Chapter Text
PART I
Burnt rubber screeched through the woods.
Frank stood on the weeds, staring toward the shadowed curve where the motorbike had vanished.
Only moments ago, the rider had shot past, interrupting Frank’s morning run: the blurry side profile of a middle aged man showing off his ride and his sense of liberation to a small town hick. A sense of liberation amplified by a helmet strapped uselessly to the back of the bike.
The engine’s roar had wrenched Frank from his runner’s high. The metronomic scrape of his sneakers coming to an abrupt stop in fear of being run over by the local vandal again.
The growl of the engine still hung in the stagnant air alongside Frank’s whispered, 'fucking asshole.'
The rider, an out-of-towner for sure, was lost to him now.
Frank exhaled heavily and cut across the field, resuming his run.
He lived on the outskirts of town where the woods dominated the landscape in shades of rotten green and brown. Overgrown acreage and off-road trails separated his trailer from his only neighbour. It was quiet and secluded here. Nothing and no one in the vicinity except for the odd stray cat and the mangled, chewed-up birds they left on the pavement.
By the time Frank reached the last stretch to his mobile home, his shirt, heavy from sweat and the humidity, clung to his spine like a parasite.
The trailer was a long tin can propped above ground by a short tower of bricks, and held together by splintering boards and eroded nails. Rust and dirty roof water streaking down the aluminium walls looked like blood stains from a deep claw wound.
Frank had given up on painting over it; the bleeding never stopped, and he couldn’t afford the cure anyway. It wasn’t as if he had frequent visitors who cared.
He unlatched the gate which squealed louder than a pig in an abattoir, and jogged through knee-high grass, kicking up black clouds of fat, lazy flies. He climbed the wooden ramp which formed the roof to an ecosystem of insects and used his shoulder to ram into the front door repeatedly until it opened.
He scrambled his last egg with Crisco vegetable shortening, then ate breakfast standing up, bare-chested now, having discarded his wet shirt on a mountain of dirty clothes.
Frank looked out the kitchen window, yellowed from dust and curtained by cobwebs - the spiders had left long ago - and gazed at the Loblolly pines that formed a dense barricade around the mobile home.
A bead of sweat escaped his hairline, rolling down the planes of his back.
Somewhere in the dark corners of the trailer, something metallic groaned, begging for maintenance.
—
The painted storefront name Langdon’s Shoe Repairs had lost the battle against the elements years ago. A physical manifestation of the slow erosion of one’s family legacy.
A wall-mounted fan with coloured streamers tied to its mesh whirred weakly against the trapped humidity inside. It did not cool the room but stirred a heavy miasma of cedar, industrial glue and cured leather.
Sweat dripped onto the floorboards as Frank stood over the stand, resoling Pete Anderson’s only pair of leather boots. Pete had worn them past the heel pads until it ate into the block, and only now did he deem it necessary to come in for a repair. As if the blisters and plantar fasciitis hadn’t been announcing the news for months.
Frank wiped his brow with his shoulder and punched the fan’s highest setting. With a surgeon's precision, he used his thumb to push the skiving knife into the old sole, separating the worn material from the canvas. The blade slid through the leather like it was slicing soft skin. He met his first perpendicular cut perfectly and used pliers to peel the flap open in one clean motion.
Straightening his back to relieve a cramp, Frank looked past the rack of upside-down shoes hanging at the reception desk and out the storefront window.
The biker stood across the street, warped by the heat haze.
The man had stopped before Saunders’ Garage only to find the metal doors bolted and the lights off. He stood with his arms crossed, staring at the dark glass as if he could conjure the mechanic through sheer will.
No doubt he had been en route to another grander, more picturesque destination than Murdoch’s Halt, South Carolina. Most people were.
This town was nothing more than a driver’s reluctant pitstop for a passenger’s piss break.
Frank wondered what had happened to the bike. He returned to his workstation, but his eyes kept drifting to the window. The stranger was holding his phone up, then side to side, hunting for a signal.
Frank was about to activate the sander when the shop door opened. There was no need for an entrance bell; the biker’s heavy tread creaking the floorboards announced him loud and clear.
Frank emerged from the dank shadows of the back office. His worn, green apron, catching on the tools and shoe trees jutting out from the wall-lined shelves.
He could get a better look at the biker now, backlit by the window, and illuminated by the single strip of fluorescents overhead. A sickly green downlight that usually darkened grey undereyes and deepened wrinkles, did not affect the formidable man before him.
The biker with his short brown hair and groomed beard, lightly peppered, was in his fifties at least. Taller and broader than Frank, and carrying a presence that suggested he was used to being listened to. A natural authority figure on and off the clock. The man’s dark brown eyes, while warm, were almost black, looking back at Frank with dare he say, a paternalistic, academic intelligence rare in these parts.
The heat had forced him to shed his navy blue zip hoodie, the yellow and black logo of which was scrunched into something undecipherable by the tying of the arms around his waist. Frank glanced at the flicker of gold that caught light. A Star of David necklace, framed by the sweat-stained collar of the brown shirt and dangling before a wide, perspiring chest.
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the garage.
‘I hope it’s not closed permanently.’
No southern accent.
‘Mechanic’s on a holiday until Monday,’ Frank replied.
The biker let out a cynical laugh, shaking his head.
‘Monday? Just my fucking luck.’ He surveyed the shop from the shelves of worn soles to the collection of brushes, soaps and tins of polish for sale on the counter. ‘Do you have a phone? My cell has zero bars out here.’
Frank pushed his damp hair out of his eyes. ‘Landline’s down. Lightning hit the pole last night.’
The man crossed his arms.
‘Welcome to Murdoch’s Halt,’ Frank added, reining in his amusement.
He caught a flicker of a different side to the man. A frustrated and sterner side. All hard edges and no nonsense - a contrast to the wild bastard, who had nearly run him down earlier.
Frank sized him up: divorced. Absent father. Midlife crisis. Here was a guy whose ex-wife discovered she had married a man who was already married to adventure, the mistress being the Great American Roadtrip. A C-suite executive, who joined his boys’ club of financial analysts for beer in a city pub, playing at being a nomad.
Frank promised himself a glass of his rationed scotch if the man uttered the words ‘soul searching trip.’
‘The roads here are more pothole than asphalt,’ the man said.
Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you want me to do about that.’
The biker scratched his beard, looking at the ceiling as if asking God whether this was all some cruel joke. His frustration, having boiled over before, was held back and controlled now, compartmentalised somewhere within.
‘In the middle of Bumfuck, South Carolina,’ he muttered.
Frank looked at his own stained fingers, rubbing a dirty knuckle absentmindedly. He frowned.
‘Monday, you say?’
Frank nodded.
‘Is there a motel here?’
‘On Palmetto. Turn right, walk down until you see a house with the galvanised bathtub on the front lawn, then left.’
The man let out a quiet, tired chuckle at galvanised bathtub. Frank watched on and felt a sudden hyper awareness of the grime and disarray of his store.
‘Is it too much to hope for air conditioning?’
‘There’s an ice box.’
‘Right. Thanks,’ the man said. He exited, wheeling his motorbike in the direction of Palmetto Road.
He looked back once, catching and holding Frank’s gaze for a palpable second too long, before disappearing around the corner.
Frank straightened the Company Policy Requires Payment In Advance poster on the counter, and tidied a few other bits of scrap leather, wondering where the hell this self consciousness had come from.
—
By four pm, the air in Murdoch’s Halt didn’t just sit like still water, it smothered. The humidity had reached an unbearable thickness, worse in Frank’s small shop and he knew, in his tin can of a home later tonight. Breathing there would feel like inhaling the warm, mouldy cleaning cloth he hung over the kitchen sink.
‘Did you see the city slicker?’
The ticket exchanged hands between Frank and Mr Miller, followed by a box of repaired Wingtips sliding across the counter.
‘He swung by asking for information,’ Frank replied, leaning his forearms against the edge of the desk.
‘What did you make of the guy?’
A new face was always the talk of the town. It was a thrice-a-year occurrence, and the folks of Murdoch’s Halt flocked to a fresh presence like birds to scattered bread.
The biker didn’t seem like a city slicker. Sure, he was every part the city man, but he carried a certain ruggedness that suggested he knew his way around the great outdoors, someone who could drive down miles of empty road at midnight without any fear of black dogs.
Frank shrugged.
‘He seemed full of himself.’
Mr Miller lifted a brow, his whiskered face splitting into a jesting smile. ‘Full of himself? Coming from you?’
Frank rolled his eyes. ‘At least I don’t chase folks down on a Bonneville.’
‘You do, son, in your own way, running laps around this town until your legs give out. I’ve been clipped by your elbows before.’
Mr Miller rapped his knuckles twice on the counter, bidding farewell. He turned towards the door, but paused when the framed picture on the wall caught his eye.
Frank followed his gaze, his jaw clenching. He drove his thumbnail into his palm to cope with the rising tightness in his chest. He’d kept the photo up as a form of exposure therapy, but seven years after the accident, he still felt sick whenever someone noticed it. He much preferred the whispers behind his back rather than the pity to his face
‘You look a lot like him nowadays,’ Mr Miller said softly. ‘Both of them.’
Frank nodded. He had no breath for words.
‘Take it easy, Frank. Put your faith in the Lord, He’ll guide you right. See you on Sunday for service.’
Mr Miller exited, beaming like sunlight after imparting evangelical words of wisdom to the town’s “Golden Boy.” A title Frank had inherited but desperately wanted to abdicate. What he wouldn’t give to return the status to its rightful heir.
Frank didn’t have the heart to tell Mr Miller, or any of the one hundred and twelve residents that called Murdoch’s Halt home, that he didn’t believe in God. Not since he was a child, and certainly not after the crash. He attended church on Sundays and sat in the front pew, directly before the Reverend, not to receive the Holy Spirit, but to act as his mother’s rock and walking stick.
When the congregation spoke of a 'better place' and the coveted right hand side of God where they surely must be, Frank thought of the cold stages of decomposition: the breakdown of carbohydrates, autolysis and bacterial action, and two skeletal frames picked clean, resting at the bottom of their respective coffins, boxed in from all sides by layers upon layers of South Carolina dirt and detritus.
Frank stood for a long time, staring out the window at Saunders’ Garage. If he squinted he could see the track marks the motorbike had left in the dirt. An image appeared in his mind on its own accord: Frank, legs spread over that powerful engine, feeling the rumble in his groin as he blew past the Now Leaving Murdoch’s Halt sign. The sunset behind him, and the city before him.
The guilt he felt was a physical blow. He swatted the image away like a fly.
Frank was fine here. He needed to be.
Behind him, Pete Anderson’s boots lay stripped, waiting to be stitched back together with new leather.
—
Since it was Saturday, Frank cycled over to the grocery store after work to stock up for the week.
Palmetto Road Gro. was a block of sun-bleached concrete and peeling forest-green paint, half shaded by the arms of a dying Oak Tree. Rusted metal signage nailed to the awning announced Gas, Ice, Lunch and Groceries to anyone pulling off the dirt driveway. A convenient trap for the rare stopover and tourist.
In spite of himself, knowing he wouldn’t see anything save for the vacancy sign and the office, Frank glanced towards the motel across the road. He spotted the motorbike, sitting idle in the rectangular lot. It looked wounded, seared hot from the sun - the front tire bulging from an air bubble and seemingly melting into the concrete. The owner was nowhere to be seen, probably holed up in the privacy of Room Six. Hopefully air-conditioned for his sake.
Frank stepped inside the store, nodding to Mr Trumbo. Alan, tanned and leathered, was behind the counter, sweating buckets through his wife-beater, and nursing a lukewarm bottle of Cheerwine. Johnny Cash rattled somewhere from tinny, distorted speakers.
‘Jesus, Alan, the shop’s sad enough as it is,’ Frank said, navigating the narrow aisles. He didn’t bother with a basket, cradling a carton of eggs and a bag of sugar in his arms.
‘You’re not too old to get whacked, boy.’ Alan watched him over his bulbous, big pored nose. ‘You drop those eggs, you buy ‘em.’
Frank grabbed a load of bread and a few peaches before heading to the fridge. He tilted aside the sodas and milk cartons to look at the back. The air from the cooler hit him, smelling of old ice, meats and garlic.
‘Any Red Bulls come in from that wholesaler yet?’ Frank asked.
‘Do you see any in that ice box?’
‘No.’
Alan Trumbo lifted a hand, a gesture for a stupid question.
Frank sighed, paid the man, and stepped back out into the punishing glare of the sun. He stuffed the groceries into his backpack and swung a leg over his bicycle, pausing before pushing off.
Across the street, the biker emerged from his room. He was heading towards the tiny diner attached to the motel, one hand shoved in the pocket of his jeans, the other raising his phone towards the sky in continuous search of a signal. Black sunglasses shielded his eyes, and his earphones were jammed in tight, sealing him off from the reality of Murdoch’s Halt.
Frank caught himself staring at the man’s back, at the dark valley of sweat that had formed between his shoulder blades.
The diner’s swinging doors cut his trance short.
Frank shoved off on his bicycle, pedalling to his mother’s house situated in the residential part of town, ten minutes from Main Street. He missed the piece-of-shit car he had sold for cash the longer the sun beat him into a raw pulp.
__
It always took three deep, shaky breaths for Frank to cross the threshold of the family home.
As usual, the curtains were drawn shut, the thin material fluttering in the stale air stirred by a rotating ceiling fan. Its rhythmic dull clack like the hands of a clock.
‘Frank?’
His mother’s voice drifted from the living room. He entered with his backpack to find her on the couch, looking up at him with a warm sleepy smile. Her grey hair was cut short just below her ears for easy maintenance and her necklace, a silver cross, was pressed against her sternum, held there by sweat.
Frank moved through the house with frantic efficiency, packing away the groceries into the fridge, the pantry and the medicine cabinet. His mother’s eyes never left him, tracking his fast movements as if fearing he might disappear into thin air if she looked away for a second.
She peeled herself off the sticky upholstery and shuffled into the kitchen. While Frank tied up the trash to take it outside, she pulled two glasses from the cabinet and poured them each a serving of iced tea.
He was moving too fast today. Speedwalking around the house and the garden, trying to complete the chores before sundown. But the drink pressed into his hot hands, and the weight of his mother’s brown eyes slowed him down. By the time he took his first sip, the ice cubes had melted into the size of baby teeth.
It was hard to be present in this house, the memories were a physical weight. It was why he had bought the mobile home off the beaten track. A move made with a heavy heart but a necessary one for the sake of his sanity.
As difficult as it was to leave his mother in her condition, it was harder to walk past the hallway where the height notations of two boys were still etched into the wall. Not to mention the cardboard box, tucked away in the shadows of his old room, filled with the medical textbooks he once pored over diligently.
‘Abigail called today,’ his mother said.
Frank stared at the rim of his glass, watching a bead of tea roll down the side.
‘She asked about me. About you.’
‘How is she?’
‘She’s well.’ His mother hesitated, weighing whether or not to share more. ‘She gave birth to twins last week. A boy and girl.’
Maybe in another life Abigail never left Murdoch’s Halt when she did, and he was a hotshot city doctor, married to her with two kids of his own. That life belonged to a different man. It was easier to say that the handsome marketing executive she had met in Washington DC was the better choice. It was the truth anyway.
‘You should open the windows and get some air in here. It’d be good for you, Mom.’
‘The flies’ll get in.’
‘The flies elbow their way in here regardless.’
He watched one land on the coffee table, bathing itself in a drying ring of sweet tea.
‘Are you eating enough, Frank?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he replied with an affectionate finality in his voice, putting an end to what would be a barrage of well meaning but interrogative questions about his health.
Frank knew he wasn’t taking care of himself as well as he should be, and wasn't eating enough to compensate for the miles he ran daily.
She reached out with a shaky, pale hand, brushing his sweaty fringe away from his forehead.
In his youth, Frank would have recoiled, cringing and complaining, eager to escape his mother’s suffocating embrace while his father’s laughter filled the room and his older brother captured the drama on their camcorder. Usually at Christmas.
But now, he leaned into her, needing the contact more than he dared admit.
They sat in silence after that, nursing their teas, until the glasses grew warm in their hands.
Outside, in the darkening woods, the cicadas screamed their deafening songs.
—
Frank hadn’t planned on spending his Saturday night at Neil’s, hunched over the sticky counter, tracing the condensation on a beer bottle. He was trying to quit drinking. Trying.
His thoughts were blurry, vague things. The tails of daydream he chased but could never fully grasp. The alcohol kept his mind moving in erratic circles, a chaos he amplified by humming along to the jukebox.
So far gone in the recesses of his own head that he didn’t notice the swinging doors or the thud of heavy footsteps crossing the floorboards.
The heads of the regulars tracked this newcomer like hawks as he claimed a private booth, sinking into the maroon cushion.
It wasn’t until the bar owner cleared his throat and jerked his thick chin towards the back that Frank realised the biker was sitting right behind him. Frank overestimated his stealth, believing he could spy on the man through the spotted panoramic mirror, but their eyes locked immediately.
Frank swivelled on his stool. The biker lifted a hand in slow, casual acknowledgment.
‘I have a sneaking suspicion we got off on the wrong foot,’ the biker said. His voice was a natural rasp, carrying over the floors stained black by decades of spilled bourbon.
‘What makes you say that?’ Frank asked.
‘Just a gut instinct.’
The alcohol encouraged a flicker of cheek in Frank.
‘Do you make it a habit of running people off the road?’
The biker’s mouth quirked. ‘I thought that was you. The jogger from this morning.’
‘Did your tire blow out?’
‘Nearly. Though you would’ve liked to witness me skidding across the ground after the stunt I pulled, wouldn’t you?’
Frank matched the smile. ‘I’m not going to answer that.’
After some hesitation, Frank gestured to the empty space, asking for permission to join him. The man lifted both hands: by all means.
Frank slid into the booth, placing his beer on a soggy coaster.
‘I’m Michael Robinavitch. But everyone calls me Robby.’
‘Frank Langdon.’
They shook hands. A solid, lingering grip. Frank noted the rugged field watch, a gold Seiko, wrapped around his sun-kissed, freckled wrist. No ring. No pale tan line where a ring used to be.
‘Not a fan of helmets?’ Frank asked.
‘Caught me red-handed.’ Robby leaned in conspiratorially, slotting their knees together by accident. ‘Don’t tell the charge nurse I work with. She’d talk my ear off.’
‘You work in an ER?’
Robby clasped his hands on the table then pulled them apart with a sigh. It seemed his plan of remaining incognito had been bungled by his own tongue.
‘I’m a doctor.’
Frank bit back his own confession. He almost let slip that he’d studied to be a doctor, full ride to U of SC, top of his clerkship rotations, passed his USMLEs with flying colours, matched with his residency of choice in Emergency Medicine at Keck. But the question which would naturally be posed - why his dreams, three months before turning to fruition, had faded to dust - would be impossible and painful to lay out before a stranger. Especially one who seemed to protect his own secrets with padlocks and heavy duty chains.
Frank kept his mouth shut, keeping his identity tied to morning runs and that shoe shop.
‘I’m guessing Bumfuck, South Carolina was not your holiday destination, Doctor Robby.’ The name rolled off Frank’s tongue.
Robby smiled and turned a faint shade of red - a boyish flush Frank didn’t think was possible to creep into his cheeks.
‘Pittsburgh. I’m coming up from Jacksonville. Headed home.’
Frank lifted his brow. ‘That’s a long way to be alone.’
‘Needed the alone time.’
‘Searching for your lost soul?’
Frank looked into those brown eyes, and he could tell by the small shiver of the man’s pupils, darting left then right, that he too was diving deep into his baby blues. Under the warm glow of the wall sconce, the playful banter was replaced by something introspective and heavy.
‘You could say that.’
Their knees were still pressed together. Neither of them moved away despite the growing heat exchanged through their jeans. It didn’t feel like a challenge nor some toxic display of masculine stubbornness. But a tether.
‘Do you want another?’ Robby asked, nodding toward Frank’s empty bottle. The movement brought his face an inch closer.
‘Yeah. That’d be great thanks.’
The booth exhaled when Robby slid out to head for the bar. Frank swallowed, a clicking sound in his dry throat. He reached for his beer needing something to do with his hands.
A single drop rolled down the side of the bottle and landed on his tongue.
He’d forgotten it was empty.
—
They shared a mountain of wings, fries and deep-fried sides.
Scrunched napkins stained with orange sauce, empty bottles of beer, and a scattering of fallen salt turned the table into a war zone.
Frank hadn’t realised how hungry he was until hot, spicy wings were placed under his nose and he watched Robby dip a handful of scalding fries into a tub of Sweet Baby Ray’s.
The Saturday night regulars spread throughout the bar had given up on getting to know the tourist. Frank and Robby were wrapped in their own world, bodies angled inwards, bantering the night away. This warm dome of sudden kinship, perhaps only felt by Frank himself, was impenetrable by outside forces.
After a while, he felt at ease talking to Robby. No longer reaching for his fourth beer for a sip or playing with the wet, peeling sticker to keep his fingers occupied.
Robby’s smile from a story or laugh from Frank’s quick witted retort would be documented and filed away in the cabinets of his mind.
As the night progressed, he found a dangerous desire taking root - a need to impress Robby, to prove he was more than this cobbler from Murdoch’s Halt. That Frank, no longer young at age thirty three, had potential to be more. When he managed to coax out high-stakes stories of the hospital where Robby worked, endearingly called ‘The Pitt,’ Frank imagined himself working alongside him. Saving lives. Making a difference with his hands. What he had envisioned himself doing before everything broke down.
‘What’s a bright man like you doing in a town like this?’
Robby’s question, a slap back to reality, pulled the brakes on the runaway train of Frank’s imagination. His jaw clicked.
‘I was born and raised here.’
‘And you never thought to leave?’ Robby chuckled and scanned the bar at the other customers - bloated, red and weatherbeaten. ‘You just strike me as the type who wouldn’t settle for less.’
Frank’s smile vanished. He worked hard to get it back. A question he asked himself daily and had no problems answering when brushing his teeth or taking out the trash, felt horrifyingly different when posed by an impartial stranger. Especially in the nonchalant, off-hand way it had been asked. Tipsiness had made Robby ignorant of his flippancy.
‘Listen, I gotta hit the head real quick,’ Frank said.
Robby, surprised by the sudden announcement, nodded.
Frank retreated into the acrid, dark privacy of the men’s room. He braced one hand against the wall, closed his eyes and felt his pulse thundering in his neck. He was furious with himself, with his body’s inability to tell the difference between a harmless question and a predator running towards him at full speed.
‘Fuck.’
He zipped his jeans and washed his hands, splashing cold water on his face. The bathroom offered no soap. No towels. No hand drier. Why was he suddenly pissed at the lack of upkeep he’d ignored for so long?
By the time Frank walked back out, the table was cleared and wiped down. Robby looked ready to leave.
The night was over.
They walked together to the motel.
The light attached to the front of Frank’s bicycle provided decent illumination as he wheeled it down Palmetto Road beside Robby. Their hips brushing every few steps.
‘Thanks for shelling out for everything,’ Frank said.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Robby replied, hands deep in his pockets.
‘Can I shout you a few drinks to make up for it?’
‘Are you asking me on another date?’
Frank looked away, his heart skipping a beat.
‘Hey, I’m just pulling your leg. If you’re not sick of me, I’ll be here until Monday anyway.’
‘I can get Mr Miller to drive you to the nearest AutoCare after church tomorrow,’ Frank offered. ‘It’s forty five minutes away. You’ll just have to put up with his love of Christian rock.’
It was Robby’s turn to pause. The plan was sound and the offer a literal exit ramp. He’d be well on his way to Pittsburgh by nightfall - this inconsequential town becoming a speck in his side mirrors faster than a finger snap.
‘I’ll wait until Monday,’ Robby said, surprising them both. ‘I don’t know why but this podunk town is starting to warm up to me. Maybe I’ll check out all your local haunts. Chalk it up to a scenic detour.’
The gravel crunched beneath their shoes, a rough, rhythmic sound that filled the silence where their companionable conversation had faded. They entered the driveway of the motel and crossed the small concrete lot to room six.
To the right, the interior lights of the sparsely stocked vending machine cast a pale, blue hue across Robby’s face. He looked tired now, the day finally catching up to him.
Robby pulled out his key, the black tag worn and ragged at the edges, looking like it had been chewed by the dog of the previous guest.
‘Listen…’ Robby began, thumbing the ridges of the tag. ‘Back there at the bar. If I had caused offence…'
‘Don’t worry about it. I was just–’ Frank scratched his brow. ‘You didn’t.’
Robby reached out.
When the hand landed on Frank’s shoulder, the palm covering the entire expanse of his muscle, the world tilted on its axis. The shadows of the lot swallowed everything else, leaving only Robby, lit in neon blue, the only thing in focus.
Frank felt a thumb graze against the tendon of his neck - was it an accident? Intentional? A promise? He was left standing breathless when the hand was pulled away, having finished saying what words couldn’t.
The door opened ajar with a protesting groan, revealing the silhouette of a bed and a duffel bag in the shadows. Robby stepped inside, enough to clear the threshold but not enough to close it in Frank’s face. The wall of humid air trapped inside room six carried promises neither men knew how to accept.
Frank felt the magnetic pull, glancing between Robby and the corner of the bed. He risked dropping his gaze to Robby’s lips then flicked back to his eyes, a rapid movement of desire that he didn’t quite hide in time.
Sweat rolled down the sinewy muscles of his neck, drenching the collar of his shirt.
The invitation was right there, ostensibly on the tip of Robby’s tongue, and it scared Frank how readily he’d accept it in a heartbeat if it was true. But one glance at the motel owner’s house, situated on a hill with its large windows overlooking the lot like a judge’s bench, crushed such a desire.
In the end, Frank stepped back with his bicycle, the whirring wheels loud in the dusk.
‘Well.’
‘Well,’ Robby echoed
‘Maybe I’ll see you around town.’
‘Maybe.’ Robby leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. ‘Have a good night, Langdon.’
‘Night, Doctor.’
He was rewarded with Robby’s smile. The last one of the night.
They turned away simultaneously - one man hopping onto his bicycle, the other closing the motel door with a soft, final click.
—
The air was still heavy, an oppressive force Frank worked hard to push his bicycle through. Lifting his gaze heavenwards, he saw dark clouds marching towards Murdoch’s Halt. A physical ceiling, slowly lowering until the hot wind carried the earthy smell of incoming rain.
Frank passed long lengths of wild country and its never ending, unbreakable perimeter of dense trees that lined every road, every Kudzu strangled ditch.
He shifted gears, the chain clanking loudly in the silence that was the edge of town. His mind, buzzing before, was hollow now.
Frank arrived at his mobile home five minutes past midnight. He didn’t bother with the lights, stumbling into the bathroom for a hot shower.
Above him, the ceiling of the stall was an expanding forest of black mould, exacerbated by the weak ventilation that made it impossible to breathe.
At half past twelve, Frank collapsed into bed, twisting and writhing in his sheets, the shower becoming a wasted effort now that his skin was slick again with a fine sheen of sweat.
He stripped naked, kicking his boxers to the edge of the bed to wrestle with the humidity. Sleep. He wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep. But his alcohol-tinted mind, moving in and out of consciousness, forged half-dreams of Robby, leaning against the doorframe of Motel Room Six, his shirt clinging to his muscled chest and pulled taut by his crossed arms. The blue light of the vending machine carving out the strength in his biceps and the unwavering weight of his gaze.
All of this emphasised the easy confidence of a man who knew the kind of gravity he commanded. Who knew he held the power to impress upon impressionable people.
Then there was the touch. The hot, heavy palm squeezing Frank’s shoulder, calloused fingers felt through the thin fabric of his shirt. The heat of the room seemed to concentrate there, then sink lower, pooling into a desperate, throbbing ache between his legs.
He rolled onto his stomach, rubbing his hard-on against the rough sheets. The friction was a dry and exquisite catalyst for bad decisions.
Frank, half awake, slipped a hand down his stomach, moaning. Raspy breaths left his parted, sweat-beaded lips, as he worked himself with a languid, sloppy rhythm.
The muscles of his toned back rippled in the dim light as he bucked into his fist, lying on his side. Every nerve ending fired towards an album of images: extreme close ups of Robby’s hands, Robby’s back, Robby’s lips. On him.
When Frank climaxed, it was a brutal, violent release, a brief escape from the heat.
He lay sprawled and spent, his hips twitching against the mattress as the ceiling pinwheeled overhead in a slow, sickening rotation.
Frank was feverish and open, stripped of his defenses by exhaustion and the desperate, intrusive thought that the hand which had just pleasured him wasn’t his own, but belonged to another.
In the pregnant silence that followed, the enigmatic doctor from Pittsburgh didn’t feel like a traveller anymore. To Frank, he was something ancient, a devil met at a South Carolina crossroads, offering a deal.
His omen and his messiah.