Hank joined them at the back of the truck, his shirt a dark stain in the evening. “You promised…”
“I promised to come to the junction, talk and get drunk, and I’ve done this for you, but I can’t go any further and I can’t go letting my pa down with the store.” He looked to the pair. “I like the idea of being the store owner one day and having my own business and a real future.”
“Well I ain’t going back,” Hank said, throwing his empty bottle into the back of the truck and pulling another out of the cooler. “I can’t. Even if I have to walk to where I’m going, I’m not going back.”
“I’ll walk home,” John said, tipping out the last dregs of his bottle and placing in the back of the truck before taking another bottle. “I have my phone, there’s reception about three miles back, I’ll call Max at the garage and he’ll come get me.”
“No one’s walking anywhere.” Barry had lost the taste for his beer. He left his friends and went to the cab, leant in and pulled out the Jack, now was the time for hard truths and old friendships and longevity shit. He returned to the rear of the truck, unscrewed the cap and drank, the whisky burning just the way he liked it.
“What about the beer?” John looked down on his bottle and Hank took a long pull; his starry glasses looking too weird in the night.
“Gone past time for just shootin’ the breeze over the future and what ifs.” Barry handed the bottle to John then took off his own glasses and hooked them through his belt. Hank put his beer down on the tail gate and took a quick belt and his face contorted as the woody flavour did its darndest to shake him alive. Barry needed John to remember this last night and not just store it away as something that happened once and to someone else.
“How’s he gettin’ back?” It was Hanks turn for a drink.
Barry pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and extracted two bus tickets. He handed one to Hank and held the other in both hands, just thinking and hoping this decision was indeed the right one to make.
“What’s this?” Hank held the ticket up, trying to read its writing.
“Bus for the coast comes by around 9AM, that’s your ticket outa here.” Barry reached for the bottle; Hank moved it away from his grasp. “You’ll do better there.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“This is our last time together, guys. We all reached this same point at the time and in a way it is right we all go our own ways. I’m going to the city and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find what I am looking for there.”
“You only bought two tickets?” John stood. “You knew I wouldn’t go all the way.”
In a way he supposed he did know John wouldn’t really come, but in all truth he only bought two tickets so they would all head their separate ways. He had planned on giving John the truck anyway, he’d decided when he drew out the tickets that Hank would do better on the coast and while he didn’t cope well with town life he thought the bigness of a city could be ideal for getting lost in.
“I didn’t think like that, well not originally, but your silence on the way out confirmed my doubts, so things are working out anyway.” He snatched the whisky and before Hank could grab it back he took a swig and swallowed hard, letting it burn all the way down. “I decided to go left,” he said pushing the ticket into his trouser pocket. “The city, the big smoke.”
Silence descended on them, the moon started to paint everything silver and the sweep of the stars across the night looked prettier than Barry had ever seen them, there was freedom in those stars, distance and isolation. They passed the bottle around until there was nothing left but a gentle sway and the need to lie down. All three of them climbed into the back of the truck and lay on the mattress, shoulders pressed tight together, just like they did as kids when they went fishing or toad catching. This was going to be the last time and for the first time since making that drunken grand decision back in town three days ago Barry felt a real sense of sadness. Using a couple of rolled up blankets they shoved them under their heads so they could sip at the last of the beer while looking at the night sky. He wanted to speak, to say how much his friends meant to him and how hard this moment was going to be, how he was really going to miss them in his life, but he couldn’t and knew why.
“The bus for the city comes round 10AM.” Barry sipped the beer and stared at the stars, his stomach lurched a little, as he fought down a sudden urge to sob. “You take the truck back, John; you’ll find I’ve already signed the registration over to you; so there should be no problems.”
“Want me to say anything to your parents?”
“Maybe tell my mom I’ll call once I’ve settled in, Dad will just be angry and shit and not worth talking to.” Barry knew his father would yell at his mother and blame her for everything, but he couldn’t let that make his decisions for him anymore. “Maybe tell her I love her and all.”
“What about you Hank?”
“No one left to matter much about me.” He was right of course, while the town might have had suspicions about his sexuality his parents knew for sure and as far as Barry knew he hadn’t spoken a word to them in the last three years. “You could tell Missy at the hairdressers that Mrs Mannerol doesn’t like it when you call her Manny.”
John fell silent, Barry could hear him mumbling to himself, something he did when the situation was a bit too much for him; like the time they were caught shop lifting from the general store, Barry ran with the story but John just mumbled and played with his fingers. In the silvery light he could see John fidgeting with the beer label. He sighed, yes; it was all a bit much, all a bit real.
“You have to leave come dawn, John.” He nudged his friend with his shoulder. “Hank and I really aren’t coming back with you.”
“I know.”
“John,” Hank said. “I have to tell you, I’m gay. I wanted you to know, no I needed you to know before… before someone in town started off and you got all defensive.”
“So those glasses weren’t a Halloween gimmick?”
Barry laughed, Hank laughed, and then John started laughing as well. “I always thought you were a bit funny.” All three started laughing loudly, an effect of the drink and of the sadness each was trying not to show.
“So, are you okay with that?” Hank sounded a bit more serious while the laughing ebbed.
“No business of mine, but don’t expect a kiss goodbye.” They laughed again.
Through the night they drank the last of the beer and shared the last of their stories, Barry deciding to keep the secret of his father’s brutality to himself, but he felt the others might have understood, they seemed to know stuff without ever really asking or without ever really being told. Like he knew Hank was gay and didn’t mind and how he knew John really wouldn’t go through with the plan and in the end none of it mattered. What did matter is what they would remember was the junction.
END
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