Chapter Forty - Evil Companions
I left early for Tennessee. Six hundred and fifty miles was doable in a day, of course; but it's still a haul and it isn't fun. B. J. was sleeping when I got up but he was at the door to say goodbye, which turned out to be more emotional than I expected. I know B. J. cries easily; but I don't, not usually. It was a cool morning and the feel of his lips and my tears warmed my cheek as I fired up the truck. He's the only boyfriend I've ever had, so it's hard to compare; but I'm pretty sure there are lots of people who wish they had someone like B. J. to come home to.
Whew! Emotion is exhausting. I could have taken Route 211 over to New Market, but it was morning and there would be lots of slow-moving local traffic on that road. I toughed it out on 17 until it joined I-66. Everybody else was heading into Washington and I was heading west to the mountains. I pulled off a couple of exits later for gas at a place I knew would be cheaper than the stations in Warrenton. Twenty-five cents a gallon savings mounts up. I grabbed a coffee and a couple of sausage biscuits and left the station headed back to the highway. At the entrance ramp I saw a hitchhiker who looked to be about my age. A little company wouldn't hurt.
“Where you headed?” he asked. I thought that should have been MY question. I told him Tennessee and he answered, “That'll do.”
“Shelbyville, near Nashville. Does that do you any good?” He nodded and threw a backpack into the bed of the truck.
“Gettin' away from a busted romance,” he said. “Doesn't much matter where I go. 'You can take the high road, the low road, the back road, the rail road … as long as you keep goin'.' Those were the partin' words.”
“Ouch! Hope you don't mind me eatin' these biscuits. I didn't get breakfast before I left.”
“I'm good. I'm gonna catch some z's. If you want help drivin', wake me up.” He balled up his jacket into a pillow and leaned against the window. Low music from the radio didn't seem to bother him at all.
I glanced over at him a couple times, just to check him out a little. On closer inspection, I decided he was a few years older than me, not bad looking except for the bushy sideburns that went down to his jawline. The curious thing was … Ok, I have to admit I check out guys' bulges. He didn't have one. Nothing. Not the tiniest hint of a dick going on in those jeans. Could have been a girl. He shifted position and still nothing and the jeans weren't especially loose-cut. Oh well, eyes back on the road.
I-81 is a good road; nothing like I-95. It's the way interstates are supposed to be. Good, polite drivers and not too many of them. If you want to go fast, they'll get out of your way. If you want to go slow, the slow lane is easy driving with nobody on your bumper. Normally I like going slow because the Blue Ridge is a pretty part of the country, but today I was on a mission and held it at seventy-five and more covering the miles. As we were approaching Roanoke and slower traffic, I cut the speed, waking up my passenger.
“You need to stop?” I asked him.
“Far side of Roanoke'll be ok. I used to have a delivery business. You always want to be on the far side of Roanoke – whichever way you're goin'.” A little joke; I laughed politely.
“What kind of delivery business?” I asked.
“Oh, this and that ...” My daddy always said 'this and that' meant don't ask; you likely didn't want to know the answer. My rider's mood changed abruptly. “God damn it! It plain sucks getting' dumped. You know?” He smacked one fist into the other.
“I don't know. Never been dumped. Had a thing or two that never got started, but never dumped.”
“Trust me, it sucks. You think everything is going good and then pow! He dumps you.”
“He?” I questioned.
He stumbled and stuttered a few words and then said, “Fuck it. Yes, 'he' … I … I'm gay. That bother you?”
“No.”
“I guess I always was, but I just admitted it to myself lately … If talkin' about this makes you uncomfortable, just say so ...” He didn't wait for my answer, just charged ahead. “Fuckin' B. J. - that was his name - he played me and played me and then bang. Suddenly it's over 'cause HE says so.”
B. J.??? My antenna went up. I looked at my passenger again. “I'm Brendon, by the way,” I told him.
Brendon? Why did I say that? I never used my real name, except on government forms and stuff like that. Something told me that if he was talkin' about my B. J., then 'Racer' might mean something to him.
He responded in kind. “I'm Todd. Todd Hinckley.”
TODD FUCKING HINCKLEY!!!!! I tried not to show any reaction to hearing the name; but I couldn't keep myself from taking another look at him. Sandy colored hair, clear gray eyes, good build, except for the sideburns; he was not at all the genetically challenged hayseed B. J. made him sound like.
“Todd Hinckley …” I chewed on the name thoughtfully. “Did you have kin got run up a flag pole one time near Strasburg?”
“You know about that?”
“I heard about that. Don't know anything first hand...” Which was a lie.
“That was my dick-head brother,” he chuckled. “Cops gave us all kinds of shit. I had to lie real low after that, but my brother was stupid and … well, he's in jail for a while. Where are you from?”
“Outside Warrenton.”
“So maybe you know B. J. Carteret.”
“Matter of fact I do. Small world.”
“That part of Virginia is small and it ain't the world ... as I'm hopin' to find out. You know why B. J., the son of a bitch, threw me out? He said my dick was too small.” My mouth dropped open. I felt his eyes on me. “I know!” he exclaimed.
“Todd …” I figured he'd find out anyway. “I gotta tell you, B. J. is my roommate.”
“I thought his roommate's name was Racer.”
“Yes. Brendon is my real name. People call me Racer.”
“No shit,” he said in amazement. “No shit ...” he repeated. I waited for a reaction. Is he going to hit me? Curse me? Was there going to be trouble? “He said you were good lookin'. He sure didn't lie about that. Racer, huh?”
“Racer Tyree,” I filled in the gap for him.
Roanoke is way bigger than Warrenton, but it's not that big. In little time we were on the far side of the city and the traffic began to thin. I pulled off the interstate and into a Travel Centers of America truck stop in Petro Glade Spring. I headed for the men's room and Todd followed. We stood next to each other pissing and staring at the wall saying nothing, the way guys do. When we were done I sensed motion. He craned his neck to look at my dick and then stood away from the urinal.
“So is this cock so small?” He held his dick in his hand. “It's smaller than you … but it gets bigger when it's hard.”
What do you say to that question? Do you lie and say it's big, when it isn't? His dick wasn't huge by any means; in fact it barely protruded beyond the three fingers he had wrapped around it to hold it out. Still, it was a real dick, not the 'micro-mini' that B. J. had called it.
“A dick's a dick, Todd. It looks ok to me.” I avoided looking in his eyes and went to a basin to wash my hands. We bought a few snacks and got back in the truck. We were silent while I got back on the road. I took a bite of my ham sandwich.
“He let's you fuck him,” Todd bitterly announced. “He never even let me try. He never even ...” Todd looked away from me and out the window, getting' himself under control.
“He fucked ME plenty though. Every day at work. We'd go through the mail and the phone messages and then he'd want me. Like clockwork. Like I was just another part of his morning. Do the mail. Do the messages. Do Todd. Return the important calls. Go to lunch.” He lapsed into silence for a while. “Then lately, he'd make me beg for it. And I DID! I begged him. 'What?' he'd tease. 'Fuck me,' I'd beg.” Todd fell silent again and ate a big chocolate chip cookie.
“I don't even know what it's like in a bed. He'd fuck me right on my desk. And make me clean up the cum.” He ate a small cherry pie.
“Payback he called it. Payback for making him blow me a couple of times in exchange for pot. I shouldn't be telling you all this stuff. It's not your fault.” He drank a Coke. “I just need to talk to somebody.” He stuffed the Coke cup and the other wrappers into a plastic bag.
“I hate driving around with a truck full of junk. You want to pull into a rest stop, Racer? Ok if I call you Racer? You can fuck me if you want. Your boyfriend liked doing it.”
I let him dump his trash at a small picnic area in a pull-off rest area near the Tennessee line. There were a good number of other people around and no possibility for sex, which was a relief. He dozed off again and woke when we got onto I-40. With about a hundred miles to go, we talked about what I was doing. He had a decent knowledge of NASCAR and talking about auto racing was easier for both of us than talking about B. J.
We parted company at my motel. I went to check in with Ches and he went to wherever he was going. Ches was a comfortable presence and seemed to have the reformed team semi-functional already. Lucas was a younger version of Howard and seemed like a competent business manager. Another mechanic named Latham would be my coworker. The surprise was seeing Slick.
“My conviction was overturned on appeal,” he said. “They decided I was stupid, not complicit. Which, I guess, is the truth. Maybe not the stupid part, but I had no idea that Randy and Howard had a connection. Live and learn. You want to get a massage tonight, lucky Racer?”
The 'lucky' handle raised questions in my mind, but it didn't sound menacing. “Sure, maybe; let's see how it goes.” Was that a yes or a no? I meant it to be discouraging, but Slick didn't take it that way.
“Excellent-o, compadre!” he grinned.
“He learned a little Spanish in jail,” Ches commented. “Racer, can I see you before you go?”
“You can see me now,” I said. Slick took the clue and left us alone.
“Maybe you can do a little driving. If Slick … has any er, problems. You won't be the name driver for the team, but everybody has backups. Latham is another possibility,”
“Sure, Ches. I'm willing.”
“Good. We'll give the cars a tryout tomorrow.”
I went back to the motel ready for a shower. Maybe I'd have time to figure out a reason to ditch Slick. A real massage would feel good after a day of driving, but with Slick, it's never a real anything.
“Hey, Racer ...” Todd Hinckley was sitting at my door. “I thought I had a contact in Nashville, but … it didn't work out? Could I … just for the night … bunk with you?”
It seemed certain to me that a night with Todd Hinckley could be as hazardous to my health as a night with Slick. I wanted to say no. There was no possible win in saying yes. More like certain disaster ahead. I mean, I really couldn't even call B. J. with Todd around, could I? What would B. J. think? 'I'm spending the night with your ex-fuck buddy, Beej.' How would that go down?
“Sure, Todd.” I watch his face light up. He really wasn't bad looking. Inside we both wanted a shower and I got to see why B. J. had anything to do with Todd. He had a great ass to make up for any shortcoming in the dick department. He caught me looking.
“Not bad, huh?” he said in a fairly calculated way, pausing in the bathroom door. At that point Slick knocked and entered. Apparently the door hadn't locked when we closed it.
“Racer, there's no massage place in Shelb … Whoa! Who's this?”
“Slick Parsons, this is Todd Hinckley.”
Todd held a clean pair of underwear in front of himself but otherwise made no move toward modesty. “THE Slick Parsons?” he asked in real or perhaps fake awe.
“In the flesh,” Slick answered. “Would you like to see my trophies?”
“You definitely have ONE I'd be interested in.” Todd leered at Slick's bulge.
They left with Todd barely having time to pull on a pair of jeans and that made for a quiet night for me. I had a little dinner and called B. J. I told him all with as much detail as I could remember.
“Racer … things didn't go quite the way Todd told you.”
“Do you love me, Beej?”
“You know I do, Racer. Or should I call you Brendon?”
“I don't know how to tell you how much I miss you.”
“Don't you want to hear about my thing with Todd?”
“Not especially. Did I tell you I might be driving?”
“Really! Awesome! But that's dangerous, right? I don't want anything happening to you.”
We talked some more. His voice is a real tonic, makes me feel good all over. Of course I wanted more, but his voice would do.