by RJ Martin
“What do you mean?” Rusty still had a hand on my back, and he started to pat just a little. “Do you feel bad?” His voice betrayed a hint of fear. I recognized it from when he’d slipped me the flask back when I kind of caused Angie to crash his sweet ride.
“I mean….” It got hard to think. The lights of the school reminded me of candles and the aged brick walls were a fortress. A place for martyrs and saints, but I was not in the mood for them all of a sudden. The parking lot became a pasture and the cars a herd.
“Jonah?” The other shepherd said my name. “How do you feel?” Rusty grabbed my chin.
“Good.”
“You feel good?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“I feel good!” And I did too. Like the points had just shattered at either end of my segment and I was a line at last: free, infinite. “I feel good!”
“Jeez, keep it down, will you?” Rusty flicked the remnants of the joint into the night air. Its glow died as it hit the mucky ground. “This stuff’s not exactly legal, you know?” He gave a quick look around. That’s what I should have done when he blew the smoke into me. If somebody saw us it would have looked like a kiss. If they reported it, I would have to confess we were just getting high. Using illegal drugs was definitely better than gay PDA, especially outside a Catholic high school.
“You want to go inside?” Rusty sprang forward and his ankle-high, black lace-up boots landed on the ruins of a snow bank. Little bits of stubborn, icy grit scattered in every direction. “It’s freezing out here.”
“That jacket looks pretty warm.”
“Jace and I bought it in Paris.”
“If your mom gets you such nice stuff, why do you give her such a hard time?”
“We were there for a book fair so she could be adored in French. She’s rich. This isn’t a big deal to her.”
“It’s still pretty nice.”
“Trade.” He shook both arms out at once to reveal a pale pink T-shirt. “And then we’ll go in.” Rusty grabbed my sleeves and started pulling off my coat. “It’s got a shearling collar.”
“What is shearling? It’s not like a little mink or something because I’m not into killing for clothes.” I watched his taut biceps flex as he gave a final yank and my arms slid free of the sleeves.
“It’s a kind of wool and the sheep are fat, happy, and chewing grass all day.” He handed me his coat and put on mine. “Fits,” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
I gave in because I was cold; I knew he wouldn’t give me mine back, and I really did want to feel shearling. It was soft and warm when you touched it. Cool.
“Jonah, you make that work.” Rusty nodded, impressed.
“Really?”
“Check it out.” He put me in front of the side mirror and squeezed in close so we could see both our reflections at once. In my puffy coat, Rusty looked more real to me, more someone I could know and less the summer person I suddenly saw myself as. He was right; I looked good.
“You want to get some food?”
“Yeah.” I was really hungry all of a sudden.
“Good, because I’m starving.” Rusty clicked the little key fob, the doors unlocked, and lights went on.
“Wait.” I stopped between him and my school.
“I’ll call her later, okay?” He looked pissed, but then his smile returned and wiped the scowl off his face. “I promise.” Rusty took off his beanie and held it against his heart to make himself look sincere.
“Fine, we’ll go watch the game.” He exaggerated its importance, goading me to do what he wanted. In his plaid pants, pink shirt, and shaggy JC hair, I don’t think Rusty would be appreciated by the NC3 fan base. Especially considering the effect he was sure to have on the girls. It showed how confident my sister was she wanted to let him loose on her peers. If she saw us now, Angie would have a nuclear meltdown. Mom would know about the JC I stole before I even hit the front door. My life would be over.
“Let’s go.” Rusty headed for the gym, but I didn’t. My walking back in there in his coat was not happening either.
“I thought we were going to eat.”
“Amen.” He winked and we both got in the car.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CRAGGY-FACED waitress wore too much lipstick and carried a greasy but awesome-looking cheeseburger. The truckers’ butts were too wide for the counter stools, and they hung like saddlebags over the sides. A crew of weathered-looking highway workers sat around a big table made of sliding several littler ones together. Their orange snowsuits hung halfway off and they drank coffee and sat way back like they lived there. There was also a pack of Mémé-like Quebecois on a dinner break before reboarding their bus to New York or somewhere. The music didn’t stop, but all of these different groups paused at once—old western saloon style—from their food, coffees, and chitchatting about nothing in nowhere. Rusty Naylor strutted by them with my puffy coat down off his shoulders like he was a diva with a mink stole. As we made our way to a booth in the back, I did a quick scan and saw a lot of these tired, bored eyes staring at me too. I’d never gotten that kind of attention before except at Mass. Even there I was a supporting player. Here, in Rusty’s hipster, shearling-collared coat, I changed from being Jonah Gregory, weird zealot from Lake Henry, to a summer person: a line.
“You like it?” Rusty grinned as he surveyed the truck stop’s drab cluster of green vinyl booths and cake stands filled with pies like the place was some exotic oasis and not a roadside dive.
“It’s cool,” I lied and didn’t at the same time. There was something exhilarating about being this far north, close enough to the border the signs were in French and English. There were billboards for duty-free shops too, and the mountains had receded behind us as we approached the vast Laurentian Plains. I think Rusty might’ve kept going except we were minors, and therefore couldn’t cross into Canada without a parent.
On the other hand, the brick box of a diner, surrounded by a sea of big rigs, depressed me too. Everyone looked tired and a little sad. Like they wanted to get somewhere but weren’t sure of their route. Maybe I was coming down from being high.
The waitress took our waters from the pimply, yawning busboy whose dark features made me think he might be at least part Native American. There was a big reservation that straddled the border. She flashed Rusty a wide smile revealing her tobacco-stained teeth and put them on the table herself.
“Two cheeseburgers deluxe, medium rare.” Rusty glanced around and grimaced. “Better make that medium and two sodas.”
“Make sure to save room for some of our homemade pie.” She lingered as if this might be her one and only chance to look at him. Rusty was handsome in that way, that more than usual, model way. I’d forgotten because he didn’t act stuck-up like I thought guys like that would. At least he didn’t with me.
“I’ll be sure to do that, Hilda.” Rusty read it off her nametag.
“That’s not fair.” She still hadn’t left and ordered my food. Didn’t she know it was the first case of cannabis-induced munchies of my life and she was spoiling it? Besides he was with me. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“I’d love to tell you.” Rusty stretched up from the bench so he could whisper. “But we’re eloping to Canada, and my fiancé is kind of a celebrity.” He kissed the air between us. “No one can know.” As Hilda’s smile cratered, Rusty leaned across the table and took my hand. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
I was too busy competing with the devastated waitress to answer. Whose eyes could get widest without exploding out of their skull? Was he outing me? Rusty winked at me, and I knew it was a game. I barely nodded and bit my lip.
“We’re really hungry,” the real Rusty said. Her eyes still bugging, Hilda the waitress left. As the kitchen doors swung shut behind her, we both burst out laughing, and our hands retracted away from the fake intimacy. Except for me, it wasn’t, not completely. I liked holding his hand, that someone tho
ught… that it was possible….
“You enjoy the ride?” Rusty dumped sugar packets in his water and drank.
“It was all right.” I smirked as he added even more sugar and stirred.
“What do you think energy drinks are?”
“Why do you need energy?”
“You want to drive back?” He suddenly sounded cross.
“I can’t.” I slouched just a little.
“You did okay in the parking lot the other day.” His eyes brightened. I couldn’t believe he’d brought it up. I thought for sure the ice doughnuts and my erection were off-limits.
“That was daytime.” I sipped my water and stripped off his coat. It was warmer in here than I’d thought. “And I’m high.” I made the international gesture for toking a joint.
“So am I, and I’ve been drinking.” Rusty grinned and raised his hands: winner. “Are you scared?”
“No.” Yes.
“I won’t let anything happen.” That made me feel better, but as the busboy put down our grease-swimming burgers—Hilda had gone on break I guess—I felt a wave of fear rumble through me that he was telling the truth.
OUR FORKS fought for the last bite of the lemon meringue pie. It was supposed to be homemade, but it tasted pretty supermarket frozen to me. Bake was the one thing in the kitchen Mémé could still do, and I knew the difference. Hilda never returned except to throw down the check. We let it sit there for, like, forever, and talked about his lives in New York, LA, and London. How he could never have a dog because they traveled too much. How I couldn’t either because of Tragic and Magic.
He told me about the boarding school in Connecticut and how he succeeded at getting expelled by getting wasted and skinny-dipping in the campus pond. What we didn’t talk about was my sister. Every time she passed through my mind, I chased her away. I also tried to drive off any thoughts of JC because the next one was always that by being with Rusty, maybe I was cheating on him. Oddly, the tote board didn’t make the trip.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” I got up and grabbed his coat.
“Maybe I should go with you.” Suddenly, I wanted to hold it all the way home, but I knew that was impossible. It took Rusty almost two hours to get us up here and that was with him driving too fast. With me behind the wheel, even part of the way, it would take forever to get back to Lake Henry. I glanced at the oversized digital clock over the counter: 12:01. I was one minute over curfew, and with each passing second my dread increased at what might await me.
“I can handle it.” I forced a grin and tried to ignore whatever he might be saying.
The men’s room wasn’t in the diner part but a low cinder-block building behind it. I guess so the truckers who didn’t want to eat or anything could just gas up and go. Inside it smelled like disinfectant and piss and was more crowded than I’d expected. I got in line and hoped when I reached the front a stall would be opening up. I hated waiting for one while other, less bashful guys peed away at the urinals in front of me. Grandpa Hank used to call it the “US Open Blues.”
Dad said I was “pee shy.” I needed to get over it or, “You’ll piss your pants.” That was at the last hockey game he took me to. It was so long ago, I wasn’t sure anymore how old I was at the time. Just that I was a little kid. I knew, because there had been no outings since. Not until our dinner. I had my father on the brain because he’d probably already started washing his face. His cheeks would be raw by the time I got back. The line didn’t move, and I started to hop on one foot. A wide man in a checked flannel jacket turned and scanned me up and down. “What are you looking for?”
“Toilet.” My mouth was dry. “It’s a slow line, huh?” What else would I say?
“This ain’t a line.” He nodded toward the long row of ceramic urinals and stalls beneath fluorescent tubes that made everything and him, too, glow a sickly yellow. The trucker was right. Guys at the urinals weren’t pissing. They were looking. A stall door opened and two guys came out. I was too freaked to see their faces and just stared at their boots. The peeish light glinted off the husky stranger’s wedding ring as his hand grazed my fly.
“JONAH!” RUSTY chased me across the parking lot. I needed to stop or not get home, otherwise I’d have left him there. “Jonah, I tried to tell you.”
“Some old pervert grabbed my junk.” I fought back the tears as best I could but a few squirted out. “Is that why you brought me here?”
“No.” He reached for me, but I backed farther away. “That’s not the reason, I promise.”
Big rigs slowly rolled up the ramp and got back on the highway. Going wherever, segments in motion or really lost lines. Anyway, I didn’t want to just give in to him. Something inside me said not to, that too many people had done that already. He could’ve taken me somewhere else. “So then why did you bring me all the way up here?”
“I just wanted to take a drive.” He shook out his hair. “Clear my head.”
“Clear it of what?”
“You’re not the only one that isn’t sure all the time.”
“Are you now?”
“Clearer.”
“Good, then why me?” I kept backing up. Did he think I was just some gay kid that was all horny and had no soul? He had to know I was gay, right? I mean after what happened in the parking lot by the lake? Was he just messing with me? He wasn’t gay. I saw him circling second base with Angie, but he was here with me? Screw him. I took another step backward, but Rusty lunged forward and yanked my arm so hard his back slammed into the side of a truck with me crashing against him. Not even a second later a rust-sprinkled old compact whizzed past and sprayed mud our way. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the driver was Hilda. The one thing I did know: Rusty saved me.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?” He gave me a once-over and even patted my chest, I think to ensure I hadn’t broken a rib.
“I’m fine.” Physically, that was true. I pulled away from him but stayed beside the truck this time. I dropped my gaze to the exhaust-blackened slush beneath my soggy loafers.
“That night we met and Jace came to your house….” Rusty’s voice caught just a tiny bit. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t notice. I did. “You were the only one that didn’t leave me alone at the table when she got there.” He ducked his head until his eyes found mine. “You stayed with me.” Rusty smiled and showed me his summer-boy dimples full-on. “That’s why you.” He braced against the cold and zipped me up in his jacket. “You still have to piss?”
“Like a race horse.”
“Go ahead.” Rusty turned his back and took a few steps down the row of trucks. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
I unleashed a real snow-melting stream while he kept his promise and didn’t turn around. When we reached the car Rusty got behind the wheel. “It’s late,” he said. “I need to get you home.”
“Next time I drive.” Truth, I was relieved to not try to learn how to drive at night and a dozen exits from home. Also, I wanted to see if he wanted to be with me again.
“Definitely.”
“Sweet.” I pumped a fist in the air and didn’t bother to explain why.
“STOP HERE.” We were two-thirds of the way between Chad’s house and mine. A dirt trail connected them, and my plan was to slip into the woods and follow it the rest of the way home.
“Your dad doesn’t like me.” Rusty didn’t sound like it upset him much. It was like he was saying that my father didn’t like his shoes or something.
“He doesn’t know you.”
“Do you?”
“Starting to.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“Why did you let me go in there?”
“I tried to stop you.”
“No, you wanted to come with me. That’s not the same thing.”
Rusty whipped his head to one side to the get the hair out of his eyes. “I wanted you to see.”
“See what?”
“Hiding.”
I reached for my door handle, but Rusty hit the lock on his side. I was his prisoner.
“I’m so late.”
“Then the punishment won’t change much if you’re later.” He was good at this being bad stuff; I had so much to learn. “Are you going to tell your sister where you were?”
“No.” What are you, nuts?
“We didn’t do anything, Jonah.”
“So, you tell her, then.” I reached over him and swatted the door lock. Rusty grabbed my hair. His lips seized mine, and he bit my lower one just a little. I didn’t know what to do with my hands; other than the one time with Darcy, I had never really kissed anyone before. Rusty decided for me. He took them, one at a time, and he rested them on either side of his chest. Through my fingers I could feel his breath and heartbeat beneath his T-shirt.
“Now neither of us can,” he said. Rusty let me go, and I didn’t bother to sit all the way up again as I just slid out my door. There was so much I wanted to say to him. I really wanted to kiss him again too, but I knew that was more than enough for now. He drove away, and I didn’t wave or anything. I just trudged into the pines and searched the moonlight for the break in the trees that was the trail.
“WHERE HAVE you been?” Mom demanded in the cone of the porch light. Somehow Angie and I got home at the same time. “No one is going inside this house until both of you answer me.” Angie and I just looked at each other, neither of us sure who should go first.
“It’s cold out here if you haven’t noticed,” Mom said. “You really think that on top of missing your curfew and not calling that you’ll do any better freezing me to boot?”
“Just out with friends.” Angie shrugged. “Rusty was with his mom, okay?”
I felt my cheeks redden and hoped they wouldn’t notice. “Chad’s house,” I lied again. The just rediscovered tote board began to smoke. “We fell asleep watching movies.” I waited for Angie to say something snarky about the soft core that was on late at night and self-service fun, but she just gave me a wide-eyed smirk.