Shut Up and Prompt - 1. 526 - East-Jesus-Nowhere

“Damn, where the hell am I supposed to go now?” I couldn’t help but curse out loud and growl under my breath. I’d known, right from the start, that this had been a bad idea. One glance at the feeble light thrown by my nearly-out-of-charge phone told me that if I was where I was supposed to be, I was late. More likely, I’d been pranked, and my new so-called friends were off somewhere else drinking and laughing at my expense.

You read too much romantic fiction, my inner voice smirked. We’ve been set up.

Shut up. You’re not helping. I sighed. And now I’m out in the middle of field on the outskirts of East-Jesus-Nowhere talking to myself.

“FUCK!”

Some poor hapless ground dwelling bird shot out of the tall corn to my left with a squawk and splutter and flapped into the sky. There was probably a winged predator waiting out there with sharp talons, putting the finishing touches on a death sentence even as I scuffed my trainers in the red dust. I wondered if a slightly less literal death awaited me too.

I’d been in town two weeks, moved from one back-water to another, only this one didn’t have any actual water, and was a long way North of the patch of sun-soaked Florida I still called home, even though I didn’t live there. Things had been looking pretty dismal, until Frankie had caught my eye across the parking lot of the K-mart. The boy with the smile, the cowboy hat, the truck…

He’s not out here. My inner voice was sounding more more cocky by the minute as I trudged along the dirt track bordering the corn field. Him or his friends.

I’d waved to him, it had been a stupid, childish gesture; but Frankie had grinned, wandered on over and introduced himself. He was two years older than me, already graduated with his G.E.D and working on the family farm. Never in my life had I yearned for somebody like him. I liked slick surfer dudes with sun-blond hair and sandy feet. Hell, I was one, or had been until I’d traded golden sands for red dirt. But Frankie was like a wet dream made soild, and his hand on my shoulder and arm had been warm and firm, and I’d practically melted when he’d told me I was good-looking. His smooth southern accent did something warm and gooey to my insides.

Yeah, ‘cause there are just tons of gay cowboy rednecks out there. Let’s go home.

I would never fully understand why my parents had moved us out here, though I suspected it had a lot to do with debts belonging to my grandfather, and the fact we’d lost our house the week he died. It had been a shock to find that all the things I’d never thought about, like the roof, walls, and hot and cold running water, didn’t actually belong to us any more. I’d been allowed to keep my two surfboards, but I was painfully aware, in a nagging guilty manner, that my mother never wore any of her jewellery any more. I couldn’t pin down the moment it had vanished, and I was still trying to kid myself she hadn’t pawned it all.

Forgive me for wanting one good thing to happen to me this summer. I checked my phone again, and remembered the texture of Frankie’s breath on my neck as he’d keyed his number into it. I’d been given the address of the farm, the rough direction of the place Frankie and his friends were hanging out, but I hadn’t wanted to admit to him that I didn’t have a car. Everyone here had a car; there wasn’t any other way to get around.

Not that there’s anywhere to go…

I scowled, and decided my silent-self could do with a damn good hiding sometime. On the other hand, I was clearly going to get myself lost out here in this endless farmland, and if that wasn’t depressing enough, I was also going to die a social death in town. So much for Southern hospitality! I’d been directed out here to the middle of nowhere on a promise and a kiss I’d mistakenly thought had been genuine, and now Frankie and his friends, including several of my new classmates, were probably shitting all over my fragile reputation. I wondered how long it would be before some God-fearing hill-billy took it upon themselves to re-educate my deviant ways with his fists.

I’m going home.

“Fuck you Frankie,” I muttered unhappily, and dragged my knuckles across my eyes before the tears could fall. Not that there was anyone there to see. I turned on one heel, and gasped in pain as my ankle twisted underneath me and I fell sharply on hands and knees into the dirt.

The temptation to just lie there and sob was overwhelming, and for a moment I gave up and gave in, covering my face with my hands and rolling onto my side. The angle brought my vision around in a direction I hadn’t been looking before, too busy having pointless conversations with myself. There was a blacker outline against the sky, blocking out the stars. And just, very faintly, the sense of a hard edge with light behind it. I got up unsteadily, perspective reconsidered itself, and I realised that the big dark shape was a barn, and it wasn’t even very far away, only about a hundred yards.

Frankie had said there would be a barn…

I brushed red clay dust off my shirt as best I could, though I could do nothing for the grazes on my palms or the one ripped knee of my jeans, and limped towards the barn. As I got close, the sense of light was more distinctive, and I found the end of the long side, and started down the end. Now I could clearly see the orange light, flickering in the way fires do, outlining the edge of the building. As my pulse decided to stop crowding my ears, I could hear noises, voices, music, the clink of bottles, the crackle of wood burning.

In the last of the dark space before the end of the wall and the light which now seemed super-bright, I stopped, my back to the wall.

Well? Apparently I was going to wrestle with myself one more time.

I can’t show up like this. I’m filthy.

And you’ve been crying.

Oh, you’re a big help, I replied snarkily. Shit.

Just then, the sound of boots distracted me from myself.

“Frankie, where are you going.”

“I was jus’ gonna check...”

“Again?” A happy but sympathetic female voice chirped up. “Sweetie, he’s either comin’ or he ain’t, but you goin’ to look fer his headlights for the tenth time ain’t gonna make a whisker o’difference.”

There was a heavy sigh and a thud, as though Frankie had allowed himself to fall back against the wooden wall of the barn.

“D’you think I scared him off? Maybe he thinks I’m playing him.”

I smiled to myself in the dark. I’d not been wrong about the cowboy after all.

“Oh man,” one of Frankie’s other friends laughed, “you got it bad.”

“I’mma go look.”

I heaved myself away from the wall and turned the corner into the firelight. I didn’t have time to take in more than a glimpse off the half-circle of trucks, the fire, the collection of Frankie’s friends hanging out on tail-gates and old tractor tyres drinking and chatting, before I was knocked to the floor by a wall of red-plaid cotton.

“Oh shit!” Frankie’s hands were on me before I’d even had time to blink, helping me back to my feet. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s OK.” I smiled at him, perfect in the firelight, every inch the man I really hoped he’d be.

“Dude,” a guy I shared home-room with arched an eyebrow at me, “did you walk here or what?”

“Sorry I’m late,” I said softly, just to Frankie.

“You ain’t late. Wasn’t a party ‘til you got here. Come meet everyone.”

As he took my hand in his and smiled, my heart melted in all the right places. Sometimes silly romantic stories didn’t need to be in the fiction section.