Rainbow Road (9 page)

“You are so controling,” Nelson groaned and shoved the condom back into his pocket. “Just like my mom. What did she tel you, anyway?”

“To look after you,” Kyle answered. He was enjoying being with Nelson, just the two of them, in spite of having to chew him out—and even though he missed Jason.

He swung his arm around Nelson, and Nelson smirked. “So that means you’l decide if I get laid or not?”

“No.” Kyle stopped at a DON’T WALK signal, holding Nelson back. “It means I’m not going to let you do something stupid.” Nelson darted a glance at him, then looked each way down the traffic-empty street.

“Kyle,” he said at last, not bothering to keep his voice down. “I think you need to stop trying to control me. You and Jason better get laid. Soon!” With that he stepped into the street, crossing against the signal, leaving Kyle amid the stares of the crowd.

But even though Kyle’s cheeks grew hot, he remained lawfuly on the curb, wondering if Nelson was right.

As Jason had headed toward the school down the street from the boys’ parked car, he’d seen in the distance a group of African-American guys playing ful-court.

Immediately he felt a connection, like family, and counted the number of players: five-on-five.

On the empty court beside them, Jason began the drils Coach Gameron had given him—a little self-conscious at first because of the guys on the next court, until he got into the flow of his shooting workout.

As he dribbled across the concrete, he tried to sort out his thoughts about the crazy Faeries and their sanctuary. He’d never experienced anything as wild as that before: the wacky clothes guys wore, the tribelike dancing around the fire, and the girls flaunting their boobs in his face.

That topless thing had totaly crazed him. But why? Hadn’t he figured out he was gay? Then why’d he gotten so excited by bare girl titties? Kyle and Nelson obviously hadn’t.

Jason began shooting free throws to calm his troubled mind. After about the tenth shot he began to feel his center, that integrity point inside his brain that Coach had taught him to identify.

“The eye in the hurricane,” Coach had caled it, the point where Jason could feel at peace with himself amid a stadium of cursing spectators, shouting referees, and his own conflicting inner voices.

“Hey, man!” someone abruptly caled to him.

Jason turned. One of the players from the neighboring court stood watching him. “One of our guys left us short. Want to run?”

“Sure!” Jason set his bal down and joined the group.

“You’re shirts,” the boy told him. “Game’s to eleven. Win by two.”

Even though Jason knew none of these guys, he quickly felt at ease. Within seconds he’d hit his first shot and his teammates were clasping his hand. It felt great to be around
normal
guys again, who played by clear, established rules; guys who looked and acted like guys were supposed to look and act, in contrast to those wacky Faeries.

And yet Nelson’s comment about having “the courage to let go and be who you are” kept nagging at him. Not wanting to think about it, Jason focused on the game at hand. And when it came time to go, he had to force himself to leave.

As he walked back to meet Kyle and Nelson, he thought what a relief it had been to take a break from 24/7 gayness. Between Nelson’s finger snapping and Kyle’s hand-holding, hardly a moment could pass that he wasn’t reminded of it.

Like now, watching them approach, he could hear them bickering—not like most dudes his age, but almost sounding like a couple of old ladies.

He liked being with them, but … sometimes he felt so different from them. And yet he was different from the boys on the court, too. Would he ever feel like he fit in
anywhere
?

“How’d it go?” Kyle offered a tentative smile.

“Great.” Jason smiled back. “How was the Opry?”

“Fabulous!” Nelson exclaimed. “You missed out big-time.”

“I wish you’d come,” Kyle told Jason. “Hey, check this out!”

Jason gazed at the photo of Kyle and Nelson on stage at the Opry. Now he wished he’d gone too. He bit his lip in regret.

Kyle must’ve noticed. “We can go back if you want.”

“Nah.” Jason shrugged. “That’s okay.” He handed back the photo.

“Wel, you can’t bag out on Graceland,” Nelson told him as they started toward the car.

But Jason slowed his steps as he noticed the passenger door. Scratched into the paint, a word stood out: FAGGS!

“Assholes!” Nelson shouted at ful voice. “The jerks can’t even spel.”

“Who would do this?” Kyle ran his fingers along the scratch. “How would they even know?”

“Probably that flag on the bumper,” Jason speculated. “I told you to take it off.”

“If it wasn’t for that flag,” Nelson pointed out, “we’d probably stil be on the side of the road out of gas.”

“Guys?” Kyle interjected. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s just go eat.” Grudgingly, Jason climbed into the car. As Nelson drove, Kyle guided them past the replica of the Greek Parthenon, which was cool to look at from outside but cost too much to go in. A few blocks away from it, Kyle spotted a barbecue place and suggested, “Why don’t we try that?” Inside, the restaurant smeled like a hundred years’ worth of wood smoke. As the gum-chewing hostess led them to their table, she stared suspiciously at Nelson’s pink hair.

After they placed their order, Kyle asked Jason, “So did you find some guys to shoot with at the court?”

“Yeah.” Jason nodded and sipped his water.

Nelson leaned eagerly across the table. “Were any of them cute?”

“Is that al you think about?”

Nelson put a finger to his chin as if thinking for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Were they?” Jason set his water glass down. “I didn’t notice.”

But that wasn’t entirely true. He had noticed a couple of the guys were good-looking, but he just hadn’t given it much thought. He’d been concentrating on his game, not on hooking up. Besides, he didn’t imagine any of them were gay.

In the middle of the waitress bringing their order, Nelson asked Jason, “So what’s it like spending so much time with guys in the locker room? Don’t you get totaly horny?”

The waitress nearly dropped Jason’s barbecue sandwich onto his lap. “Sorry. Anything else you need?”
Yeah,
Jason wanted to say.
Some tape for his mouth
.

“Nelson!” Kyle hissed as the waitress walked away.

“Wel, I’m curious,” Nelson insisted and glanced back at Jason. “Have you ever gotten a woody in the locker room showers?”

“Dude, we’re eating!” Jason chomped into his sandwich, hoping Nelson would shut up.

“So?” Nelson persisted. “How do you keep from popping a boner with al those naked guys around?” Jason heaved a sigh and put his sandwich down. “They’re my team. They’re like family.”

“Oh,” Nelson said and bit into his sandwich, his brow furrowed in thought. “Wel, I don’t think that would stop me.”

“Can we please change the subject?” Kyle asked. Al three of them became quiet til Kyle asked Jason, “Have you thought about your speech?”

“Yeah,” Jason said, but he neglected to add that every time the thought came into his head, he pushed it out again. He’d played bal and even kissed his boyfriend in front of thousands of spectators, but the thought of getting up to speak in front of total strangers stressed him too much to think about it.

He had no idea what on earth someone like him could possibly have to say at the opening of a gay and lesbian high school.

“I’l help you with it,” Kyle offered. But Jason told him, “Maybe later.”

And once again, he put it out of his mind.

Nelson lay down in the car’s backseat as they left Nashvile and continued west on I-40. He stil felt tired from dancing around the Faerie fire the night before and wanted to take a nap so he’d arrive wide-awake to experience the ful glory of Graceland. Besides, the road toward Memphis didn’t have much to see: mostly a bunch of boring mountains covered with green stuff.

But as Nelson closed his eyes to sleep, Jason began reading mileage signs: “Memphis, 163 miles.” Then “Memphis, 148 miles.” And “Memphis, 128 miles.”

“Dude!” Nelson sat up. “Could you please stop that?”

Thank God Jason shut up. When Nelson woke again, they’d reached the Memphis outskirts.

Elvis Presley Boulevard took them through a dumpy area of car washes, pawnshops, and used car lots.

“You sure this is the right way?” Nelson asked. It seemed like a pretty sleazy neighborhood for the King to have lived in.

But amazingly enough, the Graceland Shops appeared on their right, advertising free parking. The boys puled into a space, jumped from the car, and raced next door to the Graceland admission counter, just in time for the last tour.

They al agreed to splurge on platinum tickets, which got them into everything, beginning with the “mansion.” It actualy wasn’t much bigger than Nelson’s house, but it was definitely weirder.

For some reason, the TV room had mirrors on the ceiling. The Jungle Room had green shag carpeting on both the floor
and
ceiling. And the kitchen stil smeled like bacon grease, even though it hadn’t been used for thirty years.

Nelson sighed as he stared at the white fake fur bed. “Poor straight Elvis could’ve definitely used a queer makeover. Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Real bad.” But he thought the exhibits after the house were kind of cool, especialy Elvis’s colection of signature jumpsuits. “I’d kil for that gold lamé one.”

“Isn’t it weird,” Kyle commented, “that this entire exhibit doesn’t make a single mention of his drug use?”

“Kyle, stop being such a downer.” Nelson strode away to look at Elvis’s grave. At first he thought it was tacky how parents were taking photos of their kids in front of the gravestone, but then he decided, what the heck?

“Can you take one of me?” he asked Jason, handing him the cel phone. “I want to e-mail it to Jeremy. You want to send one of you to your mom?”

“Sure,” Jason replied. Then Kyle asked a lady to take a photo of the three of them, smiling in front of dead Elvis.

Folowing the mansion they viewed Elvis’s car colection and airplanes. Jason thought they were the best part of the tour. Afterward they checked into the Graceland Campground. Nelson cleared some empty beer cans previous campers had left.

Kyle unpacked the tent and asked Jason, “Where are the tent poles? I can’t find them.” Jason’s face went blank. “They’re not with the tent?”

“Nope.” Kyle held up the empty tent bag as proof. “You packed them up this morning, right?” Jason began rummaging through the trunk til he’d searched thoroughly. “I guess …” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I must’ve left them behind.”

“You
forgot
our tent poles?” Nelson asked gleefuly, no longer feeling so stupid about his cel phone episode the day before. Then he got a briliant idea. “Let’s go back to the sanctuary for them.”

“Yeah, right,” Kyle protested. “It’s four hours away.”

“So?” Nelson flashed a grin. “We could spend the night again.”

“No way,” Jason said, “are we going back. We’l buy new poles.”

They packed the tent back into the trunk and asked at the camp office for the location of the nearest discount store. After some driving around, they found the store and Nelson asked a silver-haired saleslady about tent poles.

“I’m sorry, miss.” The old lady adjusted her trifocals, peering at Nelson’s hair. “I don’t know anywhere that sels poles without the tent.” The three boys stared at one another and Nelson whispered to Kyle, “Why’d she cal me ‘miss’?” Kyle ignored his question and began looking through the half-dozen boxes on the shelf. “We’l have to get another tent.”

“Do you have any bigger ones?” Jason asked the saleslady.

“This is al that’s left.” She wobbled her head. “It’s the end of the season.”

They decided to buy the cheapest box labeled as a two-to three-person tent and returned to the campground. But once assembled, the tent hardly looked big enough for two.

“It’s even smaler than the last one,” Jason complained.

“Wel, maybe we can use the poles from this tent with our old tent,” Kyle suggested. They proceeded to try that, but the poles were too short.

“I think we should go back and get our old poles,” Nelson suggested again.

“I told you,” Jason cut him a sharp look. “We’re not going back there.”

Kyle agreed: “We don’t have time.”

Nelson lit a cigarette, annoyed, and took a walk to phone his mom. He’d never imagined he would miss her, but he did, a little.

When he returned to the campsite, Kyle and Jason were sitting at the picnic table, staring at the dinky tent as if hoping it would somehow grow bigger.

“Let’s do something!” Nelson told them. “Not just sit around moping. Isn’t the Mississippi somewhere around here? I want to go see it. You guys coming?” Jason drove and Nelson sat beside him while Kyle navigated from the backseat.

“There it is!” Jason yeled as they drove up Riverside Drive. “Let’s stop and look at it.” But in trying to cross over, he accidentaly turned onto a ramp for I-4O West. Suddenly they were on a bridge across the river headed toward Arkansas. In both directions, the Mississippi stretched golden in the sunset.

“Woo-hoo!” Nelson leaned out the car window. “The Mighty Mississippi!” he shouted, the wind rushing through his hair. “Mark Twain!” Jason tugged at Nelson’s belt, yanking him back inside. “Are you trying to get yourself kiled?” Nelson sat down, grinning. “I didn’t think you cared, Jay-Jay.”

Once they crossed back over the river, they drove past the Pyramid sports arena and then downtown. At Beale Street Kyle informed them, “This is where the blues started.”

They stopped for dinner at McDonald’s. Upon glimpsing the tal African-American cashier, Nelson’s gaydar began to ping like crazy. But the teenage boy didn’t notice him at al. Instead he gazed directly at Jason, with a huge welcoming smile.

“Hi. I’m Nate.” His voice was soft and deep. “What can I get for you this evening?” Nelson’s translation:
Big Mac, fries, or me?

But Jason remained oblivious, ordering the Big Mac and fries. It wasn’t fair. Jason already had Kyle.