The Road on

If I’d have known I wanted to fuck Kimball, I wouldn’t have taken this trip with him. But here I am, the crack of dawn at a roadside eateria on the outskirts of Manaus, Brazil, stunned awake from an uncomfortable sleep on concrete patio, my only pair of pants heavy-wet in the crotch, Kimball snoring, now stirring awake just a few feet away. “Hey, Tuck,” I hear him say as I roll my back to him, grab up my bookbag which I was using as a pillow, and beeline toward the banheiro. The woman who runs the place and let us crash here is already up and sweeping out back. I slide by as though nothing is out of the ordinary, smile—“Bom dia”—trying hard to maintain eye contact so that her own don’t slip down to the amoeba-shaped discoloration staining the crotch of my khakis.

In the bathroom, I stand before the sink wearing only the three layers of shirts I’d put on to protect me from the jungle night chill, wash and rinse myself, wash and rinse the vague memory of the dream: six-foot-two, two hundred pound Kimball in a black teddy, riding me, grinding—the dream mercifully fading as my awake self finally fully overtakes my half-sleeping one. I let the image of it go but can’t shake the guilty good feeling, wondering what it can mean, and why a man, and, of all men, why Kim. I wash the stain clean off my pants, hands cramping as I wring and wring the cloth, hoping this will make them dry faster. I push them to the bottom of my bag (the only pair I’ve brought—I can’t help but hope this was a one time thing) and put on my shorts. Although I only have four pair of underwear for the entire trip, I rip this pair and chuck them out the window into the brush below. In a country like this, it feels particularly wasteful.

When I emerge back around front, Kim is brushing his teeth without water. A cream of white toothpaste corrupts his mouth. “Tuck,” he says, “so what do we do?”

“We got to get out of Brazil,” I say.

“But how? The highway’s closed. The road on leads nowhere.”

Highway? Two lanes of potholed blacktop, no shoulder, just red dirt become lush scrub brush become dense trees. There is only one road in and out of Manaus to the north. This is it.

We’ve stood here for nearly twenty-four hours. Our goal: hitching out of the rain forest, toward Venezuela and beyond, eventually to back home. Few vehicles passed, none of them stopped. It was the matrona of the eateria, a broom in one hand, night fallen as though someone had hit a switch, who finally clued us in. “The Boa Vista Highway,” she said, “it doesn’t arrive in Boa Vista.” When I asked where it led, she said, “Nowhere. It is under construction.”

“Let’s hitch back into the city,” I say now, “see what other options there might be.” Kimball is pretty, apple pie and blue eyes. To most Brazilians, I look like native: brown complected black man, tight knot of afro and a squat build, well worn clothes. When they finally realize that Kimball and I are together and that I, like him, am American, not just his Man-Friday, they get a kick out of it, tell me I look like Mike Tyson. They smile and make a gnawing motion with their teeth.

A battered Nissan takes Kimball and me back into town, drops us near the docks. We have hardly spoken the length of the ride. As we climb out of the rear of the pickup, waving thanks to the driver, we both spot a line of riverboats being loaded with cargo. Our solution. It turns out that one, providentially, is scheduled to leave this very evening, headed north to Boa Vista—our destination also.

We ask about tickets. First, second or third class, we’re asked in reply.

The boat...