yan diverted his eyes from the shadowed figures shifting across his rearview mirror and focused on the stream of yellow reflectors imbedded in the asphalt. They emerged from the wet night one hundred feet in front of him, defiantly tossed back the solitary glow of his headlights, then disappeared beneath the hood of the car. The miles spun on an endless loop, a Möbius strip in the dark.

“Oh, Mikey,” she moaned from the backseat.

The radio mumbled through the tangible silence, emitting barks of static occasionally. An announcer broke in with a whiskey-relaxed voice to recap the previous set before sliding down into a commercial, then began a second set of rock oldies. The songs blended together, dissolving into a gentle hum like a conversation in another room. The wipers added their own efficient rhythm as they beat away the steady downpour.

“Mikey,” she breathed. Ryan glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Jessie’s head thrown back against the top of the seat. Michael’s head was buried in her breasts. “Shit, man, not so hard,” Jessie reprimanded.

An eighteen-wheeler emerged from the mist on Ryan’s right and its tires chewed through the rushing water and spit buckets of it onto his little Toyota. Ryan cursed softly as he pulled alongside the rig to get out of the spray. The monstrous wheels droned wickedly, drowning out Led Zeppelin and muffling the sounds from the backseat. Ryan kept his eyes glued to the tires waiting for one to peel off and knock his car off the highway. He knew what bodies looked like after a fiery crash, charred flaps of skin hanging off pink meat. He sped up to avoid the possibility. Michael had his whole future ahead of him and he wouldn’t die tonight, not when Ryan’s hopes were pinned to him.

He rocketed ahead and pulled in front of the rig. Its headlights cast the backseat into stark planes of white and silver-black. “Come on,” Jessie said. “You’re leaving tomorrow and I won’t see you ‘til Christmas break,” she cooed. “Come on.”

Michael locked onto Ryan’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Keep your eyes on the road, man,” he grinned. Ryan watched Michael by the light from the truck as his butt rose out of the darkness. Michael tugged down his jeans and briefs, exposed his curved ass, then dropped from view. Ryan adjusted the mirror to watch his friend’s ass bob and weave, rise and fall in synch with the thump-thump of the wipers. Ryan crept away from the truck and his passengers muted into shades of black and blue-silver.

Ryan broke the seal on the fifth of vodka caught between his thighs while Michael fucked her silently. He tilted the bottle into his mouth awkwardly to keep his eyes on the road. He coughed as he swallowed, his face flamed, and he trapped the bottle between his legs and recapped it. The landscape rolled by in dark green whirls, no distinction or distraction.

“Shit,” Michael drawled. In the mirror Michael’s face appeared as twisted lips and squeezed-shut eyes. The car was swamped in the meaty smell of ejaculate and vagina and Ryan rolled the window down an inch. “Hey, fuckhead, I’m getting wet back here,” Jessie shouted.

“You already are wet,” Ryan whispered. He rolled up the window and was trapped in the earthy stench of her crotch. He attempted to sniff out the odor of Michael’s cum, but her smell overwhelmed that fugitive aroma.

Jessie lit a cigarette, coughed around it, then inhaled. “Where the fuck are we?” she said.
“On the highway,” Ryan said.

“Har-de-har, Frankenstein, I can see that. What time is it?”

“Three something,” Ryan said. Michael relaxed against the backseat, brushed his short hair back into place with his fingers, then adjusted himself back into his jeans. “I gotta get some sleep,” he said. “Why don’t you drop Jessie off. I got to get home.”

“You can’t wait to get out of here, can you?” Jessie snarled.

“No.”

“Yeah, what about me, Mike? You coming back for me?”

“I’m getting the fuck out of here, Jess, I’m not gonna wait around a year for you to graduate. You come to me, I’m not coming back here.” He lit his own cigarette. The car billowed with ghostly curls of smoke before Michael rolled the window down. The smoke streaked into the night, a rope of gray. “I’m not going to be stuck with some bitch of a wife like my old man, all right?”

“Are you dumping me? Are you dumping me right here?”

“Jess, I’m getting out of this shithole town and I’m not looking back. You’re dead weight, dragging me back. Ten years from now you’re gonna be sitting here, fat like your old ma.”

“But we had plans.”

“Did you really think I was going to put my life on hold for you?” He laughed incredulously and Ryan almost felt bad for her.

“You just fucked me and now you are going to dump me? In the car? In Frankenstein’s fucking car?”

“My father’s a stiff sorter, not me, all right?” Ryan said. He spun to glare at her and took the wheel with him. The car locked and slid diagonally across the two-lane highway towards the median. The violent screech of tires overlapped Pink Floyd. Ryan snapped forward and spun the wheel in the opposite direction. They fishtailed across the highway, spun 180 degrees and jerked to a stop facing the wrong way. Jessie and Michael slid off the seat onto the floor. Ryan did a K-turn with shaking hands and feet, stalled once, and righted the car. He checked to make sure no one was behind them, spun his tires against the wet pavement and took off.

"Shit,” Jessie said. “Watch the fucking road, Frankenstein.”

“I told you not to call him that. Ever.”

“Why are you always standing up for him? Huh, Mikey? He’s just a faggot.”

“Fuck you,” Ryan said.

“Drop her off, all right? I gotta get some sleep,” Michael said.

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you? You’re fucking Frankenstein, aren’t you?”

Ryan listened to the meaty slap from the backseat with confused satisfaction. He drove eleven miles to their exit waiting for her reaction. He flicked his blinker on and the metronome clicked off 4/4 time as he gracefully eased his car off the highway and sloughed through the huge puddle at the bottom of the off-ramp. Ryan heard the light change with a subtle “bink” from red to green. He took a right and drove past the forlorn wooden sign marking the perimeter of Smoke Valley and edged towards town.

 

essie was crying by the time they got to Valley Drive. The arc-sodium lamps stood guard over the deserted strip mall parking lots and added a murky tone to their enclosed world. They drove past McDonalds, the hardware store and Ryan’s father’s white clapboard funeral home and crossed into the dark residential side of the Valley. Ryan turned into the development of prefab houses and maneuvered the man-made winding streets to Jessie’s house. He stopped on the street.

“You don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself,” she said quietly

“That’s right,” Michael said. “Fuck you around Christmas?”

“Fuck you!”

“You’ll take it when you can get it,” he said sadly.

“See ya, Frankenstein,” she snarled as she pushed the passenger seat up and opened the door. She squealed like a surprised puppy when the rain drenched her legs, but she got out and slammed the door. Her hair was soaked into dripping strips and her white cotton shirt flushed into patchy grays. She turned to Michael and extended her middle finger, rotated it to include Ryan, then mouthed something that looked like “faggots.” She turned and dashed up the driveway to the porch of her parent’s house and stood in the bare light of the outdoor lamp. Michael exploded with a laugh, rolled down the window and tossed her purse into the street. “Keys,” he explained as they watched her pace the two-foot enclosure, arms crossed over her chest.

“Move over,” he said. Ryan took the bottle and scooted over to the passenger’s seat. Michael squeezed himself up into the front seat and brushed Ryan’s shoulder with his fingertips. Ryan’s body tingled with excitement at the possibilities the night still held. He took a long pull off the bottle of vodka and offered it to Michael, who drank off a couple of shots. “Fuck, that’s what I needed. You’re not tired, are you, Ry? I’m going to drive around town, say goodbye.”

“Sure,” he said too enthusiastically. Then he cursed himself for getting his hopes up, then cursed his hopes for being so short sighted. He knew there was no future for him and Michael, just as there was none between Mike and Jessie, but if he left tomorrow then they wouldn’t have to face each other if something happened.

Michael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then took another swig before handing the bottle back to Ryan. Ryan quickly raised the neck of the bottle to his lips, certain Michael’s saliva was still on it, a third-party kiss. “Why do you let her call you Frankenstein?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If you can’t stand up to a cunt like her, how can you stand up to anyone? You’re an attractive guy, Ry, you shouldn’t let them call you that.”

“I’m not that attractive. Besides, Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster.”

“Whatever.”

Michael flipped off the radio and rain beat on the roof with a thrumming life, a transcendent hum. Ryan looked back at Jessie as she ran down the driveway. Michael pulled away and Ryan was left with the image her bending over to pick up here purse, her pale face awash in red taillights. He turned to Michael and grinned silently.

Michael drove them back through town. “Why does your dad keep the lights on in the funeral home, Ry?”

“Superstition, I guess. Dad said he never wanted it to look dark and spooky. He said that small town funeral homes should be welcoming.”

“They should keep the lights on all over town, then, look at this shittheap,” he said. “All these fucking strip malls that offer the same shit and no way out. Just keeps you busy until you die here, old and fat. No hope of escape, no desire to. Why do people stay here? It’s a crap life.”

“It’s always been crappy.” Ryan said. “It’s a manufacturing town, was anyway,” he said and felt embarrassed for being familiar with the town’s history.

“Remember when we used to hang out behind the Dairy Queen scoring ice cream off those old folks? They thought we were just a couple of nice boy scouts.” He laughed, then turned instantly somber. “I hate this fucking place.” Michael said.

“Yeah.”

“Give me the bottle,” he said. Ryan unscrewed the top and handed it to him. Michael took a long pull on it while Ryan held the wheel. Then Ryan sipped again, drunk on the wetness from Michael’s lips.

“You know what the problem with Jessie is?” Michael sighed. “She won’t give me head. All she wants for me to do is stick it in her.” He paused and added, “She said she won’t do it, won’t give me a blow job.”

Ryan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Was that just a fact or a proposition? He wasn’t going to give Michael head, no matter how much he wanted to, not after he had it sticking in Jessie’s cunt. No way was he putting part of her in his mouth. He sprung a boner thinking about it, and was certain Michael knew he was hard.

“We going anywhere?”

“School. Gonna burn down the school. It’s all I wanted to do for four years and we are going to do it, you and me, together.” He took the bottle of vodka from Ryan and dragged on it. The car skidded on the road and Michael slowed down.

“What?”

“Think of that bitch, Rosenquist, having no one to rule over when school starts next week, huh? Or that asshole jock wannabe, Mallory, with no teenage boys to order around and beat off to.”

“Mallory is gay?”

“Isn’t he? Didn’t you suck him off down at the park, Ry?”

“No.” Ryan flushed and wondered what Michael had heard. Ryan was confident that none of the boys he’d been with would jeopardize their reputations by admitting they got head from Ryan “Frankenstein” Wolff, but it was a small town and word had a way of getting around.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. like you Ry, but you’re too quiet. You got to be more aggressive, got to get out there. Can’t let them judge you and push you around. That’s why we are going to do this together.”

“Naw, are you crazy? We can’t burn down the school.”

“Sure we can.” He took another swig off the bottle and pulled into the school parking lot. The red brick building loomed over them in the shifting dark. The car crawled to the back of the building where the huge fans for the cooling system were. An overhead lamp threw an eerie halo around the back entrance and Michael parked the car just outside the circle.

“What are we going to do?” Ryan asked.

“Burn the fucker down.”

“But why? You graduated, it’s over for you.”

Michael took a sip off the bottle and handed it to Ryan. It was more than half-empty. Michael pointed at the wet brick wall in front of the car and said, “Rosenquist is gonna churn out a fresh bunch of assholes going nowhere, four years and all they want is to sit on their fat asses. She keeps them so busy with bullshit that they don’t want anything for themselves, just do whatever they’re told. She makes bitches like Jessie who want you to knock her up so she can get a claw into you… own you.” Michael quieted and Ryan backed away when he noticed his friend was crying. He didn’t know where to look, but couldn’t look away.

“Is she pregnant?”

“No,” he said defiantly. “Who told you she was pregnant?”

“I thought that… you said…” Ryan touched Michael’s leg, but his hand was brushed away. “Not me, Ryan. Shit.” Michael cried and covered his face with hand. “Let’s do it, all right?” He flicked his Zippo and smiled.

“But it’s raining, everything’s wet.”

Michael took a deep swig from the bottle and pulled Ryan to him. He kissed his friend, forced his lips apart with his tongue and spilled warm vodka into his mouth. Michael kissed him deeply, then backed away and wiped his mouth. “We’re like brothers,” Michael said. “I love you, man. You’re the only one who gets it.” He opened the car door and jumped out. He ran to the back of the building and looked back. He held the bottle up. “Come on,” he shouted.

Ryan shifted his hard-on, got out of the car and ran through the downpour to Michael’s side. They stood under the overhang at the back door. “Right here,” Michael shouted over the thunderous rain. He pointed to the brown door. “The maintenance rooms where all the chemicals are. We get it started here and this sucker is gonna blow!” He laughed nervously. Ryan looked at him wide eyed and confused.

Michael ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt, but it was already wet. He dropped the strip and it hung heavily over his hip. “Shit. Come here,” he said and pulled Ryan to him with his free hand. Michael took a sip from the bottle, then free-poured a stream into Ryan’s upturned mouth. It splashed and ran down the sides of his face. Michael unbuttoned Ryan’s jeans and yanked them down. He pointed to his shorts, “Give me those. I need a fuse.”

Ryan looked at him, uncertain, and then tried to pull the legs of his jeans over his wet shoes. “Fuck, never mind,” Michael said. He grabbed the y-front flap and jerked, ripping the fabric free from the elastic waistband. Ryan’s erect penis flopped out through the hole and they both looked down at it. Michael ripped a strip of cloth away, leaving Ryan crotch exposed.

Michael rolled the fabric like a cigarette and stuffed it into the open neck of the vodka bottle. “Pull up you pants, Ry,” he said as he lit the cloth with his Zippo. He held it up, tantalized by the flame, then he pushed Ryan aside and dashed the bottle on the concrete platform like a quarterback making the winning touchdown.

The glass exploded on impact and flames fanned out across the concrete and up along the door. The boys moved back into the slanting rain and watched the blue and yellow flames dance and darken the ground, then sputter and fade. “Fuck,” Michael muttered as his head sagged under the weight of the rain. A river ran down his short hair and flew off the end of his long nose. He was crying again and Ryan went to him and hugged him. Michael turned away and said, “Come on.” He stumbled to the car and lowered himself into the driver’s seat.

 

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