Dignity - a novel - 2. Chapter 2: Under the Blanket

Chapter 2: Under the Blanket

I sink down into my bus seat holding my ticket and fake ID. Sean Holmes, 18 – I laugh just looking at it. Sean Holmes is one of my favorite blue-eyed, blond-haired, and studly 'actors,' and if you have to ask…well…Google Image him with the word 'gayhoopla,' and you'll see, LOL!

But now it's a few minutes before 6 AM, and I've just played a trick on Dawn. See, she's waiting on the platform, and I deliberately sat on the other side, cuz – well, cuz – it's hard enough to say goodbye. I don’t think I can take seeing her wave me off too. It's better this way.

The door closes, and the bus pulls out. A couple turns later, and I can breathe again.

I'm on my way. I can't say 'I'm free,' exactly, but at least the first step is out of the way.

My butt cheek feels kinda numb, then I remember, and pull out Dawn's paperback edition of Catcher in the Rye.

Fuk. I didn't want to relive it all so soon, but, I can see her in my room. She helped me pack t-shirts and stuff, then we shoved everything into my gym bag. We also went over what she'd tell my mom: that I was heading to Chicago to meet up with a boy I met online. I was sorry to make her lie, but I needed time and distance as my bus headed south, and then west.

After that, Dawn and I had a sleepless night; she went home, and then at 5 AM, I snuck out.

When she met me at the bus station a half-hour later, she shoved this book in my hand with instructions to "Read it, dweeb." I told her, after I hugged her, "K. I'll text you once I get pretty far away."

And that was it.

Now, as the bus is taking the onramp to I71, I roll this book around in my hands and try not to feel like I'm making some sort of mistake. The cover is kinda artsy – the top part is all red, with yellow lettering, and the bottom is white. Where the colors come together, there is almost a swirl, as the white spikes up, and the red swoops down; what's weird though is a horse that looks like it's on a toothpick. This crooked pike is entering its neck and coming out of its chest – then I get it; it's some sort of merry-go-round horse, but it is all contorted, and it floats above a faraway city.

Even though I'm feeling pretty sleepy, I open the book.

A few pages later, the bus has settled into a regular highway rhythm of its big tires pressing us over the roadway seams, and that dull clack, clack, clack promotes a good reading pace.

'Boy,' I think, 'this Holden Caulfield is a whiny little loser,' but I read on. The story's not bad. But the kid's attitude is a little snively – oh, boo hoo!

˚˚˚˚˚

Outside the bus window, the miles roll by in mind-numbing sameness. My right arm hurts a little, so without paying much attention, I start scratching at it.

The pain grows instantly worse. I look.

About two inches down from the inside of my wrist is a round lump. It's the size of large watch, and freakily, it's flat on top and raised up about half-an-inch.

I pull up my arm to see it better. The skin around the edges looks fine, but the center of the flat disc looks like bone; not like raw bone, but bone with big pores covered tightly by skin, which is pale and translucent.

I have a sudden flash. I'm inside that thing. It is like a room, and weird little blood creatures are busy making holes in the bone.

"This can't be happening to me!"

I snap out of it. I raise both arms up and grab onto the underside of the luggage rack above my head. Then I see it. Under the skin of my left arm – this thing moves. I feel only a slight tingle, but it moves, traveling down from around my triceps towards my wrist. It is like a lump the size of a fat pea, and, as I say – it is under my skin.

I panic. I stand, and I'm not on the bus anymore. I am on the road, and it is nighttime. Cars rush by honking, and oncoming headlights sear me to near-blindness. These lights become hot and red.

I turn away, and then realize why I am running. There is something chasing me. I dare not look at it full on, because then, I know it will catch me.

I must run to live.

My foot starts to hurt, cuz the road is rough, and suddenly the gray-black pavement breaks apart into gravel. The cars disappear – only the red light stays, but now it seems to come from behind me, and it's the thing I'm running from.

"No!" I scream. "This can't be happening." And suddenly, it stops.

The light goes out, the road turns into a field where there are various little flowers, and I can finally catch my breath. 'It' is gone, so I fall to my knees, and wind up plopping down with a shoulder-turn into the soft grass. It feels moist and supporting; it feels good.

"That's better," I whisper, and I close my eyes when the warmth of the sun hits my cheek. I feel so tired – it is just such a relief to rest.

˚˚˚˚˚

My eyes flutter open.

The stale air of the bus instantly tells me where I am.

I must have dozed off, for next thing I know, some guy is banging in the aisle next to my seat. I dig out my phone: shit, it's six hours later. Now it's noon.

The guy in the aisle is stowing a guitar case overhead. All I can see is he's pretty buff, and wearing a sports coat over worn-in jeans. I look out the window and stretch. I don’t have anything to tell me where I am; all I see is that the bus is stopped in some large terminal.

The guy raises his chin at me, asking: "Seat taken?"

"Nope," I say.

He half-grins and plops down, then stows his backpack under the seat.

"Hey buddy," I tap his upper arm with the back of my hand. "Where are we?"

He leans back in his seat and looks like he's trying to guess if I'm being serious. "Nashville, dude." He laughs, and adds, "Been asleep long?"

"Apparently. Phew! – but sorry man, I gotta pee." I stand up and accidentally dump Catcher in his lap. He grabs it and stands.

"Hold it for me. I'll be right back."

˚˚˚˚˚

OMG – pissin' in the onboard john feels so good, I actually have to close my eyes.

˚˚˚˚˚

"Damn, that felt so good." I tell him as I retake my window seat. I see he's put my book in the little stretchy thing in front of my seat. "Thanks," I tell him.

"No prob. I'm Lyle." He holds out his hand.

"Sean," I tell him, and shake it. He has a Southern accent – slow and dripping with intrigue – but in a mellow baritone. His face is nice, round with bright gray eyes, which look like they are used to laughing a lot. He's African American, and his hair is shaved close above his ears, but left long on top where it halfway flops down onto his forehead.

He starts chuckling at my inspection, then I see his eyes drift across the top of my head, and light up.

"Hey," he smirks. "Nice color!"

Oh shit! I totally forgot. Dawn had brought a funky hair dye and done me after we packed. So, now my hair is a sort of punky shade right between Kool-Aid blue and green.

"Oh, you like it?" I try to hide my blush under a big ole grin.

"Hey, it's cool, dude. You a musician?"

"Uh-uh. You?"

"Yup. Headin' to Amarillo for a gig."

I nod my head: "Cool."

"Where do you get off at?"

"End of the line."

"And where's that, Sean?"

"Los Angeles, Lyle." I throw his name in there to be a smart ass. But, he does not seem to mind.

The bus door closes, and we start to roll.

"Damn it," I just realize. "I slept through the lunch break. This tub won't stop for hours and hours. Shit."

"Here." He fishes around in the bag down by his cowboy boots. "Take it."

In another instant, something comes flying up as he tosses it to me. It is a pack of yellow-orange crackers with neon 'cheeze' sandwiched between.

I protest: "Ah man, I can't."

He just leans back in his seat and sort of eyes me, up and down. "Eat it," is all he says.

I rip it open and make sure he has the first one. I chew, and knowing I have orange teeth, tell him anyway, "Thanks! You're a lifesaver."

This guy is cute, for an old guy, LOL. If I had to guess, I'd say Lyle is 23 or 25 – something like that. He's taken off his jacket now, and wears a Western shirt with abalone snaps, and did I mention that it looks like he's been poured into his jeans, OMG.

"So, Sean – where'd you get on at?"

I lie. "Louisville."

"Hey, great town."

"Yeah. It's ok."

He gets the idea, and drops the subject.

For a minute I toy with the idea of picking back up with Holden Caulfield, but I turn to Lyle instead.

"Do you have a significant other?"

"No girlfriend; no wife. You?"

"Well, with me, you should ask if I have a boyfriend, and no, I don’t."

"Oh, that's cool – I mean – I'm sorry you don’t have one. But, you know what I mean."

"Yeah. Don’t sweat it." I don’t know if he's uncomfortable or what, cuz I see him shift in his seat a bit. "So, you have any Gay friends?"

"Whoo! Lots. Remember, I'm in the music biz!"

"Oh yeah." I have to smile at that. "So, how old are you Lyle?"

"Twenty-two. You?"

"Eighteen."

"Oh, I…That's cool."

"Being 18 is cool?"

"Well, I guess it beats being twenty-two; if I could turn back time."

I'm amazed. "You like Cher?"

He laughs, the baritone rippling like molten gold. "Whoa – no, don’t get the wrong idea. I'm straight Country. I mean…no pun intended."

"Phew! – man, that was a bad joke."

I see I actually make him tug at his shirt collar. I ask him in a lower tone: "Or, are you saying something I'm supposed to key into here?"

Lyle narrows his eyebrows and leans over with a crazy-beautiful tilt to his head. He asks with mock confidentiality: "So, do you like Cher?"

I feel my mouth go up in one corner. "Well, I am Gay, and I read in Being Queer for Dummies that I have to like her, so – yeah."

I slip on my slickest shit-eating grin.

I don’t know if he expected – or even liked – that quip and response, because, he slowly leans away from me, and back up to his upright position, but his smiling steel-gray eyes stay on me, and do not alter.

He inhales a bit, and flips a pair of glances over his shoulders. "Hey, strangers make the best of buds, right? So, I can be upfront. Yeah, I've been down the yellow brick road a few times."

I can feel my face scowl unintelligibly at him. What does that mean?

Lyle smiles real open, and I think I'd call it 'sweetly,' at me. Then he goes on, "You know – flipped the AC/DC switch, crooned way down low – man, I'm saying, I've done it with guys."

"OH!" Now I got it. "Really? When?"

"I used to live out in La-La Land, before I got my 'big break,' and moved to Nashville."

"Really!"

"Yes. Stayed out there 18 months, when I was, about, your age."

"Cool."

"And music," he asks me. "You're not into Country?"

"Pop, neo-folk, that kinda stuff. Oh damn." I just realize something else.

"What?"

"I, I have a new phone, and all my music is still on my old one. That sucks."

"You're welcome to listen to mine."

"Maybe later. Thanks." The bus is back on the Interstate now, and hitting the paving seams pretty hard. This jostling goes right to my tummy. "Hey, do you know long it is until dinner?"

He glances at his watch. "Sorry kid. Maybe another six hours. On this route, they always haul up at a big truck stop outside Conway, Arkansas." He laughs at me, but in a nice way, you know, sympathetic: "Hungry much?"

"Yep. No breakfast, and I guess I slept through lunch."

"I gave you my emergency crackers. That's all I had."

"Hey dude, I mean – thank you. You did me a good turn, I hope I can pay you back."

He looks a bit odd; maybe he thought I meant…I don’t know what he thought.

He seems to change the subject. "You like J. D. Salinger?"

"My friend gave it to me this morning. I don’t know, it's kinda interesting."

"What do you normally read?"

"PC Gamer."

"What's that?"

I chuckle: "A gamers' mag. Sorry. I'm pretty ordinary."

"Ah, don’t know about that, but before you get to L.A., or on your way back, you might want to pick up John Steinbeck's Wayward Bus."

"Really? How come?"

"It's appropriate."

"What's it about?"

"It's about how people from different walks of life get connected by a bus ride."

"Wo – really?"

"Yup."

"Seems like us." Ooops. Did I really just say that?

He looks a little thoughtful. "Yeah, I suppose. It's really about crossroads, and closeness, and how people put on masks and miss the opportunity to see how much alike they are to others. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah." I do too; see what he means. And I wonder how much of my mask this guy sees through with his beautiful, light-colored eyes.

˚˚˚˚˚

Conway, Arkansas – or at least a giant parking lot outside of town! I stand and stretch and try to crack my joints, and get pinged with a little pain as a result. I'm too young to feel this old, LOL.

The evening air is laced with diesel fumes, but it's a hell of a lot fresher than the stuff recycled endlessly on that rolling steel refrigerator!

After The Wayward Bus discussion, Lyle and me chatted a few more minutes, then I rolled my head against the window. I wanted to continue my nap, and my new Bi-buddy slipped in his earphones, so my dreams of Dawn took on a decidedly Country twang.

That thought makes me laugh.

Suddenly, Lyle knocks my shoulder from behind. "Eat together?" he asks.

"Sure," I say, and follow his lead towards the bright lights of an Ozarks truck stop.

˚˚˚˚˚

Aw damn, my cheeseburger and fries have settled so nice and weighty in my tum-tum, and now I'm halfway through my slice of coconut cream pie.

I grin at Lyle like a moron, I'm sure. He's done eating too, and having coffee. He leans back in the booth, and raises his arm to rest it on the seatback. He's wearing his jacket again, and the flap lifted by the movement of his arm accents his torso and upper thigh real nice. ;-)

"So," he asks me, those steel-grays glinting. "Where are you really from?"

For a moment, my gaze skips over his head and counts the number of white-glass globes that float like beach balls above the diner's line of booths. Should I lie to him, again?

"Cincinnati," I come clean.

"And your name is not Sean?"

"Don’t ask, ok?"

"Fair enough. Look, I'm not pressing or anything, but how much money you got to be in L.A. with?"

"A few hundred."

He sighs and leans his elbows on the table. "What are you gonna do out there?"

I shrug. "Got any ideas?"

He rolls his eyes to the side, like he has something he doesn’t want to tell me.

"What?" I press.

"You're a runaway, right?"

I don’t say anything.

"Okay." He goes on. "Well, so was I. So, know that I am not judging, or gonna snitch on you, or anything."

"So what did you do out in L.A.?"

"Well, truth is, when it comes time for me to settle down, it will be with a girl – but, I like guys too. Sex with men is awesome – the best."

I give up on my half-eaten slice of pie, and shove the plate aside. As I dab with a napkin, I puzzle why he would say that.

"I'm not sure you're answering my question." I lean in too, and let the side of my hand 'accidentally' come to rest against his.

"I hustled. Okay? You know what I mean, right?"

"Yeah."

"If you go that route, West Hollywood is where to do it – on Santa Monica Boulevard." He rotates his hands slightly; I feel his fingers moving against mine. There is something sad in him now, so fuk it, I take ahold of his hand, and ask him a rough question.

"What's like the worst part about doin' it?"

"The job? It probably ain't what you think."

"Then, tell me."

He takes a long time to answer. His eyes seem to roll over every feature of my face, and drift over my funny-colored hair. Finally, I feel his fingers hold mine back. He applies just the right amount of pressure.

"It's a feeling you get. A feeling that you can't really help or explain, like wondering if the idea of just being temporary is real or not. It's an existence of always just drifting from one phase to the next, or from one day to the next, or even from one date to the next – it's all a shifting scale of time and timing – and it's hard to stay grounded, or to have anything to hold onto. That's the worst part, and you probably don’t know what I mean."

"I do, sort of. Don’t worry, you are clear enough."

As I have a few times before, I don’t know if this answer is one he likes or wants, cuz all I see is a deepening kind of sadness in him. His gray eyes lose their glint, and I think I might have hurt him, but I don’t know how.

"But hey," I tell him, trying to laugh. "Thanks for the heads up."

He suddenly pulls his hand back, along with the rest of his torso. He leans back and scans me again. "Look, I gotta piss."

Lyle stands, but instead of walking away, he pauses a moment at the end of the booth. His gray sparkle is back for a moment, and then he heads to the john.

I lean back, watch his denim-clad legs and ass walk away, and pull my coconut cream back to me.

Right now, I guess I have two choices: sit here, like a dummy, or do what I want to do; do what I think I am supposed to do.

I scarf down the remainder of my pie in three bites, and while I'm still chewing, I dab with a napkin and start getting up from the booth seat.

Walking, I suddenly remember Dawn's advice, and slow it right the fuk down. Yep, I've got no place particular to go, LOL.

˚˚˚˚˚

The restroom smells clean. I scan the line of urinals, and nobody is there.

"Lyle," I whisper kinda loud, LOL. Then one of the stall doors creaks open.

He is standing there, hands braced against the side panels, clearly waiting for me, maybe just hoping I'd make this decision.

I join him, turn and latch the door.

He grabs me by the shoulders, and kisses me.

I close my eyes, and his tongue comes into my mouth. He tastes like coffee and the salad he had for dinner.

Somehow, I feel like I'm spinning, and it turns out I am. He guides me to rest my back against the wall where the toilet is, and reaches down to lift me up, grabbing me with confident hands right where the back of my thighs becomes butt cheeks. He sets me on top of the tank and comes in close to continue our kissing.

My hands grip him at the back of his head, and I love the feel of his close-cropped hair; it's like silk velcro, hot and soft at the same time. I feel I have to hold onto him, cuz, his kisses might actually make me pass out.

Suddenly, he stops. His voice is all quiet and emotional. "Sean – or whatever your name is – you ever kiss a guy before?"

I swallow down a hard lump, and blink; I shake my head.

"You ever been with a guy?"

I move my head side to side real slow.

"Sean – look, I'm not gonna care, okay? Believe me." His eyes are so sad, and so close to mine. "But tell me, how old are you, really?"

"Seventeen."

"And, you're okay with what we're doing?"

"Lyle," I sigh. "Here, let me show you." I latch onto his cheeks, and part my lips.

I draw him into a kiss that is as tender and as passionate as I can make it.

˚˚˚˚˚

Back on the bus, it must be late. The Interstate lights come with a rhythm that is as gentle and soothing as the little sounds of sleep Lyle makes sitting next to me.

After dinner, after our lovemaking in the john, I gave him the window seat, cuz he looked exhausted. The driver handed out blankets, and now, as we roll along, the cabin lights are low.

In the bathroom stall, my age, or the consideration of my virgin status, made Lyle do something unexpected.

He pulled out our junk, which was up and ready to go, then drew me tight and said we would "frot."

We kissed and our dicks pressed against one another, and soon I was jelly all over. A short time later, Lyle said, "Sean, oh Sean," and showed me – bodily – how much he liked me.

Now on the road, after the lights had dimmed, and just before he hunkered down, Lyle had kissed me again.

His "Good night, stud," was followed by him arranging the blanket between us, and taking my hand underneath it.

He's still holding, or perhaps I should say, fell asleep holding it, and it's nice. It's really nice to have a guy's hand to hold onto like this.