Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

E  I  G  H  T

RECORD SHOPS AND

RESTAURANTS

AND MEETINGS

AT

NIGHT

CONCLUDED

The sun on his back and then heating up half his body, he rode to Glencastle that afternoon. Part of him thought about riding through Lassador, but he was very much on a mission, and besides that, Sunny was sure he would see Lassador soon enough.

When he arrived at the police department, David actually embraced him.

“You look different,” Sunny said, sitting down. And then he said, “You met someone.”

David blushed, “Maybe. But that’s not why you came.”

“It’s not,” Sunny said.

“You heard about the guy who was killed.”

“I did. I just want to know—”

“Bloodless, toothmarks, and its all being kept under wraps.”

“Shit,” Sunny murmured.

“Yeahhh.”

Sunny nodded and David said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“You came all this way—”

“And you told me to stay out of it.”

“But I don’t know if you can,” David said. “I don’t know if you have it in you.”

“Well,” Sunny said after some silence, “Do you have a plan?”

“My plan would be to find Dan again, but you said his group was on tour.”

“Yeah.”

“He goes on tour the moment you move in. That is….”

“Bullshit.”

“I was going to say convenient.”

“It’s something,” Sunny said, sinking low in his seat. His asshole ached. It throbbed from Brad and he flexed, enjoying the pulsing ache.

“I’m about to go to lunch,” David said. “I’ll treat you.”

Sunny knew that David would try to talk him out of doing anything. Sunny had very little idea of what he would do, but he knew that should an idea come, he’d have to go through with it.

 

 

Sunny was off work early that night, and earlier he’d gotten a call from Nehru asking if he was coming home. Nehru of the tender voice and tender hands. Nehru who was more than the other half of Brad, who made him feel such things simply by speaking. Sunny longed to go to him and the apartment and join the company that he and Brad so openly made for him. But he knew the feeling that had been upon him all day could not go away until he did what he found himself doing, which was going in the opposite direction of the Grey Note and the Expressway, and heading west, where Rawlston petered out and an almost countryside began, where there were long, split level houses and subdivisions with no sidewalks and kind quiet people and where, when he turned south onto Bancroft Road, he soon enough knew he was back in Lassador.

By the time he’d crossed the bridge into downtown he knew he’d been on the road a long time, probably close to a half hour and he had the old leaden feeling this city gave him. He wished he’d taken the expressway, except he would never have known where to get off. Here were the tall almost abandoned buildings, the shadow of the Amtrak station in the background, and now he was coming down Buren and turning into Germantown. Taller than the houses were the old factories and taller than them was the hulking shadow of a spired church. At last he rumbled up to Hall Street, with a McDonalds and Burger King down the road, where the steps to the huge church lead up to great doorways like caves, and Sunny parked, putting his keys in his pockets, glad to be on his feet again, glad to be, at last, where he had vowed to be.

Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure what to do. Later he would wonder if what he was doing was offering himself up. In the most normal of times, being on Hall Street past midnight, just walking up and down it, was a dangerous enterprise. He left the broad street and went walking along Dimler, past the other building that must have belonged to the church. There was the school. Maybe that right there was the convent. 

And then he heard the scream. He was torn between terror and joy. It did not ring through the night. It exploded, done nearly as soon as it began. Slowly, Sunny resolved to go in its direction, not to run—that would be foolish—but to approach it quickly, for foolish or not, this is why he had come. Even as he traveled in the direction of the scream, he thought how he had never asked Dan the best way to face these people, and of course, Dan would have said: no way at all. When Sunny asked himself if he was sure which direction the scream had come from, he knew he was trying to make himself fail, and the refusal to fail brought him to where a dark haired man sped around rhe corner and nearly crashed into him.

“Get the fuck out of here!” he shouted, pulling on the collar of Sunny’s. Sunny followed after him until they were at the end of the block, the man grasping his knees and panting.

“I heard a scream,” Sunny, who was not as winded, said looking down the street where, it seemed, no one was pursuing them.

“Yes,” the man said. He stood erect. He seemed almost Sunny’s age, a boy really.

“You heard it?”

Sunny nodded.

“I didn’t think anyone would hear me.”

“It was you?”

“I…” the dark haired boy hung his head, trying to laugh. “I’m embarrassed to admit it was me.”

“Who were you running from?” Sunny said, then, “We should probably get off this street.”

“Yes,” the boy said. “Yes, you’re right. Where were you coming from?”

“Hall Street,” Sunny pointed up the quiet tree lined block they were on to the traffic lights in the distance.

The boy nodded and they began walking toward Hall Street.

“By the way,” the young man said, “I’m Gabriel.”

“Sunny,” Sunny offered.

“You’re out late,” Gabriel said. “Like me. I guess you could say we were both looking for trouble.”

“I probably was,” Sunny admitted.

“Yeah,” Gabriel went on in his light voice. “I can’t get too mad. After all, it’s almost like anyone up this late is looking for trouble.”

“I was trying to figure out what happened to a friend,” Sunny said, taking a chance. After all, if Gabriel had just screamed for no reason, or for a reason different from what Sunny sought, then he was still no closer to what he was looking for.

“He died in an odd way. Killed out here. A few other guys our age were killed like that, and a few days ago, someone else was killed like that around here, too. So… since the last time these folks went around taking guys from the same area, I thought maybe if I looked here…”

“You think those guys were going to kill me?” Gabriel’s eyes went wide.

At the same time Sunny was scared for Gabriel, he was glad to be on the right track.

“Yeah, Gabriel, I think they were.”

“I… They had me against a wall, and… this is the weird thing… It was like this asshole was trying to bite my neck.”

There it was. Sunny would never have said it outloud. He would have been taken as a nutjob. But Gabriel had said it, and Sunny said, “Those are the folks, and I’ve learned a little bit about them. I’d like to get as close to them as possible so I can stop them.”

“Sunny, that’s really stupid.”

Gabriel looked straight at Sunny. They were coming closer to Hall Street now.

“These people are… dangerous. You don’t want to get closer to them.”

“I do,” Sunny said. “I want to get as close as I can.”

“So you can do… what?” Gabriel looked at him seriously.

“So I can…”

“Look,” the dark haired boy said, “where’s your car?”

“That bike over there is my car.”

“That’s… beautiful actually. But how about you put it in my truck and I take you home. For the good turn you did me. Maybe you can even fill me in on what you know and I… can dissuade you.”

When Gabriel said it seriously, Sunny was moved, and also tired of driving, but the way in which Gabriel looked at him made Sunny also think what a goodlooking guy he was.

“I live in Rawlston.”

“I don’t live nearly that far,” Gabriel said. “I’d be glad to take you home, but… you’re welcome to say with me tonight.”

Sunny felt closer than he ever had to getting what he wanted, and there was an open invitation in Gabriel’s eyes.

In a moment they had loaded his bike into the bed of the truck, and the fear of the night both of them seemed to have, melted in the cab. Hands in each other’s hair, the two boys made out until Sunny whispered in his ear, “Take me to your place.”