Kaleidoscopic

Chapter 12

The stop-and-go lights changed to green and Danny released the brakes, letting the October breeze wisp through his open windows.

"Where do you live?"

"Oasis Springs," Jackson said, pinching his nose. "On Elmhurst Road."

"The trailer park?" Danny asked. "What the hell are you doing over here?"

"Getting cigarettes," Jackson answered, blood still gushing from his nose.

Danny wasn't too inclined to believe Jackson's weak excuse. There were dozens of places near Elmhurst Road that sold cigarettes, but Danny chose not to ask questions.

Jackson groaned in pain and wilted into his hands.

Danny reached over and pushed back Jackson's forehead. "Keep your fucking head tilted," he instructed, forcing Jackson to look up.

"I can feel the blood dripping down my throat," he complained, sounding nasally.

Danny rolled his eyes, thinking Jackson sounded as irritating as his baby brother.

"I think I have some rags in my glove compartment," Danny told him. "Might help soak up some of the blood."

Jackson leaned forward and shuffled through random items. There were a few mixtapes, a bag of bottle caps, a wad of dollars clipped to a Sharpie, and a Polaroid camera. The redhead didn't see any type of cloth, so he moved aside the camera to look deeper. In the back, there was a thin stack of photos on top of a pile of dirty rags. He grabbed the stack and a rag before he closed the compartment.

"So why're you out so late?" Jackson asked, applying the cloth to his bleeding nose. "Were you trick-or-treating?"

Danny kept his eyes on the dark road. "You caught me," he sarcastically flatlined.

Jackson tisked his tongue. "Too old to trick-or-treat, but not old enough to become a ghost," he trilled. "Makes Halloween kind of boring, don't you think?"

Danny shrugged, gripping the steering wheel tighter as the asphalt road turned into a path of gravel. He had lived in Des Plaines his whole life, but he'd never driven down the windy backroads.

"Watch out for deer on this road," Jackson informed him, silently flipping through the photos. "They like to come out of the woods after dusk."

The moon was making up for Danny's cheap headlights, bleaching their route with a silvery-white glimmer. The cool-toned light made everything look like it was in shades of grey. The reddened, autumn-kissed leaves were washed with a daze of twilight, making them look like fronds of ash hanging from gangly branches. There wasn't even strips of yellow lines dashing along the left side of Danny's car, only bland gravel. Danny thought the drive was way too long to look at trees and gravel the whole time.

"You take this long drive to school every morning?"

"No," Jackson replied. "I skateboard. The rocks get stuck in my wheels so I take the highway."

"You skateboard to school?"

"I skateboard everywhere. I don't have a car," Jackson replied, nonchalant. His words explained why Danny had never seen him at the auto shop. "Can we stop at McDonald's?"

"What? Are you kidding?" Danny wondered, hitting a big bump. "I just saved your ass, and now you want me to take you to McDonald's?"

The redhead was still looking at the photos from Danny's glove compartment as Danny eyed the road obliviously.

Jackson shrugged. "There's never a bad time for fries."

Danny considered the notion, and responded with, "The Irish Potato Famine was a bad time for fries."

Evan had mentioned the historical event once. The preppy boy liked to talk about history a lot. And science. And every other school subject. Danny had never minded listening because he liked the way Evan talked, the way he said things. He always sounded like he had the world figured out. Danny missed that – missed Evan.

"My stomach is currently having a french fry famine," Jackson stated.

"Yeah, well, my head is currently having an annoyance overdose," Danny said.

Jackson chuckled at the comment, causing a shadow of a smile to tease Danny's lips.

"Take a left here," Jackson told him, and Danny obeyed.

He saw a line of mobile homes in a field of uncut grass. There were bars or boards on every window, and plastic flamingos or lawn chairs in almost every yard. The highway ran directly above Oasis Springs, filling the small area with the constant sound of traffic.

Jackson directed him until he stopped in front of a vintage Airstream trailer. It was tinier than a shoebox and, if it could fly, it might be mistaken for a UFO. A collarless dog was barking in front of the chrome home-on-wheels, making neighbors yell from behind their doors. A rock came from nowhere, whizzing through the air and smashing into someone's air conditioner unit. The sound must have scared the dog because it stopped barking and disappeared with a whimper.

"And I thought my neighborhood was on crack," Danny mumbled, looking through his windshield.

The red-headed boy got out of the car and peeped his head through one of the rolled down windows.

"Don't drive too slow around the flamingo yard ornaments," Jackson warned. "People'll think you're waiting for a prostitute."

Danny shifted his gear in preparation.

"I'm kidding. Jesus. Don't believe everything you hear," Jackson laughed. "Thanks for the ride."

Jackson's eyes were grey – like his little chrome house, like the silver underbelly of a new car, and like the October moonlight. They were cool and warm all at once, and left Danny feeling utterly transparent.

Before Jackson turned away, he dropped the stack of photos onto the passenger seat, plummeting Danny's heart.

The brown-eyed boy stared at the images for a long time.

Processing.

Thinking.

Panicking.

Jackson had been looking at those photos for the entire ride—the photos of him and Evan.

And now, Jackson—Evan's primary competitor—knew Evan's biggest secret, and it was Danny's fault. Evan would be as panicked too, right? Or was Danny projecting his own feelings onto him? He never really asked how he'd feel about being outed because he never imagined it would actually happen.