With any luck, in a few moments, I hoped, my great big
friend was
going to wake up from his dream with a pressing need to relieve himself.
The upside of this
action was
immediate relief from my own pressing need. Unexpectedly, all that
pressure I
was feeling was gone. Oh, I still had to go, but I didn’t have to
concentrate
so hard on keeping the valve closed. I had a few minutes reprieve. I
could
actually consider options. I could layout a course of action. I could
notice
something about the little boy who didn’t want to give up his teddy
bear.
That was the
downside of my
reckless action. I was no longer a teddy bear. Well, I might still have
been a
teddy bear, but I was a special teddy bear. I was, also, the foam
pillow with
the hole in the bottom. I was daddy’s special blow-up toy. I was the
physical
sensations supporting an increasingly vigorous wet dream.
It was nice to be
thought of
like that. You know, going from love to being loved in that very
special way. I
didn’t know what to do because, quite frankly, I still had an
overpowering need
to leave and dash to the toilet where, hopefully, I’d get a little
relief, too.
And, then, I felt
it, the
unmistakable sensation of a cock having a really, really, good time and
making
a mess of it. I hadn’t wanted our relationship to progress to the
emission of
body fluids stage so soon, yet my cloth covered ass—both of us were
still in
our boxers—was getting a bit wet and that wasn’t doing anything good
for my
real need at that moment. Wet was not a sensation I needed at all.
Luckily, David must
have
progressed a bit in his dream because the arm holding me flew off and
he was
acting like I was a burden he didn’t need. Well, I wasn’t going to wait
around
to find out what else he had in mind, so I hightailed it to the
bathroom.
Besides, I also needed to do something with that little bit of soap
hotels give
you.
When I came out of
the
bathroom after taking care of most of my morning needs, David was still
asleep.
He looked so damned cute lying there in the bed with a pillow held
close to him
just as I had been not so many minutes earlier. I put on a clean pair
of boxers
and went over to him. I wanted to snuggle back into his arms, but we
had to get
moving down the road. Yet, I couldn’t just let him waken on his own. A
guy’s
got to do what guy’s got to do.
I sat down on the
edge of the
bed and then his odor slapped my face. I have never been a fan of the
smell of spent
semen. I know some guys can’t get enough of the stuff and love to
spread it all
over themselves and their lovers, but if you’re not going to catch it
in a
condom or swallow, the stuff needs to be cleaned up or everything will
be
reeking in no time at all; and, there’s nothing worse than some guy
smelling
like a used condom. It’s almost as bad as kissing ashtray, which I
don’t do.
Smokers are a major turn-off.
But, David was so
cute that first
morning, I couldn’t help myself when I leaned over and lightly pressed
my lips
to his.
“Um,” he mumbled
and I pulled
back a little. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to
get around
to that.”
“Get up and take a
shower,” I
said. “You stink.”
“I had the most
wonderful
dream,” he said as he began to get up. Then he felt himself and looked
at me.
“I would’ve
preferred
something a little more mutual, but you seemed to be having fun, so who
am I to
ruin your dream.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t
holding
onto to you? Was I?”
“Do you have a
habit of doing
that?”
“Yes, sorry, guess
I
should’ve told you.”
“Well, now that I
know, I’ll
try to be prepared tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Go, wash, you
stink!”
“Yes, mother.”
He kissed me very
hard and
very quick, then ran into the bathroom; except, I wasn’t finished. I
went to
the door and watched him piss, which doesn’t turn me on, but I wanted
to watch.
After shaking himself off, David pulled off his t-shirt and slipped his
boxers
down his slender legs. Like I said before, I’d never seen him naked and
now,
there he was with his back to me. He was beautiful.
We had to get on
the road,
but there was this beautiful man standing naked not more than ten feet
away.
What could I do? I was up close in a flash. My hands were all over him.
David slowly turned
around as
my hands carefully, sensuously explored his lightly tanned skin. Being
nearly a
foot shorter, my lips were right on target when his right nipple came
within
range and I sucked it into my mouth. That little nubbin of pleasure
stiffened
against my tongue as my fingers sought out its partner.
I felt fingertips
under my
chin and released the nipple from my lips. Leaning my head back, I
looked up
into David’s eyes and his mouth enveloped mine. My tongue was waiting
for his,
welcoming him as his hands and fingers began their own exploration of
my body. God,
he felt so good to me, I didn’t know what I was going to do, let alone
what was
going to happen in the next few minutes, but at that moment as our
tongues
thrust and parried in their sensuous dance I didn’t want anything other
than
what was occurring at that moment.
He was hard and
pressed
against my abdomen. I had to get out of my boxers, but I couldn’t
manage
anything more than let my own erection out the fly. It fit neatly
between his
thighs and our bodies began to move sensually in our mutual desire to
please
each other. Our kiss never broke as David’s hands ran up and down my
back
caressing, kneading, and massaging his need into me. I held him tight
against
me digging my fingers into those two orbs of muscled flesh I’d seen
earlier.
I couldn’t stop
myself, even
if I wanted, and as my orgasm shuddered through my body I thrust
vigorously
between David’s firm thighs. As I reached up toward the peak of my
desire, I
felt him explode between us.
Our kiss continued,
maybe not
as excitedly, yet still full of a need to be one with each other. We’d
known
each other in high school, even though we weren’t close. Nearly five
years, I’d
been waiting for this moment, but uncertain of his desire for me. Being
short
doesn’t help your self-esteem when you’re in love with Adonis and David
had
been my Adonis since ninth grade. I lusted for him and now we were in
each
other’s arms coming down from an unexpected high. I was in love, more
in love
than I’d ever been.
David broke our
kiss and I
stepped back away from him. His semen dribbled down my chest and
stomach. I ran
my fingers through it and brought them to my mouth, tasting him for the
first
time.
“I think you need a
shower,”
David said. He leaned down and kissed me.
“Uh, huh,” I
mumbled as his
lips left mine. “We need to get on the road.”
“Are you always so
practical?”
“It’s a fault, I
admit it.”
“You’re beautiful,
you know?”
“I was thinking the
same thing
about you.”
There was a small
diner around
the corner from our motel where we tried to eat a light breakfast,
which is
kind of hard in a place that prides itself on proffering breakfast fat
and
carbs. I wasn’t interested in nodding off a hundred miles down the
road,
especially when I had no idea what was a hundred miles away.
We were headed for Syracuse, New York. That was east of us. Somewhere
in between
was Minneapolis and Chicago, and maybe Detroit, but I thought Detroit
was closer to Canada, so I suspected that was out of our line of
travel.
We needed a map because in a few miles we were going to be outside my
realm of
travel. I’d been to Coeur d’Alene and Wallace, Idaho, once, but further
than that could have been
on the
other side of the world as far as I was concerned.
Where does one buy
a map when
on a trip? Well, gas stations with mini-marts usually have a rack with
folded
state and local maps, but we were heading clear across the country. I
didn’t
want to have to look for one of those complicated Japanese origami
puzzles
every time we came to a new state. I suspected we could just stay on
I-90, but
wasn’t certain enough to venture off into the great unknown without
some idea
where our current path might take us.
When we left the
restaurant there
wasn’t more than a few blocks until we were on the interstate. A few
blocks,
more than enough time for everything to go to hell, which was almost
what
happened. In the parking lot of the next motel, David saw his father’s
pickup.
Either they were following us, or they suspected we were heading this
way and
hoped to intercept us somewhere down the road, wherever somewhere was.
“Oh, god, what are
we going
to do?” David asked.
“Head south, they
won’t
expect that,” I said.
“What’s south of
here?” David
asked. He was clearly worried. Well, with a father like his, I was
worried,
too. I’d been thrown up against a wall by that man. He was dangerous.
“Another
interstate, I
think.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, this is
Interstate 90,
there has to be an Interstate 80, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Do you have a
better idea?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.”
We headed south, or
rather
west. I wasn’t certain which way, exactly, but had a feeling we needed
to go
west a bit before going south. Whichever way it was, I knew we needed a
US highway because the next interstate was way
back at
Ellensburg and that was almost to Seattle. I couldn’t quite remember
where that one
went, maybe
south to Yakima, but I’d never been there. We needed a map
to lead us
to Interstate 80, which was my only certainty at that moment. A state
highway
might go towards the next interstate, but a US highway most definitely
would get there once
we
crossed into the next state, which was Oregon, I thought. I didn’t have
much experience
with this
part of Washington, so I didn’t exactly know what was due
south. For all
I knew about geography, Idaho
could be down that way too; or, maybe it was Nevada, but that seemed a
little further down by California someplace. What we needed was a map.
A couple exits down
the
highway I saw just what we needed, a truck stop. They were certain to
have maps
and quite possibly the map we needed.
“What’re you
doing?” David
asked as I took the exit.
“Finding out where
I’m
going,” I said.
“You’re going to New York. Big state east of here.”
“How do you get
there?”
“Get on a train,
change in Chicago.”
“Is this a train?”
“No, of course
not,” David
said. I looked over at him when I came to the stop sign at the end of
the exit.
He looked worried.
“So, do you know
how this car
is getting to New York?” I asked
as I turned left over the freeway.
“No.”
“Any ideas on how
you might
figure how to get there?”
“Use a map.
“Got one?”
“No.”
“Right!”
I pulled into the
parking lot
and ran inside. I’d never been in a truck stop before so I didn’t know
what to
expect. Never in my short life could I imagine what was in there. It
was so
shocking I almost ran out to get David, but his father was too close
for me to
dillydally.
There were all
these men with
unmanageable guts hanging over their belts. There were men who looked
like they’d
been living on the streets for the past five years instead of driving a
big rig
around America. For the most part, they all seemed clean
and
decent—not in a big brother who left home ten years ago and hasn’t been
seen or
heard from in nine years or that strange uncle who shows up on
Thanksgiving and
gets in a fight with your dad—no, these men were loners, in the
classical
sense. You could see it in their eyes. Stopping at a truck stop for
them was
kind of like going to an amusement park.
I went into the
c-store and
found a whole rack of atlases, big print, laminated, cheap, and all of
them had
the truck routes colored in, which if you’re driving a little car might
be kind
of good, at least you’d know where not to drive. I picked out the one I
figured
would get us to Syracuse and paid for it at the counter.
“Hey, sonny,
where’s mama?”
an obese lump of testosterone asked as I turned to leave. He was dirty
and he
smelled of too many days with only himself as company.
“I don’t know,
that’s why I
bought a map,” I said sidling past him out into the foyer. He started
to laugh
and then another one joined in. Then a massive paw grabbed my shoulder.
“Hey, sweetie,
where’re you
goin’ so fast?” the hairy mass of flesh on the other end asked.
I ducked away and
bolted for
the door. They were all laughing, even some of the clerks. I’d have
laughed
too, but I was too scared.
David was in the
driver’s
seat, so I got in on the other side. He was backing out practically
before I
had the door closed.
“In a hurry?” I
asked.
“As a matter of
fact, yes,”
David said. “Which way?”
“Get back on the
freeway the
way we were going,” I said. I opened the atlas and started looking for
Washington. There were a lot of state and city maps so
it was going
to take awhile to find the map for where we were, let alone where we
were
going. On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about which way to fold
the
paper when I was finished as the maps didn’t unfold into a piece of
paper the
size of Los
Angeles.
“Well, any ideas?”
David
asked.
“Give me a moment
to find the
state we’re in,” I said.
“We’re in Washington.”
“I know that!”
“It comes after Virginia, I think.”
“And that would be?”
“In the back, they
should be
in alphabetical order. You know ay, bee, cee, dee.”
“I know my ABCs.
Wow, do you
know our state is big?”
“Not as big as California. Where are we going?”
“Syracuse, New York, you said.”
“I know that. Where
are we
going today?”
“As far from your
father as
we can get.”
“Oh, yeah, my
father.”
Okay, I admit I
know next to
nothing about this great country of ours. I barely know anything about
the
state where I live. There are just some things you never figure on
having to
know. If you want to go to Las Vegas,
you get on an airplane and it takes you there. Why worry about where it
is?
It’s not like I was ever going to drive there, but suddenly I was
heading off
into the great unknown in slightly better shape than Lewis and Clark,
at least
I had a map.
“Do you have any
idea, yet?”
David asked. He sounded perturbed, well I would be if I was driving and
he
didn’t have a clue.
“Yeah, uh, take
exit 220 onto
US-395,” I said. “It’ll take us to Interstate 82.”
“Which goes where?”
“Oregon.”
“And, we want to go
to Oregon because?”
“Because it’s
between us and
Interstate 80?” I offered. I didn’t know, Oregon was on a different
page, but it sounded
logical.
So I started
turning pages,
but when I got to Wyoming, then Canada, I figured Oregon must be in the
other direction. Not everyone
can be
Albert Einstein. I was surprised there weren’t that many states between
Washington and Oregon, of course it took quite a few pages to get
through Texas, but Texas is a big state. By the look of it, I was
glad we
weren’t going that way. It’d probably take days to get across it and we
didn’t
have days.
I had a test on
Thursday and
it was Sunday. I figured we’d get to Syracuse by Tuesday morning, noon
at the latest. Then I could be back to Fort Okanogan by early Thursday
morning. It couldn’t be
that far to
New York? It didn’t take anytime to fly there and
everyone
knows most flight time is spent getting up to altitude and descending
at the
other end. We weren’t going up. We were going across.
Oregon is a big state, too, but we were only going
to cut
through the northeast corner. I didn’t see Interstate 80, but
Interstate 82 led
to Interstate 84, which headed east to Idaho and east was the direction
we actually
wanted to go. There
were only a couple inches of highway, so I figured it wouldn’t take us
more
than an hour to get to Idaho,
which is an “eye” state like Illinois and Indiana, so it must have been
back toward the front
of the atlas.
Well, it certainly wasn’t in the other direction.
Idaho was way back, almost to the front. Luckily
for us, Idaho is a small state. Well, it’s long north to
south and
broader at the bottom where we were going to cross, but it didn’t look
all that
far to Utah, which I’d passed early when I left Washington. This was
going to be a snap because Utah is smaller than Idaho, or at least the
part where we crossing;
and,
Interstate 80 was in Utah, too.
“Have you got
things figured
out?” David asked. “Or, do we have to switch places so I can navigate?”
“No, we’re cool,” I
said. I
was proud of myself. We were booking down the road and would be in
Syracuse in no time at all. “Just take exit 220 and
follow
US-395 to Interstate 82. Then you follow that down to Oregon where we
catch Interstate 84 and on east to Syracuse. We’ll be there tomorrow
night, or Tuesday
morning at
the latest.
“Are you sure about
that?”
David asked.
I didn’t like the
tone of his
voice. It was just like my father’s when I’d be out in the workshop
building a
PC and he’d come in and see all those parts spread out all over the
place.
“Are you sure you
know how to
put that together?” Dad always asked when everything was spread out and
sort of
looked confusing if you didn’t know I did that for a reason.
Well, building a PC
from
scratch isn’t all that hard. It’s not like I didn’t have instructions;
and, an
atlas was basically an instruction book on how to go from Washington to
New York. You just followed the Interstates until you
got to
your destination. What could be difficult about that?
“Did you find Syracuse, yet?” David asked.
“No, but we don’t
need that
until sometime tonight.”
“You’re planning on
driving
straight through? You know, I’d like to stop somewhere and sleep.”
“Okay, we’ll sleep
in Chicago. It can’t be that far, can it?”
“Well, it takes
three days by
train to get to Chicago.”
“It does?” I asked.
That’s
two nights and I had to be back for the test on Thursday. I was looking
at the
map of Wyoming. There weren’t a lot of cities in Wyoming, but luckily
for us most of them were spread
across
I-80.
“Yeah, it takes
practically a
whole day to get across Montana,”
David said.
“You’re kidding,
right?”
“No, I’ve been on
the train
lots of times. Remember, I don’t fly.”
“Well, it shouldn’t
take us
that long because we’re not going across Montana.”
“Are you sure?
Isn’t there a
map of the United States
in that book?”
I’d seen maps for
the states,
but not one with all of the states on one map. Was that possible? Texas
was on like four pages. I started thumbing
through
the book trying to find the pages for the country. I found Canada
towards the end and Mexico just before the index, so that meant our
country must
be toward the front. Well, it sounded logical at the time. What’s
strange is I
always thought Mexico was a big country, but the map only took up
one page. If we were going
that way, it looked like we could get across it in a couple hours. I
was kind
of sorry we weren’t.
There was a lot of
trucker
information in the front. Weigh stations, low clearances, restricted
routes,
and a lot of other information we certainly didn’t need to know. Then I
came to
the United States
spread across two pages. Our country isn’t that big at all, after all
Texas took up four pages so obviously the whole
country
wasn’t that much bigger.
I began searching
for New
York. It
didn’t take anytime at all since it’s up in the
northeast corner. Syracuse was another story, though. I went back to
the page
for New
York, but
it wasn’t a page, it was three pages.
“Where’s Syracuse?” I asked. “Is it close to something big?”
“Syracuse is big and it’s between Buffalo and Albany,” David said. It
had started to snow, again,
and
David had slowed down considerably. “Why don’t you look in the index?
It’ll
give you the page number and coordinates. Don’t you know how to read a
map?”
“Well, not one like
this,” I
said as I thumbed at the back of the book. There were pages and pages
of cities
and towns listed in columns, so I started looking for Syracuse. I
couldn’t quite figure out how they were
listed
because the lists started over all the time, but figured the “esses”
would be
towards the end of the book, so I went back there to look. It took a
while, but
I finally found it, noted the page number and coordinates, and turned
back to
the page.
“Hey, Syracuse is in Utah,” I said. “I thought you said we’re going to
New York.”
“It is. What are
you doing in
Utah? Look under New York. Do I have to stop and do it myself?”
“No, I can do it,”
I said as
I went back to the index. There had to be some indication of the
states, but it
did take a while for me to finally figure it out. It was so simple, I
felt like
a fool for not noticing it at first, but I was so intent on finding
Syracuse that I didn’t notice why the lists of cities
and
towns kept starting over. They started over because they were divided
by state.
It was so simple and logical, but I completely ignored the states.
Needless to say, I
found Syracuse, New York, without further delay. It was right there
in the central
part of New
York State, and it was big, or it looked big on the
map. I went
to the map of the United States and pinpointed our destination. The
only
problem that
I saw was this trip might take us a little longer than I expected.
There was
possibly a chance I wasn’t going to get back for the test on Thursday.
“Well?” David asked.
I looked at him and
smiled
just like I smiled when I turned on the first PC I built and all the
circuit
boards were fried; or, when I was starting to learn to drive and my
father
stopped teaching me because I could never figure out those little
letters in
the dashboard. My mother had to take me out because she was the only
person who
was patient enough to put up with me always saying, “Oops! I had it in
reverse.”
“Remind me to call
Dean
Chambers tomorrow,” I said.
“Why?”
“This might take a
little
longer than I thought.”
“We can go back.”
“No, I said I’d
take you to Syracuse and I’ll do it.”
I took over driving
at a
small truck stop after we merged onto I-84 in Oregon. We weren’t making
good time as far as I was
concerned or the real world was a whole lot bigger than what was shown
on the
map. Of course, we couldn’t drive all that fast with it snowing and all
the
other cars and trucks going slow. We were in a hurry, but everyone else
seemed
to think the speed limit signs gave the maximum speed you were supposed
to go,
when I know for certain those signs only give you the suggested minimum
speed,
anyway that’s what I was always told by my father who commonly drove at
least
fifteen to twenty miles per hour over the posted limit.
When we broke over
the top of
the hill above Pendleton, Oregon, David looked over at me and smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m hungry,” he
said. “Let’s
stop for lunch.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care, you
pick a
place.”
“I’ve never been
here. How
can I pick a place?”
“You’re driving,
you pick a
place,” David said. “When I’m driving, I’ll pick a place.”
“Sounds like a deal
to me.”
I took the first
exit and
headed into town looking for something quick and easy, but not a dump
either.
Since it was lunch time, I was a little surprised the first burger
place we
came to didn’t have a full parking lot. There were some cars, but not a
lot.
The sign over the flat roofed, one story building was partially covered
with a
sheet of plastic and an “Under New Management” banner was strung across
the
front, but there was more banner than building so the banner actually
said,
“Under New Mana.” I was more hungry than picky. When I parked the car,
David
looked at me like he was pickier than me.
“Here?” He asked.
“Why not?”
“The place over
there looks
busier.”
“Come on, we can’t
spend all
day looking for the perfect lunch in this town.”
Inside, there was
bare
concrete floor, wood paneling with numerous athletic posters from the
local
high school, and wooden picnic tables with bench seats with two Sikhs
sitting
on opposite sides and ends of each table. None of the twelve men were
eating,
but all had a white ceramic mug of something in front of them. They
were so
orderly arranged it made my stomach turn. We turned to the order window
and
warm smile met us.
“Yes? May I help
you?” She
asked with a lilting sub-continental voice.
“Cheeseburger,
fries, and a
large Coke,” I said.
“And, you?” She
asked,
looking at David.
“The same,” he said.
I turned around
thinking we
might sit, but since all the tables were full I walked back toward the
men’s
room thinking I might want to wash my hands. David followed. A bare
bulb hung
from the ceiling brightening graffiti covered white walls. A dirty sink
with a
cracked mirror was just inside the door. Next to it a filthy urinal had
water
dripping from the valve. The door to the metal walled stall was closed
and
agonized groans followed by loud farts made me look at David. He’d
already
turned to leave. I followed.
All the tables were
empty and
I suddenly felt like we were in our own episode of the The Twilight
Zone.
I looked out the front door and there was only one other car besides
mine.
David went over to the jukebox, but it looked like it hadn’t been used
in a
long, long time. I went up to him and saw that all the songs were
country and
western, but all the artists were from another era.
“This place is
weird,” David
said.
“You noticed, too?”
“Yeah. For your
sake, I hope
my burger is good.”
“What are you going
to do if
it isn’t?”
“Puke all over your
car.”
“That wouldn’t be
nice.”
“Then let’s hope
for the
best.”
A soft ding from
the order
window broke our conversation. I looked over and the smile was back.
There were
two brown paper sacks on the counter with two tall paper cups. We paid
for our
food and David headed for the car.
“Hey, aren’t you
going to eat
in here?” I called after him.
“No!”
I couldn’t really
blame him.
The musty smell of too many sweaty teens who’d popularized this place
in years
gone by was a bit much and there was a soft, squishy odor coming from
the
direction of the toilets. It certainly wasn’t a place to take a date
and the
new owners didn’t seem too enthused about freshening up the place. I’d
eaten in
my car before and could do it again.
The food wasn’t
that bad. The
fries were a little too salty and had that subtle oniony, fishy taste
of oil
used for other foods. There weren’t any bugs crawling in the lettuce or
worms
in the tomato slices. The burgers were a bit on the cheap, fat side,
but the
new owners were probably trying to maximize profit without antagonizing
their
clientele, too much. We certainly weren’t going to go back, so it
didn’t
matter.
After tossing my
garbage in
can by the front door, I pulled back out onto the street and followed
the I-84
signs back to the interstate. As we were passing a gas station, David
unexpectedly gasped.
“Ohmigod! It’s
Charlie!” He
said.
“Who?”
“My other brother
Charlie,”
David said. “He’s meaner than Jimmy. What are we going to do? I think
he saw
us.”
“We have to get
back on the
freeway,” I said.
“No, he’ll do
anything to
catch us. We have to go a different way. Just follow this street. Is he
coming
after us?”
I looked in the
rearview
mirror and saw a large lump of testosterone get into a big, black
Escalade.
After going under the interstate, I took the first left then ducked
into a
cemetery. I ran up the hill and got behind a stand of pines around a
large
mausoleum where I parked. I got out and went to the corner of the
mausoleum
where I could look back toward the interstate. A black Escalade turned
onto the
onramp and headed east, going fast.
“We can’t go that
way,” David
said behind me and nearly making me crap my pants.
“Don’t sneak up on
me like
that,” I said. “So, how do we get to Syracuse from here?”
“I looked at the
map, we can
go south on 395. Then cut east when we get to Reno.”
“Nevada?”
“Yeah.”
We stopped for the
night in Lakeview, Oregon, mostly because David wasn’t certain we’d
find
anything between there and Nevada.
Since I’d never been this way, who was I to argue. By the number of
dusty
pickups and SUVs, I figured we were still among farmers and cowboys.
Nice,
conservative, Christian folk who’d likely not enjoy knowing their
little
country town was hosting two gay college boys from that decadent
liberal state
to the north.
“You’d better flip
your
switch to straight,” I said as we pulled into the first motel parking
lot, a
rather fancy place with a lot of Western ambiance.
“Oh, don’t be such
a prude,”
David lisped, waving his limp wrist at me. “You’re just no fun at all.”
He literally
pranced up to
and through the door, but inside he turned into Mister Ivy Leaguer and
walked
straight to the counter. Another sub-continental smile awaited us, but
this one
didn’t seem as dense as the one in Pendleton.
“We need a room for
the
night,” David said without a hint of inflection.
“All we have is a
king size
suite on the second floor,” Miss Motel Clerk said in a voice full of
disgust,
but totally lacking any hint of sub-continental influence. Obviously,
she’d seen
David’s beautiful performance and was trying to sound more educated
that she
appeared.
“All your guests
out for the
evening?” David asked. “Your parking lot seems kind of empty.”
“The room is a
hundred
fifty-two per night, it has a whirlpool bath.”
“Well, we don’t
need more
than a shower, but we do need a room. Donny?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think a
hundred
fifty-two is too expensive?”
“No, I’m sure
there’s a
beautiful view.”
“There’s no view,”
the clerk
said. She seemed a bit flustered she hadn’t scared us off with the
price
exaggeration.
“Well, I guess
we’ll have to
take it,” David said, throwing down his Platinum VISA. “Do you know of
a good
Mexican restaurant in town?”
“No,” the clerk
said.
“There’ll be a two hundred dollar deposit on the room.”
“Oh? And why is
that?” David
asked.
Her empty look said
she
hadn’t expected the question. She didn’t want us to stay at her
facility, but
couldn’t come up with a logical reason to make us leave. The deposit
was
definitely bogus, but I didn’t know David all that well.
“Donny? You’re
taking notes,
right?” David asked. “Make sure you get the one fifty-two for the room
and the two hundred deposit.
Our readers
will need to know that if they come to Lakeview.”
“Readers?” The
clerk asked.
“David! You know
you’re not
supposed to say we’re travel writers,” I said, playing along. “You know
what
happened in Pendleton last night.”
“Well, are you
taking notes
or not?”
“I have my recorder
going,” I
said. “Miss? It is okay if I record this conversation, right? I
certainly don’t
want to misquote you to the hundreds of thousands of people who read
our
magazine.”
“Is there a problem
here?” A
voice asked as it preceded a potbellied, balding man out of the
backroom. He
was smiling much like an executioner smiles when he discovers his next
victim
has traced a charcoal line across the neck where the ax should fall.
“No, we were just
trying to
confirm the one hundred fifty-two rate for our room, plus the two
hundred
dollar deposit,” David said. He was smiling, too.
“Here? We don’t
have any room
at that price,” the man said. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“She said it,”
David said,
pointing to the clerk who was trying to disappear into the woodwork,
unfortunately her complexion and attire was of no help and she stood
out like a
daughter who didn’t want to work at daddy’s business. Wrath would
descend, but
it would wait until our departure. David got us a nice room on the
first floor.
We had to accept a king size bed. Someone was going to be the teddy
bear,
again.
And, there was a
very nice
family oriented Mexican restaurant across the highway that had a chili
verde
worth driving hundreds of miles to eat. At least I thought so. When
David
ordered a cheese enchilada I knew right then he needed a little
education on
eating Mexican food.
Later that night,
after we’d taken
care of our necessaries in the bathroom, we were lying close to each
other in
the bed. We hadn’t so much as kissed since our little escapade in the
morning.
I think we were waiting for the other person to take the lead and
afraid of
offending each other by doing so. It was rather pathetic as far as I
was concerned.
Yet, there was something I needed to know before we got too far down
the road.
“David?”
“Huh?”
“Why are we running
from your
father and brothers?” I asked. I turned on my side and placed my hand
on his
stomach.
“You know how my
father feels
about gays,” he said, turning on his side to face me. The light was out
so I
couldn’t see him, but we were close enough to get closer.
“Yeah, but what’s
that got to
do with you?”
“He said, in his
words, ‘I’m
coming over there and beat the homosexuality out of you and if you die
first,
well that’s God’s problem, not mine. No son of mine is going to be a
fag.’”
“Shit!”
“Yeah, and Jimmy
and Charlie
probably have instructions to the same, but they might just string me
up until
Dad gets there to do what he will. They’d probably just kill you to get
you out
of the way.”
“Fuck!”
“Yeah, they’re not
nice
people.”
“So, how did you
turn out so
sweet and sexy?”
“I take after my
mother.”
“Is she nice?”
“You’ll like her
and her
family. Her youngest brother, my Uncle Benny, is only two years old
than me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, there’re lots
of kids
and Momma’s the oldest. Benny’s gay, too. I’ll probably live with him
if he
doesn’t have someone already.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Well, I thought
that maybe
we could, you know, maybe, well you said you were interested in me.”
“But, you have to
go back to Fort Okanogan.”
“Why?”
“Well, because.”
“I don’t have to
if, well,
you know, I had a reason not to.”
“Well, maybe I can
think of a
reason,” David said, pulling me toward him. In the darkness, he was a
bit
flustered when he kissed the bridge of my nose, but his lips quickly
found
mine.
Unfortunately,
after a big
meal and a day’s worth of driving, I was totally exhausted and fell
asleep
while we were kissing. I dropped right off. We weren’t any closer to
Syracuse and maybe a little bit further away, but I
had a man
to hold me, comfort me, and quite possibly offer me a future.