Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

THE JOURNAL OF DAN RAWLINSON 

CONTINUED

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. Everyday. 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.”

On Saturday I go driving by myself. I’m never by myself. I go all the way south to Glencastle, and I am thinking, though at the time I wouldn’t admit it to myself, that maybe this time, by myself, I’ll be able to find that house again. I don’t say anything to anyone, but I think of what Myron might say, You know the mind can play tricks. Maybe you wanted to see that place so bad that it’s in your head that there was such a place. Maybe it was just a dream. And the truth is, as I go up and down the street, unable to find that house where I met Kruinh and Tanitha, it’s definitely starting to feel that way...

The journal was long. Some passages Sunny read outloud, and sometimes he read quietly, as if reading a novel, or as if someone was pouring their mind into his. Often he felt as if he was Dan, and things Dan did not say, Sunny sensed. Was there some vampiric magic, that worked in the book, that as blood was shared, somehow in this book, minds and lives were shared?

They’ve played at the Grey Note. They’re high on the music and applause. It makes up for the lack of money, and the truth is, working for Myron’s family pays well. He’s never seen so much money and he’s never had so much fun.

“Can we get you guys a drink?” the girls ask, and Jack and Nick are all for it, and Myron nods shyly and pulls Dan over.

Dan doesn’t remember much of the conversation, just the dizzying attention paid him by college freshmen, and that Gretchen has left him. Eventually Jack and Nick are gone with the other girls, and Myron and Dan are just sitting there drinking with the red head. It’s late and the bartender says so, and Myron says, “I guess it’s time to get home.”

He’s the responsible one, and he says to the redhead, even though he and Dan are still in high school, “Are you cool to drive, or do you need a ride?”

“Oh,” she says. “I was just going to walk back to my dorm.”

“Well, we can’t let you do that?” Dan isn’t sure if he says it or Myron, but they are both in agreement.

“We’re going to drive you back,” Dan says.

“You boys are gentlemen,” she says. “Gen-till-men.”

She laughs and touches Myron’s lips. “What’s your name.”

Myron says, “It’s Myron. And this is Dan.”

They have to turn around and go back to Lassador after this, but it hardly matters, and it’s nice to see Rawlston by night, to see the college they might end up going to.

“My grandma went here,” Myron says.

“Myron, come back here,” the redhead says after a while. Cynthia. She was Cynthia.

A little drunk, Myron says, “Alright,” and tries to climb back and tries again before Dan stops the car and Myron says, “Ah, yeah,” and then unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the passenger seat, opening his door to climb out, and leaving Dan alone in the front.

He can hear them making out and fooling around as he drives, and he clears his throat as they approach the main gate of the college.

“Uh… where do I go now?”

But she and Myron are well into making out, and finally Cynthia says, “You wanna just drive around?”

“Yeah,” Myron says breathlessly, between kisses. “We can drive around a bit.”

Dan’s face is too red to look back, but he’s the chauffer now and not entirely sure what’s going on in the backseat as they drive away from the college, toward the country where the grasses are high.

“Do you wanna fuck me?” Cynthia asks Myron.

Dan stops the car squarely on the side of the road and turns around, and Myron’s pants are half down.

“I’ll do it with both of you,” she says.

“Dan, can you get out the car for a bit?”

Dan’s too surprised to do anything but he finally gets out of the car, too hot for his feelings, his ears and his flesh burning, his head whirring. He’s seen Myron have sex, but it was only for a second and with his girlfriend who he loved, not with some slut they met at the Grey Note. Myron’s not like this. He’s in youth group. He’s a straight A student. A straight A. He’s a good guy. They’re good guys. This isn’t them. The windows are steamed up and the car is shaking back and forth while Myron is fucking this girl in the backseat of his car, Dan’s car.

When it’s over, Dan stands half out of his body and Myron staggers our of the car, buttoning his pants. His hair is a mess and his face is red. The car door is open into darkness and Cynthia is in there.

“Are you coming, Dan?” she says.

Her voice calls from the dark, “Myron says you’re a virgin. Come on, let me change that.”

Dan isn’t in a place to refuse. Myron is the person he respects most in the world and Myron touches him on the back and says, tenderly, “She’s waiting for you. Dan. Go in.”

Dan does, and Myron closes the door behind him. The space is hot and the smell is strange.

“Dan,” Cynthia says, sounding strangely tired, almost drugged. “Dan.”

Her skirt is up and her legs are open and there is only darkness behind them and she says, “Take off your pants.”

He does. In his head he keeps hearing a distant voice that says, We’re the good guys. We don’t do stuff like this. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

He pulls down his underwear, but his shirt is long and so she reaches under it, and when she touches him, it’s the first time he’s really felt his penis, the first time he’s felt it be this swollen thing, sensitive to the touch, curving, growing, hard, wet with the trickle of semen, wet with whatever she’s got on her hand while she’s massaging it, stroking it, pulling it, someone else’s hand on him for the first time.

“Come on,” she says, her hands on his ass, pulling him inside of her.

“Oh, God,” she murmurs, or is he murmuring? It feels, despite everything, so good. He’s always wanted this, Her hands are so tender up and down him, and it feels so good. He shudders. It feels so good to push and push into her, and he wants to keep doing it, but he’s slow about it, wanting to be gentle and then her hands are up and down his back and she’s saying, “Don’t be gentle. Just do it.”

And so he starts to do it and he can feel her thighs around him, pulling him inside of her and he can hear himself growling between his teeth and she is laughing and calling: “Fuck me! Do it harder.”

They’re both breathing hard together and it’s the most amazing thing and then Dan is surprised and cries out while he comes.