roam (if you want to) - My Own Private Idaho

[saxloch]

What are you doing in Idaho?

The thought replayed in his mind like a bad song, but unlike the radio it didn’t go fuzzy or have the decency to alternate tracks. Self pity on repeat. 

He groaned: feelings like that were for fags. Sure, his dad rarely made a good point, but he’d kept that lump in his throat for years no matter how it suffocated him. The late Jack Favor might have been right about one thing in his pathetic little life.

The open road did little to stoke his imagination. Just empty fields on either side of the red Checker Marathon, an ugly little car but one that Hans let him borrow to go on his “love quest,” as the flamboyant German had called it. That wasn’t what this was. No matter how he tried to explain it in semi-broken English, pour over the details he knew of Scott and Mike’s relationship and piece together what he thought was going on in the mind of the son of the former mayor of Portland with some glee, he refused to listen to the eccentric man. He was reading into what wasn’t there, projecting his own queer history onto the younger’s blank canvas. He wouldn’t let a self-proclaimed “poof” try to explain his own feelings to him.

His knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel, infuriated just remembering the conversation he had with Hans before heading out, once again, to Idaho. He fucked him for use of the car, deciding he’d rather not pay what little money he hadn’t managed to blow after his dad croaked for a dingy little taxi cab. He felt ashamed resorting to turning tricks even after gaining his inheritance, but he didn’t have much choice, and of every john he’d ever serviced, Hans was the most honest and open to helping him. He approached him at a bar, he always managed to appear out of nowhere just when he was needed, and asked if he knew where his friend was. Once Scott was lying in a pile of sweaty sheets in a hotel on Southwest 11th, Hans tossed a keyring onto his cold stomach, smiling somewhat warmly. The car wasn’t impressive, but it was enough for him, a bag of the bare necessities, and, if he found him, Mike.

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