On The Road (P V): Home Alone with Michael
This is part five in an ongoing series of my life on the road. Other installments can be found on this site.
...My Trooper friend woke up from his nap around noon and found me nude, dozing behind his house. He shook me awake and told me that he had to attend to some errands and offered to run me to the Indiana border, as previously promised.
I was hoping for a little more fun, but it was clear that wasn't going to happen.
I went back into his house, through the kitchen, to his bedroom and found my bag and my clothes. He came in while I was dressing and said, "wish you were local, it would be fun to hook up occasionally." I almost offered that I could stay for a few days, but I wasn't getting the vibe that he was offering that. So, I told him you never know, I might come back through this way. He wrote his first name and phone number down on a piece of paper and said, "please do."
So, within the hour I was standing on I 90, just across the Indiana border. "Be careful," he said, as he lifted my bag out of the trunk and set it down beside me. With that, he was heading West to the next cut out across the median. He waved as he went back east on the other side, about 5 minutes later.
With Willy Nelson's "On The Road Again" playing in my inner ear, I stuck my thumb out and waited for a ride. Three uneventful car rides later and a short ride on a north-bound commuter train from the Loop, I was standing at my friend's apartment in Evanston at about 7:30 p.m.
My friend, Tim, was a sophomore at Northwestern. He lived alone in a studio apartment near campus. It was a small place, but he and I had been friends since grade school. While it had been many years since we shared a bed as kids, it didn't seem like a big deal to share one now. He had a full bed, which was ok since between us we didn't weigh 230 pounds.
Tim did not know that I was bi and I didn't feel the need to share that with him.
We hung out that night—drank some beers and ate a pizza—and reminisced about our "glory days" in high school. He asked about my plans. "Living life," I told him. "Just living life." He shook his head at that. Look, I said, "'Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.' I'm satisfied right now just exploring the world around me."
"Geez," he said, "half the kids at Northwestern can't quote Whitman. Yet, here you are, the most literate hobo around and you wouldn't be caught dead sitting in a college classroom."
"Not true," I replied, "I doubt it's 'half,' more like a quarter." We laughed and left that subject alone.
He had an early class. I slept late. When I awoke, I went outside. There was a coffee shop around the corner, and I went in to get a morning fix and a muffin.
While waiting in line I noticed a bulletin board that had all kinds of notes hanging off it. One caught my eye. It said: "Help Wanted. Multi-State cleaning crew. Must be able to travel and not mind working nights and weekends." There was a number listed. I couldn't tell how long the notice had been posted but I wrote the number down. I had to do something for work and that job sounded fun; I was intrigued.
I ate my muffin and drank my coffee. And eyed all the young guys and girls with bad intent. When I got back to Tim's place, I called the number for the cleaning job and left my name and Tim's number.
The next day I walked up to the Bahai House of Worship, which is right on the edge of Evanston and Wilmette. From there I walked over to Gilson Park, which is east of Sheridan Road and just north of the Bahia Center. I sat on the beach and enjoyed the warm air, slight breeze and the feeling of freedom.
I noticed a guy sitting on a bench about 50 feet away from me. He looked to be about my age, maybe a little younger. I caught him stealing a glimpse at me. That's all the invitation I needed. I got up and walked over to where he was sitting.
He had shoulder length black hair, parted in the middle. His face was pale white and unblemished. He looked up at me with big dark eyes. He was cute, with a thin nose and full lips. Like me, he was skinny.
"Hey," I said, "what are you up to?"
When he didn't respond I turned and started to walk away. "Just sitting here," he mumbled.
I turned around and said, "mind if I sit with you for a bit?"
He didn't say anything. There was plenty of room on the bench, but he eventually scooted over a little and waved at the seat beside him. "O--kay," I thought to myself, not much of a conversationalist.
But I sat down and stared out at the lake beside him. Again, I was just about to get up and walk away when he said: "I like to come here at this time of the day. There's no one around and it's peaceful." I nodded my head and asked, "do you live around here?"
"Yea, a couple of blocks up."
I figured that this "conversation" wasn't going anywhere, so I stood up and said, "Well, have a great day" and started to walk away.
Not for the last time that day he surprised me when he asked: "you must be thirsty if you walked all that way?" I told him I was and then he responded with a new surprise: "want to come back to my house and get some water?"
He was cute but hard to read. I sensed that there was maybe a slight gay vibe but I really didn't think that this would lead to anything, but I was thirsty, so I agreed. He stood up and then we started walking north together. After less than 10 minutes we were standing in front of one of the biggest houses I'd ever seen.
Stupidly I asked him "you live here?" "Yep," he said and then in a flurry of words he said, "I'm a freshman at Northwestern and actually live in a dorm, but my parents are away for the month and I've been staying here; it's been nice not being in the dorm."
He told me that he was the youngest of three kids but that he was a lot younger than his older brother and sister. They were both married and living elsewhere. His parents were retired and traveled a lot, so he often got this big house to himself.
"Cool," I said. He nodded his head but then mumbled that sometimes it gets a little lonesome.
So, we proceeded up the front walk and up five steps. A massive front porch stretched from one side of the house to the other. A huge wooden door with a big glass window sat in the middle. He opened the door (it hadn't been locked) and we went inside. I followed him down a long hall to a big kitchen. It was cool inside.
He retrieved two glasses and poured us each a glass of water, handed me one and then walked out a door onto a back porch. We sat in two chairs. Spread out in front of us was a long, green, well-trimmed lawn that stretched to a white sand beach. The Lake then spread out big and dark blue from the beach.
He told me his name was Michaeal—Mike for short. He asked me where I was from, and I told him that I'd come out from the Boston area. He was fascinated that I had hitchhiked all that way. I told him all about my trip—leaving out any mention of Val, Seth or the gorgeous Ohio State Trooper. He kept looking at me like I was some stranger from a strange land.
He slowly became a little more talkative. He asked me about where I was staying. I told him about Tim's place, noting it was small but temporary.
He opened up a bit. He was clearly shy, but his shyness faded as we talked. It was getting late in the day. And I figured I'd better start back. I told him that. He looked sad and said, "I was hoping you might want to hang out for a while. We could get a pizza or subs or something from a place in town. I can always drive you down to Evanston later."
Another surprise: this was a pretty far cry from the kid who barely spoke to me when we first met. But I thought about it. I didn't really have any place to be and how often do you get to sit on a porch at the back of a Wilmette mansion staring at Lake Michigan. "Sure," I said.
We ordered a pizza and ate it out on the back porch. We talked about all kinds of things. Mike was clearly a pretty well-educated kid. We'd read a lot of the same books. We got into a pretty animated debate about capitalism and individualism and the real reason why critics hated "Atlas Shrugged." Once he got going, it was hard to get him to stop. Another surprise.
While the verbal discourse was fun it was not lost on me that Mike was a seriously cute guy. And I couldn't help glancing down at his crotch, imagining what might be hiding behind that zipper. He caught me looking and each time he caught me he gave me a shy smile. I caught him looking too, but I could not move the conversation to sex.
I stood up and stretched and told him I should probably be thinking about getting back to Evanston. He once again looked sad and didn't say anything. After a few seconds he said, "I've got all kinds of space here. Why not spend the night? I can run you back tomorrow when I go to my first class."
That sounded fine to me. So, I called Tim's phone and left a message on his answering machine telling him I wouldn't be back that night.