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Lot of things about bein’ on the road weren’t as comfortable or nice as Johnny would’ve liked, sure, but he made due. He and Gyro were something of a good team, he guessed--they’d gotten pretty comfortable around each other now. Johnny would almost say that they’re friends, but he wasn’t going to say so out loud just in case Gyro thought otherwise. That rejection just might kill him.
Life on the road wasn’t glamorous. But if they had a tent pitched around them when they were cold or when it was a dry night, then they could survive without much complaint. God didn’t always grant perfect weather, so sometimes Johnny spent days on Slow Dancer’s back, praying, please , God, just make the rain stop, as Gyro grit his teeth and tried to persevere.
Cowboys were all about perseverin’, all right. Johnny knew that much.
He sat with his legs crossed underneath him, his ankle crooked at a weird angle that he didn’t bother to fix, and he tugged at a bit of the bandage wrapped around his arm. Nothing fatal, surely, especially since Gyro was real scared of infection, being a doctor and all, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. Just a gash he’d earned one state back. Johnny pinched his lips together with a sour look as he adjusted the bandage over his arm--he’d need to change it. Again.
Johnny grumbled around the toothbrush in his mouth, temporarily forgotten in favor of checking his bandage, but he resumed brushing his teeth, the horse hair bristles scrubbing the front of his admittedly rare smile. He glared at Gyro critically, who sat on the other side of the tent balancing food on the tip of his nose and squirming and scrunching the muscles in his face to budge it down into his open mouth.
This fuckin’ idiot.
“You ever tried this before, Johnny?” Gyro asked, huffing in annoyance as the chip fell from his nose and down his chest. He caught it in the palm of his hand and then clapped it over his mouth, eating it obnoxiously. Gyro chose the strangest things to brag about too--“If we had a lemon, I’d show you how I can fit the whole damn thing in my mouth,” he’d once said, and Johnny just looked at him and said, “What in the goddamn hell are you talkin’ about?”
Johnny grunted around the toothbrush in his mouth. That meant he wasn’t about to talk about this dumb shit. He wasn’t impressed, but Gyro didn’t mind, only reaching for more food to put on his forehead to meander down to his mouth.
“You look the stupidest I’ve ever seen you,” Johnny grumbled, his voice muffled around the garbled froth of toothpaste.
“You’re boring as fuck,” Gyro retorted, clacking his teeth together over a chip victoriously, and he wiped his mouth. “You double-jointed?”
Johnny spit out the toothpaste into a tin can. “I can’t move my legs. You think I much care to find out if I’m double-jointed?” he asked critically, eyebrows pinched irritatedly together.
“You’re in a shitty mood, I get it,” Gyro said, putting up his hands placatingly. “Don’t take it out on me! I’m only trying to relax before we hit the road.” Gyro tossed up a chip and caught it in his mouth.
Johnny decided then that it had been long enough of cleanin’ his teeth before he spit into a tin can. Gyro kept talking, filling the air with whatever nonsense his brain could come up with to brag about--only half of it was endearing, the other half was just bullshit--and Johnny listened because that’s how the both of them worked. Soon Johnny spit one last time, then wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand and extended the toothbrush to Gyro.
“Here,” Johnny grunted. Things on the road were limited. After finding out that Gyro had willingly tossed out his toilet paper and toothbrush to lighten his load, Johnny had decided he’d suck it up and let Gyro borrow his toothbrush, if only to save himself from Gyro’s shit breath. The toilet paper, he couldn’t do much about that. That was a scarce resource on open plains.
Johnny mostly had Gyro trained to just take the toothbrush without arguin’. Gyro did and sighed, jabbing the toothbrush into his mouth and scrubbing quickly. Johnny, meanwhile, peeked at the wound underneath the bleeding bandages, and he swore, “Shit,” under his breath as he reached towards the bag of gauze and supplies.
Gyro slowed in his scrubbing, then removed the toothbrush from his mouth. “If you let me wrap that, you wouldn’t have to waste all our fuckin’ supplies by re-wrapping it,” he commented, froth obscuring what he said.
“I told you, I can handle it,” Johnny mumbled, preparing the new bandages. He tore off the old one from his skin with his teeth and hissed at the cool air touching the wound. It hadn’t yet scabbed over. Gyro had said that it was deep enough to need stitches, but Johnny had refused. Saying there wasn’t time. Let’s keep moving. I can just wrap it up. He didn’t regret his stubbornness, even if it hurt like a bitch.
Gyro spit. “Yeah, you can handle it,” he repeated, eyeing the way that Johnny unwrapped the gauze. Like an uneducated farmer boy, Johnny’s brain supplied. Now Johnny was sure he thought that of him.
Johnny glared at him. “Quit it,” he growled, and Gyro spit into the tin cup again.
Gyro silently brushed his teeth, shrugging.
Johnny didn’t say nothin’ else, focusing on applying pressure to his wound and explicitly ignoring the way Gyro undoubtedly watched him. He could hear Gyro swirling the toothbrush in their can of water, and when he looked up, he watched Gyro wipe his mouth on the back of his hand as they eyed each other.
“What,” Johnny grumbled.
“You were looking at me first,” Gyro said, beginning to toss up his steel ball.
Johnny glared, even though he was right. He puckered his lips a little sourly, one half of his upper lip peeled up as he wrinkled his nose, but he returned his attention back to dressing his wound.
The tension between them persevered, until Gyro snapped something in Italian and then reached forward, insisting, “For God’s sake, let me help,” in a nasty voice.
Johnny smacked Gyro’s hand away. “Hey! You stop that shit,” Johnny said, furrowing his brows together. Now his pride was at stake. “You can fix up my legs only ‘cause I can’t feel it, or anywhere I can’t reach, but I’m fixin’ up my own arm. I told you, I don’t like doctors.”
Gyro sighed exasperatedly. “Lo stai facendo male. Let me help ,” he insisted, and Johnny swung a fist at Gyro’s arm.
“I said quit!” he shouted, a little rougher than Gyro probably expected. Johnny and Gyro tended to have conversations where they shouted at each other, but something about Johnny’s tone must’ve translated to Gyro that he meant it this time. Seriously.
“ Coglione testardo ,” Gyro grumbled under his breath, pulling up his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
“Stop it with the fuckin’ language lesson,” Johnny said, a bite in his voice. Not a mosquito bite he usually had when he was being sour. More like a bear. He couldn’t stop himself though, only grunting in annoyance and turning his back to Gyro. “This is America. Speak fuckin’ English, or leave.”
Gyro lifted up his chin, and Johnny realized that maybe he’d gone a little too far on that one. Sometimes they did this--they were men, after all, in the habit of starting arguments with one another, even if it was on accident with something they didn’t mean. And they both said things they didn’t mean and knew they didn’t mean it, but they still let themselves get pissed off about it anyhow. That was part of living on the road. Some might say it was a way of entertaining one’s self.
Still, it must’ve touched a nerve with Gyro, or something. If Johnny weren’t in such a piss-poor mood, he’d have felt guilty, watching Gyro clutch his steel ball all tight in his hand like he was trying to crush it. Instead, it just pissed him off more, and he shook his head, huffing a deep breath. Gyro noticed too, and he pouted his lips, spinning his ball over his knuckles and then ducking underneath his palm, and then he snatched it out of its spin.
“I’m going for a walk,” Gyro announced, his voice flat, gravel-rough, and ice cold.
“Yeah, don’t let the tent hit your ass on the way out!” Johnny snapped, glaring at him as his partner got on his knees and crawled out into the morn. He shook his head and tore off the bandage with his teeth, wrapping up the wound with a little less tender care than he should’ve used and a lot more pissed off spite. What the fuck did it matter anyway if he lost an arm? Then God just wanted him to be a tree stump.
The wrap-up job of his wound was shitty--Gyro could’ve done a thousand times better if it wasn’t for Johnny’s pride and his goddamn fear. He had no reason to think that Gyro would hurt him, but then, Johnny just hated doctors. Johnny thought Gyro would’ve been the perfect man if it wasn’t for that fact. It was helpful enough though, him knowing all he did about everything, and, sure, Gyro saved his ass more times than he could count. Probably more times than he deserved. But he still hated doctors. He couldn’t help that much.
Johnny shredded the gauze from his arm and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, his shoulders trembling a little bit as he stumbled on the verge of tears. He huffed a gasping, shaky breath and sniffed. Tears ran hot down his face like piss. He sniffed again. Wiped off his nose with the back of his hand. Reached for new bandages. He looked down at the red gash in his forearm with contempt, the blood so dark that it looked almost purple in the dim light, and he thought about pressing his thumb dead smack into the middle of that wound and pressing down as hard as he could just to feel himself bleed more. His blood would stain his fingers like tomato juice on a cutting board.
If Gyro knew about how much violence buzzed in Johnny’s head, good God, he’d just hate him.
So Johnny didn’t hurt himself. His hands were clean of his own blood.
Calmly, occasionally sniffing, Johnny wrapped up his arm the best that he could. It looked decent enough. He hoped Gyro wouldn’t critique it, or he just might lose it. Patting his hand against the bandage, he could still feel the blood stinging against the gauze, aching for stitches, artificial skin to repair him sooner, and ignored it.
Took him just about fifteen minutes to calm down enough to clamber out from the tent. He never stayed pissed at Gyro for too long--he just couldn’t. Gyro was his only companion within miles and, furthermore, the only one he could trust. He’d screw the pooch if Gyro stayed mad at him this whole trip, and he might just go crazy without Gyro’s being a friend to him and all. As much as he stayed distant, he liked Gyro a whole lot. More than he knew.
Gyro was good about forgivin’, like some sort of saint. No matter how much Johnny fucked up, Gyro would be there to say, “It’s all right, Johnny,” after a little while. (Admittedly, he always had a duration of time before he could reassure him when he needed to be pissed for a little bit, but that was understandable, considering how Johnny was that way too.)
Gyro was sittin’ on a tree stump, shining his boots with a tub of wax and a rag, looking just real cross. Johnny knew it was his fault too and felt real bit up about it.
There was no dignified way for him to maneuver without his horse, his wheelchair (which definitely had not joined them on this journey), or Gyro’s help. Still, Johnny was pretty good at moving quick enough that it didn’t hurt his pride too bad. He breathed a little heavily as he leaned against Gyro’s leg, arms crossed over his stomach. Tilting his chin up, he eyed Gyro, who adamantly refused to look at him. Johnny licked his lips and glanced away, sucking tight on his teeth, as he scratched his arm.
“I’d like to apologize for snappin’ at you earlier,” Johnny mumbled, squinting at the distance.
Gyro grunted. “S’all right.” Then he glanced at Johnny’s arm and huffed, shaking his head. “That looks like shit, Johnny. Honest to God, I could wrap your arm a hundred times more comfortable with a hundred times less gauze.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny muttered, scratching at a patch of dried mud over the knee of his pants. “I know that, Gyro.” He puckered his lips a little and scratched the back of his head. “I like doin’ what I can on my own. Ain’t much I can do, but I like doin’ what I can.”
“I understand that, Johnny, but you have to know, I didn’t intend to hurt your pride,” Gyro insisted, squeezing Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny felt warm where his friend touched him. “It just ain’t economical to let you waste our medical supplies. You could do with a bit less of that, you know. It’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.”
“I’ve been told,” Johnny answered.
Gyro smiled, the first sign that their fight was over and done, and tsked with a shake of the head. “Ah, it’s all right, Johnny. You and I are too much alike with our pride! I’m the same way.”
Johnny looked up at him and shrugged his shoulder, grinning the tiniest bit. “You and me are similar?” He snorted. “I have a hard time thinkin’ of an odder pair than us two, Gyro.”
“We’re similar in the ways it matters,” Gyro answered certainly with a nod of his head. He smacked the rag against the toe of his boot and slumped down beside Johnny on the ground. He tossed his steel ball between two hands. Johnny watched with admiration but disguised it with boredom as he lifted up a leg to rest his elbow atop of his knee.
“So why do you hate doctors?” Gyro asked. Johnny could tell how he tried to sound casual about a conversation he knew would be a whole can of worms to open, because as much as Gyro liked to think subtlety was his forte, the man was about as tactful as a freight train on the railroads.
Johnny shifted and tugged on his hat, grumbling. “Just don’t like ‘em. Rat bastards.”
Gyro laughed. “I can’t speak for American doctors,” he said. “Perhaps you’re right.”
Johnny scratched the front of his teeth with his fingernail. Sucked on his knuckle a bit. “I ever tell you about how I lost my legs?” Johnny asked, keeping his eyes anywhere but Gyro. But, boy, he could feel the fascination and interest shining in those green eyes, and Johnny pouted his lips a bit, clapping a hand down onto his thigh. “Well,” he started slowly, looking at the mud stain again, “I guess I should start out by sayin’ it was a pretty shitty way for it to happen. Me and my girl, I dunno which one... we were goin’ to... some play or somethin’, some theatre. But the line was just about ten miles long, but she kept insistin’, let’s just cut in line, let’s just do it.” Johnny shrugged. “I was a famous jockey at the time. I didn’t think anybody could touch me.” He rolled his shoulder and lowered his voice a bit. “But someone did, you know. Real petty shit to get shot over, ya know, but it happened. Two inches up or five inches over to the right could’ve killed me dead right there. I forget which vertebrae it hit.”
Gyro might’ve been expecting a cooler or more interesting story, or else the whole thing just made him real quiet and sad. Johnny shifted, rubbing his hands down his thigh, still not used to how his body felt like someone else’s. He couldn’t stand to look at Gyro, just worried to see what pitiful look he had on his face. He cleared his throat.
“And so I went to the hospital,” Johnny continued, real low. “I don’t remember goin’. I just remember wakin’ up. Smellin’ like piss and shit, ya know, mostly naked in an uncomfortable bed and in a whole lotta pain. And it was so dark I didn’t know where the hell I was--I wasn’t dead, I didn’t think, ‘cause there wasn’t light or fire, which there’d be in Heaven and Hell, respectively.” He shook his head. “I ain’t ever felt so bad in my whole life. I was in so much pain it felt like every bone in my body had broke, and I couldn’t even feel my legs but that hurt too. And these doctors, these nurses... berating me. Saying no one had come visit, no one ever would. Throwin’ piss in my face. Beatin’ me closer to death than I already was.” Johnny’s eyes were glassy and cold, and he wiped his face. “Everyone just groaned. No one was strong enough to fight ‘em back, ya know, everyone bein’ as sick and weak as they were.” He sniffed. “My girl didn’t visit me. My daddy didn’t visit me. Not one of my fans, or nothin’. I was all alone, and all terrified.” He wiped his face and shrugged, scratching at his jaw. “And that’s why I hate doctors so bad.”
Johnny finally looked up at Gyro, who nodded his head. Too bad his eyes were shut, because Johnny wanted to know just what in the hell he was thinking. Not that he could always tell, mind, but at least then he’d have some idea. Johnny sniffled and punched Gyro’s arm. “Huh? I tell you this and you’re just gonna say nothin’?”
“You don’t have to go to another doctor besides me, Johnny-boy,” Gyro said, cracking a smile. He swung an arm around Johnny’s shoulders and squeezed him tight, rubbing up and down his bicep. “That’s the upside of havin’ a doctor for a friend. I sure don’t want to hurt my buddy, eh?”
Johnny smiled. “Friend, huh?”
“Sure,” Gyro answered, flicking the brim of his hat.
“You know what I had a dream about last night, Gyro?”
“What’s that, Johnny-boy?”
“Barbeque. Good, Southern, slow-roastin’ barbeque.” Johnny leaned his head back on the edge of the tree stump and moaned. “Sweet, sweet barbeque sauce. Nice, juicy, tender pork. I’m drooling just thinking about it.”
“Barbeque?” Gyro asked.
“Yeah.” Then he remembered Gyro was a foreigner. “Good God, Gyro, it’s the pinnacle of Southern cookin’!” Normally, Johnny tried not to indulge in talk about food since neither of them could actually have any, but, well, if Gyro didn’t know what barbeque was, it was his job as his friend to remedy that. “After the race, I’ll cook you some, partner, how about that?” Johnny said, nudging Gyro’s ribs with his elbow playfully.
Gyro smirked, shaking his head. “You’re the cutest thing I ever did see, Johnny, talkin’ like that,” Gyro mumbled.
“Huh?” Johnny said.
But Gyro just stood up, adjusting his hat over his head. “You hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll show you what Italians like to eat too,” he said, starting towards the horses, who ate measly patches of green grass.
“Deal,” Johnny answered, grinning, and he swiped a finger over his nose.
“All that talk of barbeque got me hungry,” Gyro said, rubbing his stomach. “Beans?”
“ Beans? Aw,” he groaned. “Gyro, I can’t do beans again.”
“Beans, beans, good for your heart, beans, beans, they’ll make you--” Gyro sang.
Johnny waved his hand and groaned. “I’m well fuckin’ aware, Gyro. It’s breakfast.” He glared, crossing his arms. “You know what I could go for? A big ole omelette.”
Gyro laughed, tossing his steel ball into the air and catching it as he walked from the pasture to the edge of the forest. “You going to be the one who climbs these here trees till you find a robin’s nest?” he asked. Johnny didn’t answer, since they both damn well knew the answer. He spun the ball against his palm till it hissed against his skin, and then chucked it into the trees. The rotation of the steel ball shredded the branches from their spots all at once, falling neatly on the forest floor, and Gyro’s ball returned to his hand. He proudly snapped his ball back into place and walked to collect the branches for their next fire, while Johnny made himself useful, collecting rocks and assembling a circle around their presumed fire pit.
“By God, Johnny, I could just kiss you,” Gyro said, in appreciation.
Johnny smirked. “Shut up,” he said, wishing it hadn’t embarrassed him as much as it did. He didn’t even know why thinkin’ of kissing Gyro made him feel that way, but he kept feeling it even as they ate. He kept thinking about it too, as Gyro licked sauce from his fingertips and laughed with his mouth full.
Johnny felt hopeless, sick to his stomach, and deeply, deeply enamored.