“This feels like something I should do myself,” he said to his friend. “Maybe you could go back and plan tomorrow’s ride?”
“It’s true a pussy wouldn’t plan as hard a ride as I will,” Cody said, and did a three-point turn back toward the motel.
Alone, Hunter crossed town to a strip mall laid out below the moonlit mountains he would explore tomorrow. Facing the pink neon of Charlie’s Bar he sat there arguing with himself. Head back now, he thought, and lie that Buck looked nothing like him, wasn’t even white. Emancipation had been Cody’s idea, not his. But to picture that Christian Science con man whispering away his mother’s pain sent Hunter trudging into the bar’s dim interior, the papers folded into his training journal.
He laid the book down on the bar. Above him hung the Arizona state flag and a rainbow flag, flanked by elk heads. Upbeat country was playing loud.
“Rum and Coke,” he told the bartender.
“How about just a Coke,” was the reply.
“I’m being emancipated from my family,” he said, taking a seat in a row of plaid-shirted men who were hunched over their drinks.
“Let’s see some ID.”
“It’s at home.”
“Maybe a Sprite.”
“Forget it,” said Hunter, as a ruggedly handsome fellow a few stools down seemed to take notice. He looked about fifty, with sandy hair and a sharp jaw like Hunter’s, and they both watched the bartender pour the Coke.
Hunter felt himself being observed. He took the drink and sipped, refusing to stare back. Eventually the man beside him left, and the sandy-haired guy scooted over onto that seat.
“Ain’t seen you here,” he said to Hunter.
“I don’t live here.”
“Name’s Buck.”
“Okay,” Hunter said, nervous.
“You like it?”
“The bar?”
“My name.”
“I guess so.”
“Most twinks do.”
“Most what do?”
“How about you?”
“How about me?”
“What’s your name?”
“Hunter,” he said.
“That’s cool. Hunter and Buck.”
“What did it mean, ‘Most twinks do’?”
“Sounds macho, and so does yours.”
So Buck was talking about their names. With a shrug Hunter feigned indifference. The truth was he despised his name. For a year now, he’d been a vegetarian. The kids in his class who hunted were the ones who said cycling was for fags. Hunters struck Hunter as cruel, callow people. When his parents had named him Hunter, they had misread him in a manner he could cite in the court petition.
“Let me guess why you’re in town. To hike the canyon.”
“I’m a mountain biker.”
“Ride the canyon.”
“Against the law.”
“Government’s shutting down.”
“Huh?” He wondered if Buck was a cop.
“Budget crisis. At midnight tonight every government employee’s being furloughed, thanks to Slick Willie.”
“Are you sure?” Hunter said, imagining himself and Cody becoming history’s first riders of the Grand Canyon.
“That includes park rangers.”
“But it’s still illegal.”
“I’ll take you.”
“We’ve got a car.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and my friend.”
“So you’ve got a friend.”
“Are you surprised?”
“You two want company?”
“Not especially.”
“Pick cotton, and it’s time to look for snakes.”
That sounded like nonsense, of a piece with the lingerie and the Crystal Light. Then Hunter spotted two men holding hands by the wall.
“I know who you remind me of,” Buck said.
“Who?” Hunter shut his eyes to brace himself for the shame that he and Buck would both feel if Buck turned out to be the man. He isn’t, Hunter told himself. Wrong name, wrong face, wrong everything.
He opened his eyes to find that Buck’s dumbfounded expression hadn’t changed.
“It was up in Kalispell, Montana. Middle of winter, blizzard conditions, but we figured out how to stay warm.”
“How old was he?”
“About like you.”
“Is this how you picked him up, too?”
“Honestly, I doubt I had to try as hard.”
Hunter glanced at the form sticking out of his journal. All he needed was a signature. Whoever Buck was, he would probably forge one in return for a kiss or something. They could even laugh together about Hunter’s thinking Buck was his dad, Hunter was telling himself when he heard, “Case you change your mind,” and saw Buck slip him a business card that read Arthur Flynn, National Park Service Ranger.
He stopped breathing. “What’s with your finger?” Buck said, because Hunter’s right ring finger was dangling limply as he picked up the card.
“Cycling injury.”
“Well, call me,” Buck said, and then he walked in back.
Sensing scrutiny from all sides, Hunter stopped breathing. Did all the men want him? Or were they laughing at his stupid hope that Buck would be worth talking to? The air thinned, the walls closed in. It was like his mother’s Lord was doubling down on the illusion, pressing his face into it, a face he wished to inspect for similarities to Buck’s. Did the sickle curve in Buck’s jawline resemble Hunter’s, now that he’d chiseled himself down to competition weight? Girls at school had started whispering about him, which had given him a shivery thrill. Now he only felt sick.
He laid two dollars on the bar. Back in the parking lot he called his mother collect from a pay phone. He’d lied that there was a bike race, and now he told Emily he and Cody had tied for second place. “Some twerp from Utah beat us. How are you feeling?”
“Better now that Joseph is here,” she said.
“Isn’t it kind of late?”
“He’s been worried about me.” She sounded warmed by the idea. “It’s more than just the wreck; there’s something else.”
“The prize was a thousand bucks,” he said, to test her reaction.
“Will you and Cody split it?”
“We each get our own.”
“Congratulations,” she said again, too neutrally to indicate much. Did she know about the petition somehow? He’d been hoping not to tell her about the proceeding until it was over. To obtain her signature, he’d disguised the form as a permission slip for a race.
“In the morning we’re riding our bikes down the Grand Canyon,” he said.
“That sounds beautiful. But be careful.”
“We’ll wear our seatbelts,” Hunter said, and then quickly hung up, feeling mean for making fun of her like that.
Was Cody rubbing off on him, he wondered, driving back to the motel? What had come over him? Did he believe it had been Emily’s idea for Buck to flirt with him at a bar? She could have warned him; she must have known Hunter would go looking someday. She could have argued for a different name. He turned Pearl Jam up loud. Trying to feel better, he drummed all his fingers but one to the beat. His right ring finger drooped lifelessly against the wheel, same as every day since the evening when he’d swapped out his toe clips for clipless pedals. He’d been waiting for Cody to come ride. Tugging with a wrench, he couldn’t get the pedal axle to budge. He grabbed the opposite crank, pulled hard. When the axle finally gave, the force slammed his hand down onto a chain tooth.
The metal cut straight through to white bone. Hunter fainted at the sight. When he came to, his mother was kneeling beside him, applying pressure to staunch blood that wasn’t real. It was a test of their faith, and it lasted until Cody showed up and drove Hunter to the hospital.