Here, In This Place

[ChrisGibson]

IN THIS PREQUEL TO THE BLOOD SAGA, WE MEET DAVID LAWRY, DETECTIVE IN LASSADOR, OHIO, WHO IS ABOUT TO HAVE HIS WORLD CHANGED...

On the very night that it happened, David Lawry was already telling himself he needed to get the fuck out of this town. When he left he should have stayed gone, but he came back to be with his mother, to care for her in those last years with the cancer that nibbled on her with a slow boredom. Only now she was gone, and he was still here with this shitty job and this shitty place. No, before he drove over to the Eastside that night, he already knew he needed to be gone.

“Everyone thinks you have to go to California,” David was saying to himself as he drove, “but you don’t. What the fuck is in California anyway?”

On Dorr, heading south to downtown, he passed the campus of Saint Ignatius Men’s College Prep where he’d gone it seemed, about a million years ago. The school was set far off the street, and in the night completely dark, not like the place of his riotous youth when things were better, when you didn’t know what you were going to be, but you didn’t think that Joe would end up working at CVS and Mark would put on a hundred pounds and do accounting for the tire company. David had been a middling student, and he had gotten into a middling college. Two years later, looking for some more adventure and looking to get the hell out of Ohio, he’d ended up in Ann Arbor. It was around there he’d made his life. He had loved Michigan and never thought he’d be back here. But sickness changes things.

Everything changes after thirty. The control you thought you had, the dreams you thought mattered…. Everything changes.

Being a police officer on the outskirts of Ann Arbor was nothing like this. When he came to Lassador as a detective, even though the transfer was easy, he wondered if being a detective out there qualified him for the shit he saw down here. He’d always heard of the violence in Lassador, but that was all downtown, or on the Westside, or in Far South. It was removed from him. He lived in the nice part of Lassador.

Now David Lawry crossed the bridge into downtown and it looked a little dead tonight. These few blocks, where Door met Denning and Denning went south were quiet, nice to look at, nice to live in. He’d been in Ainsley, Michigan before, and he was pretty sure downtown Lassador was the size of that whole town. Out to the east were the broken factories, the ruins of old Saint Patrick’s, the Amtrak station looking like the large and unlovely carcasse of some prehistoric beast. South went into Germantown and Little Hungary, but he headed west, and when you crossed Sherrold, things went a little dicey, and when you crossed Clemente, more dicey still, and when you had finally hit Stickney, if you didn’t have a gun you were taking your life in your hands.

“Life in your hands,” David murmured.

It was a defence mechanism, really, to think about the nice things back in Ainsley when he was in the very ugliest parts of his job. He had gotten the dispatch as he was hitting Denning, on his way home, and took it, calling for back up. But his gun was ready and he climbed out of the car, siren on, and crossed the yard. The man was shouting. The wife had called and said he was on drugs and he was out of his mind. All of the houses were depressed. This could be seen even in the dark David could see the basic bungalows with stoops of wide porches hadn’t been painted, and there was no sidewalk or where there was sidewalk, weeds grew up out of it to destroy what was.

The man was screaming, “You fucking bitch!” But she wasn’t screaming back. David kicked down the door the same time he bellowed “Police.”

Two other cars were rolling up, coloring the dismal street red and blue. David looked around in horror and disbelief. Before things could come together in his mind, the large man, blood all around his mouth, screamed and rushed David. David Lawry pulled the trigger once twice, three times, forcing himself not to shut his eyes.





“It was self defense, so it’s not like he’s gonna get in trouble,” Officer Carlton was saying.

“Would everyone in the family see it that way?” Barton asked.

“Anyone in the family? There’s no one left. Didn’t you see what that fucker did?”

“You just can’t tell these days? You do your best, and these days it seems like all cops are under fire.”

“Stop your fucking pity party. When a cop puts his knee on a fucker’s neck, he should be under fire. When you shoot someone who was only selling cigarettes, you should be under fire. All Dave did was his job.”

In the precinct office, empty as it was at this time of night, under the ugly fluorescent light, David Lawry wondered if Barton and Carlson thought he didn’t hear them? Of course, he probably looked as out of it as he felt.

“You can go home,” Captain McKarney was saying. McKarney, related to Kevin McKarney who’d played on the basketball team? Maybe. “You did good, Lawry.”

“I didn’t do anything.” David was surprised his voice didn’t break. “We didn’t do anything. We didn’t save anybody.”

“You saw a lot, Lawry,” Captain McKarney said. “We all saw a lot. Go home. Get some rest. Maybe sleep in.”

“That won’t be necessary,” David said, getting up.

McKarney was about to say something to the young detective. Instead he just shook his head and said, “Please sleep in.”

On his way out of the station, David ran into Cody. He was new to the force and he looked as pale and blank as David felt.

“You need a ride?” David called to him.

Cody hadn’t heard him. He called again. The boy looked distracted.

“Naw,” he said. “I let my brother have the car. I’m waiting on him.”

“You know you could take a cop car home?”

“I don’t like to do that,” Cody said.

“Cody,” David said. “You need a drink?”

Cody took a breath.

“Yeah.”



“How could you do that?” Cody kept saying. The Scotch sat in his hand half empty. David found that he’d put two away and thought he should probably stop, For a cop to be driving drunk with another cop was a bad idea. They weren’t far from the station. Maybe he’d take a cop car home tonight and put up the siren, then who would stop him?

“I don’t care how high you are,” Cody said, “How could you do that to your family? I mean, did you see it? Of course you saw it. You saw it first.

“I thought we’d make things better. I thought we would save lives. But half the time we’re too late. I thought we’d get the bad guys, but we never do. What’s the point?”

When David didn’t answer, Cody said, again, “What’s the point?”

“I…” David began. “We… We do good.”

“We don’t even do good when it’s simple stuff like keeping down the noise in an apartment building. Remember that woman who called in about her neighbor. And then we thought we took care of it. But—”

“No one could see that coming—”

“But it still came. That asshole still went in and raped and killed an old woman just because…. A noise complaint?”

“But it’s not always like that.”

“It is always like that!” Cody argued.

“Back in Michigan it wasn’t,” David said, sounding desolate and empty to himself.

“Maybe I should get back there. Maybe we need to get out of Lassador.”

He drove Cody home. Cody lived on the Southside too. Cody was on Mackey Street, and a little further south, in the old house he’d grown up in on Belmont Avenue, lived David, not far from the girl’s Catholic school where his sister had gone. It was a little house, raised up on a ridge over the sidewalk, like all the houses that sat on the inside street looking off of Denning. Some houses never got clean because there was no time to clean them, but this one was never dirty because there was no time to live in it. He was exhausted and more than. He turned on the Late Show for company, and after shutting the curtains, he collapsed on the couch with the light on and fell asleep.



David jumped out of his dream, screaming. It took him a moment to look around and realize he was in his house. The little house with the steps that went up to two little dormer rooms and a bathroom. There was this living room, a master bedroom and the kitchen behind him, a small space to protect, and there was the company of the light and whatever was playing on television. When we was little there had been an end to TV, a sign off and then stripes across the screen till six am, Now TV never went off. It was a constant friend. He was covered in sweat and he smelled like cigarettes and liquor and the staleness of the day. David stripped in the living room on the old beige carpet, then stomped up the stairs and stood under the shower. When he had toweled off, he went into the darkness of his childhood bedroom. He could not make himself sleep in the master bedroom where his mother had lain dying. He flung himself on his face and went back to sleep.



His body woke up him up at seven. He stood up and looked out of the window. The day was sunny and he could see directly into the house next door. He knew all his neighbors, and Claire was getting dressed in her bedroom. Thoughtlessly he watched her, and now she saw him. She looked directly at him, and suddenly David realized he was naked.

Claire smiled across the space between the two houses. She turned to look at him, and opened her blouse. She took off her brazierre and bared her breasts to him. It was a moment before he realized he stood there with an erection. She smiled and then, turning around, closed the curtains. David stood in his room naked and hard like a teenage boy, and like an old man, which he felt if he didn’t look it, David was too exhausted to be embarrassed, He groaned, threw himself back on the bed, and remembering Captain McKarney’s order, went back to sleep.

MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great start to this prequel of Blood. I like David, he seems like a good guy in a bit of a sad situation. Being a cop must be a hard job full stop but in a city as rough as this one sounds it would be even worse. Great writing and I look forward to reading more about David. Hope you’re having a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I hope you're having a good weekend too. David was in the third book if a blink and you'll miss him kind of way, so its kind of nice that you're meeting him here, and not really knowing his future importantance.

 

[ChrisGibson]

HELLO, WELCOME TO A NEW WEEK AND TO MORE OF HERE IN THIS PLACE

David Lawry was a good enough looking man. He didn’t pay too much attention these days to his image in the mirror, and that is how he chose to describe himself. He’d always been able to get the girl, but that hadn’t mattered in a while. Caretaking was sexless. Mourning was sexless. There was just doing what he had come back here to do. And you could resent it, but there was no point in that. In the morning, dressing for work, remembering the encounter that had taken place, he examined himself.

All of his shirts and all of his pants matched, so there wasn’t a lot of looking for what to wear. Something beige and some beige blazer, a red tie, a white shirt. He was tall and white, not Caucausian, but nearly alabaster, pale as fuck Tony Manning, a sergeant on the force said, and David’s hair was dark and thick and fell in wings that Sonia said were from the Nineties and needed to be taken care of except they were so pretty. He was dark eyed and aquiline nosed like all the Italian ancestors who’d had some name someone on Ellis Island had not wanted to spell properly and so had written Lawry.

“It was the bad skin,” David remembered, rubbing his chin and thinking about how he should have shaved as he headed downtown.

He’d had the worst acne in high school, then started using something to clear his skin and it had worked, but his mother had cried, “What the hell. You look like Michael Jackson! What’s in that?”

At the time David didn’t care that he looked like a ghost. He didn’t have all those red marks over his face, and he was dating Suzie Mansfield and liked the way he looked in his wrestler’s singlet. Twenty years later, he remembered that this is why no one associated him with sunny Italy. He’d stayed pale ever since.

Well, Anthony Paglioti. Remember him. What an asshole. Curly blonde hair, blue eyes, had a face like a possum. He was white as fuck too. And he was Sicilian. So it probably wasn’t the skin cream. I mean, there really were some white white Italians.

David was aware that his brain was rambling now. He was parking and heading to the squat old precinct building. He was Daniel Trivonti on Hill Street Blues. He’d been a little too young for that but fallen in love with the show in re runs. What was his family’s old name that the man on Ellis Island had been too lazy to translate? That story was a lie. David knew that it was his great grandfather who changed it when signs all over the place said no coloreds, no Irish, no Italians. He’d changed it for his childrens’ sake and those kids had gone out into the world worrying, would someone know what they were? Would they get away with the ruse? Imagine that. He remembered Woody Stabler, this gay kid at Saint Ignatius everyone made fun of. David didn’t want to because…. Because he just didn’t. Later, when he thought about life he wondered if it was because his grandparents were like that, spending a long time proud of what they were, but afraid of being found out. And now here he was, and he didn’t even know his real name.

There was a mood in the station when David came in, and he grabbed a donut, which made him a stereotype, and asked Delores at the desk, “What’s going on?”

“You don’t know?” she looked almost irritated.

Captain McKarney’s door flew open and he said, “I thought I told you stay home.”

“You told me sleep in,” David held the donut half to his mouth.

“Well, you should stay home.”

“Whaddid I do?”

“It’s not what you did. It’s… It’s Cody.”

“Cody Taylor?” David said. “Cody Cody? ”

“Cody shot himself this morning.”

The ground lurched under David. He felt sick. He put the donut down and went for the bathroom, trying to not fall as things turned around him. He threw up, and was surprised at how much was in him. He kept vomiting into the toilet and then he washed his face and rinsed his mouth.

When he came out, Carlson was there.

“That kid ate his fucking gun. His brother said he was feeling awful last night. He said you took him out and he felt better, but you could tell things had shaken him, and this morning he was getting dressed and he was in his uniform and everything. He was sitting by the edge of the bed, and he took out his gun, told his brother sorry, put it in his mouth and just pulled the trigger.”

“What?”

“Yeah. His brother was in the room with him. It was like 7:45, Maybe eight.”

That had been the same time he was watching Claire across the street and she was giving him a boner.

“I’m so sorry, man,” Carlson squeezed Dave’s shoulder.

“Now do you know why I want you to go home?” Captain Karney said.

“I get it.”

“Cause you saw the same thing he saw.”

“A half naked asshole with blood all over his face who had just knifed three kids to death? Their bodies on the floor. And his wife—the woman who called us—whose voice message is still recorded begging for help—dead on the floor. Head almost off? Yeah, I saw it. I saw it, and not only that, but then I killed him. But I killed him too late. He’d done what he’d done, and they’re gone. And now so is Cody.”

“You need to take some time off.”

“Is that an order?”

Karney took a breath. He chose his words carefully.

“No, it is not an order. It should be. But it isn’t.”

“Good, because the only thing that’s going to happen to me is I will be in a house by myself with nothing but my nightmares, seeing this asshole over and over again. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather just go back and work.”

As David Lawry went to his desk, Captain Karney said, “and what good is that going to do in the end, Dave?”

“I dunno,” Dave shouted back angrily, “maybe it’ll give me some new nightmares. This current one kind of sucks.”



The late morning was quiet. In the afternoon things were diverted by a young man looking for his father who had dementia and had somehow gotten car keys and was driving around Lassador. They found the old man and the keys and returned both to the son who sat his father down and prepared him dinner while the old man shook his head and said, “I get so lost sometimes. I get so lost. I’m so glad you saved me.”

David started to feel good about the world, and that was when he looked at his phone.



Two messages, and he played the first one:



“Detective, thanks for the drinks. They really helped. I don’t know... Sometimes I get so down... Anyway I didn’t mean to bother you, and I didn’t think you’d be awake. Just… thanks a lot.



Cody, his voice living, but in the scratchy quality of answering messages. David was captivated by the last sounds of the living voice of someone who was gone. He played the message three times, glass eyed, before he moved on to the next message.



“Hey, Detective. It’s me again. Cody…”

Cody’s voice sounded high and plaintive.

“I just wanted to say thanks. And… it’s not nobody’s fault. I mean, it’s not anybody’s fault... And, you know… I don’t want folks to get mad... You know….”

There was a long stretch of scratchy silence.

“Goodbye now…” Cody said.

“Thanks.”

Dave stood up and went to Karney’s office. He played it for him.

“7:30,” Karney said. “He knew by 7:30. He knew when he was getting dressed.”

“He’s the one you should have given time off to,” David said.

“I didn’t know he was so bad off.”

“You know what?” David said.

“Huh?”

“If my phone had been on, if I’d answered it, and talked to him—”

“Naw, Dave, you can’t do that.”

“He’d be alive. Even when he said goodbye, if I’d answered and said, ‘No, man. Just make it through today…’”

“He had his brother. If he wanted to live he would have said something to him.”

“I could have stopped this. If not that family, at least I could have helped him.”

“Dave?”

“Yeah.”

“Please. Please, go home.”

He might as well. It was near the end of the day anyway.


He knew what Karney also wanted to add was: and delete the messages. He didn’t. He drove all around town, playing them now and again. Lassador was so large, and he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for when he drove up and down Denning and through the townhouses of old Germantown. He drove through the Near Westside and the old mansions, and across the river to the Hills, around Saint Ignatius, and maybe he drove just so he didn’t have to go home. But at last, he did go home. He parked in front of the ltitle house on the little rise of hill like all the other houses and he knew the day should have been beautiful. The lights were on in Claire’s house, and he looked to the kitchen for a moment, but then let himself inside. He was a lonely person. He had become a lonely person. Mom had ended up being his whole life. There had been no time to make new friends, and the old ones had fallen away. He felt like he should do something about that, but was far too tired to be able to sit down and think about what. He was just far too… tired.

Somewhere along the line he ordered a pizza and showered. Eventually he went to bed on the sofa, in front of the TV. He knew he needed to cry. He was sure that would help. Some tears, some therapy, maybe going to church. He knew something needed to come in and break him, that he was fucked up right now, and everything he was doing was very temporary. But he also knew he didn’t have the time for that right now. At the moment it was extremely inconvenient to be broken.

Laying on the couch, he took out his phone and touched it.

“Detective, thanks for the drinks. They really helped. I don’t know... Sometimes I get so down... Anyway I didn’t mean to bother you, and I didn’t think you’d be awake. Just… thanks a lot.”

Like a weird lullaby he played the messages over and over again, until his finger was tired and he had exhausted himself with grief.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow that was very sad. Poor Cody, you just never know how much things affect some people. I wish David would take some time off but it sounds like working might help. What they saw was horrific. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That night, David had the most bizarre dream that had come to him in a long time. It was strange in the quality of how real it seemed. He was coming down into his living room, cursing himself for not keeping a TV in his bedroom, and he was sitting down on the sofa and turning on the TV. He was naked because it was his house, and he could be naked and the reception was bad on the Late Show. He fiddled around with the TV till he found something that worked, and when he’d gotten clear reception, he rose to get a drink.
When he came back, the voice on the television was asking a disconsolate, but handsome man, “Is your failure to age startling your mortal friends and making it difficult to stay in one place very long? Is your constantly youthful appearance making a rift with your lovers as they begin to grey?”
Earnestly, sadly, the goodlooking, dark haired man nodded.
“Well.” Continued the voice on. “from the makers of Nutra Negative and your favorite drink, Hemogoblin, comes, Garden of Eden’s Aging Cream.”
In the dream, David cocked his head and watched as the handsome young man, gleerfuly applied the white cream to his face rubbing it in and the announcer continued:
“Garden of Eden, used daily, gently increases wrinkles, loosens skin and greys hair to give that mortal appearance so many of us are trying to replicate. Depending upon need use a little or use a lot.”
The young man looked—not ancient—but around forty-five now, or a gently worn fifty, and he ran a hand through his hair and grinned toothily. And what sharp teeth some of those were!
“Thanks to G of E, I’ve got my life back, and none of those awkward questions from friends, family and neighbors about why I haven’t aged a day! Thank you, G of E!”
“Garden of Eden Aging Cream,” the announcer continued, “Satisfaction or your money back. Guaranteed.”
“What the fuck?” David wondered. But he was tired, and he curled up on the couch, glad this oddness had taken over his thoughts for while. There was some old cowboy movie on, and he allowed it to play in the background while he drifted into or out of sleep, for in the dream he went back to sleep, and he had waken up two or three times, not entirely sure of what was real and what was not.

He woke up on his back with a dry mouth and a stiff neck, and he stood up, cracked his back, stretched and then marched upstairs to pee. He wasn’t going to work today, and for the first time he didn’t want to. He wondered what time it was. 7:30 ish, nearly 7:45, the same time Cody had killed himself yesterday. There would be a funeral.. He tried to keep his mind on this, but he was already going to the window. He opened it, and he saw that Claire was getting dressed with her curtain open, When she looked up he knew she was looking for him, had left the curtains open for him. He opened his further and Claire turned to him, opening up her blouse, pulling down her panties.
David knew what he looked like, long, tall, healthy, well enough endowed, and when she stripped for him, be began to touch himself. She pressed her fingers to that rose bud coming out of the dark hair between her thighs and while, expressionless, this woman masturbated, David stroked himself. The faster she went the faster he went, the harder he became. The first time he’d jacked off, around twelve or thirteen, he had surprised himself completely and this time was no different. He was rocketed off of his feet and shouted, glad the window was closed. He’d had little idea it was about to happen until he saw his semen spatter the window, felt his heart rate come down, began catching his breath, held his penis, stiff and sticky in his hand. Claire, seemingly gratified, closed the window and Dave stood, looking across to a shut curtain. Suddenly troubled and confused, he examined the semen, his semen all over this bedroom window, and wondering what the fuck was wrong with him.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER TWO



“The glass that’s half empty is always the glass that’s half full,” Myron Keller had once told him. “That’s the whole point of the phrase. But what they don’t tell you is how just one little thing can make your view change of that glass. Or, for that matter, how sad it is looking at half a glass when you can’t refill it.”

Myron knew just went to stop an allusion, just when wisdom turned into rambling. Myron had done shit right. He always did. And the thing was he didn’t have to. His family was loaded. He could fuck up forever, and he’d be okay. Dan Rawlinson, aged twenty-nine, did not have that option, and yet he had taken that option. He had fucked up. What he meant was he was a fuck up. It was officially time to stop trying to be an artist, to throw in that proverbial towel, to get real. If he said it enough times he would believe it, and he needed to believe it. He needed to be able to be an ordinary person because what they never told you was that the alternative to ordinary was not extraordinary, but pitiable. He ran the danger of being one of those who could just not fit into polite society, and that was too bad because Daniel Rawlinson felt himself too middle class, too used to nice things, too, yes, polite, not live in this world he fit into so poorly and could barely afford.

And you know, none of this would have mattered yesterday. Yesterday he was content to go on being poor, content to be the leader of the band who didn’t have another job, and he always had Myron, Myron who said, “Whenever you want, you can work with me. You don’t ever have to worry.”

But he’d had Eileen too. They’d get married next year. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t sure about kids either. She had just gotten around to wanting to plan their wedding, and he offered to help her, but she said she’d rather do it with her girlfriends. Sure, baby, anything you want baby.

Dan wanted to be married. He wanted to have something in common with his other friends who had settled down. Myron had settled down and become a Dad a long time ago. Jack, who was the last person in the world you’d expect to be married and have children told him, “Being a dad is the best thing in the world. It puts everything into perspective.”

And Nick, who had been in the band four years now, who believed in the band said, “The only reason I get up and do this is because of the kids. It’s like having those little bastards—I’m playing now—having them changed everything! I was this piece of shit, just some useless dude. And then the day Michael looked at me, and I held him in my arms…. It just told me everything. I was like, this is the only reason I’m in this world.”

And so Dan, who had the day off and was enjoying the late summer where the days shortened and the sky went golden for the last two hours of the day, spent his morning going through music stores, looking at guitars and listening to records now that records were a thing again, and he told himself he had to be in love with his craft like he used to be and not so anxious anymore, that if good stuff was going to come it was going to come through an open and childlike mind. He needed to shake his cares away.

He had shaken those cares away, and was whistling his way back to his loft, kind of wishing there was an elevator as he reached the fourth floor, and he’d gotten iced coffee and donuts for himself and Eileen. They could go out later. They should go out!—when he rolled open the great door on its castors, and entered the loft to see Eileen’s changed, face staring at him from the bed where she knelt on hands and knees while Nick, looking comically frightened, stopped fucking her.

When he ran it wasn’t rage, but embarassment that turned him around. Once, as a teenager, he’d walked in on Myron having sex, and been so embarrassed he ran out the house, and now he was embarrassed again even though he knew he was the last person who should be. He couldn’t face what he’d seen, not right now, and he ran down the stairs and to his car and sped down the road and out of Rawlston, Ohio. He drove west until he came to the northern outskirts of Lassador and headed south toward his friend, toward Germantown, eager to avoid traveling through the ragged mess that was downtown. His family lived out here, in the outskirts, the area that was almost country, and he took the roads that were almost country roads until he reached the river and came to the east side of town, and there he was stopped, by of all things, a fucking plain clothes cop who sure had better shit to do. He was in a brownish beigish outfit, khakis, beige jacket, red tie, floppy hair, and the fucker flashed his badge as he came toward him.

Dan rolled down the window, and the long nosed cop stuck his face in. It changed the moment Dan’s did.

“Dan? Dan Rawlinson?”

“Uh, yeah…”

Then he blinked.

“Dave Lawry?”

Dave had been a few years ahead of him. Even though he’d been a senior at Saint Ignatius when Dan was a Freshmen, they;d both gone to K through 8 at Saint Anne’s,

“Dan, what’s up, buddy? You’re driving pretty fast.”

Dave was always like that. If he was in plain clothes he must be a detective or at least that’s what Dan had learned from watching Law and Order.

“I’m going through some shit…stuff,” Dan said.

“Yeah,” Dave said, his face changing. “I get that. How about this? How about you stick to the speed limit and get wherever you’re headed safe, and we’ll just call this a meeting between school mates.”

“I appreciate that,” Dan said, though he hadn’t talked to Dave since school, and didn’t expect to even be remembered by him. “I’ll…uh, watch out on that road.”

“You gonna be alright?”

For some reason Dan said, “Will you? How are you?”

“Uh… I’ve honestly been a lot better.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “I mean, I know. Uh, let’s both be careful out there.”

“Right,” Dave said, giving him a little salute and heading back to his car.

Dan was still sitting on the side of the road when Dave Lawry drove off, and for some reason he just kept thinking, “Poor guy. Wonder what’s eating him?”


MORE IN A COUPLE OF DAYS

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Cool to see some familiar characters and where David fits in with them. He is going through some shit, as to be expected. At least I know he makes it through it. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, and now Dan and Myron are in the story, and it seems everyone's going through some shit.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND NOW WE RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED STORY.....
When he ran it wasn’t rage, but embarassment that turned him around. Once, as a teenager, he’d walked in on Myron having sex, and been so embarrassed he ran out the house, and now he was embarrassed again even though he knew he was the last person who should be. He couldn’t face what he’d seen, not right now, and he ran down the stairs and to his car and sped down the road and out of Rawlston, Ohio. He drove west until he came to the northern outskirts of Lassador and headed south toward his friend, toward Germantown, eager to avoid traveling through the ragged mess that was downtown. His family lived out here, in the outskirts, the area that was almost country, and he took the roads that were almost country roads until he reached the river and came to the east side of town, and there he was stopped, by of all things, a fucking plain clothes cop who sure had better shit to do. He was in a brownish beigish outfit, khakis, beige jacket, red tie, floppy hair, and the fucker flashed his badge as he came toward him.

Dan rolled down the window, and the long nosed cop stuck his face in. It changed the moment Dan’s did.

“Dan? Dan Rawlinson?”

“Uh, yeah…”

Then he blinked.

“Dave Lawry?”

Dave had been a few years ahead of him. Even though he’d been a senior at Saint Ignatius when Dan was a Freshmen, they;d both gone to K through 8 at Saint Anne’s,

“Dan, what’s up, buddy? You’re driving pretty fast.”

Dave was always like that. If he was in plain clothes he must be a detective or at least that’s what Dan had learned from watching Law and Order.

“I’m going through some shit…stuff,” Dan said.

“Yeah,” Dave said, his face changing. “I get that. How about this? How about you stick to the speed limit and get wherever you’re headed safe, and we’ll just call this a meeting between school mates.”

“I appreciate that,” Dan said, though he hadn’t talked to Dave since school, and didn’t expect to even be remembered by him. “I’ll…uh, watch out on that road.”

“You gonna be alright?”

For some reason Dan said, “Will you? How are you?”

“Uh… I’ve honestly been a lot better.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “I mean, I know. Uh, let’s both be careful out there.”

“Right,” Dave said, giving him a little salute and heading back to his car.

Dan was still sitting on the side of the road when Dave Lawry drove off, and for some reason he just kept thinking, “Poor guy. Wonder what’s eating him?”

On this road he was fifteen minutes from Germantown, which he came to via Riverhaven, the neighborhood he wished he could afford. He crossed the river that took its winding path to Lake Erie, that same river than, miles further was the northern border to downtown. Coming into Germantown from the east, Lassador didn’t feel like such an evil place, and off the river he drove around large old houses surrounded by trees with big yards that didn’t look much like the Germantown with which he was familiar, the part facing downtown. But when he parked in front of Myron’s modern new houses, he could see the steeple of Saint Ursula rising in the west, and another two other steeples, Saint Mary’s and Saint Agatha’s. To his right, before he had turned into the house on Marcus Street, he could see, in the distance, the old towers of the defunct beer factory, and the tops of the buildings of downtown, and this depressed him.

He didn’t know how long he’d sat in the car until there was a knock on the window and he looked up to see Myron. Before he could make an excuse, Myron climbed in the car and sat in the passenger’s seat.

Like a friend, he didn’t say anything, just waited for Dan to speak, and at last, Dan said, “Eileen is cheating on me.”

Myron made a low noise of sympathy that Dan noted wasn’t a noise of surprise.

“I was coming back with donuts and iced coffee—”

“I never understood that. I mean, donuts and hot coffee or iced coffee with biscotti, but I never understood the donuts and iced coffee.”

“Not the point.”

“No, of course not.”

“I was coming back, and I opened the door and there they were.”

“You caught them fucking?”

“She likes it on her knees.”

“Fuck.”

“When we tried it that way she said she hated it.”

Myron said nothing.

“I just… I just turned around and ran, and got in the car and drove till I got here.”

“I noticed,” Myron said, looking down, “that you didn’t drop the coffee.”

“Uh?” Dan looked down and said, “Oh.”

“In the movies they’d drop the donuts and the coffee and run off in terror, but you held right onto your food. You’ve always known priorities.”

At this, Dan burst out laughing, and when Myron had made his friend laugh, then the red faced, long nosed man with an odd soup bowl of a haircut, grinned a little, and the decided, “Well, I’ll just take this. She won’t need it now.”

And with that Myron took a noisy sip from one of the coffees and said, “You’re staying here with us tonight, right?”

“I—”

“You didn’t drive all this way just to tell me how upset you were. You are staying with us.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you for the last fifteen years!”



“Oh, that bitch!” Olivia exclaimed, heedless of the children who were putting dinner plates out as she walked around the large kitchen. “I knew she wasn’t any good. Come here, Danny.”

Dan came to Myron’s lioness of a wife, and the small, dark haired woman in glasses, grabbed his chin and kissed him quickly.

“You deserve better than that slut, Danny. Peter!” she shouted, “Set up a room for your godfather! Danny, you stay as long as you want.”

“It’ll just be the night, I promise.”

“Never fucking make promises. You stay as long as you like. You’re the only one of Myre’s friends I like. Just promise to drop your towel on the way to the bathroom. You’ve always been a looker.”



“Did you hear about that family on the West Side of Stickney?” Sara demanded as they were finishing dinner. “Everyone thinks the West Side is full of poor black people and they talk shit about it—”

“Sarah!” Olivia mother warned.

“It’s just that not all Black people are poor and not all the poor people over there are black. Stephanie’s black and she’s loaded. She lives across the river. We were just talking about it today. Anyway, these folks were white as my butt—”

“That’s her new phrase,” Myron whispered to Dan.

“It’s sounds better if you say ‘white as my ass,’” Sarah said.

“Sarah!”

“But,” Sarah continued, “Mom and Dad don’t like swearing—at least they don’t like it for me. Mom does it all the time.. Anyway, the West Side is full of white people, and they are kind of trailer trash. Except with no trailer. Anyway, on Stickney, this man is high as anything, and he kills all three of his kids and his wife, and then I heard he killed himself, but Maristelle Fuestel said the police shot him. Anyway, whole family dead cause the dad was on some drugs.”

“That’s awful,” Olivia said, and Sarah looked disappointed because, Dan realized, she’d been going for ghoulishness more than pity.

“An officer commited suicide too. That was on the news. He was part of the neighborhood,” Myron said. “I mean, he grew up here. He lived with his brother on the South Side. But I think his funeral’s going to be at Saint Ursula’s.”

“That reminds me,” Dan said, “Of all the people in the world, I ran into—well, I was stopped for driving too fast—by Dave Lawry.”

“He’s a cop.”

“How’d you know?”

“I can’t really remember,” Myron said.

“But anyway, he seemed to be having a rough time. I bet this had something to do with it.”

“Life is so awful sometimes,” Myron said.

The children had become silent, realizing they were privy to grown up world talk.

“It puts things into perspective,” Dan said. “Me, pitying myself because of Eileen, and meanwhile all of this is going on.”

“Well, it’s sad that man shot his family,” Olivia said, “and it’s even more sad that a boy killed himself. But you still got a raw deal, Danny. And Eileen Pritchett is still a worthless slut.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

It had been good to see Dan, but it was good to see anyone. His life was so lonely, that was the only way to describe it. He knew that now. At the moment he didn’t even have a partner at work. His last one had been Dick Hartigan and he’d thought the two of them didn’t get on, but now he saw that he just hadn’t opened up to him any. Those last few years with his mother had made him odd and inward and difficult. There had only been time for her, and then she was gone. He needed to talk to his sister. He needed something. He wondered where Dan was going and what he was up to. David thought, whatever’s going on, he probably has friends. He always did. Of couse, David had too., before he’d built these walls.

Driving around town had taken him all over the place today. Once a cop, always a cop, he hadn’t even been on duty when he’d pulled Dan aside. Now he stayed on the east side, driving south until for a while he actually passed out of Lassador into Sherman Heights and somewhere on Capitol Road he turned west. This was as far from his idea of Lassador as he ever got, a broad road over hung with trees. He left Capital Road for Van Buren and then took Mackey Street and somewhere, eventually, Jackson Street in Sherman Heights touched Beech Road, and then moving up a block there was Mackey Street which, after a mindless drive became his Mackey Street and his home.

Desolately he undressed with the curtain open. A light went on and he saw Claire watching him. He removed his tie slowly, and began to unbutton his shirt.

Suddenly, almost violently, the curtain closed, and David wondered where his gun was. Did Claire have a boyfriend? What was going on over there that he had been too bored or too stupid to question? He stood in his room with the window open, wondering, and then he heard from downstairs what it took him a moment to recognize was a knock at his door. Better safe that sorry, he made sure his gun was still in his holster and trotted downstairs to answer the door. It was Claire at the keyhole, and he felt embarrassed. He wouldn’t have been able to speak. What he had done across windows made him hot with shame now. He over came it, unlocked the door and let her in.

She reminded him of Suzie, his girlfriend from high school except, and this was funny, more innocent. He closed the door behind her and she greeted him.

“Detective.”

“Claire,” his voice was a croak. He wondered, and he was certainly not someone who hadn’t had girlfriends, why he never seemed to know what to do around women.

And here she was, taking of her blouse, and she laid it on the chair that hadn’t been vacuumed or dusted since his mother died. And then she slipped off her shoes, shimmied out of her skirt, and David began to unbutton his own shirt, pull off his undershirt. When she took off her bra, he took down his pants and his briefs. Dick hard, breath bated, he stumbled toward her. With a gentle hand she pushed him toward his lonely sofa and he sat down, mouth open, legs apart while she mounted him, touching the stiffness of his penis and pulling it inside of her.

TOMORROW.... THE WEEKEND PORTION

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Good to catch up with more characters and see what is going on. They are all going through it. So David and Clare hook up? That I saw coming. This is a really good story and I am glad you are posting it. Sorry it took me so long to read. Hope you have a wonderful Friday and weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, one can only jack off in front of a window so long. Actually, that's not true. I know some people who can do it forever.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WELCOME BACK!

“She’s cheating on you. I told you she’s fucking cheating on you,” Domenico said fiercely. “You can’t fucking let her do that. You gonna let her get way with it?”

“And do what?” David demanded.

“Davey,” Domenico, gesticulated like an old man in mobster movie, “you can’t let her go fooling around with other guys.”

They were on the soccer field outside of the long brick two story plus mezzanine that made up Saint Ignatius Catholic Boy’s High School, in their red soccer shorts and white tops, and practice was just ending and there was Suzie with her group of girlfriends. Harry and Corey were kicking the ball back and forth and killing time. Dominico was was one of those Sicilians so dark, so loud and so aggressive, David with his Anglicized name felt absolutely Aryan next to him, seemed to always be having to prove how Italian he was. He shoved the soccer ball into Dom’s chest a little rougher than he meant and crossed the field. Suzie, who was standing near an old soccer net saw him, and she said something to her girlfriends, apparently knew from the way the tall fifteen year old going on sixteen was coming toward her that this was a private conversation.

“Hey, honey,” she said, and David felt like he was being mocked. She’s never said that. What the fuck where they: fifty?

He came at her with all the pretended fury of Robert DeNiro in…. well, in a Robert Deniro movie, his floppy hair shaking about. In later life he’s embarrassed to remember effecting a Jersey accent. He really didn’t know who the fuck he was yet.

“You cheating on me?”

“What?”

“I hear you’re cheating on me.”

“From who?”

Suzie, black haired and merry eyed, looked like this was the silliest thing she’d ever heard, like she was a mother talking to a ridiculous child.

“People are saying you’re fucking all these guys.”

He forced the word fuck out with a strong f. It was foreign to him.

“That’s gross, David,” she chided. “Besides, you and I aren’t even doing that.”

“Maybe we’re not doing it so you can do it with them.”

David Lawry was aware he had an audience. He knew at least Dom was watching him and maybe so were Harry and Corey now. From where they could see, he was standing over her, demanding, and she was, if not cowering, then smaller, giving account. And it was time to give account. After all, he’d heard about Suzie a few times by now.

“Swear to me you’re not fucking around,” David said. He had been about to roar in a dramatic Sicilian impersonation, “Swear to me you ain’t fucking aroun’!” But whatever his grandparents were, he was just a white boy. He knew that.

“Swear to me.” He sounded more like Ferris Bueller than Don Corleone.

Suzie raised her hand, like someone who was about to make a promise, and then, knowing her actions were out of the view of others, she lowered her hand into David’s shorts, slipped them in his jockstrap and held him hostage there. That’s how it felt. David had been an altar boy. He didn’t have a dirty imagination. The first time she’d done this to him he’d been surprised and embarrassed. She felt him, stroking him, and all the weight of him went down to her hand rubbing him. He leaned over her like a swaying tree, his face changing.

“You think I’m cheating on you,” Suzie said as the lightness of her hand stroked him speechless. “You think I’m fooling around? You really think that?”

David’s voice shuddered as she touched him. She knew when to stop, knew the bead of semen that would drip soon, saw his body trembling, his mouth open, his eyes distant, heard his breath change.

“No,” David said weakly.

Slowly she removed her hand.

“That’s right.”



All of the guys had seen Suzie giving him a handjob, but none of them had seen it. All they saw was him under a goalie net, leaning over, giving her the business and then they stopped talking and David moved away, looking surly. He wasn’t surly. He was confused. This wasn’t the way he imagined sex to be, or himself to be. This wasn’t even like those times when Suzie had finished him off in the car, or when he’d finished himself. A moment ago, he’d been growing in her hand, slowly carried up and up toward orgasm. As he went back to join his friends, his heart hurt and he realized, mad at himself, that he wanted to cry. He felt abused and fucked with. Touched in the wrong way, but mostly he felt lied to, because the very way Suzie avoided his accusation made him know it was true.



Claire laughed low in her throat and a chuckle escaped David too, as she ran her hand over his dark hair, fallen in her face.

“Well,” she murmured, as they resituated on the couch, and she caressed his shoulder, “we finally got that out of the way.”

David hadn’t been able to speak and he was still catching his breath. He turned to his side, and looking over her said, “It’s been a while.”

“Since a woman knocked on your door, walked in and took off her clothes?”

“No,” David said, laughing, “I can honestly say that’s never happened.”

“You responded like a champ, though,” Claire said.

Then she said, sitting up, so that they both sat naked and disheveled on the couch, “I’ve been wondering what being fucked by you would be like.”

David turned red.

“You’re one of those good guys who doesn’t like the word fuck even when you’re doing it.”

“I’m really not a good guy.”

“No, you really are,” Claire said. “I think that’s your secret.”

“Whaddo we do now?”

“You’ve never had a one night stand?”

“Is this even what that is?”

“I’m not sure what it is.”

“Do you know what my secret is?” David said. “My secret is that what we did is the first time I’ve felt something in a long time. And I’d kind of like to keep doing it.”

Claire smiled, looking almost innocent.

“There’s a bed down the hall,” David said. He had been about to say upstairs, but it seemed ridiculous for there to be a king sized bed, and him ask a woman to hop into his little one in his little childhood room.

“Should we go to it?” Claire asked.

David stood up, shaking his hair out of his face, and held out his hand.





They laughed and talked about life, and David was able to admit to someone he had not known that he had been passionless and dull, that he didn’t believe in himself, that he’d loved his mother more than he could say and now that she was gone he had no one. He’d forgotten all about intimacy and forgotten all about passion too. It had been so long since he’d felt vulnerable with another human being. Claire, for her part, was a divorcee whose son was in boarding school of all places. She worked in Rawlston, at the college, but had grown up on Reacher Street and only casually talked to Dave until now.

“You’re a good listener,” she told him.

It hurt Dave, and even though Dave wanted to cry, he didn’t. She saw the hurt in him, though, and asked about it.

“It’s just,” he told her, “I… Deep inside I believe I’m a bad person.”

He had never been able to say that, and since Suzie, he’d never opened himself up to a woman. Or a man, really. Even as he shuddered in her arms the first time he came, he opened for Claire, and they made love well into the evening. He wanted her to come. They had come together so powerfully, with so much abandon, David realized he’d stop feeling free or safe a long time ago. He was with this woman. He was totally with her as he lay on his side, still trembling, his hand on her hip.

 

[ChrisGibson]

The light shone on rowing shoulders, straining back, flexing buttocks. His knees gathered strength as he thrust deeper. As his body, white in the sunlight moved, under him he heard cries that urged him on, that made him fuck harder and harder. Hands buried themselves in his dark, thick hair as, in the warm morning they fucked in the old bed in the large loft. Red fingernails, they were always red, raked his ass and made him shudder. He’d told himself not to come, but as Dan Rawlinson’s neck arched, and he closed his eyes to the daylight, orgasm pulsed through his whole body, and still, as he thrust into a woman he could no longer trust, in a bed where another man had done the same thing to her the day before, and knowing he would hate himself as soon as he ejaculated, he was hard as ever, and Eileen Waverly didn’t stop shouting, and he didn’t stop fucking her.

Toward the end, toward the moment of lift where he had always trusted himself to her, he felt the strangeness of this personal moment with someone whose person he no longer knew, the oddity of clinging to flesh he didn’t trust, kissing a mouth that kissed another’s, his dick swelled in a cunt that he hated, that he thrust into with more violence. He felt the crisis rising up out of his balls, rising, shooting, tensing all of his body like a was a teenage boy again, shaking him. She’d seduced him, talked to him nicely, waiting for this moment when she would hold him in her arms while he trembled and shook, while he was at his weakest, and she would, as he lay gasping from getting pussy he longed for, still hard in her, still winded from orgasm, be hers again.

No wonder men hated women. He didn’t hate women. That would be stupid, but he hated Eileen. It was because this thing that was supposed to be so powerful wasn’t powerful at all. It was trembling and eye bulging. It was body freezing and nut shooting. Embarassed, still dripping, he lifted himself from her inelegantly, winded, confused, angry while he was still hard. He turned his back to her, his face to the distant wall.

“That…” Eileen began, “was…”

“I need you to leave,” Dan said in a dead voice.

“What?”

He didn’t look at her.

“I got weak, and I apologize. You made an ass out of me, but then I let you.”

He sat up, and slipped into his underwear quickly so she couldn’t see him naked.

He pulled on his jeans and he wanted to be angry, but he was conscious of being very very sad.

“I’m gonna go out… to the bookstore or something. And when I get back,” he turned to her, and he didn’t look angry. His dark eyes were very soft. His face, rounded, looked hurt, “I don’t want to see you here. Okay?”

The red haired woman on the bed, gathered her knees to her chest and nodded.

“Okay.”



That night was the first one David spent had spent sleeping in a bed for some time, his long body curled around Claire’s, slumber finally coming to him while his arms were about her. In the darkness they moved closer together, both glad to be rid of an old loneliness, and in the night they woke to continue what they’d began, moving into the different poses and positions of affection, and sex, orgasm releasing sleep in David again as he passed out, leg draped over Claire, face in her shoulder.

But perfect sleep did not come, for now came a strange dream of a young man being chased through streets in the middle of the night, and he shouted for help but no one came, and in the end, he was lifted off his feet by one of his pursuers who pushed him against a wall and began to… this was the strangest—maul his throat like a dog, or like some monster.

David shot up almost shouting, and in the dark he was glad he hadn’t disturbed Claire. Despite the picture before his eyes of some poor blond boy with his throat bitten out, knowing that in the real world Claire slept in his bed calmed him, and he sank back into the covers with her.



HAVE A GOOD NIGHT.... OR DAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! It was good to learn more of David’s past while seeing his present. Dan still seems pretty upset. I hope for good things in the future for him and all the characters. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, yes, Dab is still upset. He found his fiance fucking someone else about a day ago, so that does upset one. But it's hardly the biggest thing he's going to face.

 

[ChrisGibson]

At the Blue Note, Dan Rawlinson was oppressing his guitar as well as the ears of the manager, one Nehru Alexander, a mild mannered, bespectacled Black man in his thirties, who was more into the laptop where he was typing lyrics than the twelve year old beside Dan who was beating on a set of drums.

When Myron Keller walked into the club which would not open for several hours, he shouted, “How can you take it?”

“Everyone’s feeling feelings today,” Nehru, who did not seem to be feeling feelings, but seemed to be quite prosaic, said.

Dan stopped playing, which signaled to the light skinned curly haired boy to stop beating the drums.

“All of that anger,” Nehru directed, “Put it into your music.”

“I’m not a writer like you,” Dan wiped the back of his hand across his face.

“Well, you’re not an anything like me,” Nehru said. “But you can do wonders with that guitar.”

“Tell you what,” Dan crossed the room. He was in need of a hair cut, and his white tee shirt was plastered to him with sweat, “if you give me lyrics, I’ll do something with them.”

Nehru pushed the lap top toward him.

“See if you can work with these.”

Nehru Alexander and his partner had run the Blue Note for the past five years. They’d come down from Michigan and been in a fairly successful band. The Blue Note was for them to serve food and drink and play their own music, but Nehru and his partner Brad had begun looking for other, younger musicians, and so Dan and his band had come along. It was just what Dan had wanted, a collective, a musical family, and just what Nehru said he had wanted too.

“You’re a genius,” Dan said.

“You would not be the first to notice.”

“This is the first time I’ve felt good all day,” Dan began strumming his guitar.

“This may require acoustic,” he said, as even his gentle notes sounded a little angry.

“So, is Bill still going to be your drummer?” Nehru asked.

“He’s good at it. I mean, he’s the greatest.”

“Can you keep it strictly business?”

“We’ll see.”

There was a sudden cacophony of drums and the boy said, “Dad! If that chump doesn’t want to be the drummer, I will.”

Nehru only raised an eyebrow, but Dan said, “We may take you up on that.”

“Yes,” Nehru added, “and in the meanwhile, go easy on those very expensive drums.”

“What brings you here?” Dan said to Myron.

“I’m on my way to the funeral.”

“Funeral?” Nehru said.

“Cody Beeker. The officer who killed himself. He was part of our neighborhood. You’d said something about coming.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Dan said in the voice of someone who had once thought of doing a thing he now had zero taste for.

“Go ahead,” Nehru said. “Do it.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Do we have a minute so I can clean up and put on a decent outfit?”

“We have several minutes,” Myron said as Dan was gathering his things.

“Who knows?” Nehru said. “A funeral might cheer you up.”









Longing for light,

we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
Light for the world to see.

Christ, be our light!

Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your Church
Gathered today.



Cody’s family had thought that this joyful boncing song was appropriate to bring his body into Saint Ursula’s. David disagreed, but of course said nothing. Funerals were sad occasions. He was expert in them. He was one of six pall bearers in their dress blues who brought the heavy casket up the steps of the cathedral and into the large church. He’d only been inside Ursula’s once, and had been overwhelmed by its size. It had not always been the cathedral. The old one, Saint Patrick’s, had burned down and never been rebuilt, but Saint Ursula had apparently always been a grand church, and when the diocese had made it the cathedral, they had invested in making it grander still. Everywhere were mourning people and marble, woeful and troubled saints filling stain glass windows, and behind the pall bearers, came altar boys cloaked in the white incense they swung, and after them, the priestsm their white robes, lined in black.



Longing for peace,

our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has power to save us
Make us your living voice.

Christ, be our light…!



It was as they settled the body of the boy onto the catafalque, David realized this song was, in fact, just the right song. Cody had lost his peace in the end, and David was on the verge of losing his own.

On the oher side of him, father of two, dutiful looking, only a little more pudgy than he had once been and still looking like he had as a soccer player, was Domenico Ciamente. They saluted Cody and then genuflected. There was a great stone or marble, crucifix over the white stone or marble or who knew altar, over the brass tabernacle. David had not prayed in a long time. He felt either superstitious or hypocritical crossing himself. He didn’t dare to ask for any peace. He hadn’t talked to God in years.

“Not really ever,” David corrected himself.



“Brothers and sisters:
Hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly…”



David had once stumbled into an argument between a believer and an atheist, and the atheist had talked about what a comfort religion was, and that’s why people sought it out. David, despite not being much into religion, has been feeling rather on religion’s side that day and been resentful, but now he felt that it was a comfort, felt himself lulled and upheld by these words he barely understood from a book he hadn’t really ever troubled to open.



Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.
Not only that,
but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation…



All the pallbearers were sitting together, and Dom, with his black wings of shiny Sicilian hair, was looking tired and sad, the tip of his long nose bending toward his lips, almost. When he hadn’t known where else to go or what else to do, it had been Dom who had told him to go into the police.

“You’ve been to college and everything. You’ll do great.”

David did not dare look to his right. To his right was, after Jimmy Halowinksi and Chuck Darrell, Codys casket, and then, on the other side, his family.

A woman came up to the pulpit and the organ music filled the great space of the church while she sang:



“The Cup of Salvation, I will raise! I will call on the Lord’s name…”



He had spotted Dan Rawlinson and Myron Keller. Dan had always been a good looking guy and Myre could clean up well. How strange to see them, how strange to see Dan twice in the last week after not having seen him in years. He grabbed his shoulder during communion. They’d catch up in the cemetery. It felt better to know they were all together, and people like that were in the world.

David had not expected that the funeral would last so long, but he did not mind it. David Lawry needed something to do with his mind, and with his time. He might go to Dom’s for dinner tomorrow night, and be caught up in the loudness and shrillness of a proper Italian family. After the season of death, David was used to arriving, sitting through a mass. He was used to the second march to the hearse and the last one, riding the city streets to the cemetery, marching to the grave.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter three



And then they were at the house on the other side of Buren Avenue, the Near West Side, and Cody’s brother who looked like him and not like him was saying, “Detective Lawry, my brother really looked up to you.”

“He… I liked Cody. I… He was going to be great. He was great. He had a great heart.”

I’m saying great too much.

“He really respected you too. Thought of you as a friend,” Cody’s brother said.

“Too bad when he called you two times that day you never picked up. He might still be alive if you had.”

Is what Cody’s brother DID NOT say, but what David was waiting to hear.

“Too bad,” Cody’s brother said, “I couldn’t have known so I could have stopped it.”





“That poor kid,” Dave said.

“Yeah, Cody was too young. This job is hard. He should have got help. He should have talked to somebody,” Dom shook his head and sounded almost angry as he drank his Scotch at the bar set up for the wake.

“No,” Dave said. “I meant his brother. I just talked to him. He… can you imagine? You’re talking to your brother, your best friend, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, and you see him just pick up his gun, put it in his mouth and pull the trigger. Just blow his brains out the back of his head.”

“Did you see him. Before they closed the casket. He looked so peaceful.”

David started to say “Stenger and Stenger do good work,” but instead he said, “I hope he is. I hope wherever he is, he is… at peace.”

What a cliché!

“Me too,” Dom said, looking very sad.

But maybe there was something to clichés? After all, that’s why they existed. And he could use some peace, himself? Couldn’t they all?

Dom said, “Dave, you are coming over tonight. I don’t like you just being by yourself.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Don’t just say yeah.”

“I’m coming.”

“Cause none of us is really that strong. We think we are, but none of us is.”

“I said yes, Dom.”

“There’s a thing I gotta tell you, so I might as well tell you now. And it’s gonna undo everything cause we’ve been friends a long time and I’m worried about you and I don’t want you to think I’m a piece of shit, but… And I should keep it to myself forever…”

“Dom, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you remember Suzie?” Dom looked at David with the saddest eyes.

“Yeah.”

“I told you she was no good. She was cheating on you.”

“You were so mad at her.”

Dom looked at his drink.

“I was mad at myself. I always felt like shit about this. I new she was cheating cause she was cheating with me. With others too, but everyone was fucking her, and I hated myself for doing it, and I hated it cause people were talking about you, so…. That’s what I did. I told you.”

“Oh,” David said. Suzie was almost eighteen years ago. So much more had happened. Dom had been carrying that with him? All through high school? They had been kids. Sophomore, junior and senior year, Dom had been carrying that?

“Dave, I’m so sorry.”

“Dom, buddy,” David hugged his friend.

“Buddy, it’s history.”

“You still coming to dinner? Cynthia’s doing a chicken caprese.”

“Well, then I’m definitely coming,” Dave said. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a well done portion. Poor Cody. I too hope he is at peace. I am glad David has friends around and didn’t care too much about Dom‘s confession about Suzie which was so long ago. Great writing and I look forward to more soon.