Rainbow Road (18 page)

“Crap!” Nelson shouted. “They won’t let me.”

“Turn around!” Kyle yeled.

“Swing around to the right,” Jason ordered.

Nelson yanked the wheel to the right, bouncing onto the shoulder, barely missing the truck.

“Now gun it!” Jason shouted.

Nelson floored the gas pedal as Kyle whirled around. Behind them the truck sped ahead, moving up on the left.

“Get over!” Jason shouted. “You can’t let them pass. Speed up!”

Nelson clenched the wheel, squealing around a mountain curve marked 45 MPH. Kyle glanced at the speedometer: The needle was pointing at 72.

“Slow down!” Kyle shouted.

“I can’t!” Nelson darted a glance in the rearview. “They’re right behind us.”

As they rounded the corner onto a straightaway, Kyle gripped Jason’s seat to keep from faling over. How had this happened?

“They’re gaining on us,” Nelson said, gazing into the rearview. He slid down the seat, his foot gunning the accelerator.

“Slow down!” Kyle shouted, watching the speedometer pass 80, 90, 95 … as Nelson rounded one mountain curve after another. Yet the truck kept folowing.

Kyle’s heart pounded furiously.

“We’re doing a hundred,” Nelson announced. “Woo-hoo!”

“Watch the curve,” Jason told him.

Kyle gazed ahead at a yelow arrow sign, marked CURVE 35 MPH.

Nelson jammed the brakes as the car squealed on the pavement. He hunched over the steering wheel, knuckles white, as he hugged the inside of the curve.

Kyle whirled around to see the truck spin across the roadway, slam through the median barricade, cross the opposing lanes, and head toward the outside edge of the mountain. He watched in horror as the truck bounced against the guardrail, nearly careening over the side, before coming to a stop, barely held back by the railing.

“They spun out,” Kyle said breathlessly.

Nelson gazed in the rearview. “We lost them?”

“Yeah, they slammed across the road.” Kyle glanced over his shoulder. “We should stop. They might be hurt.”

“That’s their problem.” Jason shook his head. “We’re not stopping.”

“Woo-hoo!” Nelson snapped his fingers. “Ding-dong, the witch is dead…. Hey, I think we hit a hundred and five. That was so awesome.” He raised his palm to high-five Jason.

“Are you crazy?” Kyle shouted. “We could’ve been kiled.”

“But we weren’t.” Jason slapped Nelson’s palm.

“Oh, man!” Nelson laughed. “On that one curve, I thought we were goners.”

“For sure!” Jason took a deep breath, stretching his arms. “I wish I’d seen them wipe out.”

“Stop it!” Kyle shouted, his voice trembling. How could they be gloating like this?

Jason turned, his brow furrowed in concern, staring at Kyle. “What’s the matter with you, Kyle? They tried to run us off the road.”

“Who are you?” Kyle gazed back at him.

Jason gave Nelson a worried glance and looked back at Kyle. “What do you mean?”

Kyle felt his whole body shaking. “Who the hel are you two?”

“Kyle?” Nelson said softly. “You okay?”

“No!” Kyle shouted, folding his arms. “You nearly kiled us back there, and you’re joking about it? I don’t know who you two are anymore, ‘cause you’re not who I thought you were.”

Jason gazed back at him, not saying anything, then he reached his hand over to lay his hand on Kyle’s knee, but Kyle puled away.

“Leave me alone.” He lay down on the seat, curling his knees up to his chest, wanting to close up and die. Why had he ever come on this trip? He covered his head with his pilow and began quietly sobbing, crying himself to sleep.

Jason bit into a fingernail, worried by how Kyle had curled up on the seat. It reminded him of how his little sister used to bal herself up when she got scared by his dad’s drunken rages. Had the truck chase realy freaked Kyle out that much?

Jason stared down the steep mountain valey dropping off the side of the road. “You’d better slow down,” he told Nelson. “The sign said, ‘Speeding fines doubled.”

The car slowed as Nelson eased up on the gas pedal, grinning. “Can you imagine getting nabbed going a hundred and five? That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone.” But as they wound up one hil and down another, Jason no longer felt quite so thriled by having gone through the truck chase. Kyle was right: They could’ve been kiled. And for what? Because of Nelson’s stupid loud mouth?

“You shouldn’t have said anything to those guys,” Jason told him.

“Wel, duh.” Nelsons smile faded. “Don’t you think I know that?”

“Then why’d you do it?”

Nelson’s brow knitted up. “I don’t know. Sometimes crap like that just pops out of my mouth. I even know while I’m saying it I should shut up. But by then it’s too late. I can’t stop myself.”

Jason shifted uncomfortably. “So what happens if one day you can’t race away at a hundred miles an hour?” Nelson looked out the window at the black and blue mountains in the distance. “I guess I’l get my ass kicked.” He pressed his lips together into a thin smile.

“Don’t worry. It won’t be the first time.”

“I’m not worried.” Jason said and gazed out at the road ahead. As they descended onto the desert plain below, he thought how sometimes he also had a hard time controling himself—not with stuff he said but with stuff he did, like getting mixed up with that girl the other night. Why couldn’t he be like Kyle, always cool, always in control?

“You think maybe we should’ve stopped to make sure those guys were al right?” Jason asked.

“No way, dude!” Nelson shook his head. “Maybe if they’d gone over the cliff or something. They’re the ones who tried to run
us
off.” Jason gazed into the backseat at Kyle. His chest rose and fel in sleep. “I think that realy scared him. I’ve never seen him so upset.”

“He’l get over it.” Nelson’s voice rang with certainty. “Sometimes he just gets a little freaked out, like my mom. He’l be fine.” Nelson was silent for the next few miles but his fingertips nervously tapped the steering wheel. “I’m more worried about me. What’s going to happen once he leaves for Princeton? Know what I mean?”

Jason had tried not to think about Kyle leaving for colege. Al trip he’d put it out of his mind. He’d never considered that Nelson might be worried about it too.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, wondering: What would happen to him without Kyle around to guide him and help him think things through? Without Kyle to joke and just hang out with? Without Kyle to make love with?

Jason knew he was a better person because of Kyle. If it weren’t for Kyle, he might never have come out to his parents, or worked up the courage to keep going to the school’s Gay-Straight Aliance, or come out to his coach and team. Most importantly, he might never have accepted himself.

He only wished that he could be more the guy Kyle wanted him to be and not do so many stupid, impulsive things.

But what if he couldn’t change? What if Kyle decided after this trip that he no longer wanted to be boyfriends?

Jason tried not to think about that, gazing instead at the endless blue sky stretching before them.

He put on one of Kyle’s Norah Jones CDs and turned the volume low. It occurred to him that not once during the entire trip had Nelson or he asked Kyle if he wanted to play any of his music.

Now, as Jason and Nelson drove across the desert landscape, neither of them said much. But every once in a while one of them would check the backseat, eager for Kyle to wake up.

It wasn’t til they approached Albuquerque that Kyle finaly stirred. Jason and Nelson exchanged a look, each too nervous to speak.

Kyle sat up, rubbing a hand across his puffy face. It almost looked as though he’d been crying.

“You sleep okay?” Jason asked.

“Yeah.” Kyle covered a yawn. “Where are we? Hey, we need gas.”

“I know.” Nelson flicked on the blinker as he puled onto an exit ramp. “I was waiting. I didn’t want to wake you up.” At the gas station they filed the tank, took turns peeing, and cleaned the windshield. Jason examined the glass crack with his fingers to make sure it was holding steady.

“Is it okay?” Kyle asked.

“I think so, but we should do something about it in L.A.”

Jason stared at Kyle, wanting to say more, afraid the windshield wasn’t the only thing in need of repair.

“Hey, you guys hungry?” Nelson asked as they continued west along I-40.

Jason had lost his appetite with the truck chase, but now he was starving. “Yeah, I am. How about you, Kyle?”

“A little.” Kyle nodded. “Not that much, but go ahead and stop.”

“I’m sick of burgers,” Nelson said. “How about that place?” He pointed to an ALL-U-CAN-EAT sign.

Inside, the restaurant swarmed with hefty parents and kids heaping their plates with mountains of ribs, fried chicken, and pizza.

Jason joined right in. But Kyle barely filed his plate. Meanwhile, Nelson piled his plate with fried shrimp, clams, oysters, coleslaw, and steamed king crab legs. “I love seafood,” he announced, sitting at the table.

“You trust that?” Jason asked. “We’re in the middle of the desert, you know.”

“I think they have refrigerators here,” Nelson replied, popping an oyster into his mouth. “This is so awesome! I’m so sick of McVomits.”

“Dude, we’re eating,” Jason said. As he chewed on a rib, it worried him to see Kyle so quiet, barely picking at his pizza, apparently stil shaken by the truck chase.

Trying to think of some way to snap him out of it, Jason asked, “Think we can make the Grand Canyon tonight?”

“May as wel,” Kyle said simply.

“It’s supposed to be amazing!” Jason said enthusiasticaly, but Kyle merely poked at a pepperoni.

“I’m going to get some more,” Nelson announced, pushing away from the table.

Jason wanted to get dessert, but he stayed with Kyle. “Are you stil upset? About not going back to see if those guys were okay?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, his hazel eyes stern and serious.

“But what if we’d gone back and they tried to jump us?” Jason argued.

“Wel …” Kyle shrugged. “That’s part of the risk of being responsible. Sometimes you get hurt.”

“But say they weren’t okay,” Jason persisted. “What could we have done?”

“I don’t know.” Kyle sighed. “Gone for help, I guess. But it’s not just that.” He gave Jason a long look. “It’s this whole trip. It’s not what I expected.” He leaned back, shaking his head, as if reluctant to say more.

Jason also puled back, afraid to ask more, fearing what Kyle might say: that Jason wasn’t the person he’d expected. That he wanted to break up.

Nelson returned with a second plate piled even higher with fried clams, fish, and softshel crabs.

“Dude, you’re eating like a pig,” Jason told him.

“Oink-oink.” Nelson crunched into the shel of a crab, so that the legs poked out of his mouth as he chewed. “I love these things.” Jason felt a little queasy watching him. “I’m going to get some dessert.” He turned to Kyle. “You want some ice cream?”

“No, thanks,” Kyle replied. But at the ice cream counter, Jason got him a scoop anyway. “In case you change your mind.” He set the bowl in front of Kyle.

Nelson peered at the single-scoop ice cream dishes. “This place isn’t losing any money on you guys.” When Nelson went to get dessert, Jason told Kyle in a low voice, “He’s, like, stuffing himself.” Kyle glanced at the stack of Nelson’s empty plates. “That’s what he does when he’s upset.”

“You mean he’s bulimic?” Jason asked. There’d been a guy on his team like that.

“Not as much as before,” Kyle replied.

Nelson brought back a plate piled with chocolate cake, apple cobbler, banana pudding, oatmeal cookies, watermelon chunks, strawberry ice cream, and raspberry frozen yogurt.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Kyle told him.

Nelson shoveled a spoonful into his mouth, unconcerned. “You guys want some?”

As they walked out to the car he burped so loud it echoed across the parking lot.

“Excuse me!” He patted his stomach and told Kyle, “Let me sit in back so I can lie down.” The trip west on I-40 was unremarkable, except for an orange and pink sunset. Jason reached across the seat to gently hold Kyle’s hand, but got hardly any response. And when he finaly let go, Kyle moved his hand away.

Jason’s heart clenched up. Kyle had never frozen on him like that. He’d gotten heated and angry. Jason could deal with that—apologize, soothe him. But now he feared he was losing Kyle and had no idea what to do about it.

He drove onward into the enveloping darkness, while Nelson burped annoyingly from the backseat.

Nelson shifted his weight from one side of the backseat to the other. He sat up, lay down, and propped himself on Kyle’s pilow, trying every possible position to make himself comfortable. He knew he shouldn’t have eaten so much, but he felt like he’d been on a starvation diet al trip, the way Kyle parsed out meal money.

But now, with each burp, he was glad Kyle had kept him in check.

When they stopped to pee at the Petrified Forest exit, Nelson debated whether he should make himself puke, like he used to. But he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to do that anymore. He knew Kyle would feel disappointed and angry with him. And besides, it would probably stink up the whole gas station.

Once back in the car, he asked, “Hey, would you turn up the AC? It’s realy warm back here.” Jason cranked it up. But even though the chil draft blew over the seat to Nelson, he stil felt warm. He started sweating. Then, an hour outside of Flagstaff, he began shivering like crazy.

“Hey, c-c-can you t-t-turn it down?” His teeth chattered. “It’s like the North P-p-pole back here.”

“We turned it down a while ago.” Kyle reached his hand over the back of his seat to feel the air. “It’s warmer back there than up here.” He switched the overhead light on and stared down at Nelson, who lay huddled and shaking. “Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

“I think maybe I ate t-t-too much.”

Kyle leaned over the seat, laying his hand on Nelson’s forehead. “You’re burning up!” He skipped his hand down along Nelson’s face and across his chest. “And you’re dripping wet.” He turned to Jason. “As soon as we get to Flagstaff, we need to look for a hospital.”