The BoogeyMan of Devil's Lake

More random fiction---unfinished and unedited. Whilst in spinning class--I heard the song, "I'm Your BoogeyMan" by KC and the Sunshine Band. This is the result.

Rob had finished driving a good two hours from Grand Forks into Devil’s Lake. He checked out bright and early from the Best Western, in hopes of beating any traffic out of that city. He realized as he greeted the roads that he was still stuck on several big city ways—there never was any traffic any where near Grand Forks.
But the early rising of unfamiliar surroundings of Eastern North Dakota did not fulfill his need for breakfast. He could have stopped in several of the truckers’ stops along the way, but he knew that many the roadsters were piloted by the husbands of the women in Devil’s Lake. He could not risk discovery from someone.
He arrived in the Lake shortly before ten am and felt it would be safe enough to hit only coffeehouse in area. He was normally there, however much earlier, on Saturday mornings.
The bells rang on the front door of the small parlour of the bistro. Every single face turned to look. Some waved at him, including some students.
One such student was working at the counter as both cashier and barista.
“Good morning Mr. Bryson! How was Grand Forks?”
“Um, good morning, Cherise. I’ll just go with my usual skinny mocha. You know how to make it the way I like it,” Rob explained.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” she took his money and looked down quickly.
“Thanks.”
Noises shrieked from the espresso machine and over the din, louder now, Cherise continued her line of questioning. Rob was not sure if she just couldn’t take a hint or thought there was an emergency.
“Did they take your manuscript?”
Seeing that she choose to pick the OBJECT in his arm and not the company he might have had (the large, juvenile, accidental hickie on his neck he would discover when he got home), he figured it alright to admit some travel.
“No, they didn’t. Wouldn’t even really look at it. How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But you are all dressed—not in your running garb. And Brian’s cousin works at the Best Western. Good choice. When we go for football games, that’s where we stay.”
Rob would have cursed under his breath had he not had an audience of students behind him. They were not watching outright, that came from experience, but they were listening, he would later discover.
“Was that one of your private tutor, I don’t know, what you’d,” the machine exhaled into Cherise’s face and caused her to step back. She began again, “Was that one of your private tutor, I don’t know, what you’d call a tutoree?”
“Mentoree? Yeah, he was. He was a mentoree. An old student now at UND,” he lied, “good kid, wanted to do better in his English course.”
“Sure he did. And you’re the best for that,” she said as she prepped the toppings on the coffee.
He could not tell if she believed him.
He fumed and left the café as fast as he could. His stomach whined some when he saw the donuts on display on the counter, but thought it would best to just leave and not give an opportunity for the conversation to be elaborated upon.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Rob knew exactly what he was getting to when he moved to this town. Some liked to lable it the halfway point between Bismarck and Grand Forks, but Rob knew better.
It was the entrance to small town hell.
Every single stereotype, the chatting, the nosy neighbors, all the things that kept the intellluctuals away--it was all true by this point, 3 school years later.
He selected the small town because it had what he needed and nothing else. In this land of internet connectivity, he knew he wouldn't be far from life, if the need surfaced. But he didn't want a life, at least, not when he moved her. Coming out of the closet was not the easiest of situations to deal with--his parents ignored the fact that he had two degrees but with Sum Cum Laude honors. They only saw him as filthyand wished nothing more of him in the Illnois outback. It wasn't much sooner afterward that his first love, his only physical love by that point decided, "let's just be friends."
It was time to grow up--and get away.
Devil's Lake was the answer. He knew no one there, they did not know him. He had little urge to slam back the closet door and lock it, so approached it all with an open mind.
It did not help.
When a person is seeing only the negative and only one hope to get out of it--well, one's glasses become a bit rosy. Rob was that way. The pay was terrific at the school he worked at; and outwardly, if he did not pay attention, no one said a word to him.
But in the silent stares and quiet of the supermarket, given nothing else to think about--he knew they were talking about him.
He could see their glances over the aisles. He could hear them when they felt him out of earshot.
He knew they stared at him and wondered. Not only if he was gay, but if he did things that they read about in magazines. Did he want to have sex with the football team, the basketball team (the first team he had ever seen that was all white) and the baseball team together.
He could not ignore them.
So he escaped them everyday.
Rob wrote. He wrote a journal, a blog, a myspace and several bulliten boards. Stories drifted out of him like his next breath.
Scary stories.
He knew better then to go to the public library with all the glances.
He did much shopping on the internet as well.
His most famous tale, the one that got him some noteraity, was a short one that was included in an anthology of the Year's Best Short Stories. It had dealt with a teacher who hated life so much that he sold himself out to the college he worked for--by blowing the place up violently.
He liked dragging it out and reading it again and again when the mood suited him.

Rob met Howie at the one YMCA housed in Devil's Lake. Rob hated glancing in the locker room. THe small town housed only old men who were not worth the time or his own high school students who might turn on him. That was why he williing glanced at Howie. He lived elsewhere, for his gym bag was a carry on from a recent flight that still had tags. That was evident.
That and the young man wore two bathing suits.
As the young man disrobed a mere two lockers from Rob, Rob realized that they were the only two there that evening. THe young man pulled two bathing suits out and put both on. One was torn and ripped and the brief was snug over the top. The layering caused Howie's rear to bulgde and it made Rob laugh to himself. The young man lived elsewhere and had strange habits.
Rob smiled the next day when he learned that Howie had come from UND in Grand Forks to intern in his colleague's classroom. The youth called Minneapolis home, his blonde hair a testament to his Norweign hertitage.
His swimming trunks belied the fact that he competed in triathleons all over the nation.
The rainbow on the back of Howie's car gave the rest of the information away. Rob dare not bring it up, but the students filled in the gaps with their gossips and looks. Rob knew more about Howie before meeting him then most people should.