I hurried toward the growing split of light. The passenger side of the camper drew alongside me. I glanced through the broken window. The cab had a matching dust interior. I didn’t look at him. I kept walking. The camper kept rolling next to me.
“I don’t care about the window,” he said. “I would’ve done the same.”
I stayed fixed on the widening light and the safety of the ballpark.
“Are you gonna stop and let me talk to you?” he asked.
“No.” My voice wheezed like an old man’s. I hacked and spat.
“Will you at least tell me where you’re going?”
I figured if I answered maybe he’d stop following me. “I’m gonna wash up and hitchhike.”
He waited for me to finish blowing bran-flake boogers out my nose. “The first part’s a good idea,” he said, “ ’cause right now, you’re almost as black as me.”
I really wanted him to go away. I shot him an ugly look. “At least my dirt comes off.”
His head jerked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nuthin.” I walked around a parked car to get some distance.
The RV swerved around the car and pulled back close. “Okay, lemme guess,” he said with an edge. “I don’t think by ‘dirt’ you’re referring to my skin color. It must mean you think I’m dirty on the inside. That I’m a faggot, a fairy, a fruit, pansy, queer, homo, poofta, cocksucker …”
I stopped. His voice trailed off as the camper kept going. He must have been looking ahead and not at me.
The camper rocked to a stop.
I braced myself. If I saw the door open, I was going to run. It was less than a hundred yards to the ballpark; I could see people moving around.
Something flapped out of the camper’s broken window. A white towel. He was dusting off the outside mirror. The towel sucked back inside; the camper backed up. It drew alongside me.
“Did I leave any out?” he asked. “Any other names you wanna call me?”
I glared at him. My throat clenched. If I was going to hurl again, there was finally something in my stomach to boot: dirt. “Abomination,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Forgot that one. When you drop the faggot bomb you never wanna forget ‘abomination to the Lord.’ ”
It pissed me off that he wasn’t getting mad. He was just taking it. But what else was he going to do? He knew what he was.
He rubbed his hand over his head. “Okay, here’s the deal.”
“There is no deal,” I snapped.
He lifted his hands. “Okay, no deals. How ’bout I just tell you what I’d like to do? I’d like to drive you to the bus station and buy you a ticket to Providence, Utah, home, or wherever you wanna go. Can you trust me enough to do that?”
I stared at him for a sec, then looked away. “Why would you wanna do that?”
“Number one, the ticket’s not gonna bust my bank, and two, it seems like the Christian thing to do.”
He had no reason to be generous. Unless there was something behind it. Unless he’d say anything to get me back in his RV.
“While you’re making up your mind,” he said, “if you’re asking yourself, What would Jesus do? I’ve got the answer.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Christ liked to chill with the scum of the earth, but there’s nothing in the Bible about Him chillin’ with a homo. So whether you decide to let me drive you to the bus station or not has absolutely nuthin to do with ‘What would Jesus do?’ It’s about what you would do.”
I wasn’t sure of my next move. Climbing back into the camper scared me. But I felt he owed me. He owed me for being a liar. He owed me for being so nice and acting like a friend, when, all that time, there was something else behind it.
He leaned toward the open window. “Billy, I’m not asking you to come over to the dark side. I’m only offering you a ride and a bus ticket.”