The Blood: A Denouement

Dan Rawlinson watched Myron’s fingers as they moved across the banjo in the garage beside his parents’ house.

“I've done all I can do
To try and get along with you
But still you're not satisfied

He roared, though he had a tenor voice, high and sweet:

“Oh, Ruby, Ruby
Honey, are you mad at your man?”

Dan had to remind himself to keep playing, because he had only played with Rick and the two of them were mediocre singers at best. The red cheeked tall boy they had just brought to their band was something else.

“I'll set you in the shade
I'll shovel with a spade
I'm digging into grounds gone mine

Oh, Ruby, Ruby
Honey, are you mad at your man?”

Myron didn’t put down his mandolin, he was still holding it as if ready to play again.

“I can do other stuff.”

“How the fuck long have you played?” Rick asked.

“Since I was seven,” Myron said.

“This is gonna be great,” Dan looked at Myron with admiration.

Dan and Rick lived on the northeast side. They had traveled to the Near Southside to visit Myron, and maybe consider using his garage as a permanent practice spot. Germantown was south of downtown and it had been pretty industrial and a little run down, but in the last few years was it coming back. Myron’s family lived in a huge white house on the east edge of Germantown, past the cathedral where the river dipped down, and the whole house with its stainless steel refrigerator and stainless steel gas stove, the sparkling white kitchen with broad island and clear glass doors, fit with the image of the slim guy on the swim team who walked, yes, with his nose a little bit in the air.

“Danny writes,” Rick pointed to Dan with the edge of his guitar. “We’ve been working with one of his songs.”

“Really?” Myron said. “How long?”

“A few months,” Dan answered.

“A few…” Myron tried not to look disgusted. “Why don’t we figure it out now?”

“You’re an overachiever,” Rick said.

“If you actually care about doing something,” Myron said, “you sort of have to be.”

Myron had disregarded Rick, and Dan decided he would too. He opened up his bag and pulled out his notebook.

“How many songs you got?” Myron asked.

“Five or six?”

“How often you write?” Myron looked concerned as he plucked his mandolin.

“Uh… I try to do it at least once a week.”

“If you were serious you’d do it every day.”

“Every—”

“How often did you practice the guitar?”

“Every day.”

“When I taught myself German I practiced every day,” Myron said, his voice even as his fingers moved rapidly across the mandolin.

“You… what the—?” Dan began as Myron’s fingers went even faster up and down the bridge of the mandolin.

“You need to be serious and do it every day,” Myron said firmly, stopping.

“Shit!” Rick said. “We were just fucking around.”

“Well, I don’t have time to just fuck around,” Myron shrugged. “So be a band or leave me alone.”

Rick’s lip was curled like he wanted to say something, but was choosing not to. Myron turned to Dan with that haughty look, and Dan loved it.

“We’ll be a band,” Dan said. “We’ll be serious.”

Myron suddenly grinned at him like the boy that he was and strummed his mandolin.

“That’s all I ask.”

They agreed to rotate practices between Rick’s house and Myron’s and, at last, settled on Myron’s because his house was the nicest. Also, in a time when Rick loved to drive, Myron’s house was the longest drive. Dan and Rick lived on the outskirts of Lassador, and to get to Myron they had to travel all the way west past Saint Ursula School, then past Saint Mel’s, crossing the river crossing over into downtown and then heading south to the old houses of Germantown.

“I called him three times,” Rick said, “and I know his folks aren’t home. It’s time to wake his ass up.”

Dan almost protested as they came to the large white house on the corner of Wilson and Ubick Streets, but wasn’t Myron always saying he didn’t have time for them if they were going to be half assed?

They parked in the driveway before the garage that they would be using soon enough, and then jumped out, wrapping on the kitchen door at the side of the house.

“What the nut?” Rick wondered, and Dan walked around the house, leaving Rick there, and then twisted the front door and after a push it came open and Dan stood in the living room that was well appointed as ever, but empty of people. He closed the door behind him and padded upstairs where he heard the sounds of struggle. Mrs Keller cried out and Dan ran in the direction of her frantic voice, crying, “Stop. No!”

Only the back of his mind marveled at how big the house was, how sunlit and large this upstairs was as he pushed open the door where Mrs. Keller was struggling and then gasped and Myron wailed, “Shut the door!” as a girl screamed.

Dan did so, his face burning red. He had seen Myron and some girl, him so naked and long, struggling together on the bed, and Dan put his hands over his face while, downstairs, the kitchen door opened, and Rick called, “Dan! Is he up there?”

Myron’s door came open, and Myron, red faced with hair sticking up, demanded, “What are you all doing here?”

“We’re… Leaving.”

Dan ran downstairs and said, “He’s not here, Rick. Let’s go before the cops come or something.”

“Not here, why that SOB is always getting on our backs about practice.”

“I know, I know,” Dan said. “Let’s go.’

“Why are you so red?” Rick asked as he opened the front door. “You see a dead body or something?”

Dan was terrified. He felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Rehearsing everything, nothing they’d done made sense. Why hadn’t they just left off at knocking on Myron’s door, and then, not hearing anything, left? Or, for that matter, why hadn’t Dan walked in, heard what he heard, had some sense and walked away? But even this made Dan upset because why in the world should he assume that Myron would just miss the practice he thought was so important, and why should Myron have a girlfriend, let alone one he was banging? Dan had Gretchen and the most they ever did was kiss. I mean, Dan thought, I’ve always had a girlfriend. And still… And Rick definitely should have been the one banging a chick. And damnit, Myron should have had his doors locked, and aside from that, Myron should have been ready for practice or called and said he couldn’t do it or something. Something, anything except this huge feeling of tremendous assholedom that Dan had right now, Myron’s red face, Myron’s red ass, Dan’s embarrassment. All of his discombobulation. How stupid and little he felt!

“Dan,” his sister danced into his room.

“There’s someone here for you.”

Well, fuck!

And here was Myron and Myron said, looking penitential more than angry: “I forgot.”

“Oh,” Dan said.

He wanted to say a lot of things, but none of them seemed to make any sense, and so he let Myron continue, “Joanna said she really had to see me, and we’ve been having problems, so I kind of forgot stuff.”

“I…. don’t even know what sex is like,” Dan found himself saying.

“Mind if I close the door?” Myron nudged it shut while Dan nodded his head rapidly.

“Sometimes it feels like we’re not going to last,” Myron said.

“I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.”

“We’ve been together for three years.”

“Wow,” Dan said. Then he said, “I don’t think I could get anything to last past six months.”

Then he said, “So you all… have sex?”

“Yes,” Myron said.

“I never pictured that for you.”

Myron burst out into something like a laugh, and Dan just said, “That’s more of a Rick thing. Like… how long?”

“Two years. Give or take. Give, really.”

“That would make you like…” Dan sat up. “We’re the same age, right?’

“Yeah.”

“So you were like… fourteen?”

“We were a grown up fourteen,” Myron said defensively. “and I hope you didn’t go around and tell everyone.”

“No!” Dan said indignantly. “What the fuck? No!”

“Well, I didn’t know,” Myron said. “Guys are funny. About that kind of stuff. It’s girls that are more straightforward.”

“Girls would be like you slut, but guys would think you were the man,” Dan said.

“I know that’s what people say,” Myron said, “but it still feels like people are looking at you thinking you’re the slut. It’s more complicated. I think guys say one thing and girls say another, but inside they both are kind of jealous and envious and looking down at you all at the same time, and no one’s really honest. And I don’t want anybody to really know anything about me at all. Not really.”

“Right.”

“What I do is my business.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Dan said. “Not even Rick.”

“I’m in youth group,” Myron went on. “I’m a Eucharistic minister. People wouldn’t understand.”

“People don’t have to know shit,” Dan said, suddenly sounding far more fierce than he actually felt. “People don’t have to know a goddamn thing.”

“Thanks,” Myron said.

Then he said, “She’s a lady, you know, She’s not a slut or anything. We’re gonna get married one day. Have a bunch of kids. I love her.”

“That’s great,” Dan said, and he sounded dumb to himself.

“I really do,” Myron said.

And then, because Dan didn’t know what else to say, he said, “Did you drive?”

“I can’t drive. I took a cab.”

“That has got be expensive as… you wanna stay for dinner? Stay the night?”

“Sure.”

Then Myron said, “I mean, yeah.”

“There’s a party at Jude Crateau’s,” Dan said. “We might be able to play. Rick’ll be there. You can borrow my guitar. Only thing is you’ll have to go to church with us in the morning.”

“Where you guys go?”

“Saint Anthony’s.”

Myron made a face and stuck out his tongue.

“I guess church is church. Yeah. Let’s go.”