I don’t know what this cigarette is for. It is so humiliating to be sitting at a bus stop in a little town with no name. I’m lighting it for glamour, I decide. Glamour doesn’t belong here, in this little Nevada water hole. I do not belong here. Another drag and then I kill it under my heel.
I remember a boyfriend lighting a cigarette. “Do you want one?” he asked. I took it and puffed away. He said, “You’re a natural,” and kissed me with his smoky mouth. That was my first. First cigarette.
There is a gas station a little ways down the road. A tumbleweed bounces into one of the posts of the gas station’s awning, symbolically. I think of spaghetti westerns.
Spaghetti western. It used to make me think of those “perfect” families of the forties with a mother in an apron, a father with his pipe and his newspaper, a daughter named Suzy who liked her Barbie, a son named Robert who liked his football, a dog named Spot or Fido. And maybe a cat. I don’t like to think of perfect families. They aren’t real.
The heat makes me want to melt, and my makeup probably is. I go inside, although it won’t help much. I feel as if my skin could start peeling from sunburn even if I sit inside the musty little motel room with the curtains drawn. It’s days like these that make me want to be a vampire.
I wash off the makeup as I am stripping. The cool tap water and my bare, wet skin make me think of a bath, so I draw one up and slip in.
I am almost asleep in the bathtub when I hear the motel door to my room open and shut.
“What a marvelous idea!” Drew says, walking into the bathroom. He is carrying two bottles of beer.
“Where did you get that?!” I ask. The alarm is all in my voice; I haven’t moved.
Drew indicates over his shoulder vaguely, which could mean the gas station or the motel lobby. “That musty old man don’t care!” He waves it off. We aren’t quite old enough to be drinking legally yet.
He hands me one and looks through the clear bathwater at my nudity.
Drew makes a sound as if he’s just eaten the most delicious dessert he’s ever tasted. He laughs at my reaction and says, “I’m happy to see you too. Too bad it’s too hot.” When he kisses me, he kisses me on the forehead. I’m too hot to wonder why.
I have nothing to open the beer with. I hold the bottle against my cheek until it’s warm too.

We watch a movie about drag queens. We hold each other. It is me and Drew and the movie, sympathetic to one another. Isn’t the Spanish word for nice sympatico? Drew would know, but when I start to ask him, I realize he’s asleep.
If only life ended as movies do. In the end of that movie, which I watched by myself with Drew partially draped over me and the useless fan squeaking rhythmically, everyone goes away happy, and they manage to forget the bigotry of the world. What about their parents?
That is my destination. Our destination. I dragged Drew along with me. Is it cruel to wait until you have a boyfriend to tell your parents you are gay? I thought plenty about the consequences of my planned action on me, but family life will no doubt metamorphose when this long time secret is out.
“Out of the closet”, as if I am a skeleton, or my beloved drew is. Someday, maybe there will be a different, better way to say you are revealing your unique sexuality. Someday, maybe I’ll be able to shout it across mountaintops like I want to.
(You didn’t assume at first that I’m a girl, did you?)