Travelin' Man

by Tom Mendicino

  “Remember not to leave your car out front. Park behind the garage out back.”

  The cab ride is twenty-five bucks, but you got to spend money to make money. Not that KC’s looking for a handout or even a loan. He’s gonna shoot for the moon and ask Mr. McGwire to lease him a car, maybe even an SUV, without a down payment. Red knows he’s a stand-up guy, responsible, with a good job, and won’t miss any payments. Maybe they can even drive to the dealership and sign the papers tonight. It’s Mr. McGwire’s business. He can do whatever he wants.

  “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” Mr. McGwire asks when he greets KC at the back door. He seems wary, debating whether to let him in. KC knows it must look bad. He understands why Red is cautious when a kid he barely knows, someone with whom he’s spent less than six hours total, turns up at his door with a freshly broken nose and an ugly bite on his cheek.

  “I fell on my face on the basketball court. They have to wait for the swelling to go down before they can set it.”

  It sounds reasonable to Mr. McGwire, who, thank God, doesn’t ask him to explain the mysterious bite mark. He lets KC into the kitchen where his stupid little Shih Tzu is making a racket.

  “Misty, you behave! You remember our friend Kevin. Now be nice!”

  KC’s given up trying to befriend the dog. She snaps at him if he tries to pet her and growls if he so much as says her name.

  “Where’s your car Kevin?” Mr. McGwire asks, looking out the window to make sure the Civic is parked behind the garage. “You didn’t leave it out front, did you? I told you to never leave it in the driveway.”

  “No sir. It got stolen. Three days ago.”

  “How did you get out here?”

  “In a cab.”

  “I hope you have insurance.”

  “I think so. I’m pretty sure. My mom takes care of all that stuff,” he says, regretting a stupid lie that makes him sound too irresponsible to trust leasing a car.

  Mr. McGwire changes the subject, asking KC if he wants to fire up the grill even though it’s late. KC understands the subject of the stolen car is closed, for now at least. Red must have some kind of sixth sense and already suspects the true reason for his young friend’s unexpected call.

  “No. No thank you, Mr. McGwire.”

  “Red.”

  “Red.”

  “How about a beer then? Or a Coke?”

  “Do you have any Dew?”

  “Of course I do,” Red teases and KC forces himself to laugh at the stupid joke.

  Red says they should sit out by the pool and enjoy the cool breezes. It’s a quiet, peaceful night. The water filter is humming and angry sounding crickets are chirping in the grass.

  “In the mood for a swim?”

  “I don’t think so. Not with this,” KC says, pointing at his damaged nose.

  “Right. Probably not a good idea to get that wet.”

  Mr. McGwire puffs on his cigar and sips from his tumbler of scotch on the rocks. KC can see he’s growing impatient; he’s checking his watch every few minutes.

  “Bugs are terrible out here tonight, Kevin. Let’s go inside.”

  KC follows him into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom. Everything’s set up as usual. There’s a sheet draped over the upholstered easy chair beside the bed and a bottle of lubricant on the end table.

  “Do you want me to take off all my clothes or just pull down my pants?” KC asks.

  “I don’t know when I’ll see you again so let’s make tonight special,” the older man says as he sits on the edge of the bed.

  Mr. McGwire is definitely a weirdo, but he’s a polite one. He never touches KC, never takes off his own clothes, doesn’t even pull his cock out of his fly. All he wants to do is watch KC jack off, then slips him the money and sends him on his way. KC feels a little uneasy about their arrangement. But Mr. McGwire’s harmless, nothing like Darrell Torok, and KC is a grown man now, twenty years old, capable of making his own decisions. He’s not the scared fifteen-year-old boy masturbating on camera because he was afraid Darrell would be angry if he refused. And the extra buck and a half is appreciated since he’s expected to live on the lousy money the Chiefs pay and the meager allowance Mr. Stapleton deposits in his checking account.

  KC sits on the chair and starts pulling on his pole. He used to feel self-conscious doing this. The first time he couldn’t even get hard, but now he just closes his eyes and thinks about boys he’s had sex with until he shoots his load on the sheet.

  “So, are we going do something special tonight, Kevin?” his host asks, unbuttoning his shirt to bare his chest.

  “Sure,” KC reluctantly agrees. He ought to at least let Mr. McGwire jack him off, maybe even blow him, if he’s gonna ask to lease a car without a down payment and no responsible adult to cosign. But he can’t see beyond the older man’s loose, flabby flesh and his chubby little man boobs and gently, but firmly, pushes aside Red’s roaming hands.

  “I got to go, Mr. McGwire,” he says as he grabs his clothes and shoes, fleeing down the stairs and out the door. The taxi dispatcher says it will be forty-five minutes before she can send a driver and he hangs up, a seven-mile walk back to the motel ahead of him.

  Darrell Torok, three thousand miles across the country, sounds high or drunk. He’s not so out of it he isn’t making sense, but he’s definitely mellow, even sympathetic to KC’s plight.

  “I’ll pay you back Darrell. Every penny. I promise,” KC pleads.

  Darrell says it feels like old times again, when KC depended on him for handouts and gifts. Every pair of spikes, every batting helmet, every gallon of gasoline to drive KC to travel ball games, every airfare between Albany and Tampa/St. Pete, all of it funded by the generosity of Darrell Torok.

  “Money’s a little tight these days KC. I don’t know if I can help you.”

  KC resists mentioning that Darrell was just boasting about his new home entertainment system and the fully loaded Silverado parked in front of the barn. He needs to be careful not to piss off him off as he doesn’t have anything Darrell wants any more, no currency to bargain with. Others have replaced KC in Darrell’s affections. Darrell’s been blackballed from coaching in the American Legion league after one of his players told his parents he’d been partying in Darrell’s hot tub. The outraged father wanted to press charges even though his son insisted nothing had happened. The new friends Darrell talks about aren’t ball players; he meets these young men online, responding to ads with code words—boi seeking older, looking to PNP, have parTy favors.

  “You know I lost the election for president of the Local. Because of the shit that kid’s parents made over nothing. I have to be careful with my money now.”

  KC knows he’s bullshitting. Darrell was the only child of a pair of Slovaks from the old country, cheap motherfuckers who never spent a dime so they could leave everything they earned from their hard work and sacrifice to their beloved son. He’s got plenty of money for an HD television and a new pickup and frequent vacations to the Dominican Republic and Central America where he takes provocative pictures of naked boys even younger than KC had been when Darrell started filming him while he jacked off to porn.

  “I understand,” KC says, deflated, bursting into tears, sobbing into the telephone.

  Darrell Torok can be an asshole sometimes, but he’d always been there for KC. It’s not like everything was all bad with Darrell. And making the jerk-off movies wasn’t all that terrible. Sometimes it was even fun. KC wouldn’t have had anyone after his Pop-Pop got demented and went into the home if he hadn’t met Darrell. He’d felt safer, more welcome, with Darrell than he did in the house where his mother lived with his asshole stepfather. There was that bad time between them, a couple of summers ago, and he and Darrell didn’t speak for more than a year. But Darrell didn’t slam the door in his face, didn’t mock his sadness, didn’t even seem surprised that KC had returned, seeking sympathy and consolation and a place to crash when he returned to Albany for his Pop-Pop’s
funeral.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Darrell says, slightly slurring his words.

  “Don’t cry little buddy. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you. Fuck that piece of crap you’ve been driving. Come on back home and we’ll get you a decent car. Or a truck. You always wanted to drive a truck.”

  Darrell’s offer is grandiose, which means he’s even higher than he sounds. But it’s tempting. KC’s car, a Honda Civic on a three-year lease, the only indulgence Coach Freeman allowed him from his signing bonus, is a lost cause and he’d never wanted to drive one of Red’s fucking ugly Hyundais anyway. He’s sure he can persuade Darrell into helping him score something with a little muscle, more style. It doesn’t have to be new. He’ll settle for a nice used pony car, a Camaro or Challenger. He’ll pay Darrell back, every last penny, when Mr. Stapleton releases his money.

  “I got a better idea,” Darrell says, his voice pumped with enthusiasm. “Why don’t I come out there? We’ll find you something out there so you don’t have to drive it back across the fucking country. You can meet me in Seattle.”

  Darrell says he could use a little time away. The Albany police have been out to the farm, asking questions. It’s fucking crazy. They’d accused Darrell’s new young friend of cooking crystal meth in the barn. They didn’t find anything. Darrell wanted his lawyer to sue the force for coming onto his property, only to learn that it isn’t trespass when the cops have a warrant.

  “Yeah, I can do that,” KC says reluctantly. He feels more defeated than ever. Maybe he should just call Coach Freeman and tell him he’s taking the next bus to Sacramento.

  “I’m gonna go online and buy a ticket. I’ll get us a nice room, a suite in one of the good hotels near the water. It’ll be fun. Stop worrying, KC. I’ll take care of everything.”

  KC, I know you’re picking up your voice mails. Please call me back. I’m worried about you. We all are. There’s nothing you’ve done the Lord won’t forgive if you’re willing to ask.

  Coach Freeman has been flooding his mailbox with messages. KC knows he needs to respond. The Freemans have been good to him, treated him like family. The Coach hadn’t wanted KC to return to Albany the summer after his first year of junior college. He’d tried to persuade him to stay in Tampa, clearly sensing something amiss with the domestic life of the family KC rarely spoke about, and, even then, only in short, evasive answers to direct questions. They took him into their home after that trouble with his stepfather, gave him the room of their son who had died at the age of seventeen. The Coach’s wife says KC’s a gift from God, a blessing to help ease the pain of losing their only child.

  He owes everything he’s thrown away to their kindness and support. It was Coach Freeman who had invited scouts from the Mets and Rangers organizations to watch the gifted star centerfielder on the junior college team he managed. He’d hired an agent to negotiate a very generous signing bonus that Mr. Stapleton invested after the Rangers selected KC as the 94th pick in the second round of the draft. When he pulled a muscle in his groin playing in the Texas Winter League, the Coach and his wife had insisted he recuperate at their new home in Sacramento where the Coach had accepted a position at a Division II college. KC hates being cruel, refusing the Coach’s phone calls, ignoring his heartfelt pleas. The Freemans deserve better than the silent treatment.

  PLEASE DO NOT WORRY. I AM OK. WILL CALL SOON, he texts.

  He’s ashamed at his cowardice, but he can’t bear hearing the disappointment in Coach Freeman’s voice. He wonders if it would be kinder to simply disappear from their lives, as if he had never existed.

  GOD BLESS YOU, he adds, remembering that all conversations with the Coach end with a salutation to God. Shit, he thinks. He should have written Praise the Lord instead. That’s what the Freemans say instead of goodbye.

  He sits on the bed, forlorn, uncertain where tomorrow will take him. It’s his last night at the Travel Lodge on Mr. Chandler’s dime. He’s not wasting eighty-nine dollars of his meager cash reserves to stay any longer. He’ll buy a bus ticket and head to Seattle tomorrow even though Darrell won’t be there for another day. He needs to get out of Spokane. He can find a Y or a hostel for a few bucks a night in Seattle until Darrell arrives. There’s just one last piece of unfinished business.

  “Please Rodriquez, don’t hang up on me,” he pleads when his former roommate answers the phone.

  “I ain’t,” the baby-faced prodigy says. His voice sounds neutral, even a bit intrigued. “You know I’m gonna catch a lot of shit if anyone finds out I talked to you.”

  The fact he stays on the line is encouraging.

  “I got to ask you a favor. It’s real important. I’ll pay you. I promise,” KC says.

  Rodriquez doesn’t answer. KC can hear him chewing, something crunchy, probably those disgusting nacho-flavored chips the kid lives on when he’s away from home and missing his mother’s cooking. KC takes it as a good sign that Rodriquez is willing to hear him out.

  ” My records. You know. The really old ones. The ones my Pop-Pop left me.”

  He’d found them in the dormer when he went to clean out his grandfather’s house. Heat had warped most of them, but eleven were undamaged, in perfect condition, including his three favorite Ricky Nelson albums. They’ve traveled with KC back and forth across the country. Losing them would be losing the last connection to his Pop-Pop.

  “I really got to get them. They weren’t in the duffel bag they sent over.”

  “They’re all here. I got your turntable too. You left it behind.”

  “You can have it. I don’t care,” KC says, hoping a magnanimous gesture will earn him sympathy.

  “I don’t want it. What am I gonna do with a fucking turntable? I don’t have no records,” he snorts, as if KC’s offer is ridiculous. “Maybe my papi will want it. He’s got some records he bought in Mexico. Mariachi shit,” he says, reconsidering.

  “Sure,” KC says, hoping to encourage him to take up the offer.

  “I’ll bring you your records. I sprained my ankle running sprints and I’m rehabbing while the team’s traveling to fucking Boise. I can come see you tomorrow.”

  “No,” KC blurts. “Bring them tonight. Please. Tomorrow’s too late. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Seattle.”

  “I told my mama I would come home tonight,” Rodriquez says. He sounds like a boy of his tender teenage years, whining about being inconvenienced. “So, what’s in Seattle?”

  KC hears him crumpling the empty chip bag in his hand.

  “Someone I know.”

  “Someone from the Chiefs?”

  KC doesn’t want to play twenty questions, but can’t risk losing his only chance of getting his records.

  “No. Someone from Albany.”

  “Oh,” Rodriquez says, quickly losing interest in KC’s travel plans. “I guess I can bring them. I’ll call my mama and tell her I’m staying in Spokane tonight. Where you want me to meet you?”

  KC suggests a T.G.I. Friday’s out near the interstate, an easy walk from the motel. They agree to meet in thirty minutes.

  “It’s a good thing Tecchio didn’t answer when you called,” Rodriquez informs him. “He would have hung up on you.”

  Rodriquez saunters into the restaurant wearing what he calls his “best” shirt, a powder-blue pima cotton slim fit, nipped and flared at the waist, with tailored shirttails not meant to be worn tucked in. He’s shaved, leaving only a wispy soul patch, and has gel in his hair.

  “Holy shit, dude. You look like Freddie Krueger!”

  “Thanks, man,” KC says sarcastically.

  “How come you don’t have one of those metal splints like Tommy Garcia got when he busted his nose?” Rodriquez asks.

  “They can’t set it until the swelling goes down.”

  “How long is that?”

  ” I dunno,” KC answers, trying to recall if Mr. Chandler told him it would be one week or two.

  “It hurt?”<
br />
  No, asshole, it feels great.

  “Yeah,” KC answers. “Not as much as it did at first.”

  The pain is less severe each day though his nose is still extremely sensitive to being touched. Rodriquez’s short attention span seizes on the open Bible KC has been trying to read while waiting.

  “How come you’re so into all this religious stuff?” he asks, incredulous that anyone would take interest in a book without superheroes. The word of God fails to impress him. “I mean, like I believe in Jesus and all that, but I don’t want to read about Him.”

  “Just put it down, okay?” KC asks.

  “I’m Catholic. You Catholic?”

  “No,” KC says. His days at Augustinian Academy, a parochial high school for boys, are in the distant past. KC’s a Christian now, or at least that’s what the Freemans expect him to be.

  “I was an altar boy when I was a little kid. The fucking priest was a real weirdo,” Rodriquez offers.

  KC ignores him and flips through the stack of records Rodriquez has brought. All are accounted for. He drinks a Coke and plays with a greasy grilled cheese while Rodriquez makes short work of the Deluxe Platter—a double cheeseburger, fries, and an extra-thick milkshake.

  “Dude, thanks for bringing me my albums,” KC says, reaching for the check. But Rodriquez is quicker and insists on paying. He’s always been generous, at least with KC. His four-and-a-half million dollar signing bonus was reported in Baseball America, even meriting a mention in USA Today. His teammates, struggling to live on a couple hundred bucks a week, resent an eighteen-year-old kid, months out of high school, driving an Escalade with a list price of seventy-five grand. They would have taken it out by hazing him but management forbids it. First round draft picks like Rodriquez, a five-tool prospect who can play both middle infield positions, are a rare and precious commodity. Physical intimidation is forbidden so they tormented and harassed him with sarcasm and cruel comments about his presumed virginity until KC stepped in and told them to cut the shit.