(no subject)
Title: Me and Bobby McGee
Pairing: Peter/Carl
Genre: past!fic
Rating: Mature
Teaser: The weather here is much better than at home, and something in the sun makes Carl shine
The car is dead. It made a terrible noise about twenty yards back, just when the city had faded in the rearview mirror and as the concrete was stretching out in front of you. Carl was driving. You’d swapped over in Baton Rouge, filling up the car in a family owned petrol station that still had a metal sign swinging in the breeze. You kind of wanted to buy the place and run it for the rest of your life; just selling petrol and cigarettes and wasted dreams. Living out some sick parody of the American dream. You could do that. The weather here is much better than at home, and something in the sun makes Carl shine. His skin, his whole demeanour; even the way he flicks his cigarette into the gutter is somehow much less angry here in Louisiana than it is in London.
And now he’s kneeling on the asphalt looking at a blown out tyre. He’s some young version of Bruce Sprinsteen - white vest still impossibly white, blue jeans scuffed and turned up at the bottoms, packet of cigarettes and a bandana in the back pockets. He’s beautiful, kneeling back on his feet, looking at the rubber rim of the tyre which is flapping a little in the breeze.
You don’t know much about cars but even you can tell that that tyre is going nowhere fast. Carl stands up, brushes the dust off his knees, and walks to the back of the car. He pops open the boot and then swears.
“What?”
“There’s no spare.”
“Oh, come on.” You walk round to where he is. Sure enough, there’s a space in the middle of the boot where a spare tyre should be. You’ve barely any luggage between you so you haven’t even opened the boot until now. Everything’s slung on the back seat. “That’s… unfortunate.”
“It’s more than fucking unfortunate, Peter. We’re miles away from anything useful.” Carl slaps the boot down angrily. “Fuck’s sake.”
“It’s not my fault,” you say.
“I didn’t fucking say it was.” He’s mumbling. He reaches into his back pocket for the packet of fags.
You fumble for a lighter, eager to get there before he does, because when you do, he leans in. He curls his hand round yours, sheltering the lighter from the breeze, the tips of his fingers soft on your knuckles. He smells of freedom. He smells of this trip. He smells of America, of the south, of the wide Mississippi which was the point of you both being here in the first place.
He smokes the cigarette down to the filter, his head tipped back, his arse on the boot of the car. You even think his eyes are shut, but it’s impossible to tell behind the knock-off Wayfarers he bought back in Natchez.
He already looks like the rockstar he plans to be. You, meanwhile, look like exactly what you are - an eighteen year old out of Europe for the first time hoping for a big adventure before uni. Your jeans are held together with electrical tape. You’d call it fashion except all your money and plenty of your Post Office savings are gone, used to pay for this.
Carl stubs the cigarette out under one of his black Dr Martens. “We’ll have to hitch.”
“Isn’t that really quite dangerous?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” He reaches into the back seat for his stuff - cool rucksack, red leather jacket with the cracked elbows, another fucking bandana.
Your sense of adventure has never been the most pronounced. Moving around so much as a kid will do that to you. You think you left your sense of adventure somewhere on a sunny hillside in Cyprus, around the time when no one asked if you wanted to go back to England or not. But you did want to come to America. New York, LA, even Seattle would’ve been cool. But no. Carl’s masterplan was to follow the Mississippi all the way from St Louis, Missouri to New Orleans, Louisiana, and out into the sea.
You’re here, aren’t you? No money or anything. You thought he was skint but he’s not so much as mentioned money. You rented a car in St Louis and set off for Memphis. There was Graceland, of course, and Carl paid for the both of you to get in like he had hundreds more rolls of dollars tucked into his waistband. For all you know, he does. The car can’t have been cheap, but -
You’re reaching for your things, ready to follow him to find a ride, but then it occurs to you. “What are we going to do with the car?”
“Leave it there.”
“Until when? We’re not coming back this way.” It’s true; you’re spending a few days down on the coast and then flying back home from New Orleans.
Carl shrugs. “Until someone reports it, I guess.”
“Well then, they’ll charge you, they’ll -”
“Nah, they won’t.”
“Carl.”
“Chill out, will you. I used a fake passport in the rental place. An American one.” His face scrunches a little bit and when he speaks it’s with a terrible American accent. “I rented us a car, baby, under the name of Bob Wootton.”
“You did what?” Jesus, this is worse than you thought. You’re both going to be arrested, slung in jail. “Where did you get a fake passport? You didn’t use it to come here - I saw your passport.”
Carl shrugs unconcernedly. “I came about it.”
“How?” Something else occurs to you. “Wasn’t Bob Wootton one of Johnny Cash’s backing band?”
“He might’ve been.” Carl is fiddling with something in the front pocket of his rucksack. “I took the chance that the girl in the rental place wasn’t a fan of rockabilly.”
“You’re absolutely insane.”
“I know.” He grins wolfishly, teeth white in the sun. “I’m fun though, eh? Come on, we need to stand where we can be seen better.”
You shrug your duffel bag - army issues, covered in patches - on to your back and follow him up on to the crest of the road.
It’s hot, not quite the height of summer but hot enough. Hotter than England, for sure. Carl ties the bandana round his neck and you strip off a top layer. You could probably do with some sun cream, but it’s way too down in your duffel to be bothered. There’ll be a ride along soon, right?
There are a few cars over the next half hour, but none of them slow. One sort of does, but inside is a lone woman, so you don’t blame her for speeding up again, kicking up a flume of dust as she does.
You can feel the prickle of sunburn on your neck. Carl finds a bottle of water and you slug half of it without even flinching.
Another car passes, without even looking twice at Carl’s outstretched thumb.
Then, some way off to the right, you hear a thudding noise, a thrumming that you hear as much in your feet as in your ears. You think - a train - it’s got to be - and then a low whistle from it too.
“Train tracks,” you say. “We can jump on board one, right?”
Carl’s look is scathing. “Alright, Huckleberry Finn, it’s not 1934 anymore.”
“Well, why can’t we?” You’re stung, but fuck him, it’s a good idea isn’t it?
“They don’t have open-sided trains anymore, dickhead.”
“Oh.” That genuinely hadn’t occurred to you. “But, though, if there’s tracks, there’ll be a station somewhere. We could walk along them.”
Carl actually considers this. “I don’t really want to leave the road, you know? Eventually someone will stop. Can you see the tracks?”
You’re at the bottom of a slight incline. “I don’t know,” you say, “but if we get to the top of the hill we might be able to.”
“Okay,” Carl says. “Let’s walk.”
The top of the hill is further than it looked, and turned this way round you’ve got the force of the sun in your face. It’s harder going than you’d think, and not helped by Carl insisting on stopping for a cigarette.
But at the top of the hill you can see over the trees that line the road and yes, you can see train tracks glinting brightly in the sun.
Carl squints at you. “It’s like that Janis Joplin song.”
“Is it?”
He starts to sing. “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, heading for the trains, feeling nearly faded as my jeans.”
You eye his jeans, from the stupid turn ups by his ankles to the creases on his hips. “It’s not actually a Janis Joplin song, that, you know?”
“Fuck off, who wrote it?”
“Kris Kristofferson.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. Originally performed by Roger Miller, but Kris wrote it. He recorded it, too, and although I dearly love Janis Joplin, my personal preference has to go to Johnny Cash’s version.”
You’ve got his attention now, the way he’s always impressed when you happen to know a lot about a subject he loves. You’re usually all about the British bands of the 80s and 90s, from the Bunnymen to the Cure to Pulp and back again, but you’ve more than a working knowledge of country. God bless your mother and her record collection.
“Why’s that?” he asks, the way you knew he would.
“Oh, there’s just something about it,” you say, tapping a cigarette out of the packet and rubbing its tip a couple of times. “There’s a longing in Johnny’s voice, and while the sex of Bobby McGee is never stated, there’s just something about it that’s very, very queer.”
His eyelids flicker.
“I see,” he says very quietly.
It’s the thing you both skate around. The word no one says. The word Carl doesn’t say, anyway. The love that dare not speak its name, and all of that, only it’s nearly the dawn of a new millennium and you can’t quite believe it’s still so hidden.
He starts to say something else, but thinks better of it. He picks up walking again, his back to you. “Just keep your eyes on the train tracks, okay? Make sure they don’t go anywhere.”
“Aye aye,” you say, and follow in his footsteps, trying your hardest to keep your eyes off his arse.
You hear the truck before you see it. An angry roar, a powerful roar. It can’t be a big truck, a lorry, because it’s travelling at some speed, coming up behind you. Carl turns, uses his hand as a visor to look at the vehicle, the thumb on his other hand already out, hoping to hitch. You turn too. The truck is raised high off the ground. It’s black with chrome fittings. And fire stickers up the bonnet.
It comes past you, roars past you, deafening the air, kicking up plumes of dust that choke your throat. Too bad, you think, but then it slows. It actually slows down for you.
Carl can’t believe it either. He laughs, stuttered, paused for a second, and then spins on one foot, the gravel crunching under his boot, and sets off jogging towards the truck.
“Don’t do the accent,” you hiss after him. “’S very unconvincing.”
“Come along, Bilo. Hurry the fuck up.”
By the time you get there Carl has turned on a winning smile - not the full wattage, of course, which might look like he’s coming on to the male driver, but a winning one all the same. He’s got one arm on the open window, leaning down. His shirt has ridden up, exposing a tanned back and those fucking dimples.
They do things to you, you swear. You first caught sight of them only a couple of months ago and you’ve been dying for a repeat performance ever since.
You don’t even hear the conversation between Carl and the driver because you’re way too busy thinking about those dimples and, like, maybe licking them or something, but before you know it Carl’s opening the door, grinning, and sliding into the middle seat. You follow Carl into the seat and get your first look at the driver.
He’s about thirty, with ginger hair and freckles, and a beard. And he has a baseball cap, because of course he does. They all wear them, here. He doesn’t say anything, but tips his head in greeting.
“Hi,” you say. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Y’all’re in need of a ride,” he says in a very deep voice.
“Yes. Thank you.” You put all your stuff between your feet, meaning your thigh is resting against Carl’s.
If he notices, he doesn’t move.
The truck sets off, its engine thrumming. It’s got a soporific vibe to it, and you’re hot and tired. You lean your head against the headrest and breathe deeply.
You must fall asleep, because you wake up when Carl elbows you in the ribs.
“Can’t you?” he says.
“What? What?” Your mouth is dry. You swipe the water bottle from his hand and chug some.
“Play harmonica.”
“Oh. Yes. Yeah.”
Carl is looking at you like you’re missing something. “Well, go on then.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” You lean, ferreting in the side pocket off the duffel to find it.
It’s nothing special. Silver and red. It came from a pawn shop you’d found in London with Carl one rainy Wednesday afternoon. You’re not exactly sure who bought it, but it’s really yours. It’s a nice bit of kit, with a nice heft to it.
“What shall I play?”
“I like a little country myself,” the driver says.
He is a walking stereotype and you’re probably going to die in this truck. The two of you could take him though, couldn’t you? If he got violent?
Exactly how far is it to New Orleans anyway?
You play a couple of scales on the harmonica, warming it and your mouth up. Then you go into I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.
The driver nods approvingly and Carl sings along, his voice taking on a low, pained timbre that you haven’t heard before.
You make your way through a dozen songs, a hundred songs, maybe a thousand songs. Carl sings along as well he can, mumbling words where he doesn’t know them. The driver, who goes by the name of Randy, for fuck’s sake, joins in too, singing along and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It’s a pretty good time, actually. It livens up a boring road.
New Orleans begins to grow in front of you. There’s the airport, and the road is wider and there’s more cars on it.
“Where are y’all headed?” Randy asks.
“The waterfront,” Carl says firmly. “The French quarter. We can get there by ourselves, though.”
“Nah, you’re good. I’m headed kinda close.”
“Thank you,” Carl says.
You repeat it.
“Where are y’all from, anyway? England, right?”
“Yes,” Carl says. “I grew up just outside London.”
“Liar,” you hiss.
“It’s close enough,” he hisses back.
“I’ve never been,” Randy says conversationally. “Furthest I’ve ever been is Birmingham, Alabama.”
He says BirmingHAM like with the meat on the end, which amuses you. He’s alright. And you’re here faster than you would have been.
And New Orleans is beautiful. The city begins to build and then the French quarter comes upon you and - wow. Even though everything is built on a grid system that is horribly American, the buildings themselves look so French. Every one has pretty railings, and everything is low to the ground with wide, tree lined streets.
Then the waterfront. The river is wide, grey, imposing. The train tracks run in front of it, somewhat ruining the view, but it’s there. The river is so close to its end now, and this amazing city sits right on it.
Randy drops you off in the train station.
“Thank you so much,” Carl says. “Let us give you some money.”
You both slide out. You shrug your bag on to your back again. It’s heavy.
“Nah, don’t you worry,” Randy says.
“Please,” Carl says. “Forty dollars?”
“Honestly, friend, I enjoyed your friend’s playing and the singing…”
Carl has reached into his waistband for whatever he’s got stashed in there. He rolls twenty dollars off a wedge and drops it into the open window of the truck. “Take it.”
You can’t hear Randy’s reply but Carl laughs, and waves, and the two of you head out of the station car park and towards the city.
There’s a hotel on practically every corner, but Carl shakes his head at them all. You’re not sure exactly what he’s looking for, and it’s getting on for tea time and you’re hungry, and tired, and sticky with sweat, and about to tell him to just choose a fucking hotel, they’re all going to be exactly the same, when he looks up at one just across from the Jazz Museum, which you’re definitely going to tomorrow. It’s set back from the main road, and it’s painted a deep rose pink, a desert pink.
There’s a jaunty Frenchman on a sign outside and the hotel is, indeed, The Frenchmen. A pink Vacancy sign is in one window.
Carl heads inside.
You follow. It is mercifully airconditioned and the pretty girl on the front desk is so smiley you could kiss her.
The room is a hundred bucks, and you breathe in. You’d budgeted for much less than that per night.
Carl takes out his stash of cash again, though, and hands it over. Then he hands over the US passport; you can see it’s different by the colour. The woman gives the photo page quite some scrutiny, and keeps looking up at Carl. Finally she’s happy though, and slides it back to him along with a key.
“There’s a pool out back,” she says. “If you’d like…”
Carl waggles his eyebrows at you.
“Maybe,” you say. “Definitely maybe.”
Carl starts singing Oasis on his way up the stairs.
“Aren’t you sick of singing? I’d have thought Randy exhausted your vocal cords.”
“Make that sound filthier, I dare you.”
“Sorry.” You’re not. The hallways of the hotel are dark, a welcome respite from the bright sunshine outside. You don’t really watch where you’re going, so when Carl stops outside a room you bang into him.
“Watch it,” he says, but there’s no malice in it. He turns the key, opens the door, and steps back to let you inside first.
It isn’t a huge room, but it’s beautiful. The walls are a turquoise colour. The furniture is all old wood with ornate bits. There’s one bed, which for America so far in your experience is unusual. It’s fine, though, it’s huge and you’ve shared far worse. There’s a tiny en-suite shower room and double doors leading out on to a balcony.
You put everything down on the bed and walk over to open them. It brings the noise and humidity of outside, sure, but it also brings air. A little gust of wind and you feel ten times better than you did.
You turn to Carl smiling widely. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s pretty alright,” he says. He discards all his possessions too, shedding layers of clothes and his boots until he’s in just his boxers and vest. He throws himself on to the side of the bed nearest the bathroom. That’s fine by you, you prefer to be able to see out of the window anyway.
He’s got his arms behind his head, using them as a pillow. He’s chewing something - a matchstick, maybe. Something like that. He closes his eyes, sighing a little bit.
You would like very much to crawl over him and press your lips against his lips, feel the warmth of his body against yours, feel his dick hard against you. You’d reach down to touch him, you’d kiss all his soft tanned skin, you’d take him in your mouth and suck gently until he came. He likes it slow and gentle. You’d both be sticky with sweat and you could shower together, and he’d drop to his knees and suck you off, or maybe he’d tell you to turn round before using his fingers to open you up, water from the shower trickling over the both of you while he fucked you, hard, teasing you and taking his time. He likes to hear you swearing his name. It’s a thing.
Instead, you close the doors behind you, putting the room into darkness. “Let’s go swimming.”
“Alriiiiiight,” Carl says happily, and stands up again.
You don’t look as he gets into his swimming trunks.
The pool is about the size of a postage stamp, but it’s empty. Around it are several sunbeds, old metal ones. Carl moves one and the wheels on it squeaks. He wants to sit more in the sun, but you’ve had quite enough. Still, you sit down by his feet and hand him the sun cream.
“Will you do my back?”
He makes some kind of non-committal noise, but sits up. He’s got the black sunglasses on again. You wish he’d take them off. It feels like talking to a wall, sometimes.
The sun cream is warm from the journey in your bag, but you still hiss when Carl drops some on your back. His touch is soft as he smooths the cream over your skin.
The two of you have got to talk about this, whatever it is, between you. It’s getting stupid. It’s been months of fucking and kissing, and you’ve both seen girls in that time, but for you there’s been no one special. Carl just won’t let himself love you, though. It’s hard not to take it personally.
Carl applies sun cream liberally to himself. You can’t watch; it’s like your own private porn show. You move off his sunbed and wander to the end of the garden. Garden is the right word, too - the pool is barely the main attraction in this beautiful yard. Something smells sweet, but you can’t identify it even when you’re right up close.
Carl’s still looking like he’s about to start masturbating, so you slip into the pool. The water is very warm, like bath water, but it’s still refreshing. You go all the way under, push your hair back, and stay under the water until your lungs burn and you can’t stand it anymore. You come up, shaking water off your face like a dog, and then lean back so you’re floating, letting your feet off the floor. All you can see above you is pure blue sky.
Maybe Kris Kristofferson was right and freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. If you spilt it all out to Carl right now, if you told him how you felt, what would you lose? The sick feeling in your gut every time you want him to kiss you? The twist of jealousy every time there’s a girl draped over him at a party?
Or him. Maybe him entirely. You’d lose whatever tiny hold you have on him. You’d lose him and all of this entirely.
Maybe you’re not so free after all.
Carl slips into the water half an hour later, when you’ve been floating and thinking for ages. You stand up, alerted by a wave of water around you, and smile at him.
He smiles back.
Not the high voltage smile that he gives when he wants something out of you or anyone else, and not the flash of something, given when he’s got other things on his mind and you’re desperate for anything. But a warm, soft smile, one which envelops you in its orbit like the star he is. You can see his eyes, too, now; his sunglasses lay discarded on the sunbed as the pool is almost totally in shade at this time of day. You love Carl’s eyes. They’re the perfect shade of blue, and they’re intense, and intensely beautiful. You even love the crinkles at the corners, which one day will settle into crow’s feet, but which now disappear as soon as the smile stops. Which happens far quicker than you’d like it to, but still. He was smiling.
You can live off that look for a while, no matter how grumpy he is.
And you’re not free. You’ll never willingly free yourself from this. From him.
When you’ve both swum and sunbathed enough you head upstairs back to your room. It’s icy cold in there now, so you flick off the aircon and open the double doors again. You sit at the desk, not wanting to get your side of the bed wet with your damp trunks and towel. Carl has no such qualms. He’s laying out again, debonair style. He batters his books. He’s got the spine cracked in multiple places and the front cover wrapped back against the back cover. He knows a lot of the secrets of your soul, but you wonder if he knows that his treating his books like that annoys you beyond comprehension?
Or is it more likely that he does know, and he does it anyway to wind you up.
You head into the bathroom and close the door behind you. You don’t lock it. You peel off damp trunks and shiver against the tiles. The shower is hot, though. You pour shampoo on your head and scrub hard, scrubbing all the chlorine out of it. You lost your shower gel at the start of the trip, but there’s a tiny bottom on the sink, so you squeeze the tiny bottle and lather yourself up gently.
You’ve got your eyes closed but you feel the air in the room change when Carl opens the door and comes in. He steps into the shower in his swimming shorts, and touches your stomach.
“I might’ve known you’d be along,” you say, but you like it. You lean down for a kiss.
He kisses back aggressively, with tongue, pushing you back against the cool tiles. The water sluices between you. His fingers touch your dick, waking it up, making your whole body feel alive again.
As predicted he asks you to turn around so he can fuck you, but his fingers are gentle on your back and he always makes it feel good. He sucks the back of your neck when he comes and you feel it even after you’ve stepped out of the shower.
You head to a Mexican cantina a few doors down from the hotel. It’s not exactly buzzing inside, but the music is good and it’s cheap. Carl orders beers and they come with wedges of lime stuck in the necks. Yours slips down easily, cool and refreshing, and Carl leans back in the booth and orders another. There’s chips and salsa for free, and then you order quesadilla, not really understanding what it is except for pork and cheese, both of which sound pretty good right now. They come with rice on the side. Carl’s food is deep fried, and you steal a bite, and he looks outraged but he’s teasing.
The food is good, rich, plentiful. You order two strawberry margaritas and Carl laughs when they arrive with pink striped straws in them. Yours is delicious, but strong. You order another. Fuck it, you’re on holiday.
If only life could always be like this. If only Carl could always be like this. If only everyone at home didn’t matter - not your friends, or families, or any of that crap. Or if they would just accept the two of you without even blinking.
Maybe freedom to isn’t the same as freedom from. You’re free to do what you like, but you’re not free from the weight of everyone else’s expectations. Carl’s not free from his demons. Maybe neither of you are.
But oh, you wish things were different. Maybe soon. Maybe you permanently moving to London will do the trick. Maybe one day -
Maybe you’re just dreaming, again.
A couple more drinks later the two of you stumble back to the hotel. The air is humid, still far hotter than you’re used to. Sweat prickles on your back and there’s a patch of damp on the neck of Carl’s t-shirt. You follow him into the hotel, where he winks at the girl on reception, and up to your room.
You both undress in silence. You look at yourself in the bathroom mirror, staring at the blue black circles under your eyes. You brush your teeth and pass Carl in the doorway on your way out.
You get into bed, shivering a little against the cold aircon and the almost dampness of the sheets. The only light is at Carl’s side of the bed. You’re dozing when Carl comes out of the bathroom and slips into bed next to you.
The mattress is squishier than you’d expected and he fidgets for ages, kicking your shin. “Sorry,” he says. His foot comes to rest just above yours. He turns out the light.
Then five minutes later he shifts closer, pulling your arm so he can snuggle under it. “It’s damp at my side of the bed.”
“That’s what you get for lying on it in your swim stuff,” you say. A yawn overtakes you.
“Mmm,” Carl says. “You’re nice and warm, anyway.”
He falls asleep first. You can tell because his body goes dead, limp against you, and his breathing deepens.
You’ll hold his body close to yours as long as he wants you to. It’s you and him versus the world, isn’t it? And buddy, that’s good enough for you.
Pairing: Peter/Carl
Genre: past!fic
Rating: Mature
Teaser: The weather here is much better than at home, and something in the sun makes Carl shine
The car is dead. It made a terrible noise about twenty yards back, just when the city had faded in the rearview mirror and as the concrete was stretching out in front of you. Carl was driving. You’d swapped over in Baton Rouge, filling up the car in a family owned petrol station that still had a metal sign swinging in the breeze. You kind of wanted to buy the place and run it for the rest of your life; just selling petrol and cigarettes and wasted dreams. Living out some sick parody of the American dream. You could do that. The weather here is much better than at home, and something in the sun makes Carl shine. His skin, his whole demeanour; even the way he flicks his cigarette into the gutter is somehow much less angry here in Louisiana than it is in London.
And now he’s kneeling on the asphalt looking at a blown out tyre. He’s some young version of Bruce Sprinsteen - white vest still impossibly white, blue jeans scuffed and turned up at the bottoms, packet of cigarettes and a bandana in the back pockets. He’s beautiful, kneeling back on his feet, looking at the rubber rim of the tyre which is flapping a little in the breeze.
You don’t know much about cars but even you can tell that that tyre is going nowhere fast. Carl stands up, brushes the dust off his knees, and walks to the back of the car. He pops open the boot and then swears.
“What?”
“There’s no spare.”
“Oh, come on.” You walk round to where he is. Sure enough, there’s a space in the middle of the boot where a spare tyre should be. You’ve barely any luggage between you so you haven’t even opened the boot until now. Everything’s slung on the back seat. “That’s… unfortunate.”
“It’s more than fucking unfortunate, Peter. We’re miles away from anything useful.” Carl slaps the boot down angrily. “Fuck’s sake.”
“It’s not my fault,” you say.
“I didn’t fucking say it was.” He’s mumbling. He reaches into his back pocket for the packet of fags.
You fumble for a lighter, eager to get there before he does, because when you do, he leans in. He curls his hand round yours, sheltering the lighter from the breeze, the tips of his fingers soft on your knuckles. He smells of freedom. He smells of this trip. He smells of America, of the south, of the wide Mississippi which was the point of you both being here in the first place.
He smokes the cigarette down to the filter, his head tipped back, his arse on the boot of the car. You even think his eyes are shut, but it’s impossible to tell behind the knock-off Wayfarers he bought back in Natchez.
He already looks like the rockstar he plans to be. You, meanwhile, look like exactly what you are - an eighteen year old out of Europe for the first time hoping for a big adventure before uni. Your jeans are held together with electrical tape. You’d call it fashion except all your money and plenty of your Post Office savings are gone, used to pay for this.
Carl stubs the cigarette out under one of his black Dr Martens. “We’ll have to hitch.”
“Isn’t that really quite dangerous?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” He reaches into the back seat for his stuff - cool rucksack, red leather jacket with the cracked elbows, another fucking bandana.
Your sense of adventure has never been the most pronounced. Moving around so much as a kid will do that to you. You think you left your sense of adventure somewhere on a sunny hillside in Cyprus, around the time when no one asked if you wanted to go back to England or not. But you did want to come to America. New York, LA, even Seattle would’ve been cool. But no. Carl’s masterplan was to follow the Mississippi all the way from St Louis, Missouri to New Orleans, Louisiana, and out into the sea.
You’re here, aren’t you? No money or anything. You thought he was skint but he’s not so much as mentioned money. You rented a car in St Louis and set off for Memphis. There was Graceland, of course, and Carl paid for the both of you to get in like he had hundreds more rolls of dollars tucked into his waistband. For all you know, he does. The car can’t have been cheap, but -
You’re reaching for your things, ready to follow him to find a ride, but then it occurs to you. “What are we going to do with the car?”
“Leave it there.”
“Until when? We’re not coming back this way.” It’s true; you’re spending a few days down on the coast and then flying back home from New Orleans.
Carl shrugs. “Until someone reports it, I guess.”
“Well then, they’ll charge you, they’ll -”
“Nah, they won’t.”
“Carl.”
“Chill out, will you. I used a fake passport in the rental place. An American one.” His face scrunches a little bit and when he speaks it’s with a terrible American accent. “I rented us a car, baby, under the name of Bob Wootton.”
“You did what?” Jesus, this is worse than you thought. You’re both going to be arrested, slung in jail. “Where did you get a fake passport? You didn’t use it to come here - I saw your passport.”
Carl shrugs unconcernedly. “I came about it.”
“How?” Something else occurs to you. “Wasn’t Bob Wootton one of Johnny Cash’s backing band?”
“He might’ve been.” Carl is fiddling with something in the front pocket of his rucksack. “I took the chance that the girl in the rental place wasn’t a fan of rockabilly.”
“You’re absolutely insane.”
“I know.” He grins wolfishly, teeth white in the sun. “I’m fun though, eh? Come on, we need to stand where we can be seen better.”
You shrug your duffel bag - army issues, covered in patches - on to your back and follow him up on to the crest of the road.
It’s hot, not quite the height of summer but hot enough. Hotter than England, for sure. Carl ties the bandana round his neck and you strip off a top layer. You could probably do with some sun cream, but it’s way too down in your duffel to be bothered. There’ll be a ride along soon, right?
There are a few cars over the next half hour, but none of them slow. One sort of does, but inside is a lone woman, so you don’t blame her for speeding up again, kicking up a flume of dust as she does.
You can feel the prickle of sunburn on your neck. Carl finds a bottle of water and you slug half of it without even flinching.
Another car passes, without even looking twice at Carl’s outstretched thumb.
Then, some way off to the right, you hear a thudding noise, a thrumming that you hear as much in your feet as in your ears. You think - a train - it’s got to be - and then a low whistle from it too.
“Train tracks,” you say. “We can jump on board one, right?”
Carl’s look is scathing. “Alright, Huckleberry Finn, it’s not 1934 anymore.”
“Well, why can’t we?” You’re stung, but fuck him, it’s a good idea isn’t it?
“They don’t have open-sided trains anymore, dickhead.”
“Oh.” That genuinely hadn’t occurred to you. “But, though, if there’s tracks, there’ll be a station somewhere. We could walk along them.”
Carl actually considers this. “I don’t really want to leave the road, you know? Eventually someone will stop. Can you see the tracks?”
You’re at the bottom of a slight incline. “I don’t know,” you say, “but if we get to the top of the hill we might be able to.”
“Okay,” Carl says. “Let’s walk.”
The top of the hill is further than it looked, and turned this way round you’ve got the force of the sun in your face. It’s harder going than you’d think, and not helped by Carl insisting on stopping for a cigarette.
But at the top of the hill you can see over the trees that line the road and yes, you can see train tracks glinting brightly in the sun.
Carl squints at you. “It’s like that Janis Joplin song.”
“Is it?”
He starts to sing. “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, heading for the trains, feeling nearly faded as my jeans.”
You eye his jeans, from the stupid turn ups by his ankles to the creases on his hips. “It’s not actually a Janis Joplin song, that, you know?”
“Fuck off, who wrote it?”
“Kris Kristofferson.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. Originally performed by Roger Miller, but Kris wrote it. He recorded it, too, and although I dearly love Janis Joplin, my personal preference has to go to Johnny Cash’s version.”
You’ve got his attention now, the way he’s always impressed when you happen to know a lot about a subject he loves. You’re usually all about the British bands of the 80s and 90s, from the Bunnymen to the Cure to Pulp and back again, but you’ve more than a working knowledge of country. God bless your mother and her record collection.
“Why’s that?” he asks, the way you knew he would.
“Oh, there’s just something about it,” you say, tapping a cigarette out of the packet and rubbing its tip a couple of times. “There’s a longing in Johnny’s voice, and while the sex of Bobby McGee is never stated, there’s just something about it that’s very, very queer.”
His eyelids flicker.
“I see,” he says very quietly.
It’s the thing you both skate around. The word no one says. The word Carl doesn’t say, anyway. The love that dare not speak its name, and all of that, only it’s nearly the dawn of a new millennium and you can’t quite believe it’s still so hidden.
He starts to say something else, but thinks better of it. He picks up walking again, his back to you. “Just keep your eyes on the train tracks, okay? Make sure they don’t go anywhere.”
“Aye aye,” you say, and follow in his footsteps, trying your hardest to keep your eyes off his arse.
You hear the truck before you see it. An angry roar, a powerful roar. It can’t be a big truck, a lorry, because it’s travelling at some speed, coming up behind you. Carl turns, uses his hand as a visor to look at the vehicle, the thumb on his other hand already out, hoping to hitch. You turn too. The truck is raised high off the ground. It’s black with chrome fittings. And fire stickers up the bonnet.
It comes past you, roars past you, deafening the air, kicking up plumes of dust that choke your throat. Too bad, you think, but then it slows. It actually slows down for you.
Carl can’t believe it either. He laughs, stuttered, paused for a second, and then spins on one foot, the gravel crunching under his boot, and sets off jogging towards the truck.
“Don’t do the accent,” you hiss after him. “’S very unconvincing.”
“Come along, Bilo. Hurry the fuck up.”
By the time you get there Carl has turned on a winning smile - not the full wattage, of course, which might look like he’s coming on to the male driver, but a winning one all the same. He’s got one arm on the open window, leaning down. His shirt has ridden up, exposing a tanned back and those fucking dimples.
They do things to you, you swear. You first caught sight of them only a couple of months ago and you’ve been dying for a repeat performance ever since.
You don’t even hear the conversation between Carl and the driver because you’re way too busy thinking about those dimples and, like, maybe licking them or something, but before you know it Carl’s opening the door, grinning, and sliding into the middle seat. You follow Carl into the seat and get your first look at the driver.
He’s about thirty, with ginger hair and freckles, and a beard. And he has a baseball cap, because of course he does. They all wear them, here. He doesn’t say anything, but tips his head in greeting.
“Hi,” you say. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Y’all’re in need of a ride,” he says in a very deep voice.
“Yes. Thank you.” You put all your stuff between your feet, meaning your thigh is resting against Carl’s.
If he notices, he doesn’t move.
The truck sets off, its engine thrumming. It’s got a soporific vibe to it, and you’re hot and tired. You lean your head against the headrest and breathe deeply.
You must fall asleep, because you wake up when Carl elbows you in the ribs.
“Can’t you?” he says.
“What? What?” Your mouth is dry. You swipe the water bottle from his hand and chug some.
“Play harmonica.”
“Oh. Yes. Yeah.”
Carl is looking at you like you’re missing something. “Well, go on then.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” You lean, ferreting in the side pocket off the duffel to find it.
It’s nothing special. Silver and red. It came from a pawn shop you’d found in London with Carl one rainy Wednesday afternoon. You’re not exactly sure who bought it, but it’s really yours. It’s a nice bit of kit, with a nice heft to it.
“What shall I play?”
“I like a little country myself,” the driver says.
He is a walking stereotype and you’re probably going to die in this truck. The two of you could take him though, couldn’t you? If he got violent?
Exactly how far is it to New Orleans anyway?
You play a couple of scales on the harmonica, warming it and your mouth up. Then you go into I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.
The driver nods approvingly and Carl sings along, his voice taking on a low, pained timbre that you haven’t heard before.
You make your way through a dozen songs, a hundred songs, maybe a thousand songs. Carl sings along as well he can, mumbling words where he doesn’t know them. The driver, who goes by the name of Randy, for fuck’s sake, joins in too, singing along and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It’s a pretty good time, actually. It livens up a boring road.
New Orleans begins to grow in front of you. There’s the airport, and the road is wider and there’s more cars on it.
“Where are y’all headed?” Randy asks.
“The waterfront,” Carl says firmly. “The French quarter. We can get there by ourselves, though.”
“Nah, you’re good. I’m headed kinda close.”
“Thank you,” Carl says.
You repeat it.
“Where are y’all from, anyway? England, right?”
“Yes,” Carl says. “I grew up just outside London.”
“Liar,” you hiss.
“It’s close enough,” he hisses back.
“I’ve never been,” Randy says conversationally. “Furthest I’ve ever been is Birmingham, Alabama.”
He says BirmingHAM like with the meat on the end, which amuses you. He’s alright. And you’re here faster than you would have been.
And New Orleans is beautiful. The city begins to build and then the French quarter comes upon you and - wow. Even though everything is built on a grid system that is horribly American, the buildings themselves look so French. Every one has pretty railings, and everything is low to the ground with wide, tree lined streets.
Then the waterfront. The river is wide, grey, imposing. The train tracks run in front of it, somewhat ruining the view, but it’s there. The river is so close to its end now, and this amazing city sits right on it.
Randy drops you off in the train station.
“Thank you so much,” Carl says. “Let us give you some money.”
You both slide out. You shrug your bag on to your back again. It’s heavy.
“Nah, don’t you worry,” Randy says.
“Please,” Carl says. “Forty dollars?”
“Honestly, friend, I enjoyed your friend’s playing and the singing…”
Carl has reached into his waistband for whatever he’s got stashed in there. He rolls twenty dollars off a wedge and drops it into the open window of the truck. “Take it.”
You can’t hear Randy’s reply but Carl laughs, and waves, and the two of you head out of the station car park and towards the city.
There’s a hotel on practically every corner, but Carl shakes his head at them all. You’re not sure exactly what he’s looking for, and it’s getting on for tea time and you’re hungry, and tired, and sticky with sweat, and about to tell him to just choose a fucking hotel, they’re all going to be exactly the same, when he looks up at one just across from the Jazz Museum, which you’re definitely going to tomorrow. It’s set back from the main road, and it’s painted a deep rose pink, a desert pink.
There’s a jaunty Frenchman on a sign outside and the hotel is, indeed, The Frenchmen. A pink Vacancy sign is in one window.
Carl heads inside.
You follow. It is mercifully airconditioned and the pretty girl on the front desk is so smiley you could kiss her.
The room is a hundred bucks, and you breathe in. You’d budgeted for much less than that per night.
Carl takes out his stash of cash again, though, and hands it over. Then he hands over the US passport; you can see it’s different by the colour. The woman gives the photo page quite some scrutiny, and keeps looking up at Carl. Finally she’s happy though, and slides it back to him along with a key.
“There’s a pool out back,” she says. “If you’d like…”
Carl waggles his eyebrows at you.
“Maybe,” you say. “Definitely maybe.”
Carl starts singing Oasis on his way up the stairs.
“Aren’t you sick of singing? I’d have thought Randy exhausted your vocal cords.”
“Make that sound filthier, I dare you.”
“Sorry.” You’re not. The hallways of the hotel are dark, a welcome respite from the bright sunshine outside. You don’t really watch where you’re going, so when Carl stops outside a room you bang into him.
“Watch it,” he says, but there’s no malice in it. He turns the key, opens the door, and steps back to let you inside first.
It isn’t a huge room, but it’s beautiful. The walls are a turquoise colour. The furniture is all old wood with ornate bits. There’s one bed, which for America so far in your experience is unusual. It’s fine, though, it’s huge and you’ve shared far worse. There’s a tiny en-suite shower room and double doors leading out on to a balcony.
You put everything down on the bed and walk over to open them. It brings the noise and humidity of outside, sure, but it also brings air. A little gust of wind and you feel ten times better than you did.
You turn to Carl smiling widely. “It’s lovely.”
“It’s pretty alright,” he says. He discards all his possessions too, shedding layers of clothes and his boots until he’s in just his boxers and vest. He throws himself on to the side of the bed nearest the bathroom. That’s fine by you, you prefer to be able to see out of the window anyway.
He’s got his arms behind his head, using them as a pillow. He’s chewing something - a matchstick, maybe. Something like that. He closes his eyes, sighing a little bit.
You would like very much to crawl over him and press your lips against his lips, feel the warmth of his body against yours, feel his dick hard against you. You’d reach down to touch him, you’d kiss all his soft tanned skin, you’d take him in your mouth and suck gently until he came. He likes it slow and gentle. You’d both be sticky with sweat and you could shower together, and he’d drop to his knees and suck you off, or maybe he’d tell you to turn round before using his fingers to open you up, water from the shower trickling over the both of you while he fucked you, hard, teasing you and taking his time. He likes to hear you swearing his name. It’s a thing.
Instead, you close the doors behind you, putting the room into darkness. “Let’s go swimming.”
“Alriiiiiight,” Carl says happily, and stands up again.
You don’t look as he gets into his swimming trunks.
The pool is about the size of a postage stamp, but it’s empty. Around it are several sunbeds, old metal ones. Carl moves one and the wheels on it squeaks. He wants to sit more in the sun, but you’ve had quite enough. Still, you sit down by his feet and hand him the sun cream.
“Will you do my back?”
He makes some kind of non-committal noise, but sits up. He’s got the black sunglasses on again. You wish he’d take them off. It feels like talking to a wall, sometimes.
The sun cream is warm from the journey in your bag, but you still hiss when Carl drops some on your back. His touch is soft as he smooths the cream over your skin.
The two of you have got to talk about this, whatever it is, between you. It’s getting stupid. It’s been months of fucking and kissing, and you’ve both seen girls in that time, but for you there’s been no one special. Carl just won’t let himself love you, though. It’s hard not to take it personally.
Carl applies sun cream liberally to himself. You can’t watch; it’s like your own private porn show. You move off his sunbed and wander to the end of the garden. Garden is the right word, too - the pool is barely the main attraction in this beautiful yard. Something smells sweet, but you can’t identify it even when you’re right up close.
Carl’s still looking like he’s about to start masturbating, so you slip into the pool. The water is very warm, like bath water, but it’s still refreshing. You go all the way under, push your hair back, and stay under the water until your lungs burn and you can’t stand it anymore. You come up, shaking water off your face like a dog, and then lean back so you’re floating, letting your feet off the floor. All you can see above you is pure blue sky.
Maybe Kris Kristofferson was right and freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. If you spilt it all out to Carl right now, if you told him how you felt, what would you lose? The sick feeling in your gut every time you want him to kiss you? The twist of jealousy every time there’s a girl draped over him at a party?
Or him. Maybe him entirely. You’d lose whatever tiny hold you have on him. You’d lose him and all of this entirely.
Maybe you’re not so free after all.
Carl slips into the water half an hour later, when you’ve been floating and thinking for ages. You stand up, alerted by a wave of water around you, and smile at him.
He smiles back.
Not the high voltage smile that he gives when he wants something out of you or anyone else, and not the flash of something, given when he’s got other things on his mind and you’re desperate for anything. But a warm, soft smile, one which envelops you in its orbit like the star he is. You can see his eyes, too, now; his sunglasses lay discarded on the sunbed as the pool is almost totally in shade at this time of day. You love Carl’s eyes. They’re the perfect shade of blue, and they’re intense, and intensely beautiful. You even love the crinkles at the corners, which one day will settle into crow’s feet, but which now disappear as soon as the smile stops. Which happens far quicker than you’d like it to, but still. He was smiling.
You can live off that look for a while, no matter how grumpy he is.
And you’re not free. You’ll never willingly free yourself from this. From him.
When you’ve both swum and sunbathed enough you head upstairs back to your room. It’s icy cold in there now, so you flick off the aircon and open the double doors again. You sit at the desk, not wanting to get your side of the bed wet with your damp trunks and towel. Carl has no such qualms. He’s laying out again, debonair style. He batters his books. He’s got the spine cracked in multiple places and the front cover wrapped back against the back cover. He knows a lot of the secrets of your soul, but you wonder if he knows that his treating his books like that annoys you beyond comprehension?
Or is it more likely that he does know, and he does it anyway to wind you up.
You head into the bathroom and close the door behind you. You don’t lock it. You peel off damp trunks and shiver against the tiles. The shower is hot, though. You pour shampoo on your head and scrub hard, scrubbing all the chlorine out of it. You lost your shower gel at the start of the trip, but there’s a tiny bottom on the sink, so you squeeze the tiny bottle and lather yourself up gently.
You’ve got your eyes closed but you feel the air in the room change when Carl opens the door and comes in. He steps into the shower in his swimming shorts, and touches your stomach.
“I might’ve known you’d be along,” you say, but you like it. You lean down for a kiss.
He kisses back aggressively, with tongue, pushing you back against the cool tiles. The water sluices between you. His fingers touch your dick, waking it up, making your whole body feel alive again.
As predicted he asks you to turn around so he can fuck you, but his fingers are gentle on your back and he always makes it feel good. He sucks the back of your neck when he comes and you feel it even after you’ve stepped out of the shower.
You head to a Mexican cantina a few doors down from the hotel. It’s not exactly buzzing inside, but the music is good and it’s cheap. Carl orders beers and they come with wedges of lime stuck in the necks. Yours slips down easily, cool and refreshing, and Carl leans back in the booth and orders another. There’s chips and salsa for free, and then you order quesadilla, not really understanding what it is except for pork and cheese, both of which sound pretty good right now. They come with rice on the side. Carl’s food is deep fried, and you steal a bite, and he looks outraged but he’s teasing.
The food is good, rich, plentiful. You order two strawberry margaritas and Carl laughs when they arrive with pink striped straws in them. Yours is delicious, but strong. You order another. Fuck it, you’re on holiday.
If only life could always be like this. If only Carl could always be like this. If only everyone at home didn’t matter - not your friends, or families, or any of that crap. Or if they would just accept the two of you without even blinking.
Maybe freedom to isn’t the same as freedom from. You’re free to do what you like, but you’re not free from the weight of everyone else’s expectations. Carl’s not free from his demons. Maybe neither of you are.
But oh, you wish things were different. Maybe soon. Maybe you permanently moving to London will do the trick. Maybe one day -
Maybe you’re just dreaming, again.
A couple more drinks later the two of you stumble back to the hotel. The air is humid, still far hotter than you’re used to. Sweat prickles on your back and there’s a patch of damp on the neck of Carl’s t-shirt. You follow him into the hotel, where he winks at the girl on reception, and up to your room.
You both undress in silence. You look at yourself in the bathroom mirror, staring at the blue black circles under your eyes. You brush your teeth and pass Carl in the doorway on your way out.
You get into bed, shivering a little against the cold aircon and the almost dampness of the sheets. The only light is at Carl’s side of the bed. You’re dozing when Carl comes out of the bathroom and slips into bed next to you.
The mattress is squishier than you’d expected and he fidgets for ages, kicking your shin. “Sorry,” he says. His foot comes to rest just above yours. He turns out the light.
Then five minutes later he shifts closer, pulling your arm so he can snuggle under it. “It’s damp at my side of the bed.”
“That’s what you get for lying on it in your swim stuff,” you say. A yawn overtakes you.
“Mmm,” Carl says. “You’re nice and warm, anyway.”
He falls asleep first. You can tell because his body goes dead, limp against you, and his breathing deepens.
You’ll hold his body close to yours as long as he wants you to. It’s you and him versus the world, isn’t it? And buddy, that’s good enough for you.