by Amy Lane
The road after the bridge wound about, and the outside edge of it went from being on top of a low rise to being the crumbling edge of a steep cliff. Casey was beyond cold by this time, and beyond caring. His teeth were rattling around in his head, and his scalp itched to the point of misery, but he couldn’t bring himself to worry. Somehow jumping off the edge of the road didn’t have the same drama as jumping off the bridge. He was just going to keep walking until his body gave out, until the abused muscles in his thighs and ass cramped and he simply sank to his knees on the side of the road and fell asleep in the encroaching dusk.
He’d just tripped a second time when he heard the roar of a motorcycle behind him. It wasn’t the first vehicle that had come his way, but it was the first vehicle that pulled up ahead and stopped.
The guy on the back of it was really terrifying.
For one thing, he was huge—well over six feet tall. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and a soul patch, both of them dark, silky brown, and a whole lot of dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail under his helmet. His bike was something big, with a mildly extended front end and just enough chrome to be shiny, not enough to make it look gaudy. Proud but not a douche bag—that was Casey’s first thought.
Then the guy took off his helmet, and Casey’s second thought was that he was at least good-looking, unlike the parade of ass-fuckers who’d managed to get Casey from Bakersfield to wherever-the-fuck-he-was now. He had dark brown eyes and a short, square jaw; surprisingly pink lips that weren’t too full and not too lean, either; and a nose that sloped solidly outward but wasn’t too big. Pleasing. Under the handlebar mustache and the soul patch and the loosely swinging ponytail of shiny dark hair, he was actually really pretty. Casey would think later that maybe that was the reason for all the hair—the hair hid the prettiness—but that was not what he was thinking now.
Right now he was thinking that the guy was taking off his jacket on the side of the road, and Casey had damned near had enough.
“I’m not doing that,” he snapped, pretty sure he’d rather die than do that one more goddamned time.
The guy looked up, unoffended. “I’m not asking you to,” he said, his voice mild. “You’re cold.”
The jacket was leather, shiny and well cared for, with a fleece lining, and the big man with all the hair took it off, took a few steps forward, and set it down on the ground. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt underneath, bright green, with an eyeball-searing CSUS emblazoned on the front in gold. The sweatshirt looked warm—warmer than what Casey had on—but it wouldn’t be so warm when the guy got back on the bike. Casey looked at the jacket with longing. Was it his imagination, or was there steam rising up from the mysterious stranger’s body heat?
Mysterious Stranger took a few steps back so Casey could walk up and claim the jacket, and Casey screwed his eyes tight against tears.
“Thanks,” he said, caving. He trotted forward and picked up the jacket, then trotted back into his safety zone, sliding it over his shoulders. Oh God, it was still warm. It smelled good too, like sweat, but clean sweat; antiseptic; Old Spice deodorant; Irish Spring soap. He shivered and snuggled deep into it. The guy had a broad chest, powerful. It looked like he worked outside a lot, and the jacket went practically to Casey’s midthigh. Casey scratched his head for a second and then put his hands in the pockets to keep them warm.
“There’s money in the pocket,” the stranger said, and Casey rooted through and found a twenty-dollar bill. He swallowed. That could buy nearly forty hamburgers, but this guy had been really decent about the jacket. He pulled the money out and was about to set it on the ground when the stranger said, “No, no—you can keep it if you want. Or you can come home with me and use my spare room. I’ve got food. You can shower.”
Casey scowled at him. “What do I have to do in return?” he asked, rightfully suspicious. He’d washed dishes at a little mom-and-pop place once, spent the entire night cleaning up the kitchen of the diner until his bones ached, and when he was done, he’d asked for the food the owner had promised him and was told he had to do one more favor first. He’d gotten fed, eventually, but he was good and sick of favors.
The guy shrugged. “I’ve got some work I’m doing on my property. You can help with that. But first, get you clean. Get you food. Get you some sleep. You can decide on a fair price when that’s done.”
Later Casey would wonder why. He’d look deeply into this man’s heart and try to find the reason for this much kindness. Later he’d berate himself for being seven kinds of fool for going with him, and then berate himself for being seven kinds of fool for ever doubting him. But that was later.
“Food?” he asked, his voice breaking. God. Big Daddy truck driver had given him half a hamburger and some leftover fries the day before, but his stomach was damned near cramping. The guy nodded, then opened up the little seat compartment of his motorcycle. He pulled out a granola bar—the real kind, not the kind with chocolate and shit on it—and made a tentative throwing motion. Casey put his hands out in front of him, and he threw it for real.
Casey scratched his scalp and then opened the package and devoured the crunchy, dry thing with a ferocity he didn’t know he had. When he’d swallowed, he crumpled up the wrapper, and the guy said, “Put it in your pocket. You can throw it away at my house.”
Casey looked at him then and sighed. The guy had given him food up front, and the jacket. He shifted uneasily in his jeans and itched his crotch. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll do that if you want now.”
The guy shook his head. “That’s not on the menu, kid. For one thing, I think you’ve got crabs.”
Casey scrunched up his face. “Oh, ew!”
The guy nodded sympathetically. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m gonna have to dry-clean the jacket too.”
Oh shit. Casey felt his face crumple. “Lice,” he muttered, scratching at his scalp again. “Oh God. That’s just so gross. You’re going to have to shave my head and….” He felt tears threaten. It was stupid, but he liked his hair. It was brown now, but in the summer, it bleached this sort of honey color, and it was soft, and before he’d run away, he’d gotten it cut all fashionable like that guy on television who rode in the boat and had an alligator.
Mysterious Stranger took a couple of steps forward, so Casey could read his expression in the thickening twilight. “Naw, kid. I’ve got a lice comb and some Rid-X and all that shit. Even the Kwell for the crabs.”
“You get crabs a lot?” Oh God. This could go south so many ways.
Mysterious Stranger laughed. “No. I take in strays a lot. And I work in a hospital, so there’s always a danger of getting something from the sheets or something like that.”
Casey nodded like that made sense, even though it didn’t because nobody was that good a person. “You a doctor?” He looked awfully young. Nobody that young was a doctor, unless it was on television, and the guy shook his head.
“I’m a nurse.”
Casey was shocked. “You’re… you’re… you’re a man!”
The guy laughed dryly. He’d heard that one before. “So they tell me. Kid, it’s getting cold. If I’m gonna save your life, we’d best get on the motorcycle soon.”
Casey nodded, still unsure, and then his stomach growled, loudly and with prejudice. Well, hell. If the guy was still planning on taking Casey to his place and killing him, Casey could fight back better fed.
“Okay,” he said, still uncertain, and Mysterious Stranger stuck out a hand.
“I’m Josiah Daniels. You can call me Joe.”
Casey had to walk forward a bit before he could take that hand. “Casey,” he said, not wanting to talk about his last name. His parents didn’t want him; he didn’t want them. Joe’s hand was still out, and he held perfectly still until Casey grasped it, and then he shook slowly, carefully, letting Casey control the pressure. Casey was reassured somehow. That hand was warmer than his, and it was bigger, stronger, with calluses, but it didn’t do anything it didn’t have to do.
Joe gestured to the motorcycle and then got on first, which was good, because Casey needed to grab hold of his shoulders to swing his leg over. In spite of the fact that Casey was pretty sure his body stench was scaring off small animals, Joe didn’t even flinch. He held very still until Casey’s arms were around his waist, and then started the bike up again, pulled it up from its lean on the kickstand, and took off in one smooth motion.
Casey would remember that ride behind Joe forever.
The man’s chest really was wide, and his waist was trim, and he had a way of moving his body to block the wind. The sky above them had turned the color of a girl’s party dress, and the road was purple, like a bruise. The trees were all pine and fir here, and they lined the road like serene sentinels, gesturing the way toward that cotton-candy sky. Without the bite of the wind, the colors and the shadows of the chill of the Sierras were almost friendly, and Casey forgave the cold for trying to kill him a while ago, because he was snuggled deep inside Joe’s jacket, and nothing could hurt him. Instead, Casey grasped that trim waist and tightened against him and closed his eyes, and between the whoosh of the air and the rumble of the bike, he might have fallen asleep if Joe hadn’t felt his grip slacken and grabbed his hands and shaken them every so often.
It was the first peace Casey had felt in months. No one yelling at him, nobody wanting something from him—just this guy, this warm, big guy putting Casey’s destiny in his big, rough hands. Casey sort of wished that ride could have gone on forever.
As it was, Josiah-call-me-Joe took a turn into a barely there road off of Foresthill and then another turn into what looked like a driveway. The driveway was at least a quarter of a mile long and freshly paved, which was a good thing, because the chopper didn’t look like it was ready for the sort of off-roading this country seemed to lend itself to. At the end of the driveway was a little pathway of broken paving stones—the round kind—that led to a ramshackle two-story house with a new roof and a desperate need for new siding. At present, the house was sided with silvering, splintered shingles that were rotting off seemingly as Casey looked. There was a garage on one side of the house, as well as a dilapidated carport on the other side with a plastic roof that was threatening to cave in the middle, and a shitload of new lumber and drywall tucked into the side of the carport.
Casey took a look around the whole thing with dull eyes, not sure he had the wherewithal to really take in all the damage.
“God, you weren’t kidding about day labor,” was what he did say, and he caught Joe’s grin as the bigger man swung off the bike and then gave Casey a hand off himself.
“Nope. Just bought the place a couple of months ago.”
“It’s a wreck. Why bother?” Casey’s mind boggled at the amount of work to be done, but Josiah Daniels didn’t seem to be offended.
“Listen to that,” he said, the smile on his face like one of those saints in a painting.
“Listen to what?”
“Do you hear the neighbors?”
“No.”
“Do you hear the traffic?”
“No.”
“Exactly.” Joe moved toward the house before Casey could chew on that any longer, and Casey followed him, because there were at least two miles of cold black road between him and another human being, and he was done with the running.
Inside, it was simple and plain. The entryway opened up to a kitchen with a small dining table on the left, and a living room with a couch on the right. The carpet was plain light brown, old, and badly in need of stretching. Joe gestured to the table.
“Wash your hands in the kitchen sink, sit down, and I’ll feed you. Then you can shower—I’ll get you some night clothes, okay?”
Casey nodded, grateful that the food would come first, although just looking at the clean dinette set, the clean brown corduroy couch, and the clean white walls made him itch even more. As he used the sink—washing his hands several times with dish soap before he stopped seeing them brown and wrinkled with filth—Joe busied himself in the refrigerator. Casey sat down to a solid peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a microwaved bowl of chicken noodle soup.
It was heaven. He’d forgotten how much he liked peanut butter and jelly as a kid. He’d forgotten the saltiness and solidness of the peanut butter and the burst of sweetness as the jelly just sang on your tongue. He’d forgotten the solid earthiness of wheat bread and how the whole thing felt right and perfect in his stomach. Milk was a gift from the gods. The sandwich was gone, and he was literally licking the bowl that had held the chicken noodle soup when he felt Joe’s hand on his shoulder and realized he’d lost a little bit of time from sitting down to scarfing down.
“Kid, I’m going to make you some more stuff, but first, we’ll let that settle, okay?”
No! Food! More food now! Casey kept that back in his head with a whimper and stood up, reluctant to shed the wonderful jacket, even though Josiah had apparently started a fire while he’d been lost in food-land. “Okay,” he whispered. “What now?” He knew. He’d known when he’d first taken the jacket. But he’d been fed, and now he didn’t care so much.
“Shower, remember? C’mere.”
The living room had a short hallway, and Casey’s companion sighed as he led the way.
“Eventually, I’ll have the loft upstairs all fixed up, and I’ll be sleeping there. Right now, we’re in the guest bedrooms, and they share a bathroom. We’re lucky—I just put in a tub, so you can soak for a while before you stand up and rinse off. But first….”
Joe opened a door into a small bedroom. “Here, wait for a sec.” He disappeared again, and Casey took off the jacket and laid it neatly on the plain queen-size bed. There was a generic tan bedspread on the top and what looked to be stolen hospital sheets underneath—and they didn’t fit, either, because the one on the bottom was just sort of on top of the mattress, and the edges were bare flowered nylon. But it had pillows, and a single dresser next to the headboard. They were the only objects in the room, and Casey could appreciate that Joe maybe hadn’t been as interested in decorating as he had been in simply making things serviceable.
He started taking off his clothes then, shuddering as they slid down into a puddle at his feet. He wanted to grab a sheet or something to hide himself, but he didn’t want any of the things living on his skin to get on that too. In a sudden panic, he grabbed the jacket and held it up against his naked body, not even wanting to look at himself. He was skinny. When he’d left his parents’ house with only the clothes on his back and a wallet two months earlier, he’d been developing a chest and some muscles—training for basketball did that to a guy.
Of course, getting caught blowing your center after practice when your parents came home early was what got you kicked out and on the streets, so maybe basketball wasn’t such a great thing after all. He was only ever going to be five foot eight, tops, so it wasn’t like he’d been bound for the pros.
He held the jacket up and shivered, a little surprised that there was a knock at the door before it swung open.
“Whoa!” Joe cried out, holding his full hands up to his eyes. “No! No, no, no—not for me to see. Shit.” Carefully, keeping his back to Casey like he was some virgin girl, Joe edged over to the bed and put down a set of sea-green hospital scrubs.
“They’re my old shit—gonna be really fucking big.”
Casey almost laughed, the guy was so uncomfortable. For a minute, he wanted to point out that there was nothing there that random truckers and assholes hadn’t been seeing for two months, but he had a sudden thought of the kindness and the warm jacket and the food, and he didn’t. For a minute, he really didn’t want Joe to know he was a slutty man-pussy, and everyone’s meat. This guy had been treating him like he was worth something. Casey was going to let him keep his illusions.
“And here.”
Casey looked, and Joe had put down a pharmacy squirt bottle, brown, on top of the clothes.
“What’s that?”
“It’s K
well. You’re going to want to rub it into your hair… uhm… all of your hair, even over your… you know….”
“Pubes?” It felt like he was being delicate, but Joe shook his head, and the back of his neck under his ponytail was getting redder by the second.
“Not just the pubes. Your asshole hair too.”
“I’ve got hair on my asshole?” Jesus! Casey hadn’t gotten that far or that intimate with anybody. It was usually just “Bend over, boy!” and that was the extent of it.
“Well, you might not, but a lot of guys do!” The irritation must have helped with the embarrassment, because his neck paled a little. “And you need to not get it on any open sores, because it will sting like a motherfucker.”
Casey whimpered, and the sound must have been pretty naked, because Joe turned around.
“What?”
Casey shrugged. “Uhm, about my asshole….” He winced, and Joe winced, and then Joe sighed.
“Okay, look, kid. Use the Kwell on everything else, just wash that. We’ll put the Kwell back on in a week, okay?”
Casey nodded. His eyes were watering, and he couldn’t pinpoint why.
“Don’t get anything in your eyes, okay? The bathroom has two doors—one to my room. I want you to lock that door whenever you’re in there because I just don’t want to walk in on you, okay? You lock that door, the only way in is through your door, right? So rub the shit in your hair, upstairs and downstairs, go get in the tub, soak off the dirt, and rinse the shit off your head. I’ll go through it with a pick while you eat round two, and let’s see if we can get you healthy, okay?”
Casey nodded, his vision blurring, and Joe turned to go. He stopped midstride and sighed, took a few steps forward, and then took Casey’s chin in his fingers.
“It’s going to be all right, okay, boy? I’ll find you someplace to stay, we’ll keep you safe, okay?”
Casey nodded, his jaw working. “Why?” he asked, unsure of where the question came from, and Joe shrugged and looked away.