Rainbow Road (10 page)

Nelson realized there was a problem with this trip. Alongside gorgeous Jason, Nelson would
always
be the ugly step-sister—or at best the less cute guy.

“You from around here?” Nate asked Jason.

Nelson’s translation:
Are you gay?

Kyle stepped in, explaining that they were only passing through. Nate’s smile fel in disappointment.

“He was
so
trying to pick you up,” Nelson told Jason when they sat down.

“Huh?” Jason said, unwrapping his burger. “He was not.” But then he turned to Kyle. “Was he?” Kyle nodded, sipping his Coke. “He didn’t take his eyes off you.”

Nelson could hear a hint of jealousy in Kyle’s voice.

Jason glanced toward the counter at Nate, then back at Nelson and Kyle. “For real?” A moment later Nate strode out with a broom and long-handled dustpan, pretending to sweep invisible crumbs near the boys.

“How is everything?” He said it like he was addressing the group, but his eyes gazed only at Jason, as if realy asking:
Do you think I’m cute?

Jason’s gaze darted nervously at Kyle. Nelson thrust his face in front of Jason’s, hoping Nate would finaly notice him, and smiled as big as he could. “Everything’s great!”

For an instant, Nate did seem to notice Nelson. And Nelson’s heart caromed against his chest. But then Jason pushed Nelson’s head aside.

Nate strode away, and Nelson’s heart crashed back into place.

Once back at the campground, the three boys squeezed into their new tent, packed even more tightly than before, al elbows and knees.

Atop his sleeping bag, Nelson thought about Horn-Boy and Nate. And he wondered how on earth—between Kyle trying to protect him and Jason stealing attention away—he would ever find love.

The folowing day Kyle woke up soaked with sweat. The morning sun had turned the tiny tent into an oven. Next to him, Jason’s sleeping bag lay empty. No doubt he’d gone to shoot baskets.

On the other side of him Nelson groaned, kicking open his sleeping bag. “What time is it? How can it be so hot already?” Kyle squinted at the Star Trek hologram watch Nelson had given him last Christmas. “It’s eight already. Come on! The civil rights museum opens at nine.”

“You go!” Nelson puled his pilow over his head. “Pick me up afterward.”

“No!” Kyle puled the pilow off Nelson. “We’re
all
going.”

During the past four years, as Kyle had gradualy come out and learned to accept himself as gay, he’d become more and more interested in social justice stuff.

He’d learned about the National Civil Rights Museum while plotting their trip.

“We went to Graceland like you guys wanted,” he told Nelson. “Now I want you guys to go to the museum with me. It’s a lot more important than Graceland.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Nelson moaned. But he crawled from the tent anyway.

The museum was located in the two-story Lorraine Motel, on whose balcony Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the civil rights movement, had been shot in 1968.

As Kyle puled into the parking lot, Jason looked out the window at the other people emerging from their cars.

“Hey, Kyle,” Jason said in a low voice. “I think this is for black people.”

Kyle stared at him, unsure what to make of the comment. “Jason, it’s the
Civil Rights
Museum. It’s for everyone.” It irritated him that Nelson and Jason were so unenthusiastic. Didn’t they understand how important civil rights were? To avoid any further arguments, he paid for everyone’s admission tickets with the money that was left from his dad’s fifty.

Once inside, Kyle couldn’t help notice they were about the only nonblack people in the place. Nelson and Jason yawned through most of the exhibits, until they stepped into the 1955 Montgomery city bus.

Behind the wheel, a bus driver statue faced a Rosa Parks statue sitting near the front. As Nelson and Jason slouched into empty seats, the bus driver abruptly barked, “Move to the back of the bus!”

Nelson and Jason jumped.

“That scared the crap out of me,” Nelson gasped, staring at the driver statue.

Then the Rosa Parks statue replied that she wasn’t moving.

As Jason descended from the bus, he asked Kyle, “You mean that realy happened?”

“Yeah,” Kyle replied, and told them the story of Rosa Parks. He was happy to see Jason and Nelson starting to take an interest. Their curiosity grew even more when they saw another bus with its firebombed blasted-out window.

“How can people hate so much?” Jason asked, shaking his head in amazement.

By the time the boys reached the restored motel room where Martin Luther King stayed the night before being assassinated, Nelson and Jason stared solemnly at the historic balcony.

“Hey, Kyle?” Jason asked as they slowly walked back to the lobby. “If this is a civil rights museum, shouldn’t they mention the hatred toward gay people, too?”

“Yeah!” Nelson agreed. “They have a whole frickin’ exhibit about the Little Rock black kids getting caled names and being beaten up for going to a white high school. What about al the gay kids who stil get beat up every day?”

“Wel …” Kyle nodded in agreement, excited by Nelson and Jason’s newfound enthusiasm. “We could put that in the suggestion box.”

“We should do something better than that,” Nelson argued, “like stage a kiss-in.” Jason’s brow furrowed and Kyle persuaded Nelson to settle for the suggestion box. They each wrote their own note and turned them in.

“You think they’l realy pay any attention?” Jason asked as they walked back outside into the heat.

“At least we spoke up,” Kyle replied. “Isn’t that what the museum is about?”

Jason bit his bottom lip, as if thinking, and Kyle asked, “What?”

“I was thinking about my speech.”

“You want to work on it now?” Kyle asked as they reached the car. He was getting nervous that Jason stil hadn’t begun work on it.

“I’l help you too!” Nelson chimed in.

“Maybe later,” Jason said.

“We can work on it while we’re driving,” Kyle insisted, climbing into the front seat beside Jason.

“Let me drive,” Nelson interjected.

“Look, I don’t want to work on it now,” Jason snapped.

“Fine!” Kyle barked. “If you want to wait til the last minute, that’s your problem.” He climbed out of the front seat, no longer wanting to sit beside Jason, and tossed the keys to Nelson.

Just like that, al three of them suddenly got in a bad mood. As they headed south on 1-55 through Mississippi toward New Orleans, Jason and Nelson argued about CDs. Jason wanted to play one of his headbanger albums, whereas Nelson wanted to play “Redneck Woman” for the milionth time.

“Why can’t you just take turns?” Kyle intervened. “You two act like kids sometimes.” He returned to reading
On the Road
but got annoyed every time the author used words like “fags” or “queers”—and not in a good way. He finaly closed the book and stared out the window at a flock of buzzards circling overhead.

“I’m getting hungry,” Jason announced.

Nelson pointed to a bilboard of doe-eyed women and suggested, “Let’s stop at the ‘XXX Barely Legal Al-You-Can-Eat Topless Truck Stop.’” But instead they stopped at a Burger King and walked inside to stretch their legs. Upon placing their order Kyle reached for his walet, but his back pocket was empty. His pulse quickened as he checked his front pocket. “I think I left my walet in the car.”

“I’l pay.” Nelson puled out his own bilfold.

“I’m going to look for it,” Kyle said and hurried outside. The walet contained his driver’s license and half of Jason’s money.

His heart pounded as he searched under the seats, in the CD compartment, and everywhere else the walet could’ve gone to. How could he tel Jason he’d lost two hundred bucks of his money? And how could he drive without his license?

“I can’t find it,” he announced to Jason and Nelson as they carried their drinks and food across the hot blacktop to the car.

“Oh my God!” Nelson screamed. “You lost it?”

“Where’d you have it last?” Jason asked.

“At the museum …” Kyle thought back. “Buying our tickets. I’m sure I put it back in my pocket.” He felt his pants as if he could’ve somehow overlooked the leather lump. “Half your money was in there. I’l pay you back.”

He watched guiltily as Jason’s forehead furrowed with worry lines. “Where’s the other half?”

“In the glove compartment.” Kyle reached down and flipped open the latch, puling out the envelope to prove he stil had it.

“That’s a clever hiding place.” Nelson puled a French fry out of the bag and chomped on it. “No thief would ever think to look there.”

“I’m
really
sorry,” Kyle told Jason. “I don’t know how I lost it.”

Jason took a deep breath and let it out again. “Wel, you didn’t mean to lose it.”

“Maybe the museum found it.” Nelson handed Kyle his cel phone. “Cal them.”

They went back into the air conditioning and sat at a booth. While Nelson and Jason ate, Kyle dialed the number on the museum brochure. He spoke to several sympathetic people, but none reported a found walet.

“Eat something,” Jason said as Kyle hung up the phone.

“My stomach’s too tense,” Kyle replied. He knew he’d screwed up big-time.

“Can I have your fries then?” Nelson poured them onto his tray. “So, how much money do we have if we put al our money together?” He puled out his walet and withdrew its bils.

“That’s not enough to get us to California and back,” Kyle told them.

“Then I’l phone my old lady,” Nelson offered. “Can I have your burger?”

Kyle nodded. He had no appetite whatsoever.

“I can phone my mom,” Jason suggested.

“No,” Kyle mumbled. “I’l phone my dad. I’m responsible for this. Besides, he gave me his credit card in case of emergency. I’l ask if we can use it.”

“He gave you
what
?” Nelson’s eyes grew huge as Kyle puled the card from the envelope with the second half of Jason’s money. “Then what’re you so worried about?”

“Because it was supposed to be for emergencies. That’s why I left it in the envelope.”

“This is an emergency,” Jason argued.

“No, this was stupid.” Kyle stared at the card, recaling his dad’s concern about money even before the trip started.

“Kyle, you’re human.” Nelson covered his mouth to burp. “Get over it.”

“Hey, I lost the tent poles.” Jason tapped Kyle’s foot beneath the table. His brown eyes gazed at him, reassuring. “Just cal and tel him.”

“And what am I going to do about my license?” Kyle thought about how much farther they stil had to travel. “I won’t be able to drive.”

“Jay-Jay and I wil drive. You’ve hardly driven anyway.”

“Stop caling me Jay-Jay.” Jason snapped a look at him. “I don’t like it.”

Kyle picked up Nelson’s cel phone and dialed his dad’s office. When Kyle told him about the lost walet, his dad said, “You need to be more careful, son. How’d you lose it?”

“I don’t know,” Kyle told him. Didn’t his dad realize how bad he felt screwing up like this?

“Wel, that’s why I gave you the card.” His dad gave an audible sigh. “Just remember the bil wil be waiting for you when you get back.”

“I know,” Kyle said, exhaling relief.

“How’s everything else going?” his dad asked. “Everyone getting along?”

Kyle glanced across the table at Jason and Nelson. So far, four days had gone by and even though at times it seemed like they wanted to kil each other, they hadn’t—yet.

“Everybody’s fine,” Kyle replied.

“Al right. Cal your mom tonight. She’l be worried about this. Okay? Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Kyle echoed and hung up, announcing, “He said okay.”

“Woo-hoo!” Nelson thrust his hand in the air to high-five Kyle. “How much is the credit card limit?” He clapped his hands and bobbed his head, chanting, “Party!

Party! I wonder if they have an ATM here.”

Kyle scowled at him and asked Jason, “You’re not mad at me?”

“No.” Jason gave a vague shrug. “It’s kind of reassuring when you screw up.”

Kyle pondered that and leaned back in his seat, stil wishing he hadn’t lost the walet.

Jason wasn’t exactly thriled that Kyle had lost his money, but at least now he felt less dumb for running out of gas, leaving behind the tent poles, and not having known who Rosa Parks was.

Up til now this trip had reinforced Jason’s image of Kyle: inteligent, thoughtful, caring, and wel organized. Jason admired him, but at moments he felt inferior by comparison.

That unease had never come up in his relationship with Debra. Because she was a girl, he never felt like he had to compete with her. But because Kyle was a guy, Jason sometimes felt like they were competing—and Jason was the loser.

As Jason drove out of the Burger King parking lot, Kyle gently laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Sure you’re okay about the money?”

“I’m good,” Jason replied. He wished he could articulate his complicated thoughts. Instead he reached up to Kyle’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

For the next hour he focused on the road, until he told Kyle and Nelson, “I need to take a dump.”

“How fascinating,” Nelson replied. “You know, Kyle and I take a huge interest in your bowel movements.” Jason ignored the remark, scanning the horizon for an exit sign, but Kyle spoke up: “Nelson, would you cut it out? Please?” Nelson opened his mouth in mock shock. “Kyle, don’t deny it! You know we wonder every day about Jason’s poop.”

“Nelson!” Kyle shouted. “Would you shut
up
?”

Jason realized it was the first time he’d heard Kyle tel—or at least ask—Nelson to shut up. Fortunately, Nelson did.

“About time,” Jason muttered as an exit came into view.

At the bottom of the ramp, a lonely road offered up a solitary gas station with a beat-up tow truck and a couple of service bays. Jason parked beside a pump so Kyle could fil the tank, and he hurried inside for the restroom key.

Pushing through the door, he stopped in astonishment. At the counter, brushing her hair, sat Britney Spears—or at least a teenage girl who looked exactly like the singer: sexy brown eyes, silky blond hair, luscious lips.