Big Sy Country

He'd opened Adrian's letter so often that now, as he read it under the nightlight in the bus driving west from Duson, it developed a split along the fold line through the middle. He'd had the letter for four months and had opened it several times a day. He'd almost sent a response, but then Pastor Parker had cornered him one day and maneuvered him to lay down and open his legs to him and Gabe had been distracted from Adrian's proposal. The pastor's wife, silent before but not this time, naturally blaming Gabe rather than her husband for their "unspeakable sin," had caused Gabe's attention to be focused back on Adrian as the best means of escape.

Adrian had been older than he was--two years older. They'd been in high school in Lafayette together and on the baseball team together. Gabe had lived with Adrian's family for the years of high school, his mother arranging for him to be at a better school than the one in Duson, a school that had a baseball team. She also wanted him out of the house and, she thought, safe from a man who had come home from the war in Europe having developed a desire for younger men.

That hadn't worked out exactly as she had wanted it to.

Adrian had known what he wanted before he'd left high school for Texas Tech, in Lubbock, on a sports scholarship there. His parents wanted him to study to be an engineer but Adrian wanted to trade on his looks and charisma and be a movie star. What Adrian had really wanted--and had easily been able to get--was men. He'd had one the summer before going to college--an ex-soldier friend of Gabe's father. Adrian liked to both give and take. There might even have been something with Gabe's father after his father had unexpectedly visited Gabe in Lafayette, but Adrian never would confirm that. And there had been a couple of "almost" times with Gabe himself, although Adrian had always said they needed to wait until Gabe was older to do it all. Fondling and some shared masturbation wasn't "it all."

Gabe was older now, and he had this letter from Adrian, urging him to come out to Lubbock and live with Adrian. There were schools Gabe could go to there. He might even be able to get into the athletic program at Texas Tech, like Adrian had. Or he could get a job. He could live with Adrian. Adrian hadn't been able to forget Gabe, he said in the letter. He wanted Gabe to come out to Lubbock and give it a try.

It hadn't seemed like a possible option before, but now it looked like the only option. At least it was worth a try, if Adrian hadn't forgotten him in the four months since he'd sent the offer. If nothing else, if Gabe could get to Lubbock, Adrian would put him up until he could find something to do. He couldn't stay in Duson. Mrs. Parker had made it quite clear he couldn't stay, calling him Satan's spawn, blaming what had happened with the pastor on him, saying he was temptation and temptation had to be rooted out--that the minister was a good man being tempted and needed help to fight the temptation. His mother had agreed with the part of it being his fault, but she said it was because he'd mixed with godless Evangelicals--he'd turned his back on the Catholic Church. He was too much like his father, she said--more like his father than his mother wanted to talk about.

All in all, everyone in Duson was happy to be rid of him. They weren't happy enough to raise sufficient funds to get him all the way to Lubbock on the bus, though. Everyone, Evangelicals and Catholics alike, had said that faith would get him there and all they had to do was to get him started there--to get him far enough out of Duson that it would be better to keep going than trying to come back.

He knew he had to make money along the way. That's why, when the bus made a rest stop in Godknowswhere south of Shreveport at 3:00 in the morning, Gabe went behind the bathrooms with another guy. It didn't give Gabe any guilty feelings to do it. He'd already fallen off that wagon.

The guy had talked Gabe up and showed signs of wanting to feel him up at the last rest stop they'd been at. This time, he walked by Gabe in the aisle of the bus, gave him a meaningful look, and showed him a folded five-dollar bill. Gabe, needing a five pretty bad, rose from his seat with a sigh and followed the man out of the bus. He was a tall, gaunt man, with greasy black hair that flopped down onto his craggy face. He probably wasn't over thirty-five, but he'd obviously led a hard life. Well, he couldn't exactly be a Rockefeller if he was on a bus going cross country through Louisiana into Texas. He maybe was from Texas and going home, because he was wearing worn slim-line jeans, with a plaid shirt above and scruffy cowboy boots below--the uniform of the Texas working class in the mid-1950s.

Gabe got out of the bus in time to see the man walk back toward the bathrooms accessed off the side of the combined gas station and diner and then drift past those doors and around the back of the building in the shadows and between the bushes and the gas station wall.

When Gabe got around the corner of the building, the man was leaning his back into the cinderblock rear wall of the building in the dim light filtering around there from a bulb on the wall outside the doors to the bathrooms. His pelvis was jutting forward, he had his shirt unbuttoned and flared, showing a thinnish but muscle-hard chest, covered with tattoos. He already had his fly unzipped, his jeans flared open, and his dick out. He was fisting his cock with one hand and holding the five spot in the other. As Gabe went down on his knees in front of the man, the money was shoved under the neck opening of his T-shirt with one hand and the guy's other hand was guiding the young man's mouth to his cock.

As he went down, Gabe saw that one of the tattoos on the man's torso, one above and to the right of the curve of his belly, gave the words 175th Infantry, with crossed rifles under it. So, he was probably one of those soldiers coming back from World War Two and not being able to totally settle down to a domestic life. Gabe got the idea that the man, like his father, must have acquired the habit of going with men during the war because women were scarce on the battlefield and still held the experiences in his memory, because, while Gabe was sucking him off, the man held one of Gabe's hands to the tattoo and gave a few deep sighs. That didn't keep him from holding Gabe's face to his crotch until Gabe was gagging on the hard cock before letting him come up for air briefly.

Time was short but the man was worked up, so Gabe had taken the guy's cum on his cheek in under ten minutes of sucking and stroking.

As they got back on the bus, the man guided Gabe down the aisle with his hand and indicated that he wanted Gabe to come back to the back of the bus with him. Gabe acted like he didn't get the hint, though, and smoothly turned into his seat and turned his head to the window. There were fewer than a half dozen people on the Greyhound bus and they all settled in for the night soon after the driver pulled away from the stop in Godknowswhere. All the lights were off in the bus, and the sounds of light snores were all that could be heard. Gabe woke to his shoulder being shaken and he looked up to see the cowboy leaning over him from the aisle, smiling and holding another five-dollar bill. He gestured toward the back of the bus.

On the very back row of seats, Gabe and the man sat close together, and Gabe earned the second five dollars by bending over in the seat, the man holding the young man's hand to his military tattoo with his shirt unbuttoned, and Gabe sucking the man off again. This was followed by Gabe lying back in the seat while the man did him with a hand job, lowering his face to take Gabe's cum in his mouth when he came. Gabe returned to his seat and slept through past Shreveport. The guy he'd serviced must have gotten off there, because he no longer was on the bus when Gabe woke. It was a relief to Gabe to know the stranger was gone and wouldn't be giving Gabe knowing looks or hitting on him again, even if he had money to pay for it.

It was only ten dollars, but that was pretty good money in 1953 and Gabe figured it would get him fifty miles closer to Lubbock than the money he'd been given in Duson to get the devil out of town would do. He also figured he was going to have to suck off some more toads between here and there if he wanted to get to Lubbock at all. He thought he probably was lucky there were men who had acquired a preference for other men while they were in the war. That's where Pastor Parker told Gabe he'd acquired that sin, or, as he liked to call it, the temptation of Satan. Of course he'd usually been busy fucking Gabe when he'd been mouthing off about sin and damnation. He'd even called Gabe Satan a time or two while he was pounding Gabe's ass.

* * * *

"Here we are," the bus driver called out. He pulled the bus over in front of a gas station at the beginning of a one-main-street town, with just one line of houses on streets on either side of the one with storefronts on it.

"We're where?" a woman near the front of the bus asked in a weary voice. "Didn't we just stop for breakfast and a coffee less than an hour ago?"

"You, son, in the white T-shirt. I'm talking to you." The bus driver was turned in his seat, looking back into the interior of the bus, beyond the woman whose question he was ignoring.

"Me?" Gabe asked, turning his face to the front of the bus. He'd been daydreaming, reviewing his life up to this point and not finding that much to be impressed by. Good thing he was good-looking and willing to lay down for a guy. A lot of guys had come back from the war with that itch. Adrian told him there were men in Lubbock who'd be willing to give him a start if he gave them something. By his reckoning they should be hitting Lubbock any time now.

"Yes, you. This is where your ticket takes you, son. You're home."

"Home?" Gabe said, looking around. This didn't look like anyone's home really--at least anyone not trapped here: two blocks of storefronts at a cross-road of two minor highways, with a row of houses all looking alike on either side and then nothing but flat semidesert land in all directions.

"Take a look at your ticket. My clipboard here says you bought a ticket to Guthrie."

"I'm going to Lubbock," Gabe said, scrounging around for his bus ticket. "Well, shit," he then said. The ticket, indeed, was for Guthrie, Texas. He'd had a bit of a wrangle with the station master selling tickets back at the Lafayette Greyhound bus station. He'd tried to tell Gabe that the fare to Lubbock was more than Gabe saw marked on the sign. They'd argued for nearly a minute, with the line building behind Gabe, and the ticket seller had finally given up and issued a ticket. Gabe could understand now that the ticket seller hadn't lost--he just gave Gabe a ticket for how far he thought the fare given would take him regardless of what the sign said.

"You can go to Lubbock for another fifteen dollars," the bus driver said. "Lubbock is about eighty miles further west down this road. Or you can get out in Guthrie. Sorry, Them's your choices."

All Gabe had left was the ten dollars the guy had given him for sex the previous night back before Shreveport.

"Well shit," Gabe said again.

He stood by the side of the road, his duffel bag on the ground next to him, and coughed, as the bus covered him in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes as it pulled back onto the road. He watched it drive through the business section of Guthrie, and he was still watching it over five minutes later, disappearing into the flat, arid ranch land of central northern Texas. Then heaving his duffel on his back and holding its strap with a fist at his right shoulder, he turned and walked into Guthrie.

It took him fifteen minutes to come out at the other end of the town--and that was while looking in every storefront, not just to see what stores and businesses were there but to check for "help wanted" signs. He was a realist. He figured if he was going to scrape up enough money to make it that last eighty miles into Lubbock, it was going to be because he did some work for someone to get the fare. After checking the business street, he figured that he could cover the two residential streets of the town in twenty more minutes or so. He'd done some construction and grass cutting work--not that much grass was growing in this town. If there weren't any signs out on the businesses, he'd look for a house that needed work he thought he could do.

The only "help wanted" sign he saw as he walked to the western end of town, which ended in a rail head and stock pens, was in the window of a diner that had a "Lone Star Diner" sign over the door. The sign here was a bit cryptic: "Young man wanted to serve and for man sport. Room, Board, Tips." Not being able to figure out fully what that meant, he kept on walking, coming up with no other prospects as he hit the edge of town. He walked back, stopped at the diner, took a deep breath, and entered. As he entered, he turned and picked up the sign that was in the window.

Just walking into the diner made the scene inside freeze and six sets of eyes focus on Gabe, all of them taking on a speculative look. The biggest--as in heaviest--guy was standing behind a lunch counter and leaning into it. He had a toothpick in what was sort of a doughy face under a bald head with a salt-and-pepper fringe of hair. He wore a white apron, splotched with spots of "you don't want to know," hanging over a white T-shirt with the arms rolled up, showing bulging biceps, and a packet of Lucky Strikes hung up above the left bicep. The guy took in that Gabe had picked the "help wanted" sign out of the window and then his eyes took a slow, from-the-ground up assessment of Gabe.

A young woman was coming through a door to the kitchen with two plates in her hand as Gabe entered the diner. She too stopped dead in her tracks and gave him the once over--also not missing that he was holding the "help wanted" sign. She was short and thin, with blonde, very likely peroxided, hair, a face that was overly made up, and tightly clothed in jeans and a revealing pull-over blouse, all of which loudly expressed "tired but available for not much of a fee."

The other four sets of eyes belonged to diner patrons--three cowboy types at the table where the waitress was headed with the plates, and to which she resumed her progress after the short pause to take Gabe in, and another guy alone at a table, who was dressed similarly to the three cowboys but who was older--in his late thirties, at least--and who seemed more in the class of rancher than cowpoke. Their food starting to arrive, the cowboys readjusted the focus of their attention to food. The lone diner continued to watch Gabe with interest.

"This sign, advertising for help," Gabe said, looking at the bruiser behind the bar, who obviously represented management here.

"You interested?" The man asked. His voice was deep and rough. His attention had gone to the duffel bag Gabe had slung on his back.

"Might be, if I can figure out what help is needed," Gabe said.

"Well, son, why don't you step back to my office and I'll explain it to you." The bruiser came out from behind the counter and moved to a booth at the back corner of the diner. The table had stacks of paper on it, indicating that it probably

was

the guy's office. "Two coffees when you get a chance, Carol," he flipped in the direction of the waitress as he guided Gabe to the booth with a hand on the small of his back.

The touch was unnecessary, and Gabe got the impression that the man had put his hand there on purpose--like to get Gabe's reaction. The young man immediately thought there might be a sexual interest there, as Pastor Elijah had done the same thing months earlier and Gabe hadn't shied away, which had led to so much more than just a touch on the back.

Gabe didn't shrink away from this man's touch any more than he had Pastor Elijah's. Compared to the pastor, this guy was a toad, but he also had control over the only job prospect Gabe could see in this town--which was the only evidence of civilization for miles that Gabe could pick out in any direction as he walked the town's one business street. And maybe, if he was interested in pay for a lay in the hay rather than giving Gabe a job, Gabe could scrape enough together to resume his trip to Lubbock. Besides, Gabe was interested in what men did to him. He liked to be fucked.

The blowsy blonde waitress, who Gabe gathered was named Carol, interrupted her service to the cowboys to rustle up coffees for the manager and Gabe. This didn't raise an objection from the third cowboy, who didn't have his meal yet, so Gabe got the idea that the restaurant guy had a "do not mess with me" persona that was generally recognized and respected in this town. That was good to know. If he had to, he'd go all submissive to get this job long enough to put together the ongoing bus fare to Lubbock.

"You're not from here, are you?" the man said when they were settled in the booth.

"No, Sir, I'm from Louisiana, passing through to Lubbock, and short on means to get there," Gabe answered. He thought it best to be up front about it. If the guy was looking for a permanent waiter, he wasn't going to want to hire Gabe. "Does the bus to Lubbock even stop here, though?"

"When we ask it to. New Orleans, you say?" the man asked.

"Lafayette," Gabe answered. "A bit closer to here than New Orleans--and a lot smaller and duller."

"You're dark, but not nigger looking--"

"I'm Creole," Gabe answered. "It's sort of a common Louisiana trait." If he could, he'd fend off questions of race and proportion of blood, while not lying about it. He got the impression that being black wasn't going to cut it here. There was very little black in him--no different than nearly every other person native to Louisiana--but with the 1-percent rule--proportion of racial origin in your makeup that was black--that was starting to get a lot of attention in the States in the mid-1950s, he was a bit behind the eight ball on this.

"Ah, Creole," the man said, obviously thinking this made a difference without really know what Creole meant. Gabe took it as a sign that the man was interested. "That's OK. On you it looks good. You're a good-looking kid. Probably would be good for business."

Yes, the guy seemed to be interested, Gabe thought. He wondered if he should give a signal of some sort that he could be had, if that was what was on the man's mind. "My name is Gabe. Gabe's short for Gabriel. Gabriel Fortier. I'd do pretty much anything a boss wanted me to do. Anything." He sort of fluttered his eyelashes at the man. They were long and curly.

"Funny name. Sounds French." He didn't seem to have caught the meaning of how cooperative Gabe could be.

"It is," Gabe said. "Louisiana was settled by the French and the Spanish. It's a Creole name." He almost pushed his leg forward to make contact with the man's leg under the booth table, but he still wasn't sure enough for that. He'd signaled and hadn't received a telling response. He knew he wasn't good with this. Adrian and the pastor--and a couple of other men who would remain nameless--had seduced him, and he'd been pretty dumb about what they wanted for an embarrassingly long time. Sometimes they could get their dick in him before he knew he was being fucked.

"Ah, a Creole name." It came out like he still didn't know what the word had to do with anything, other than it claimed the young guy wasn't black.

"I'm Sam Waller. I own this dump. And you say you're looking for a job, but just drifting through? The drifting through part is OK; just about everyone here is drifting through. Even the houses you see here are temporary housing. Two big ranches around here own most of the town, including all of those houses. The 6666--four sixes--Ranch and the Pitchfork Ranch. Both have been here for over a hundred years; Guthrie wouldn't be here at all if they hadn't been here. They don't own this diner, but this diner wouldn't be here without those two ranches. Are you following what I'm saying, Gabe? I take it you want me to call you Gabe, not Gabriel. Gabe sounds solid; Gabriel sounds... well, not solid. This isn't a fancy town. And there are a few men from around here who call the shots for the rest of us."