Pampa

I'm with a gay guy in Pampa. Chris has thin hair on top, long, spindly legs, and a sizable stomach. His hands are pale, and he holds them delicately, like an effete caricature in a film. The light drawl in his vowels is paired with a high ceiling to his tone, but he doesn't sound like you're thinking; he's . . . complex. Human. The sibilant stereotypical "s" isn't his style. He's not overtly camp. He's wearing sandals. Chris is the only Couchsurfer in town, and I'm going to stay at his house tonight.

When I arrived at his house, he sauntered out the front door to meet me in house shoes, tank top and shorts. "You're Robby!"
"Yeah, and you must be Chris. Man, I'm so glad you responded. I mean, it's been a long time since I saw a bed. Very cool of you." I pushed my bicycle off the sidewalk and stuck out my hand.
"No problem." We sized each other up. He must not have been surprised at my appearance, because he didn't react. I was wearing my fading poly exercise shirt and the khaki-colored pants I wore every day. One pants leg was held tightly to my ankle by the darts I put in at camp; the other was held down by Jacki's reflective strap. My helmet had pushed my hair into some short waves I accepted because the other option was my natural board-straight straw. My bicycle was still clean, sort of. If only I knew.
"I've just been down to the White Deer Land Trust museum and through the park--nice town! Oh, is there a place to put my bike in back?"
"Of course, yeah, of course. Just come on around here." As he turned on his heel, my eyes followed him to the gate in the fenced backyard. He opened it and waited for me. I smiled, but I was having trouble getting the size of this man. His glasses were too small for his face, I decided. And shorts were decidedly inappropriate for this weather. He continued the conversation while I pulled a few things from my bags. "Did you like the museum?"
"What? Oh, yeah. It was like walking into the nineteen twenties, very cool. And free, too. Probably the best small-town historical society I've seen on my trip." I had seen two.
When we got inside, Chris pushed a cat out of the way with his feet to show me the bathroom. "There are towels in this dresser, so feel free to use one. The shower . . . well, you probably know how to work a shower, right? Anyway, just don't worry about Grunt. She'll meow at the door because she likes to sit here when I shower. And sorry about the mess, too, please. I'm about halfway through moving." I looked around. Between two doorways, there was a sink. Opposite the toilet was a dresser. On top of the dresser, there was a ceramic rabbit, three mis-matched cups, and a vase filled with plastic flowers, surrounded by a handful of pencils, a stack of plates, a salt and pepper shaker set, and a few coins. The sink had a half dozen other cups and a few decorative plates. Stacked cardboard boxes stood sentry beside the doors, and an assortment of dusty magazines held them down. There was enough room to stand and turn in place.
"It's perfect. I've never been more glad to see a shower."
"I'll be out here when you're done! Holler if you need something."
I looked through to the other room, where boxes sloped down from all four walls to meet a mess of cat food both in and near a set of bowls. Chris may have been halfway through moving, for all I know. But Chris' house is not half-moved. I know the same dark impulse that fomented his mess. It ripples through my family, too. I couldn't see the countertops in his kitchen or the floor beside his bed. Nobody normal stacks clean glasses on top of magazines on top of cardboard boxes in their bathroom.
When I got out and got dressed, Chris shouted from the living room. "You hungry?"

That's why I'm at a Mexican restaurant with a gay man. Chris is telling me about coping with his extensive family, all of whom live in Pampa or Amarillo. Everybody knows everybody else. Nobody can keep any secrets. "Do you know that when my Dad died, we found a lot of secrets in his paperwork? I mean, you'd think that when you know a guy for thirty years, you'd know most everything about him. But we found some paperwork he filed--" at this, Chris leans in, conspiratorially, over his enchiladas. "He was going to adopt my cousin for a while. In the paperwork, it came out that my aunt was using heroin when she was pregnant. I mean, we always knew my cousin was strange, but I wouldn't have thought Dad was going to adopt him. He didn't, anyway."
I can't stop Chris. He rattles off stories about his time in Pampa, generalizes about Texans and tourists. "You saw the cotton, right?" I had. "You pick any? Most people pick the whole boll, but that's not the cotton. You probably picked a boll." I had actually taken the wool out of the clasping crispy leaves very carefully, but I couldn't convince Chris. I just laughed and nodded when he repeated himself. "I went to a good Christian college in Mississippi, and let me tell you! . . ." A young couple came in, dressed to impress, North Texas perfection. His cowboy boots didn't have a lick of mud, and his three-sizes too large cowboy hat made his belt buckle look reasonable by contrast. She had her hair up in back, and where it was pulled back I could see her roots beginning to show through the bottle blonde. I pointed them out and Chris looked at me like I was slow. "You said you're from Texas, right?"
"I mean, I was born in Amarillo."
"And you think that hat is big? You haven't seen a big hat." The hat is remarkably big. The brim's wider than the young man's shoulders. "I used to own a hat that big, but I think I lost it to a guy who used to stay at my house. He probably took it when he moved out." I wisely decide to drop the hat. Chris, I am beginning to discover, has something to say on every subject, and his something is always more impressive than your something. I don't mind. It means I can just listen, and I don't have to say squat about my trip.
We pay our separate tabs as if to prove we weren't on a date, and we set off down the road on foot again towards Chris' house.
Chris rattles on. "I used to be in a relationship for a while. There aren't a lot of us up here, you know, so this guy was from out of state, actually, we'd only been dating for a few months, anyway, and one time when I came home from work he was waiting for me with a collar. I was like 'Help, me Lord! What is this?' and he told me he wanted to wear the collar and have me treat him like a dog. He was gonna do his business in the back yard, would you believe it?" I wouldn't, apparently, because Chris continues. "Anyway, I wasn't into that, necessarily, so that relationship didn't last long. Oh, Lord! The things people get up to. There's a whole lot of kink in this world, and you don't know the half of it." We shuffle across the sidewalk and past the Braum's. The wind kicks up the smell of dust and the light fades. We jog across the road and Chris starts laughing at another memory. "I tell you what, sometimes it's the people you don't expect, actually. I told you we were going through my dad's things, right? You remember. He had a great big black dildo in his house! It was the size of my arm--" and so on. I laugh at all the right places and ask small questions when there's space for them. Back in Chris's house, we talk, or rather he talks until he had to leave for work.
"What time are you going to be out in the morning?"
"I think probably with the sun; I've got a long way to go. I'm trying to go to, uh . . ." I pull out my phone. "Alibates National Monument, I think."
"Oh, the Flint Quarries! That's some fantastic country out there. My cousin and I drove through there just last week and we didn't take the main roads and some of the canyons!" He ploughs through that story and one about his first car, which he purchased from his grandmother and promptly wrecked, before he stands up decisively. "Well, you know where the bed is, don't mind Grunt, and have a safe trip if I don't see you in the morning!"
"Oh! Thanks, uh-- thanks for everything, Chris!"
We don't shake hands, we hug. It seems like what we both expected. He slips into his flip flops and goes to unpack boxes all night at Walmart. I sleep on top of his bed in my own sleeping bag. There are Christmas decorations, a case of water, a stack of blankets, picture frames, an old pair of shoes. The only clean space in the room is the path to the bed and the space where his body hits the sheets. It's strange being in Chris' house and not minding. I fall asleep almost instantly.

Awake again.
Nights are too short.
I make oatmeal, just like every morning, with a spoonful of peanut butter, and by the time I've clipped into the bike again, the morning is just turning gray in the east. It's gonna be nice, I think. It's hard to tell; with nothing to slow down the wind, storms blow up awfully quick around here. But Pampa is the last town of any size until Amarillo, and that's still a few days away. I'm getting too cold at night, and I'm tired of shivering. It's been nearly a month since the first freeze in Missouri. My sleeping bag is essentially paper-thin, and the aluminized blanket around it isn't doing anything but holding in the wet. It's time for long johns, and not any terrible cotton ones, either. Cotton holds in moisture. Cotton is death. I'm not interested. I go to a Carhartt shop, I go to an exercise store, and I'm headed to Wal-Mart. The Carhartt shop owner is extremely kind, even running into the back just to see if she has everything, but of ten pairs of long johns, ten are cotton. They're nice, I'll give you. I bet they would keep me warm, but they wouldn't if they were wet, and that's what I'm afraid of. Everything is cotton, either entirely, or mostly. I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to give up, and then Tractor Supply hoves up into sight. I might as well. The sun is already up and I'm tired of wasting time.
In the Tractor Supply, I look mildly lost for ten seconds, long enough for the saleswoman to ask "Can I help you?"
"Yeah, I was looking for some long johns?"
"Sorry?"
"Like . . . long underwear."
"Oh! Just over there," she says, pointing. I smile, and she smiles back. I jog over and find cotton cotton cotton cotton wool. You won't understand this moment unless you bask in it. Empathize with my month-long search, please. I've looked in Joplin, in Tulsa, in Oklahoma City. I had nearly given up hope, gone on Amazon and had something mailed to a post office ahead of me, and I see the wool/poly blend and legitimately shout with excitement.
I almost run with them to the checkout, where a cute girl is running the register.
"I need to thank you," I say to her.
"What? What for?" She smiles, just a little.
"You have no idea the struggle I have had to find non-cotton long johns. And you and this beautiful store have them." I pull the bag to my lips and give it a hearty, comical kiss. "I will be warm forever, now!"
She laughed. It was half nervous, half relief. I don't give two toots if she thinks I'm weird. I just couchsurfed with a gay half-horder and I have long johns. The world can't keep me down.