Page 62 of Love of the Egoist
The boy rolled his eyes. His exaggerated theatrical expression screaming,look what kind of cretin I have to deal with…He punched the glove box to retrieve a lighter and a pack of smokes.
“Want one?” Pressing a cigarette between his lips, he brought the light to the end. His tiny fingers clouded with heavy smoke when he puffed. The thin net of blue veins looked like a spider web on his dropped eyelids; pleasure spread over his face, bringing color to his cheeks.
Kuon felt wrong. Things such as cigarettes should never be held by those frail hands, but he kept silence having no right to speak his mind.
The thick aroma of strong tobacco filled the vehicle, and Kuon pressed his lips together.
Concentrating on driving, he peered at the road signs whizzing by, trying to figure out their location, but his head was too heavy with nothingness. After five minutes, when the asphalt was long forgotten, and a rut-road wriggled through a dense forest, he gave up and asked, “Mio, where are we?”
“Somewhere around Nestelberg.”
“Nestelberg?” Kuon echoed, picking a roadmap out of his memory. “Ötscher? Oh God… how many hours from here to Vienna?”
“Around two… oh, fuck!” Mio cursed and kicked the dashboard with his doll-thin foot, making Kuon drop his only thought.
Kuon frowned and glanced at the beautiful face. “What’s wrong?”
“We are running out of gas! We are not going anywhere like this. It’s not enough to get to Vienna.” The bright azure eyes flickered with rage. He tapped the dashboard with his fingers and squeezed out, “Kill the fucking hairdryer—it’s eating the gas!”
Not waiting for Kuon, he turned the climate control off, gazing around. Deep furrows cut his porcelain forehead.
“Let’s get to the nearest town or nearest gas station and then part,” Kuon said in a low voice. His head throbbed, shooting pains spiked behind his eyes.
“No, I have a better idea. Take a right here, head for the river.” He leaned over Kuon’s arm and with an unbelievable force, twisted the wheel toward him.
The car squealed, making Kuon cringe and with a skid, they followed the road bend.
“Are you nuts? Do you have a death wish?” Kuon lashed out at Mio, boiling on the surface as soon as he got the wheel under control, but the boy bubbled with laughter, ignoring his rage. Crossing his palms over his belly he kicked the dashboard in an uncontrollable fit. His fluffy head thrown back, pink mouth wide open, and his juicy azure eyes vanished in laughter.
A minute later Mio’s eyes flew open as the boy tilted his head to the side. He examined Kuon’s face with undisguised curiosity, enjoying the change of emotions as if he was looking at a cuttlefish changing its colors.
“Listen, I’m grateful for your help and everything… but it is not a game. Get out of the car!” Kuon hit the brake and towered over the boy. “It’s not safe for you to be with me. Catch a cab. Go back to Yugo.”
“What cab? Are you an idiot? Look around! Anyway, I’m not going anywhere. If I’m with you nothing will happen, relax,” he purred, and Kuon dropped his head to the wheel not knowing what to do next. He felt too tired to resist.
“Come oooon! Start the car. We are wasting time!” Mio shouted and laughed when Kuon cringed. “There is a piernot far from here. I bet Yugo believes we are going to the town and won’t look for us there. We will take a boat and go down the Erlauf river. Sooner or later it will fall into the Danube.”
“A boat? Where will we find a boat?”
“There are always boats. Do you have a better plan?”
Something was horribly wrong with all this, but Kuon couldn’t figure out what. The whole kidnapping thing went too smooth to be true. The alarm bell of self-preservation rang inside his head, but he couldn’t tie all the ends together. His brain didn't work at all. Kuon wiped the icy sweat pouring down his face and licked the salt from his lips.
Think, Kuon! Okay, Mio said the pier. If I leave the car there, it will be found in no time. It probably has GPS. I have to get rid of this car. What if I drown it? Yugo will figure it out in no time. And it is snowing outside… I won’t get far like this, and Mio…. Fuck, I can’t leave him in the middle of nowhere, who knows what might happen to him. It doesn’t look like I have a choice, I have to rely on him once again. When we reach the pier, I’ll leave him in the car, take a boat, and that will be it.
His foot stepped on the gas and the speeding car followed the route the boy suggested. Ten minutes later it screeched to a stop by a row of garages.
The concrete sky was impenetrable. It lavishly strewed snow all over the forest and river banks and dusted frozen dirt. Touching the rumpled surface of the river, fluffy snowflakes melted, disappearing forever.
Kuon slammed the door, stepping out. His bare feet touched the frozen soil, but he didn’t notice it, taking in his surroundings. His overheated body welcomed the cooling wind.
“Wa-wait! Where do you think you are going? You will freeze to death, idiot!” Mio pointed, getting out of the car.
The thin jersey, hugging his emaciated chest, looked too insubstantial to fight a biting frost. Kuon swore under his breath, cursing himself for getting Mio involved in this shady enterprise. He should have left him in the mansion.
“Get in the car and wait for Yugo!” he ordered and, not looking at the boy, strode toward the garages. The snow crunched under his bare feet. Fluffy, fat snowflakes, melting on his inflamed skin, merged with sweat.
“Damn, that was fast…” Mio breathed and sprinted after Kuon. Grabbing the man’s hand, he dragged Kuon toward the pier. “Hurry up, they found us!”
