Berserk (35 page)

“No thanks, man.” Beeps and boops sounded from the phone, and then a very loud voice announced that Dale had won level one. “Not interested. Not today. Not ever.”

No matter how you sliced it, that sounded like a fight. “I didn’t realize you and Clare were fighting.”

Boop! Beep!
“We aren’t.”

Then again, maybe not. “Why not open it?”

“Because it’s not from her.”
Beep. Beep. Boop!

Now Jonah was confused, not an unusual state for him when it came to a conversation with Dale. “It’s not?”

“Nope.”
Beep! Boop. Ding!
“She’s forwarded another letter.”

“How can you be sure?”

Beep! Beep!
“For one, I can feel another envelope under the first.”
Boop!
“And second, that’s why there’s no return address. She and I both don’t care if I get it or not.”

This was moving way out of the ‘interesting’ phase and deeply into the ‘fascinating’ phase, but the more Jonah prodded, the more Dale became engrossed in his game rather than spilling his guts. Jonah was frustrated almost to the point of pulling over and shoving Dale’s phone right where the sun don’t shine. But instead he asked, “Dale, can you put that down for a minute and talk to me? I’m worried about you. This doesn’t sound right.”

With a heavy sigh, and a loud ding from the phone, Dale lowered the thing to his lap and stared at Jonah. “There, you have my full attention for exactly sixty seconds.”

Then Dale said four words that cleared everything up. If he had said the four words at the beginning of the argument, Jonah wouldn’t have pressed on. If he had said the four words when the envelope had first arrived, Jonah would have left it back at home, in the trashcan where he found it. But as it was, the envelope was in the car, and now they had to carry it with them for their entire trip.

Jonah was silent for a few moments, trying to concentrate on the road to the melody of beeps and boops. Drawing a deep breath, he said, “I’m… I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just thought—”

Dale lowered the phone again. “Man. I said it’s okay. Let it go. I haven’t talked to him in fifteen years, and I have no plans to start now just because he wrote me out of the blue. I know you are just trying to help out, but I’m fine with this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Now are we done with this?”

“Sorry.” Jonah wanted to let it go, but, both sheepish and contrite, he found he couldn’t beg for enough forgiveness. “I should have left it in the trash.”

“I do not!” Jonah shouted, though under his bed rested a shoebox of thank you cards, old valentines from his mom, and unusual ads. He just didn’t know Dale knew. “And for the record, the content of that box is private.”

“Sure it is. If private is another word for gay.”

“I’m not gay!”

Dale’s smile beamed like a florescent bulb in his joy at getting under Jonah’s skin. “I never said you were gay. I said you’re gay for mail.”

Dale did just that, but not without chuckling under his breath first. Jonah tried to drive in unperturbed silence, but soon his mind wandered to the echo of that chuckle. It seemed as if the man insisted on questioning Jonah’s sexuality. Not that either of them particularly hated homosexuals, but it seemed as if it were Dale’s life’s work to prove Jonah was not interested in women. Contrary to popular opinion, Jonah was very interested in women. The fact that he didn’t bed every woman he met didn’t mean he didn’t want to. He was just shyer than Dale.

And not as handsome.

And not as confident.

Jonah decided to turn the conversation to a very Dale-like topic in order to prove that his own testosterone-fueled fantasies did indeed exist. “So Barbara dropped by?”

Jonah gripped the wheel harder, his knuckles fading from pink to white as he dreaded the next question and the answers that surely followed. “Okay, what happened?”

The next twenty miles were spent in lurid description as Dale outlined the acrobatic feats that made up his typical sexual escapade. Jonah was left to wonder where all the extra limbs wound up. Dale never clarified, and Jonah never asked.

This was the way of things.

Two

Winnemucca, Nevada

“I mean, look at this thing.” Dale tapped on the yellowing pages spread on the table between them. Half-empty plates and half-full cups covered the edges of the thick book, holding down the well-worn pages that tried their best to curl. “What kind of asshole uses a road map these days?”

Jonah shrugged, embarrassed by Dale’s poor conversational skills. “I like them. They make traveling fun.” Which, while accurate, was not the whole of the truth. Jonah liked maps for the same reason he liked mail. A map was tangible proof of the world beyond his door. With a map, he had evidence of places besides the three blocks around his apartment. With a map, Jonah had a printed reflection of the world. Or, in the case of this particular set of maps, the United States. “And just how did you expect to find Reno without a map?”

“A GPS makes it too easy. I like using a map.” Jonah bristled at Dale’s demeaning look for a moment, then added, “And for your information, it’s not just a map. It’s a road trip book. It has extra stuff about where you are and why. See?”

Dale’s flat expression revealed just how impressed he was. “Which makes you a nerd.”

Trying his best to shift the subject away from his obvious nerdiness, Jonah asked, “You sure you wanna go to Vegas when we’re done?”

Jonah wrinkled his nose. Three years ago, on one bright spring morning, the pair of them embarked on what became the first of many road trips. They could have gone to so many places over those years. Seen so many things. But, at Dale’s insistence, each and every journey led to the same place. Las Vegas. Jonah had hoped that this jaunt to Reno would encourage Dale to try new things, but no. It was Vegas. Again.

Jonah grinned, wondering what that hesitation was all about. “Then prove it. Pick somewhere other than Vegas, and after Reno, we will head that way. We might even pick up another gig on the way.”

“Wherever you want to go. I don’t care.” Dale slurped on his shake again before turning to attack his bowl of chili.

The diner was small, but cozy, and the food was pretty good. It also had a giant donut on the roof, which was what attracted the guys to it in the first place. Jonah liked these little roadside attractions while Dale claimed they were the warts of America.

“Come on,” Jonah said, around a mouthful of fries. “Consider this your trip, buddy. For getting us our first out-of-state job.” He pushed the road map toward Dale. “You pick.”

Dale shoved the map back to Jonah. “No way. You stick your nose up at every suggestion I make.”

“I do not! I just don’t want to go back to Vegas.”

“Okay then.” As if to prove his point, Dale, with a wide smile and smug attitude, announced a destination that should have come as no surprise. “The Chicken Ranch.”

“You’ve had more women slip between your sheets than I have ever had the nerve to say hello to. How can a hired woman be any different than a free one?”

Dale smirked the smirk of the experienced. “Trust me, dude, none of them are free. You end up paying somehow.”

“I’d never pay for it,” Jonah said, though in reality he might if given the chance, and if someone else made the arrangements. It wasn’t the nature of prostitution that made Jonah nervous: it was the actual transaction. He could hardly order a coffee from the local barista, how on earth could he manage to tell a woman he wanted to pay her to suck his cock?

Dale went paler at every word, and Jonah relished the look of terror on the man’s face. What a delight! It wasn’t often Jonah got one over on Dale, and just the threat of experiencing something educational turned the man’s knees to water. Dale’s lip even quivered, just a little. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

“You aren’t serious,” Dale said.

“I’m perfectly serious,” Jonah lied. He nodded down at the map, tracing the highways and byways as he added, “Look, we’re less than two hours away from California.”

“No way. No California. You know how I feel about that place.”

Jonah knew. He never quite understood, but he knew. Dale was a Californian native, but now avoided the place like it was the plague, and not even his best friend was sure why. Jonah, however, would not be swayed from his hold over the frightened man. He tossed the remains of his burger on the plate and placed a greasy hand over his chest. “I’ve never gotten a chance to see Disneyland, and it has always been my dream to go. I know we always stay away from California because you didn’t like living there and don’t want to go back, but I think just this once—”

While the pair had been friends for over fifteen years, each had his pre-friendship life. That magic and mysterious time before time, when Jonah was friendless in Idaho and Dale was… somewhere else. Information on Dale’s Californian years was hard to obtain and even harder to confirm. Yet, based on personal experience with Dale, Jonah supposed he could sketch a plausible history steeped in youthful shenanigans and a juvenile rap sheet as long as his arm.