ham fisted theatrics

Good. I thought so.

Anyways, it was just a suggestion.

What do you mean, GAY? It ain't a gay thing! It's a two-guys-on-the-road thing!

What part of it ain't gay? I'll tell you what part of it ain't gay! The part where two men who been friends since birth, growin' up on the same dead-end block, runnin' up and down the same dusty streets and never havin' no promise and no hope finally decide they're gonna make a last-chance bid for freedom, so they jump in the one fella's beat-up '68 Chevy, only thing he ever had in the world besides his father's debts and his momma's disapproval, and peel out never lookin' back! The part where that first rush o' freedom has wore off and the reality is just startin' to set in, that you can run from anywhere but no matter where you go you're still yourself, and the tedium of the road, too, the endless stretches of middle America, wheat and sameness extendin' far as the eye can see, and to beat back the boredom of the road and the existential terror of feeling trapped no matter how much space stretches before you, one fella reaches over and gives the other fella a handjob, and once he's finished, the other fella reciprocates!

No, I'm tellin ya, it ain't gay! It's called the Friendly Passenger! Friendly like "between friends." You sayin' we ain't friends? You sayin' that those long summers workin' at old man Patterson's Gas and Go, all those scraps with the Reynolds boys from two towns over, all those years sittin' in the back of the class knowin' they couldn't teach us nothin' we couldn't learn on our own, you tellin' me they meant nothin'?

No, no, it's too late for sorry. I been sorely mistaken. I intended to set out on a journey from nowhere to who-knows-where with the one friend ever meant anything to me in this world, and instead I hopped in the car with a stranger. And that's my fault. Small town man like me, guess I'm too dumb to know the difference.

Fine, stranger, you can turn the radio up.

Aw, hell, you know I love Patsy Cline. Don't expect just 'cause you happened to find a station out in the middle of nowhere playin' Patsy Cline I'm supposed to take you back into my good graces.

Aw, that right there, that ain't even a question! I'd take Loretta Lynn in her prime over Patsy Cline in hers any day! Hell, I'd take Loretta Lynn NOW over Pasty in 'er prime! My grandaddy saw Patsy play the State Fair in 1956, swore up and down she had an ass flat as a nickel 'neath an elephant's foot!

Well sure, some men are into that. Ain't no shame in it, stick to yer choice.

So...Patsy Cline, huh? Y'know. Certain school of thought that says, if a man closes his eyes and lets the roar of the engine and the whoosh of the open road lull him into a sort of a reverie, any hand that touches that man may as well be Patsy Cline's.

Aww, now, c'mon, now! Now you know it ain't like that! If you're imagining a woman, how can it be gay?

What do you mean, it just is? YOU just is! A fool, I mean! Only a fool would turn down a perfectly good non-gay handjob from a man he known since birth, especially when we won't hit Kansas City for another one-hundred-and-eighty miles! That's a hundred and eighty miles of engine vibrations! That's a hundred and eighty miles of blueballs courtesy of U.S. 71!

Well, that's small-minded is what that is. I guess you can take the man out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of the man. Makes me real sad for our prospects once we get wherever we're goin'. Makes me question the wisdom of the whole venture. Makes me plain sad, is what it does.

Yea, sure, I'll take some jerky.

Nah, see, we're approaching a bit of a bend here in the road, so I'd like to keep both hands on the wheel. Just go ahead and place the jerky in my lap.