The Blood: A Denouement

I feel like a normal person again. I feel better than normal. It’s so beautiful here. They say it never rains in Southern California. Well, it rains here all the time, and when it does, who cares? Everything is so beautiful here. I’ve never known sunlight like this, and the water is so blue. I wonder, if what I am is real, then what about mermaids? Are they real too? I could almost believe in them when I look at this water. It’s so clear. Part of me wants to never take the pills again, to see if maybe living in a different place I’m a different person. Maybe the curse is gone. But there are so many beautiful people here, I don’t dare endanger their lives. So many beautiful people.

Today I met this girl in a bar. I ask her what’s her name, she says wouldn’t I like to know, I saw, yeah, I would that’s why I asked. She laughs. She has the most gorgeous red hair, and these lips, thick lips, heavy dark eyes. She looks so amazing. Great legs. I’m totally in love. She looks like she wouldn’t be afraid of anything like, maybe, maybe, she could deal with me.

“My name’s Rebecca Cunningham,” she says.

Rebecca Cunningham.

I’m going to have to see her again.

“Enter Mom,” Marabeth murmured as she put the book down.

“And exit me.”

For a moment, at least. It was time to rest, time to rest and return to herself. Reading these journals it was almost as if none of herself was left, and there would have to be something, for in a very few hours she would step out into the dark night, put a skin over her body and see if she was, after all, the Wolf she read about, feared and longed for.

Now and again, Daniel Rawlinson flipped through the notebooks where he’d scribbled bits and pieces of his life. He had, now and again, the discipline to keep a journal which never seemed to last, and the sustained parts of his life that he had written down were like revelations to him. There was much he had misremembered or made better than it was.

WE HAVE HAD OUR very first gig. Sort of. Myron comes in and tells us he has commissioned us for his older cousin Marabeth’s twenty-first birthday.

Actually it turns out that what really happens is a lot more like this: her parents were telling her she needed to have a party because twenty-one is an important birthday and it’s not like she’d having a graduation or anything like that anytime soon. She doesn’t seem very interested at all. I go over to their house. It’s pretty fucking huge. It’s a townhouse, but it’s almost like a mansion, and there’s this girls whose all in black with black hair and black eye shadow, and she’s chewing her gum and she looks kind of bitchy, but she’s nice enough. This is Kris Strauss’s sister. We know Kris cause he goes to Saint Ignatius with us and plays the oboe in the band, He’s really smart and shit, but he got some type of depression the same time Myron did, and now they both take medication for it.

Anyway, Myron goes into this long speech to Marabeth about graduation parties and band and music and she’s kind of nodding her head and smoking a cigarette, which I think is amazing because she is smoking in her parents’ house and does not give a solitary fuck. Like, all her mom said was, “That’s so foul,” to Marabeth, but she didn’t care.

So anyway, Myron just keeps on talking and talking and finally Marabeth says, “What were you saying?” and then Myron sighs and says, “Can we be one of the bands that plays at your graduation party?’

“One of them?” Marabeth raises an eyebrow. “What kind of heiress do I look like. You can play as much as you want.”

We are so excited about this that Marabeth reminds us, “You’re gonna wanna get paid, though. I mean, what’s the point in being in a band that doesn’t get paid? Talk to Mom and Dad about it. Tell ‘em I said I chose you and I’m really excited.”

Marabeth did not appear very excited. She appeared busy with whatever she was drawing, but there was our gig.

The party is full of Kellers, and it’s also a lot of older kids from the junior college where Marabeth goes. I was surprised she had that many friends. I mean, she doesn’t seem like someone who would care too much about friends. Kris is there with his friends and when he says the same thing, Marabeth says, “I don’t know who half of these people are.”

She doesn’t seem sad about it. It’s just a matter of fact thing.

Between sets, Marabeth comes up to us with a tall, kind of cool looking guy. I mean, I don’t know that he’s cool but he looks like cool people are supposed to look, you know, shades and gelled hair and self confidence and stuff, and he says, “There’s open mic night as Nicola’s on Wednesday night, and you knowRubio’s on the east side is auditioning for a house band.”

“Can we stay up that late?” Nick says.

“Did you seriously say that?” Marabeth says to him.

When Nick opens his mouth, Marabeth says, “They’re being ironic. They’ll be there.”

“Follow your fucking dreams,” she says.

“What’s your dream?” Myron ask her.

She smirks and looks at a tall mixed guy who’s waving at her and says, “To make out with Jamal Perkins before the night is over.”

She winks, lowers her shades, and then strides away.

“Your cousin is so fucking cool,” Jack declares to Myron.

Kris just makes a face.

But I agree.

At Nicola’s the guy asks us, “Does any of you even know how to drive a car?”

We say yes, and don’t sink down to his asshole level, and then start to play This is a kind of pub place,and we do a few Irish songs and some covers. Nicola’s is where middle aged people come to escape their lives is what Myron say, and I’m not sure why we’re even here, but Myron says, “Because we need the practice and it’s good to stand up in front of people.”

The microphone sucks, and it keeps on making that reverb sound when Myron’s speaking into it. We’ve been pretty safe for three songs, decent, as good as anyone else, and then suddenly Myron announces that we’re going to do “I Know You’re Married, But I Love You Still.” And it’s not that many people who know it, and we’ve only done it a couple of times, but just then Myron begins to twang his banjo and his voice rises to a country octave, and out comes that voice of his that he’s been saving, and Rick is amazing at harmonizing with him, and their voices are desperate and oh Rick’s guitar is clear and country and you can just tell everyone is coming out of their seats as Myron wails

You know I love you and I always will
I know you're married but I love you still
The day I met you my heart spoke to me
It said to love you through eternity

Now knowing that you were another's bride
I vowed I'll always be close by your side
You know I love you and I always will
I know you're married but I love you still

Later that night, when that asshole who asked us if we were old enough to be here asks us if we’re coming back next week, Myron just shrugs and says, “We’ll see if we can.”

Myron looks real serious, and a pen is hanging out of his mouth like a cigar. He says, “Well, boys, it’s summer, and we better get serious. Are we going to spend all out time working in a grocery store as bag boys and cutting lawns, and forget about the music, or are we going to try to make somemoney as a band?”

Nick points out that realistically they would probably do both, and Jack says that he doubts Myron has ever been a bag boy, but Myron just sort of glares at them, and then we say we’ll knock it out of the park when we get to Rubio’s.

At Rubio’s they don’t seem to care how old we are. We have stopped cutting our hair for the most part, even Myron, and his mom is talking about that.They say we were good, but not quite what they’re looking for.

“Have you tried The Grey Note?”

“The Grey Note?” Myron says

“Up in Rawlston.

Rawlson’s not that far. It’s the next town to the north.

Myron says, “Here’s our schedule. We’re gonna go up tonight and see what kind of music they like.”

“And then we’re going to do the opposite?” I say because Myron’s really cagey like that.

“No,” Myron looks at me like I’m stupid. “Then we’re going to do it. But better.”

It’s some shitty cover band. We’re better. They’re older. Myron says I’m a way better guitarist. We decide to do two covers and two originals when we go up on Wednesday. Dad says I can have the old car he’s getting rid of if I get a job to pay for the gas. I tell him I’m going to get a job playing at the Grey Note.

He does not look impressed.

*

O Splendor and Joy! We will be paid to play at the Grey Note Three Nights a week

O reality, when it is explained what the money is and how it looks split four ways.

O fuckery when I figure in the money from working at the store and the cost of gas driving to Rawlston to play at the Grey Note.

*

“I always work for my uncle Grange,” Myron says brightly. “I’m a runner in his office downtown.”

“Well how lucky for you,”

Myron smacks me on the head.

“I’m not saying it to show off. I’m saying it cause you can too.”

I look at him and Myron says, “I didn’t think you’d want to be the one to beg for a job, so I just asked if you could work with me too. Granger said he expects us both there at ten. Ten! We get to sleep. And we leave at four. Every day. This’ll be awesome. He says he always needs good workers.”

Later, when I ask Myron about this he says that what his uncle really said was, “We always have jobs to hand out to cousins so they feel like they’re doing something.”

Everyday we dress like we’re going to school, except we always wear white shirts and roll our sleeves up. No jackets, and we spend all morning running errands from office to office, or driving across town to get stuff. We’re assistants. There are a lot of people in the office and that’s when Myron says, “It’s a lot of family members, and they need jobs. You know.”

Myron’s uncle is rich as fuck. Or at least his family is, and he says it’s not right for people to just sit around all day and do nothing, or else everyone would be depressed and snort coke. So instead they get dressed, come here and work till five. Some of them look really exhausted. Peter, Myron’s cousin, is here for the summer, and he’s always with his dad and I say, “He actually looks like he is working.”

Actually we’re all working. You can always find something to do, but Myron says, “Yeah. He’s sort of going to inherit all of what Uncle Grange does, so he’s learning it.”

“Your uncle looks pretty healthy, I’d say. Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon.”