ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Maybe Dom could have kept it to himself. Death is so strange. It brings up a lot.
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Here, In This Place
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
After the funeral of Cody Beeker, David Lawry spent the evening at his old high school friend Dom Ciamente’s house, and this was the beginning of his not being so lonely. Not long after Claire invited him to her house, and so the two of them made their way from his mother’s bed in that lonely house to her warm bed in a feminine house with the smells of potpourri and wax tarts. Life seemed to be getting better and better, and even Captain Karney was thinking David would be alright after all.
And then, one night, on Ecosae, one of the nice streets around the University, in an alley they found a twenty something, most probably a college student, in jeans and a good shirt, a pea coat, dead against a wall. David and his new partner Ron McCafferty were called in, and the cops who had found him said it seemed as if he’d been strangled. His throat had been crushed.
“He looked so familiar,” David murmured over and over again. “He looked so familiar.”
It had been on their way home that David and McCafferty got a call from the morgue and went down to see the pale, blond boy. He looked, and this sounded strange to say, deader than ever, and David thought he really should get another line of work. The coroner was saying: “…crushed wind pipe, but not by a bar or anything, by a hand but how strong a hand it would have been…” And no human hand was that strong.
“And look,” she said.
At first David wasn’t sure what she was pointing to. It was McCafferty who squinted and said, “Bite marks?”
“Like he was mauled,” the coroner said.
“We never looked at that. We never saw that,” McCafferty said, as the ground disappeared from David’s feet and he remembered his dream of the blond boy chased by a crew of men, lifted up against the very wall where he had been found, with no one to hear him.
“You wouldn’t have thought of it,” the coroner said. “There was no blood. He was drained of every drop of blood.”
The louder she screamed, the harder he fucked her. He knelt on the bed, holding her hips and he thought she was trying to forget her son who didn’t want to talk to her, and her first husband and the bullshit of her job, and he was definitely, definitely trying to forget dead bodies, bodies drained of blood, young boys, boys dying, dreams of boys dying, being someone who didn’t stop shit from happening, but was just a witness to madness. If he could, one two, three four, head in the air, eyes open to the darkness, fuck it out, get it out… His body shook… He gasped as he came…
If he could…. If he could….
It wasn’t hard to get women off. It wasn’t impossible. You just had to know what you were doing, to pay attention, and he got Claire off long before he came so that he could have this moment of stupid silence where he knelt behind her like one stunned, and then gently folded over in bed.
Things didn’t stop, though. Four days later, another college boy was found dead in the same way. It was the strangest thing, and when it happened the the third time they had to put their heads together, realized they should have done so before. Here was something new. The target was white boys, college students, all around the university area.
“Aren’t they usually the ones we’re worried about raping girls on campus?” Tanya Sommers quipped. David looked at the detectivie with distaste, and like most Black women he’d met, she looked back at him like she didn’t care.
“And all with the blood drained from their bodies, throats crushed, throat punctures.”
“A vampire killed them,” Detective Sommers said blankly.
When David and Dom looked at her she said, “You were thinking the same thing.”
“Or,” David reasoned, “someone who thinks he’s a vampire did it.”
“Or she,” Tanya said.
“Or she.”
“Then we just gotta tell guys to watch out,” Dom said. “Go around campus and let them know.”
“I bet they already know, but let’s get on it,” Tanya said.
“And before you say anything,” Dom continued, “we’re going to tell all guys. Not just white guys.”
Tanya Sommers nodded. “Who knows what this crazy bitch’s motives are in the end?”
“Okay, so that was great,” Brad Long declared. Grey haired, scruffy, the sort of middle aged guy who never saw a shirt tucked in that he didn’t want to untuck or a plaid that he didn’t wear, was, with his life partner, Nehru Alexander, the proprietor of the Blue Note.
“They loved you,” he told Dan. “And by the way, I’m glad you and Nick made it work out.”
“It’s all business.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” Brad said frankly. “But you need him for now. I don’t want to see you guys fold just because of him.”
Like Dan, Brad Long was a man of partially Middle Eastern descent with dark eyes in his olive complexioned face. Dan nodded.
“By the way… that blond over there wants to meet you. And I know how much you like to be met these days.”
Dan raised an eyebrow. Brad elbowed him. “Go on over.”
Now that the band was done, the jukebox was playing, and tonight the club was busy.
Scar tissue that I wish you saw
Sarcastic mister know-it-all
Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, 'cause
With the birds I'll share
With the birds I'll share this lonely viewin'
With the birds I'll share this lonely viewin'
The girl was standing in the little hall that led to the kitchen and the stockroom with bathroom doors on either side.
“I think you’re really great,” she said.
“Do you, now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think you have really great taste,” Dan was drawling, as he took a cigarette out and placed it between his lips.
“I got your first album.”
Dan chuckled, “No one has our first album.”
“I do. I loved it. I listened to it over and over again.”
“Do you have a name, girl who listened to my first album over and over again?”
“Stephanie.”
“Stephanie….”
“Crawford.”
“Stephanie Crawford, who knows I’m Dan Rawlinson, I appreciate that you enjoy—”
“All of your music.”
“All of it?”
“Yeah. Even that new song about that bitch who did you wrong.”
Dan chuckled nervously. He knew how to do nervous. He knew how to do shy. He knew how not to press, how to be pressed.
“I would love to show you how much I appreciate you.”
There it was.
“Really?” Dan said, still smiling, giving a little chuckle.
“Really,” she said.
“Well… maybe we could go outside and talk some more.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
When Myron came looking for Dan, after he’d gone all around the club, he went to the parking lot. There was that old El Camino, back among the bushes, and when he looked into it, there was Dan in the driver’s seat, his head turned up, mouth opened. Only a moment later, a woman’s head came up, and snaked backed down.
Myron realized his conversation would have to wait.
David Lawry was called into the Lakeland Hotel for the worst surprise of his life. The Vampire Killer, as they were calling him, had stopped, and tonight there was a young man, naked and dead in a bed, eyes wide open, but white as a sheet with his throat crushed, and when David saw him it was only a moment before he realized it was Dan Rawlinson. He looked for the puncture wounds himself. His stomach swirled around and he went into the bathrom to vomit.
When he came back, after rinsing his mouth, he explained to Tanya, “He went to school with me.”
“Shit,” she said, shaking her head.
Then she said, businesslike because business solved crimes and Tanya believed in justice, “Do we know whose room this is?”
“The name is Ramona Ballard, and she used a credit card, but she doesn’t seem to be a real person. Seems like she came out of thin air. And went back to it.”
“Well, whatever we do, let’s find the bitch and bring her back out of it,” Detective Sommers said.
There was no finding Ramona Ballard, and no one was able to contact any member of Dan’s family, but then things got even worse. For when the coroner went down to do the autopsy, she actually came up into the police station herself to declare: “The body is gone.”
“The what…” began Captain Karney.
“That young man…. Dan Rawlinson…. His body is gone.”
After that, no one was in a hurry to alert his family, and for the next few days a very undercover search for the body of Dan Rawlinson began. They didn’t find it, and no one called in reporting he was missing, and so the Lassador Police Department swept this one under the rug.
And then, one night, on Ecosae, one of the nice streets around the University, in an alley they found a twenty something, most probably a college student, in jeans and a good shirt, a pea coat, dead against a wall. David and his new partner Ron McCafferty were called in, and the cops who had found him said it seemed as if he’d been strangled. His throat had been crushed.
“He looked so familiar,” David murmured over and over again. “He looked so familiar.”
It had been on their way home that David and McCafferty got a call from the morgue and went down to see the pale, blond boy. He looked, and this sounded strange to say, deader than ever, and David thought he really should get another line of work. The coroner was saying: “…crushed wind pipe, but not by a bar or anything, by a hand but how strong a hand it would have been…” And no human hand was that strong.
“And look,” she said.
At first David wasn’t sure what she was pointing to. It was McCafferty who squinted and said, “Bite marks?”
“Like he was mauled,” the coroner said.
“We never looked at that. We never saw that,” McCafferty said, as the ground disappeared from David’s feet and he remembered his dream of the blond boy chased by a crew of men, lifted up against the very wall where he had been found, with no one to hear him.
“You wouldn’t have thought of it,” the coroner said. “There was no blood. He was drained of every drop of blood.”
The louder she screamed, the harder he fucked her. He knelt on the bed, holding her hips and he thought she was trying to forget her son who didn’t want to talk to her, and her first husband and the bullshit of her job, and he was definitely, definitely trying to forget dead bodies, bodies drained of blood, young boys, boys dying, dreams of boys dying, being someone who didn’t stop shit from happening, but was just a witness to madness. If he could, one two, three four, head in the air, eyes open to the darkness, fuck it out, get it out… His body shook… He gasped as he came…
If he could…. If he could….
It wasn’t hard to get women off. It wasn’t impossible. You just had to know what you were doing, to pay attention, and he got Claire off long before he came so that he could have this moment of stupid silence where he knelt behind her like one stunned, and then gently folded over in bed.
Things didn’t stop, though. Four days later, another college boy was found dead in the same way. It was the strangest thing, and when it happened the the third time they had to put their heads together, realized they should have done so before. Here was something new. The target was white boys, college students, all around the university area.
“Aren’t they usually the ones we’re worried about raping girls on campus?” Tanya Sommers quipped. David looked at the detectivie with distaste, and like most Black women he’d met, she looked back at him like she didn’t care.
“And all with the blood drained from their bodies, throats crushed, throat punctures.”
“A vampire killed them,” Detective Sommers said blankly.
When David and Dom looked at her she said, “You were thinking the same thing.”
“Or,” David reasoned, “someone who thinks he’s a vampire did it.”
“Or she,” Tanya said.
“Or she.”
“Then we just gotta tell guys to watch out,” Dom said. “Go around campus and let them know.”
“I bet they already know, but let’s get on it,” Tanya said.
“And before you say anything,” Dom continued, “we’re going to tell all guys. Not just white guys.”
Tanya Sommers nodded. “Who knows what this crazy bitch’s motives are in the end?”
“Okay, so that was great,” Brad Long declared. Grey haired, scruffy, the sort of middle aged guy who never saw a shirt tucked in that he didn’t want to untuck or a plaid that he didn’t wear, was, with his life partner, Nehru Alexander, the proprietor of the Blue Note.
“They loved you,” he told Dan. “And by the way, I’m glad you and Nick made it work out.”
“It’s all business.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” Brad said frankly. “But you need him for now. I don’t want to see you guys fold just because of him.”
Like Dan, Brad Long was a man of partially Middle Eastern descent with dark eyes in his olive complexioned face. Dan nodded.
“By the way… that blond over there wants to meet you. And I know how much you like to be met these days.”
Dan raised an eyebrow. Brad elbowed him. “Go on over.”
Now that the band was done, the jukebox was playing, and tonight the club was busy.
Scar tissue that I wish you saw
Sarcastic mister know-it-all
Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, 'cause
With the birds I'll share
With the birds I'll share this lonely viewin'
With the birds I'll share this lonely viewin'
The girl was standing in the little hall that led to the kitchen and the stockroom with bathroom doors on either side.
“I think you’re really great,” she said.
“Do you, now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I think you have really great taste,” Dan was drawling, as he took a cigarette out and placed it between his lips.
“I got your first album.”
Dan chuckled, “No one has our first album.”
“I do. I loved it. I listened to it over and over again.”
“Do you have a name, girl who listened to my first album over and over again?”
“Stephanie.”
“Stephanie….”
“Crawford.”
“Stephanie Crawford, who knows I’m Dan Rawlinson, I appreciate that you enjoy—”
“All of your music.”
“All of it?”
“Yeah. Even that new song about that bitch who did you wrong.”
Dan chuckled nervously. He knew how to do nervous. He knew how to do shy. He knew how not to press, how to be pressed.
“I would love to show you how much I appreciate you.”
There it was.
“Really?” Dan said, still smiling, giving a little chuckle.
“Really,” she said.
“Well… maybe we could go outside and talk some more.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
When Myron came looking for Dan, after he’d gone all around the club, he went to the parking lot. There was that old El Camino, back among the bushes, and when he looked into it, there was Dan in the driver’s seat, his head turned up, mouth opened. Only a moment later, a woman’s head came up, and snaked backed down.
Myron realized his conversation would have to wait.
David Lawry was called into the Lakeland Hotel for the worst surprise of his life. The Vampire Killer, as they were calling him, had stopped, and tonight there was a young man, naked and dead in a bed, eyes wide open, but white as a sheet with his throat crushed, and when David saw him it was only a moment before he realized it was Dan Rawlinson. He looked for the puncture wounds himself. His stomach swirled around and he went into the bathrom to vomit.
When he came back, after rinsing his mouth, he explained to Tanya, “He went to school with me.”
“Shit,” she said, shaking her head.
Then she said, businesslike because business solved crimes and Tanya believed in justice, “Do we know whose room this is?”
“The name is Ramona Ballard, and she used a credit card, but she doesn’t seem to be a real person. Seems like she came out of thin air. And went back to it.”
“Well, whatever we do, let’s find the bitch and bring her back out of it,” Detective Sommers said.
There was no finding Ramona Ballard, and no one was able to contact any member of Dan’s family, but then things got even worse. For when the coroner went down to do the autopsy, she actually came up into the police station herself to declare: “The body is gone.”
“The what…” began Captain Karney.
“That young man…. Dan Rawlinson…. His body is gone.”
After that, no one was in a hurry to alert his family, and for the next few days a very undercover search for the body of Dan Rawlinson began. They didn’t find it, and no one called in reporting he was missing, and so the Lassador Police Department swept this one under the rug.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow I did not expect that. A vampire like killer and Dan is dead? How sad. That his body got stolen from the morgue is mysterious and tragic. I did not expect this story to go here. Great writing and I look forward to more soon.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, yes, the story has taken a turn. And here we go.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT WE COME TO THE END OF ANOTHER WEEK, AND THE END OF CHAPTER THREE
It was a year later that Detective Sommers came into the police station with a CD and said, “You wanna see something, David? Yeah, you do. Come in here and close the door.”
They went into the viewing room and she pushed what turned out to be a DVD into the slot under the television. Music. They were in a club. They were listening to music, loud music, but good music.
“I know that you loved me
So that’s why you left me
You loved me so good,
But not better than him
I know that you loved,
So that’s why you left me
You loved me so good,
but you also loved him.”
“Do you remember last year? That guy? Your friend, Dan?”
“How could I forget?”
“He disappeared.”
“Yes, Tanya, I know. I was here.”
“This is truly the last time I’ll ask you to be true
I never should have better of you
But its just the same old car that I do…”
“Crushed wind pipe, Bloodless, definitely dead, truly a corpse.”
David was losing patience.
“Yes, Tanya. In the midst of a lot of death, I remember his death.”
“Okay,” Tanya said, slowing the video down, “Well, what the fuck is this?”
The lead singer, sweeping his dark hair out of his face, looked directly at David Lawry, and was Dan Rawlinson.
“You got his old concerts?”
“This is a new concert,” Tanya Sommers said.
“What?”
Dan sang on, murdering his guitar.
“I saw this,” Detective Sommers said, “I saw him—listen—last night.”
Dan turned to him, dark eyes, aquiline nose, sweeping dark hair from his face.
“You’re shitting me, Tanya.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“David, please be quiet. We can go up there and see it. We can go see him tonight.”
Instead David Lawry opened his computer and looked up the Keller Building. He asked for Myron Keller and when Myron answered, David spoke.
“Hey, how are you? I haven’t seen you since… last year. The funeral?”
“Yeah,” David said. “Yes, exactly. I got a question for you? It may seem strange.”
“Uh oh! Is it a police question?”
“Yeah, Myre. Yeah,” David tried to laugh. “Nothing bad or anything.”
“Alright, Detective. Shoot.”
“Have you… heard from Dan? Dan Rawlinson?”
“Of course, I have. He hasn’t gone anywhere. Still in Rawlston, playing at the Blue Note? Is he in trouble?”
“No,” David said, feeling heavy and strange, feeling the distance between himself and his words. “Just, there was an old missing person’s report out on him, but…”
“Yeah, he vanished for a day or so last year. And then he turned up. Good as gold.”
“Okay,” David said. “Okay.”
“You need to know anything else?”
“No, Myron. No. We’re good.”
“Alright.”
“Thanks, Buddy. Talk to you later, Buddy.”
David hung up.
Tanya Sommers looked at him.
David said, “I need to go home.”
That night he didn’t go to Claire’s. He told her he was really fried and feeling half crazy, only being along would do. He went back to the old habit of sitting alone with the TV on all night, and that night when he woke up, the reception was off as it was sometimes, and he didn’t bother to get up, It seemed as if Channel 2 was switching between something else, and then becoming something else, and then quite clearly, he was watching something else.
There was a poor young man holding a shovel, and his yard was full of humps of dirt. A calm voice asked:
“Are you a young drinker who doesn’t know what to do with your victims? Are the throats you crush and the bodies you kill piling up?”
The fuck?
“Do you keep getting sunburn from walking out into the light before you’re ready?
This young man stepped out the door and cringed as he came back in.
“Are your fangs making your life a misery?”
He nodded, woebegone.
“Don’t fret. Yuri Barkaran’s seminar for the newly turned is coming to Lassador Pavilion on May 5th, all day, beginning at noon!”
David could not laugh. He sat up straight, his stomach and head reeling. He wanted this to be a joke, but he was remembering over a year ago, being up this late.
“And when we return, dominating humans in a human dominated world. Doctor of Philosophy, Hieronymous Traub will be speaking to us from his office at Wittenberg, which he had maintained since 1575…”
And then what he had seen before…
“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 nodding again.
“Well, from the makers of Nutra Negative and your favorite drink, Hemogoblin, comes, Garden of Eden’s Aging Cream.”
And David Lawry threw up his head and screamed. While the television went on the fritz again, and his screams could be heard by his neighbors, he screamed until the paramedics arrived and shot him full of sedatives and then, when he found himself in the psych ward of Saint Elizabeth’s hospital, it was gently suggested that he might want to commit himself, and David, being no fool, agreed.
This was how David Lawry lost his mind or, some would say, began to find it.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
It was a year later that Detective Sommers came into the police station with a CD and said, “You wanna see something, David? Yeah, you do. Come in here and close the door.”
They went into the viewing room and she pushed what turned out to be a DVD into the slot under the television. Music. They were in a club. They were listening to music, loud music, but good music.
“I know that you loved me
So that’s why you left me
You loved me so good,
But not better than him
I know that you loved,
So that’s why you left me
You loved me so good,
but you also loved him.”
“Do you remember last year? That guy? Your friend, Dan?”
“How could I forget?”
“He disappeared.”
“Yes, Tanya, I know. I was here.”
“This is truly the last time I’ll ask you to be true
I never should have better of you
But its just the same old car that I do…”
“Crushed wind pipe, Bloodless, definitely dead, truly a corpse.”
David was losing patience.
“Yes, Tanya. In the midst of a lot of death, I remember his death.”
“Okay,” Tanya said, slowing the video down, “Well, what the fuck is this?”
The lead singer, sweeping his dark hair out of his face, looked directly at David Lawry, and was Dan Rawlinson.
“You got his old concerts?”
“This is a new concert,” Tanya Sommers said.
“What?”
Dan sang on, murdering his guitar.
“I saw this,” Detective Sommers said, “I saw him—listen—last night.”
Dan turned to him, dark eyes, aquiline nose, sweeping dark hair from his face.
“You’re shitting me, Tanya.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“David, please be quiet. We can go up there and see it. We can go see him tonight.”
Instead David Lawry opened his computer and looked up the Keller Building. He asked for Myron Keller and when Myron answered, David spoke.
“Hey, how are you? I haven’t seen you since… last year. The funeral?”
“Yeah,” David said. “Yes, exactly. I got a question for you? It may seem strange.”
“Uh oh! Is it a police question?”
“Yeah, Myre. Yeah,” David tried to laugh. “Nothing bad or anything.”
“Alright, Detective. Shoot.”
“Have you… heard from Dan? Dan Rawlinson?”
“Of course, I have. He hasn’t gone anywhere. Still in Rawlston, playing at the Blue Note? Is he in trouble?”
“No,” David said, feeling heavy and strange, feeling the distance between himself and his words. “Just, there was an old missing person’s report out on him, but…”
“Yeah, he vanished for a day or so last year. And then he turned up. Good as gold.”
“Okay,” David said. “Okay.”
“You need to know anything else?”
“No, Myron. No. We’re good.”
“Alright.”
“Thanks, Buddy. Talk to you later, Buddy.”
David hung up.
Tanya Sommers looked at him.
David said, “I need to go home.”
That night he didn’t go to Claire’s. He told her he was really fried and feeling half crazy, only being along would do. He went back to the old habit of sitting alone with the TV on all night, and that night when he woke up, the reception was off as it was sometimes, and he didn’t bother to get up, It seemed as if Channel 2 was switching between something else, and then becoming something else, and then quite clearly, he was watching something else.
There was a poor young man holding a shovel, and his yard was full of humps of dirt. A calm voice asked:
“Are you a young drinker who doesn’t know what to do with your victims? Are the throats you crush and the bodies you kill piling up?”
The fuck?
“Do you keep getting sunburn from walking out into the light before you’re ready?
This young man stepped out the door and cringed as he came back in.
“Are your fangs making your life a misery?”
He nodded, woebegone.
“Don’t fret. Yuri Barkaran’s seminar for the newly turned is coming to Lassador Pavilion on May 5th, all day, beginning at noon!”
David could not laugh. He sat up straight, his stomach and head reeling. He wanted this to be a joke, but he was remembering over a year ago, being up this late.
“And when we return, dominating humans in a human dominated world. Doctor of Philosophy, Hieronymous Traub will be speaking to us from his office at Wittenberg, which he had maintained since 1575…”
And then what he had seen before…
“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 nodding again.
“Well, from the makers of Nutra Negative and your favorite drink, Hemogoblin, comes, Garden of Eden’s Aging Cream.”
And David Lawry threw up his head and screamed. While the television went on the fritz again, and his screams could be heard by his neighbors, he screamed until the paramedics arrived and shot him full of sedatives and then, when he found himself in the psych ward of Saint Elizabeth’s hospital, it was gently suggested that he might want to commit himself, and David, being no fool, agreed.
This was how David Lawry lost his mind or, some would say, began to find it.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an excellent portion. Poor David he has been through so much but to find out Dan is still around and lose his mind is rough. I know what it’s like committed and I hope he makes it through that stronger on the other side. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Chapter 4
When they decided pot was making them too hazy, they switched to cigarettes. They weren’t homeless, but sometimes preferred to live like it, and on a crate in the lean to they had built from crates, they sat looking out at the stretch of beach that went to the crashing waves and the waves that went out and out to the horizon, washing up against the California shore in the night.
“I didn’t know,” he was saying as he pulled on the end of the cigarette as if it were a joint, and it glowed bright orange. “You motherfuckers didn’t tell me.”
“It slipped our minds.”
“It slipped your fucking mind?” he had the ability to not shout even when he was enraged, to not even move.
It was Sarah, her hair in pigtails, still smoking the last of the joint, who said, “We didn’t want to upset you. You were fucking deployed. We wanted you to hear it from us direct.”
“That’s fucked up,” said the boy who was well made with a thick tumble of golden curls, like a little Greek God. He closed his flinty blue eyes and exhaled smoke from this nostrils.
“Speaking of, how did you grow that shit back so quickly.”
He shook his hair out.
“It has a mind of his own.
Passing the hut, you would have been invited in, and then it would have been explained that this was an old conversation. Colonel Alexander Kominsky had been permanently discharged from the Marines to lead a normal life again, and the Marines was something he didn’t talk about, When he had returned to Kowapack California five months ago, he’d been talking about how he hadn’t heard from his best friend, the asshole who had gone off to school in fucking Ohio because it was the only place that had his specialty, and when he’d spoken the room had been quiet.
“Well,” Colonel Kominsky had demanded, “where the fuck is he?”
And then had come the story of how he’d been found, in an alley, throat crushed, dead almost half a year, how no one had wanted to tell him.
“But I’ve been writing his folks for all these months.”
“They didn’t have the heart to say anything.”
“They would have rather had my crazy letters rubbing it in?”
But there had been other things to do. He had left college for the military, and once in the military realized how much college was needed. He was keenly aware of how much older he was than a lot of kids who were starting, and he thought the quicker he did things the better, so he was started in summer, to get a semester under his belt come fall. The first day he sat high in his seat, and looking around realized he didn seem that much older than a lot of his other fellow students. The professor went down the class list and when he got to the name: “Alexander Kominsky.”—, the young man with the piercing blue eyes and the short, wavy golden hair said, “Sunny. Just call me Sunny.”
But Sunny was in a mood tonight. The mood often hit him when he thought about how no one had ever figured out what had happened to his friend, how someone they had all loved had died out there, far from them, and now it didn’t seem to matter to anyone. Sunny had gone into the military and been off in the Middle East. Brian had gone to Ohio. In the game of who would live, how had Brian lost that bet?
“Well, Sarah was saying, getting up and putting her bucket hat on, “I’m going to trip on home. This weed hit me like a motherfucker.”
The waves made their long sound of exhale and inhale, pulling back, and then rolling on to the sand.
Sunny stood up to hug her and she whispered, embracing him, “Try not to get stuck in that gloom of yours, Mr. Kominsky.”
She hugged Jack too, the brown haired, round faced boy who looked like someone out of one of those 1950’s beach movies Sunny had seen his grandmother laughing over once.
“Protect him,” she told Jack, and left the makeshift sea hut.
Jack rolled a large blunt this time and watched the moon rise up high and huge.
“Are you going home or staying here?”
“You know how the beach clears my mind.”
“We should surf. Real early in the morning.”
“I’m down,” Sunny spoke softly. “I’m down.
They spoke very softly. They’d only taken two puffs from that blunt. It wasn’t going anywhere.
“I just don’t want you to feel bad all the time,” Jack was murmuring. “I don’t like how it keeps hitting you. We all just wanna make you feel better.”
But even now, the full white moon was hidden by the burlap curtain Jack had jerkily shut, and while he sat, legs stretched before him and Sunny sat on the crate, Jack’s hand rubbed his thigh in sympathy.
“I know,” Sunny said, his voice barely audible. “I wanna feel good again too.”
He stood up so Jack could take down his Speedo, and then sat down so Jack could kneel before him, and take him in his mouth. The makeshift hut with just its little lantern was full of silence for a long time until Sunny shuddered, and Jack lifted his head.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with…. Anyone,” Sunny said.
“Me too.”
“Sara’s not gonna get mad?”
“Should we stay here tonight and help each other out?” Jack said without answering the question.
Naked, his erection still arching up, still held tenderly in Jack’s hand, Sunny leaned to his right, unscrewed the lantern and blew out the little candle.
“Alright,” he said.
Sunny had been fourteen the first time he’d had sex. He was aware that he was a bit early to the game and didn’t really tell a lot of people. It had been with some girl from a school across town, and he’d met her at a church lockdown. He was serious about religion back then ,and he’d always be serious about right and wrong, virtue, loyalty. He tried to track her down, but she was hard to find, and it seemed she didn’t really want to be found. So though this was Sunny’s first time, fraught with anxiety, it wasn’t anything like the beginning on a new phase in his life. That hadn’t really happened until senior year, with Sara in fact, and when they’d finally had sex it was more like something they were both expected to do. It was nice. Enough. He’d never say it wasn’t, but there was something wrong about it he couldn’t name. He also had an odd feeling of: “That’s two now. You don’t want too many notches on your bedpost.” Guys talked about doing it a lot, but the truth is a good guy wasn’t a guy who was doing it a lot with a lot of girls. One day he’d get married, One day he’d be a dad, and you didn’t want to tell your kids or your respectable friends that there’d been all of these girls before your wife.
Sunny had been surfing since he was seven, since his dad, who hadn’t taught him much else, and who had grown up in Hawaii, taught him. He didn’t even think about how good he was. He thought about how the water fit him, how it sheltered him, how it would always be there and was always a home. You had to trust the water. Everything boiled down to that. There was a thrill in riding the waves, but the thrill was not the same as fear, not really, And even should you fall off, your eyes opened into the warm blue and saw silver sand beneath, the quiet kingdom of underwater creatures.
Jack had been talking about how he liked Sara, and Sunny was talking about starting college and they were getting high at his house, but not very high. That was important, because Sunny never wanted to write off what happened on drugs. His mom was gone. The house was theirs for the weekend. Birds were singing outside. He and Jack were on the bed together, real close, and then their mouths were pressed together, and it felt so right. There was nothing to learn. Sunny knew he was goodlooking and in the summer he was in nothing but a fisherman’s hat and a Speedo. Sometimes flip flops. Jack always wore red trunks, a baseball cap and, for reasons they’d both forgotten, a whistle on a landyard. They undressed swiftly, fluidly, linking limbs, and it was the best feeling in the world. They were timid about some things, but not afraid very long, and they were in no hurry. They were not sure where this would end. Even the surprise of ejaculation was a delight, and didn’t mean an ending. They didn’t really speak until the bed was rumpled, their bodies warm, the room full of pot smoke, and the shadow of evening crossing over them.
“I always thought I might be bi,” Jack said, shrugging and laughing.
“I guess I’m bi, too,” Sunny said.
Sunny didn’t think he could do this with anyone but Jack. He hadn’t really thought of it before. His mind was on school, on the future, on waves, not on this. Sex had been complicated to him, scary even.
“Do you mind if we do that again?” Jack said.
“Right now?” Sunny raised an eyebrow.
Jack laughed.
“I’m worn out,” he said. “Not right now. But like, maybe later? Or like tomorrow? Can it be our thing?”
That made sense. Jack was his best friend. It totally made sense they should be friends like this. Guys never talked about relationships with their best friends. Maybe this was why. Girls always did. Women always wrote these novels where they were bathing with their best friends, laying naked with them, doing all sorts of stuff.
“Yeah,” Sunny said, happy. His boners had always been embarrassing, but now when his penis rose it was filled with affection and a tender yearning, the kind you should have for the guy you cared for most in the world.
“It can totally be our thing.”
MORE TOMORROW
When they decided pot was making them too hazy, they switched to cigarettes. They weren’t homeless, but sometimes preferred to live like it, and on a crate in the lean to they had built from crates, they sat looking out at the stretch of beach that went to the crashing waves and the waves that went out and out to the horizon, washing up against the California shore in the night.
“I didn’t know,” he was saying as he pulled on the end of the cigarette as if it were a joint, and it glowed bright orange. “You motherfuckers didn’t tell me.”
“It slipped our minds.”
“It slipped your fucking mind?” he had the ability to not shout even when he was enraged, to not even move.
It was Sarah, her hair in pigtails, still smoking the last of the joint, who said, “We didn’t want to upset you. You were fucking deployed. We wanted you to hear it from us direct.”
“That’s fucked up,” said the boy who was well made with a thick tumble of golden curls, like a little Greek God. He closed his flinty blue eyes and exhaled smoke from this nostrils.
“Speaking of, how did you grow that shit back so quickly.”
He shook his hair out.
“It has a mind of his own.
Passing the hut, you would have been invited in, and then it would have been explained that this was an old conversation. Colonel Alexander Kominsky had been permanently discharged from the Marines to lead a normal life again, and the Marines was something he didn’t talk about, When he had returned to Kowapack California five months ago, he’d been talking about how he hadn’t heard from his best friend, the asshole who had gone off to school in fucking Ohio because it was the only place that had his specialty, and when he’d spoken the room had been quiet.
“Well,” Colonel Kominsky had demanded, “where the fuck is he?”
And then had come the story of how he’d been found, in an alley, throat crushed, dead almost half a year, how no one had wanted to tell him.
“But I’ve been writing his folks for all these months.”
“They didn’t have the heart to say anything.”
“They would have rather had my crazy letters rubbing it in?”
But there had been other things to do. He had left college for the military, and once in the military realized how much college was needed. He was keenly aware of how much older he was than a lot of kids who were starting, and he thought the quicker he did things the better, so he was started in summer, to get a semester under his belt come fall. The first day he sat high in his seat, and looking around realized he didn seem that much older than a lot of his other fellow students. The professor went down the class list and when he got to the name: “Alexander Kominsky.”—, the young man with the piercing blue eyes and the short, wavy golden hair said, “Sunny. Just call me Sunny.”
But Sunny was in a mood tonight. The mood often hit him when he thought about how no one had ever figured out what had happened to his friend, how someone they had all loved had died out there, far from them, and now it didn’t seem to matter to anyone. Sunny had gone into the military and been off in the Middle East. Brian had gone to Ohio. In the game of who would live, how had Brian lost that bet?
“Well, Sarah was saying, getting up and putting her bucket hat on, “I’m going to trip on home. This weed hit me like a motherfucker.”
The waves made their long sound of exhale and inhale, pulling back, and then rolling on to the sand.
Sunny stood up to hug her and she whispered, embracing him, “Try not to get stuck in that gloom of yours, Mr. Kominsky.”
She hugged Jack too, the brown haired, round faced boy who looked like someone out of one of those 1950’s beach movies Sunny had seen his grandmother laughing over once.
“Protect him,” she told Jack, and left the makeshift sea hut.
Jack rolled a large blunt this time and watched the moon rise up high and huge.
“Are you going home or staying here?”
“You know how the beach clears my mind.”
“We should surf. Real early in the morning.”
“I’m down,” Sunny spoke softly. “I’m down.
They spoke very softly. They’d only taken two puffs from that blunt. It wasn’t going anywhere.
“I just don’t want you to feel bad all the time,” Jack was murmuring. “I don’t like how it keeps hitting you. We all just wanna make you feel better.”
But even now, the full white moon was hidden by the burlap curtain Jack had jerkily shut, and while he sat, legs stretched before him and Sunny sat on the crate, Jack’s hand rubbed his thigh in sympathy.
“I know,” Sunny said, his voice barely audible. “I wanna feel good again too.”
He stood up so Jack could take down his Speedo, and then sat down so Jack could kneel before him, and take him in his mouth. The makeshift hut with just its little lantern was full of silence for a long time until Sunny shuddered, and Jack lifted his head.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with…. Anyone,” Sunny said.
“Me too.”
“Sara’s not gonna get mad?”
“Should we stay here tonight and help each other out?” Jack said without answering the question.
Naked, his erection still arching up, still held tenderly in Jack’s hand, Sunny leaned to his right, unscrewed the lantern and blew out the little candle.
“Alright,” he said.
Sunny had been fourteen the first time he’d had sex. He was aware that he was a bit early to the game and didn’t really tell a lot of people. It had been with some girl from a school across town, and he’d met her at a church lockdown. He was serious about religion back then ,and he’d always be serious about right and wrong, virtue, loyalty. He tried to track her down, but she was hard to find, and it seemed she didn’t really want to be found. So though this was Sunny’s first time, fraught with anxiety, it wasn’t anything like the beginning on a new phase in his life. That hadn’t really happened until senior year, with Sara in fact, and when they’d finally had sex it was more like something they were both expected to do. It was nice. Enough. He’d never say it wasn’t, but there was something wrong about it he couldn’t name. He also had an odd feeling of: “That’s two now. You don’t want too many notches on your bedpost.” Guys talked about doing it a lot, but the truth is a good guy wasn’t a guy who was doing it a lot with a lot of girls. One day he’d get married, One day he’d be a dad, and you didn’t want to tell your kids or your respectable friends that there’d been all of these girls before your wife.
Sunny had been surfing since he was seven, since his dad, who hadn’t taught him much else, and who had grown up in Hawaii, taught him. He didn’t even think about how good he was. He thought about how the water fit him, how it sheltered him, how it would always be there and was always a home. You had to trust the water. Everything boiled down to that. There was a thrill in riding the waves, but the thrill was not the same as fear, not really, And even should you fall off, your eyes opened into the warm blue and saw silver sand beneath, the quiet kingdom of underwater creatures.
Jack had been talking about how he liked Sara, and Sunny was talking about starting college and they were getting high at his house, but not very high. That was important, because Sunny never wanted to write off what happened on drugs. His mom was gone. The house was theirs for the weekend. Birds were singing outside. He and Jack were on the bed together, real close, and then their mouths were pressed together, and it felt so right. There was nothing to learn. Sunny knew he was goodlooking and in the summer he was in nothing but a fisherman’s hat and a Speedo. Sometimes flip flops. Jack always wore red trunks, a baseball cap and, for reasons they’d both forgotten, a whistle on a landyard. They undressed swiftly, fluidly, linking limbs, and it was the best feeling in the world. They were timid about some things, but not afraid very long, and they were in no hurry. They were not sure where this would end. Even the surprise of ejaculation was a delight, and didn’t mean an ending. They didn’t really speak until the bed was rumpled, their bodies warm, the room full of pot smoke, and the shadow of evening crossing over them.
“I always thought I might be bi,” Jack said, shrugging and laughing.
“I guess I’m bi, too,” Sunny said.
Sunny didn’t think he could do this with anyone but Jack. He hadn’t really thought of it before. His mind was on school, on the future, on waves, not on this. Sex had been complicated to him, scary even.
“Do you mind if we do that again?” Jack said.
“Right now?” Sunny raised an eyebrow.
Jack laughed.
“I’m worn out,” he said. “Not right now. But like, maybe later? Or like tomorrow? Can it be our thing?”
That made sense. Jack was his best friend. It totally made sense they should be friends like this. Guys never talked about relationships with their best friends. Maybe this was why. Girls always did. Women always wrote these novels where they were bathing with their best friends, laying naked with them, doing all sorts of stuff.
“Yeah,” Sunny said, happy. His boners had always been embarrassing, but now when his penis rose it was filled with affection and a tender yearning, the kind you should have for the guy you cared for most in the world.
“It can totally be our thing.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Well that was certainly a change. It’s good to get to know Sunny, I like him. I hope there is a lot more of him. I am also eager to hear how David is doing. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I thought it might be a change and even a disappointment to see we weren't jumping back to David immediately
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT SUNNY MAKES A COUPLE OF DECISIONS, AND HAS A FEW REVELATIONS
Now that he had been with Jack, he had a language to talk about being with Sara and Nicole before. And after he and Sara had broken up and become friends, he had a language for the few women who came after. Being with women was like a performance. He had to find his role in the thing, and whatever that role was, it was the opposite of what she was. How good was he? Could he please her? How long could he last? Was it time to pull out? What did she like? What did she see? Who did he tell? For Sunny, sex with women was filled with a sort of performance anxiety that, contrary to what he had thought, always gave him an erection. There was some weird reward he gave himself for not coming to soon, for making her come first, for being the man she desired, a clap on the back he gave when she just wanted to please him.
When he had been deployed, on his ship there was an annoying guy named Mitch. Sunny was sure that Mitch was one of those people who, without the military, would have been a real mess. He wore wraparound shades and smoked cigarettes angrily on the deck and laughed too loud. He reminded Sunny of a time bomb.
They’d had an on land assignment and Mitch, in his fatigues and beret, had murmured something about wishing they were Navy and never had to set foot on land. But that day there had been a conflict and Mitch had saved his life. Mitch had saved all of their lives. He’d killed someone and he had done it judiciously. Everyone thought Mitch might go off on anyone or anything. Sunny, hearing his Indiana accent, thought he might kill anything brown despite his constant chanting rap music under his breath.
When they did get back on ship that night, Mitch was real quiet, and Sunny screwed up his nerve and went to talk to him. When he found Mitch on the deck he didn’t say anything. They just sat together.
“I never killed anything before,” Mitch said, at last. “Not even a bug. I used to see my sister put a magnifying glass on ants and I’d yell, you stop doing that. I never killed anything.”
Sunny, who had still never killed anything, thought it was best to be quiet, and he let Mitch continue.
“I wish I hadn’t done that. I wish we could have done anything else. Why are we here? I wanted to protect people. I wanted to save peoples’ lives. I didn’t want to kill anyone. And we might have to do it again. Sunny, I don’t ever want to be a killer again.” “Yeah,” Sunny had said. “Me neither.”
He had seen the light go out of that kid’s eyes. He had seen the blood blossom on his chest. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he felt like he had.
“Why can’t we… why can’t we be better to each other?” Mitch was saying, looking at his hands.
“I wanna be different,” he said. “This isn’t me. I’m tired of being hard. I’ve been hard all my life. I went into this to be hard. Maybe I didn’t do it for other people. Maybe I wanted respect. Or something.
“But I just want to be gentle. I want to be gentle. And tender. I just want to be gentle with someone. Why can’t we be gentle?”
Mitch hadn’t been looking at Sunny. He’d been looking away from him, but his hand had been moving toward Sunny, and his fingers were resting on Sunny’s knuckles.
“Why can’t two men be sweet with each other?” Mitch said, and when he said it, whatever had been rising in Sunny became a throbbing, and he slipped his hand into Mitch’s. Mitch looked over at Sunny.
“I knew you were like me,” he said, quietly. “I knew you’d understand.”
And then Sunny said. “We’re still on leave. You know, there’s that hotel we passed. The bar’s still open. We can go there… Talk. If we drink too much, I’m sure there’s a room we can stay in for the night.”
“A room?”
“Yeah.”
“We should do that,” Mitch said, nodding his head and taking out his cigarettes.
“Let’s go over there and get a room.”
With Mitch, as with Jack, there had been no role, no side to be on. There had been no expectation, and no true anxiety, just great longing. There was not the idea of what should be done, but what they both longed to do. If they hadn’t both been so hungry maybe it would have been different. If they had not worn so much baggage and so much armor, maybe they wouldn’t have needed so badly to get rid of it. They had killed and been in front of killing, and so there wasn’t any shame in exposing themselves to each other. They wanted to be exposed. In the night, while Mitch clung to him, the spare muscled bronze haired boy from Indiana said, “I just wanna hold someone. I just wanna be held.”
They made love all night and Sunny realized he wanted the same thing. It had been like this with Jack, the opening and being opened, the flowing in and out of each other, the surprise relief of pressing together, coming together, and in the end exhaling, sighing with the peace of what had just passed.
Back in California, Sunny lay in Jack’s arms and Jack stroked his hair.
“You’re going to Ohio, aren’t you?” Jack said.
Sunny said, “I have to.”
“I gotta stop seeing him,” Avery Kominsky said, shaking her head and exhaling cigarette smoke. “I gotta stop seeing him. That son of a bitch says all of a sudden he can’t come and I’ve been preparing all day.
“And do you know what preparing means?” she asked her son as Sunny stood in the kitchen making a sandwich and half looking at her through the window cut into the kitchen wall that looked onto the living room. “Sure you do? It’s a lot of a work for a woman to get ready for a man—or a man to get ready for a man too, I guess. And then you just say, oops I can’t come over.”
“Well,” Sunny came into the living room with a sandwich for himself and one for his mom, “I don’t even know why you see him.”
“You’re twenty-five, you’ve been in the Army.”
“Marines.”
“Right. You’ve had girlfriends… And a couple of boyfriends too. You know exactly why I’m seeing him.”
“The sex,” Sunny said, his mouth full of sandwich, almost as if that made the word more tenable.
Avery had only been eighteen when she’d had Sunny, and he got his pile of curly golden hair from her. She was not bawdy, but she was direct. She wasn’t immoral, but she was honest. She had eyes and didn’t think it was right to make her son tell her things she could see on here own. She could put two and two together when he’d been sleeping with Sara and she didn’t think too much of it when she was sure he’d been with Jack. When he said veiled things about boys being beautiful, or special relationships he had in the Armed Services, she was good enough to see through them, and though she’d never had a life where Sunny would wake up and find a strange man at the breakfast table, or hear noises coming out of his mother’s room, she didn’t hide the realities of her sex life, either.
“Truthfully, he isn’t very good. It’s only that he isn’t very bad, and he was a sure thing.”
“He’s an idiot.” Sunny shook his head, knees apart.
“He is,” she agreed.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?”
“As soon as I learn what happened to Blake.”
They were quiet now and continued eating in silence.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Avery said, at last.
“What?”
“I think you want to find out what happened to Blake, but I think you want to find out something else.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know,” Avery admitted. “You may not know, either.”
“Things used to make sense,” Sunny said. “They used to be…”
He had put down his sandwich and now his hands were like claws. He brought them together.
“Whole. Things used to be whole, and now they aren’t. And… maybe this will fix it.”
“Going by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“You were always a by yourself kind of person.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You always had your friends, but you were always happiest alone.”
“Well,” Sunny picked a piece of lettuce from his sandwich plate. “Maybe.”
“You taking that goddamn motorcycle?”
“Mom!”
“I just want to know. You could have a real car and be safe, but you’re taking that goddamn Easy Rider looking bullshit, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Ma. I’m taking that goddamn Easy Rider bullshit.”
He left on a Monday, and at day’s end he found a motel somewhere in Nevada on the edge of the desert, which someone pointed out later was an accurate description for most of Nevada. Almost attached to it was a tavern where he went for a beer, hot wings and a quiet time. He got all three, but as the night progressed a woman, a little older, who said her name was Bree, introduced herself to him. She made her intentions known and a little later he was fucking her against a bathroom wall.
He went back to his seat, gathered up his things and paid his bill. The charm of the place was gone. The desert night was chill as the day had been hot, and he thought what a smart idea it could be to travel in the dark and sleep in the day, but more he thought about something that had just barely crossed his mind in the past maybe because, as smart and open as he thought he was, he never let it.
He had fucked Bree almost out of a sense of duty. She carried condoms and this was what men did, especially young men. It hadn’t felt bad, but it wasn’t great. He had deprived himself of Jack. He’d barely said goodbye to him and his rationale had always been, as it had been with Mitch, that being with Jack felt too good. It felt too right. It felt too special to do all the time. The feeling of being with a man was so good it was almost dangerous, so he put it at a distance. Sex with women… that could be done then put away.
“That’s so stupid,” Sunny said, shaking his head in disgust as he approached the one story motel.
“I’m not bi,” he said. “I’m gay. I’m gay.”
And he did something between a grimace and chuckle, almost as irritated and angry at himself for not understanding that as he was relieved at knowing it now.
He reached his room, unlocked the door, took a quick shower and jumped on the bed, almost instantly falling asleep.
MORE TOMORROW
Now that he had been with Jack, he had a language to talk about being with Sara and Nicole before. And after he and Sara had broken up and become friends, he had a language for the few women who came after. Being with women was like a performance. He had to find his role in the thing, and whatever that role was, it was the opposite of what she was. How good was he? Could he please her? How long could he last? Was it time to pull out? What did she like? What did she see? Who did he tell? For Sunny, sex with women was filled with a sort of performance anxiety that, contrary to what he had thought, always gave him an erection. There was some weird reward he gave himself for not coming to soon, for making her come first, for being the man she desired, a clap on the back he gave when she just wanted to please him.
When he had been deployed, on his ship there was an annoying guy named Mitch. Sunny was sure that Mitch was one of those people who, without the military, would have been a real mess. He wore wraparound shades and smoked cigarettes angrily on the deck and laughed too loud. He reminded Sunny of a time bomb.
They’d had an on land assignment and Mitch, in his fatigues and beret, had murmured something about wishing they were Navy and never had to set foot on land. But that day there had been a conflict and Mitch had saved his life. Mitch had saved all of their lives. He’d killed someone and he had done it judiciously. Everyone thought Mitch might go off on anyone or anything. Sunny, hearing his Indiana accent, thought he might kill anything brown despite his constant chanting rap music under his breath.
When they did get back on ship that night, Mitch was real quiet, and Sunny screwed up his nerve and went to talk to him. When he found Mitch on the deck he didn’t say anything. They just sat together.
“I never killed anything before,” Mitch said, at last. “Not even a bug. I used to see my sister put a magnifying glass on ants and I’d yell, you stop doing that. I never killed anything.”
Sunny, who had still never killed anything, thought it was best to be quiet, and he let Mitch continue.
“I wish I hadn’t done that. I wish we could have done anything else. Why are we here? I wanted to protect people. I wanted to save peoples’ lives. I didn’t want to kill anyone. And we might have to do it again. Sunny, I don’t ever want to be a killer again.” “Yeah,” Sunny had said. “Me neither.”
He had seen the light go out of that kid’s eyes. He had seen the blood blossom on his chest. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he felt like he had.
“Why can’t we… why can’t we be better to each other?” Mitch was saying, looking at his hands.
“I wanna be different,” he said. “This isn’t me. I’m tired of being hard. I’ve been hard all my life. I went into this to be hard. Maybe I didn’t do it for other people. Maybe I wanted respect. Or something.
“But I just want to be gentle. I want to be gentle. And tender. I just want to be gentle with someone. Why can’t we be gentle?”
Mitch hadn’t been looking at Sunny. He’d been looking away from him, but his hand had been moving toward Sunny, and his fingers were resting on Sunny’s knuckles.
“Why can’t two men be sweet with each other?” Mitch said, and when he said it, whatever had been rising in Sunny became a throbbing, and he slipped his hand into Mitch’s. Mitch looked over at Sunny.
“I knew you were like me,” he said, quietly. “I knew you’d understand.”
And then Sunny said. “We’re still on leave. You know, there’s that hotel we passed. The bar’s still open. We can go there… Talk. If we drink too much, I’m sure there’s a room we can stay in for the night.”
“A room?”
“Yeah.”
“We should do that,” Mitch said, nodding his head and taking out his cigarettes.
“Let’s go over there and get a room.”
With Mitch, as with Jack, there had been no role, no side to be on. There had been no expectation, and no true anxiety, just great longing. There was not the idea of what should be done, but what they both longed to do. If they hadn’t both been so hungry maybe it would have been different. If they had not worn so much baggage and so much armor, maybe they wouldn’t have needed so badly to get rid of it. They had killed and been in front of killing, and so there wasn’t any shame in exposing themselves to each other. They wanted to be exposed. In the night, while Mitch clung to him, the spare muscled bronze haired boy from Indiana said, “I just wanna hold someone. I just wanna be held.”
They made love all night and Sunny realized he wanted the same thing. It had been like this with Jack, the opening and being opened, the flowing in and out of each other, the surprise relief of pressing together, coming together, and in the end exhaling, sighing with the peace of what had just passed.
Back in California, Sunny lay in Jack’s arms and Jack stroked his hair.
“You’re going to Ohio, aren’t you?” Jack said.
Sunny said, “I have to.”
“I gotta stop seeing him,” Avery Kominsky said, shaking her head and exhaling cigarette smoke. “I gotta stop seeing him. That son of a bitch says all of a sudden he can’t come and I’ve been preparing all day.
“And do you know what preparing means?” she asked her son as Sunny stood in the kitchen making a sandwich and half looking at her through the window cut into the kitchen wall that looked onto the living room. “Sure you do? It’s a lot of a work for a woman to get ready for a man—or a man to get ready for a man too, I guess. And then you just say, oops I can’t come over.”
“Well,” Sunny came into the living room with a sandwich for himself and one for his mom, “I don’t even know why you see him.”
“You’re twenty-five, you’ve been in the Army.”
“Marines.”
“Right. You’ve had girlfriends… And a couple of boyfriends too. You know exactly why I’m seeing him.”
“The sex,” Sunny said, his mouth full of sandwich, almost as if that made the word more tenable.
Avery had only been eighteen when she’d had Sunny, and he got his pile of curly golden hair from her. She was not bawdy, but she was direct. She wasn’t immoral, but she was honest. She had eyes and didn’t think it was right to make her son tell her things she could see on here own. She could put two and two together when he’d been sleeping with Sara and she didn’t think too much of it when she was sure he’d been with Jack. When he said veiled things about boys being beautiful, or special relationships he had in the Armed Services, she was good enough to see through them, and though she’d never had a life where Sunny would wake up and find a strange man at the breakfast table, or hear noises coming out of his mother’s room, she didn’t hide the realities of her sex life, either.
“Truthfully, he isn’t very good. It’s only that he isn’t very bad, and he was a sure thing.”
“He’s an idiot.” Sunny shook his head, knees apart.
“He is,” she agreed.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?”
“As soon as I learn what happened to Blake.”
They were quiet now and continued eating in silence.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Avery said, at last.
“What?”
“I think you want to find out what happened to Blake, but I think you want to find out something else.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know,” Avery admitted. “You may not know, either.”
“Things used to make sense,” Sunny said. “They used to be…”
He had put down his sandwich and now his hands were like claws. He brought them together.
“Whole. Things used to be whole, and now they aren’t. And… maybe this will fix it.”
“Going by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“You were always a by yourself kind of person.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. You always had your friends, but you were always happiest alone.”
“Well,” Sunny picked a piece of lettuce from his sandwich plate. “Maybe.”
“You taking that goddamn motorcycle?”
“Mom!”
“I just want to know. You could have a real car and be safe, but you’re taking that goddamn Easy Rider looking bullshit, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Ma. I’m taking that goddamn Easy Rider bullshit.”
He left on a Monday, and at day’s end he found a motel somewhere in Nevada on the edge of the desert, which someone pointed out later was an accurate description for most of Nevada. Almost attached to it was a tavern where he went for a beer, hot wings and a quiet time. He got all three, but as the night progressed a woman, a little older, who said her name was Bree, introduced herself to him. She made her intentions known and a little later he was fucking her against a bathroom wall.
He went back to his seat, gathered up his things and paid his bill. The charm of the place was gone. The desert night was chill as the day had been hot, and he thought what a smart idea it could be to travel in the dark and sleep in the day, but more he thought about something that had just barely crossed his mind in the past maybe because, as smart and open as he thought he was, he never let it.
He had fucked Bree almost out of a sense of duty. She carried condoms and this was what men did, especially young men. It hadn’t felt bad, but it wasn’t great. He had deprived himself of Jack. He’d barely said goodbye to him and his rationale had always been, as it had been with Mitch, that being with Jack felt too good. It felt too right. It felt too special to do all the time. The feeling of being with a man was so good it was almost dangerous, so he put it at a distance. Sex with women… that could be done then put away.
“That’s so stupid,” Sunny said, shaking his head in disgust as he approached the one story motel.
“I’m not bi,” he said. “I’m gay. I’m gay.”
And he did something between a grimace and chuckle, almost as irritated and angry at himself for not understanding that as he was relieved at knowing it now.
He reached his room, unlocked the door, took a quick shower and jumped on the bed, almost instantly falling asleep.
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Sunny has come to a realisation about his sexuality which I think is a good thing. I am enjoying getting to know him. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It was as he reached Salt Lake City that Sunny realized not only that his mother had been right about taking a car, but that his idea of traveling by motorcycle was impractical as fuck compared to, say, a train or a plane. He had clearly been after some sort of experience and he wondered, as he approached the Great Salt Lake and the promised land Brigham Young and had found for his wandering people, how dumb he was, how much he’d hidden from himself. Memories of himself in white shirt, black pants and black tie, trying to redeem himself, trying to apologize for the loss of his virginity and make things up to a God who lived on a planet in outer space, flashed through his mind. When he ended up in Temple Square he realized he’d come here for sentimental reasons. It was night, and the lights flooded up on the two pyramid rooved towers of the the Temple that resembled the marriage of a post office and a Gothic church. He had found it sad to not be able to believe in certain things, to not have faith the way he once did, but suddenly he was glad to not believe in this. In the middle of the night he felt a great shame, and wasn’t sure what the shame was for.
He stayed at a hotel in what he knew was the gay area, and no one looked at him except, finally, one guy he’d looked at again and again. He seemed nice was what Sunny kept thinking, a nice guy you could have a nice time with, be nice too.
“Hello,” the guy said, coming up to him.
“Hi,” said Sunny. Then, “Are you looking for someone?”
“No… not someone.”
“Well…” Sunny was new to this. “Are you looking for… something?”
“I might be,” the guy said, merrily. “Are you looking for something?”
“Yes,” Sunny said.
“Should we… find it together?”
There followed, in Sunny’s room, an awkward and clumsy fumbling that resulted in ejaculation, a apology from the guy and laughter from Sunny.
“You’re new to this, right?” Sunny said.
“Yeah!”
“Me too.”
“I had no idea.”
“No one taught us, you know?” Sunny said, as they both sat on the side of the bed, naked. “I didn’t even say I was gay till like two days ago. No one ever taught us, so how are we just supposed to be good at it?”
The other guy laughed, feeling relieved.
“That’s right. I’m Laman.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“I know, right? I’ll never outrun the Book of Mormon.”
For some reason Sunny introduced himself as, “Alexander.”
The name had always been been a burden for him. A burden for a burden. That seemed about right.
He read passages from On the Road when he wasn’t actually on the road, and became convinced Jack Kerouac was a whiny white man and a closeted homosexual. He talked to his mother every other night and in Denver, which Kerouac and Ginsberg had made him want to see, he shipped the motorcycle to Ohio, and then took Amtrak to Chicago to follow it.
It was the height of summer when he arrived in Chicago and it was too big and too busy, overwhelming and compelling from the moment he got off the train and came into Union Station. After days on the train, Sunny was overwhelmed and dizzy, and set to getting back his motorcycle. Riding was different here, more dangerous, and he told himself he would probably take a train or a bus and ride once he’d gotten to Ohio, but he liked the strange danger. He went to Lake Michigan and stood amazed, looking at an inland sea he had to convince himself was just a lake. He rode out of Chicago and into Indiana. He took the old highway, not the toll roads, and tried to figure out what he thought of the Midwest. That night he stayed in South Bend, Indiana and went to a bar. When he told someone he was just visiting and they asked him what he thought of the town, he said he didn’t really understand it, then Sunny had another drink and went to bed.
He didn’t think much of Indiana, and when he crossed the border into Ohio, he thought even less. He was surprised when he reached Lassador, for though it seemed to have taken forever to get there, all of its buildings and expressways popped up in an instant. If Indiana reminded Sunny of something unfinished, then the state of Ohio reminded him of something run down, and when the expressway lowered him onto the main streets of east downtown Lassador, he shuddered and thought of Gotham City in one of the Batman movies.
“Find a hotel and find it fucking quick,” he murmured to himself, and at an overpriced hotel overlooking the river, where dinner had long ceased to be served, he got a room and told himself to look for a motel tomorrow. But then tomorrow, he’d be searching through records about what had happened to Blake.
“Well, Mr. Kominsky,” James Karney said, “I honor the fact that you traveled all this way to learn about your friend.”
“A phone call would have done,” Tanya Sommers said.
“No,” Sunny looked up at her, annoyed, and no being annoyed by certain Black people did not make him a racist he told himself, “it wouldn’t.”
“You wanted to be where he was,” Captain Karney said.
“I don’t want him forgotten.”
“No, of course not. But the thing is, I’m not sure I would be the person best to tell you anything.”
“It was so much going on at the time,” Detective Sommers said. “And, truthfully, the way he died was strange.”
“Blood drained from him, throat crushed…”
Tanya Sommers looked disturbed. She looked to Captain Karney and he said, “My. Kominsky—”
“Sunny,” he said.
“Sunny,” Captain Karney agreed. “There is one person you could talk to about this. And I think it would do you both good.”
“Okay?”
“But would you mind making a trip about forty five minutes south of town?”
“Out of Lassador?”
“Yes.”
Sunny nodded. He couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of Lassador.
He stayed at a hotel in what he knew was the gay area, and no one looked at him except, finally, one guy he’d looked at again and again. He seemed nice was what Sunny kept thinking, a nice guy you could have a nice time with, be nice too.
“Hello,” the guy said, coming up to him.
“Hi,” said Sunny. Then, “Are you looking for someone?”
“No… not someone.”
“Well…” Sunny was new to this. “Are you looking for… something?”
“I might be,” the guy said, merrily. “Are you looking for something?”
“Yes,” Sunny said.
“Should we… find it together?”
There followed, in Sunny’s room, an awkward and clumsy fumbling that resulted in ejaculation, a apology from the guy and laughter from Sunny.
“You’re new to this, right?” Sunny said.
“Yeah!”
“Me too.”
“I had no idea.”
“No one taught us, you know?” Sunny said, as they both sat on the side of the bed, naked. “I didn’t even say I was gay till like two days ago. No one ever taught us, so how are we just supposed to be good at it?”
The other guy laughed, feeling relieved.
“That’s right. I’m Laman.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“I know, right? I’ll never outrun the Book of Mormon.”
For some reason Sunny introduced himself as, “Alexander.”
The name had always been been a burden for him. A burden for a burden. That seemed about right.
He read passages from On the Road when he wasn’t actually on the road, and became convinced Jack Kerouac was a whiny white man and a closeted homosexual. He talked to his mother every other night and in Denver, which Kerouac and Ginsberg had made him want to see, he shipped the motorcycle to Ohio, and then took Amtrak to Chicago to follow it.
It was the height of summer when he arrived in Chicago and it was too big and too busy, overwhelming and compelling from the moment he got off the train and came into Union Station. After days on the train, Sunny was overwhelmed and dizzy, and set to getting back his motorcycle. Riding was different here, more dangerous, and he told himself he would probably take a train or a bus and ride once he’d gotten to Ohio, but he liked the strange danger. He went to Lake Michigan and stood amazed, looking at an inland sea he had to convince himself was just a lake. He rode out of Chicago and into Indiana. He took the old highway, not the toll roads, and tried to figure out what he thought of the Midwest. That night he stayed in South Bend, Indiana and went to a bar. When he told someone he was just visiting and they asked him what he thought of the town, he said he didn’t really understand it, then Sunny had another drink and went to bed.
He didn’t think much of Indiana, and when he crossed the border into Ohio, he thought even less. He was surprised when he reached Lassador, for though it seemed to have taken forever to get there, all of its buildings and expressways popped up in an instant. If Indiana reminded Sunny of something unfinished, then the state of Ohio reminded him of something run down, and when the expressway lowered him onto the main streets of east downtown Lassador, he shuddered and thought of Gotham City in one of the Batman movies.
“Find a hotel and find it fucking quick,” he murmured to himself, and at an overpriced hotel overlooking the river, where dinner had long ceased to be served, he got a room and told himself to look for a motel tomorrow. But then tomorrow, he’d be searching through records about what had happened to Blake.
“Well, Mr. Kominsky,” James Karney said, “I honor the fact that you traveled all this way to learn about your friend.”
“A phone call would have done,” Tanya Sommers said.
“No,” Sunny looked up at her, annoyed, and no being annoyed by certain Black people did not make him a racist he told himself, “it wouldn’t.”
“You wanted to be where he was,” Captain Karney said.
“I don’t want him forgotten.”
“No, of course not. But the thing is, I’m not sure I would be the person best to tell you anything.”
“It was so much going on at the time,” Detective Sommers said. “And, truthfully, the way he died was strange.”
“Blood drained from him, throat crushed…”
Tanya Sommers looked disturbed. She looked to Captain Karney and he said, “My. Kominsky—”
“Sunny,” he said.
“Sunny,” Captain Karney agreed. “There is one person you could talk to about this. And I think it would do you both good.”
“Okay?”
“But would you mind making a trip about forty five minutes south of town?”
“Out of Lassador?”
“Yes.”
Sunny nodded. He couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of Lassador.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
“Glencastle will do you good,” Sargeant Ross told David Lawry his first day back at work.
The truth was David Lawry had always felt fragile. As a kid he was thin and weak and when the teenage years approached he felt he’d been stretched out like a piece of gum. Mr Gerkin, who had been the wrestling coach, said that the thing about wrestling was anyone could do it, you’d be fitted to someone your size. And so Mark had joined wrestling. He joined soccer. He had even started boxing, and he had managed to forget his fear, nearly put away his self doubt. He wondered now if it was why he had become a cop.
He knew that one reason, the chief reason, was because he wanted to help people. He wanted to be the good guy. David had wanted to make a difference, and up until last year he had been the guy that found the parent with dementia who had been wandering around, who kept the neighborhood quiet when that one jerk made it a misery for everyone. He had been the person who, learning about a petty thief who had stolen money from a trusting friend, tracked that person down. People had a lot of ideas about cops. Some people still believed they were saviors. A lot of people were willing to think they were corrupt on a good day and flat out racists on another. It had gotten to a point where even other white people reacted poorly to him. David had seen corruption and racism. He’d seen true laziness. He’d seen truth swept under the rug and justice ignored, If he could call himself proud of this, one of the things he was proud of was what he didn’t report, knowing a kid in trouble, a man on a bad day, a woman caught at the wrong time, would have been on her way to jail or maybe to prison, and the system was bullshit. It really was. He still wondered what the difference was between doing your best and aiding and abetting something that was broken, maybe even evil.
But with all of that, he had made it from the age of twenty two till last year without killing anyone. It wasn’t a thing cops had to do. It wasn’t a given. Really, someone with no ambition could essentially spend their lives handing out parking tickets and in a nice quiet place like this, or back near Ann Arbor where he had been, you could rise to captain with your gun being as much of a symbol and as unused as a Masonic sword.
Killing someone had fucked him up. He had never believed that a gun would make him tough. He felt fragile, true, but he thought that protecting people as best he could was the way to forget about that fragility, or to use it. Pulling that trigger was the worst thing he’d ever done. Watching Gale Thornton die was, until then, the worst thing he’d ever seen.
And then everything after that became unbearable. That was when the strange murders had happened. That was when the strangest of all had happened. That was when the fragile exterior that had held together for thirty years cracked.
David had never been a reader, and he’d never had much imagination, but there was a kid in school who loved King Arthur, and once David had seen a lean man on a horse in silver armor with a red tunic or something over it. He’d even had sort of floppy dark hair, and he’d been kissing the hand of a lady.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Sir Lancelot.”
David filed that away. In the back of his mind he had been Sir Lancelot. Dashing. He knew how to be dashing, impressive with the ladies who liked his boyish smile, his police badge and whatever a gun at your side hinted at. In those last days he had been fucking his next door neighbor and feeling like a man, seeing himself as she saw him, manly, a muscular strength in his wiry arms, a passionate lover, inexhaustible with a gleam in his eyes.
And then he had lost his mind and been reduced to a gibbering nutjob in a psych ward. He still felt like one. He was still ashamed. If he’d said these things about anyone else, it would be insensitivity, but it was the way he felt deep inside. When he’d come out, he had been too embarrassed to see Claire anymore. He’d shut himself off, and when he’d gotten the chance to transfer to Glencastle, David Lawry had jumped at it.
David had never been a person of whimsy, but Glencastle, with its broad streets, Victorian houses, ice cream shops and old style downtown seemed to lend itself to one whimsy. In an old store he had been surprised to see a poster of the very picture of Lancelot he’d see as teen, and he’d bought it and made it be the first decoration in his new apartment.
Life as a detective in Glencastle involved more paper work and more looking for lost cars and cats than Lassador ever had, and he told himself he felt guilty, but the truth was he felt good. Back in the city there were people chasing down real crime, but from what he remembered they were always chasing down, never solving, never finding in time. When he told himself he should stop taking it easy, stop this calm breathing, stop getting off of work at a decent time and driving home to the apartment complex with the swimming pool and his little one bedroom apartment, he remembered Cody. He remembered his funeral. He remembered pulling that trigger.
How could it be that only a forty five minute drive could take him from Lassador, the ugliest fucking city in the world, to the peace and quiet of Glencastle, where once he was called out to walk the length of Mr. Koester’s property because he’d seen something moving around, only to find that it was a family of penitent possums?
One night, feeling the need for whimsy, he went to the show by himself, ordered a large bucket of popcorn, and watched the new superhero movie. Back in Lassador, back in that house, he was always so lonely. He was always aware of who and what was missing there, of his lack of companions. Dom came to visit. In fact, Dom visited him more here in Glencastle than he ever had in Lassador. And here, his coworkers were friendly, and David felt light and friendly, or at least lighter and friendlier than he had before, and here he didn’t mind his own company. It was nice to do things alone.
The morning after he watched the superhero movie and the explosions and fights were still playing in his head, he walked into work, whistling, and shot the breeze with Grayson and Mikelski. He had his own office here, and this building was new. The old one had been turned into a youth center. The sun was absolutely bright that day, and he saw someone come into the police station, and he was talking at the front desk to Marissa, and then he was approaching, yes, approaching David. He was handsome, looked like the sun, or like a surfer even though his face was sober, and the bright young man who carried summer with him walked into the office and said:
“Detective David Lawry?”
“This is. What can I do you for?”
“I just came from Lassador. I was talking to Captain Dick Karney, and he said I might want to come down and see you.”
Instantly came that feeling like the need to go to the bathroom, that feeling as if, despite his sunny looks and the sunny day, this raven had brought darkness.
“I just got in from California,” he was continuing. “I was deployed—”
This guy was deployed.
“And when I got back they told me my friend Blake Wilson was dead. But no one knew much about it? And so I’m here to learn about his death, and Captain Karney and Detective Tierney think you can help me.”
“Uh…. Alright. And, you are…?”
“Sunny.”
Of course.
“Sunny Kominsky.”
The truth was David Lawry had always felt fragile. As a kid he was thin and weak and when the teenage years approached he felt he’d been stretched out like a piece of gum. Mr Gerkin, who had been the wrestling coach, said that the thing about wrestling was anyone could do it, you’d be fitted to someone your size. And so Mark had joined wrestling. He joined soccer. He had even started boxing, and he had managed to forget his fear, nearly put away his self doubt. He wondered now if it was why he had become a cop.
He knew that one reason, the chief reason, was because he wanted to help people. He wanted to be the good guy. David had wanted to make a difference, and up until last year he had been the guy that found the parent with dementia who had been wandering around, who kept the neighborhood quiet when that one jerk made it a misery for everyone. He had been the person who, learning about a petty thief who had stolen money from a trusting friend, tracked that person down. People had a lot of ideas about cops. Some people still believed they were saviors. A lot of people were willing to think they were corrupt on a good day and flat out racists on another. It had gotten to a point where even other white people reacted poorly to him. David had seen corruption and racism. He’d seen true laziness. He’d seen truth swept under the rug and justice ignored, If he could call himself proud of this, one of the things he was proud of was what he didn’t report, knowing a kid in trouble, a man on a bad day, a woman caught at the wrong time, would have been on her way to jail or maybe to prison, and the system was bullshit. It really was. He still wondered what the difference was between doing your best and aiding and abetting something that was broken, maybe even evil.
But with all of that, he had made it from the age of twenty two till last year without killing anyone. It wasn’t a thing cops had to do. It wasn’t a given. Really, someone with no ambition could essentially spend their lives handing out parking tickets and in a nice quiet place like this, or back near Ann Arbor where he had been, you could rise to captain with your gun being as much of a symbol and as unused as a Masonic sword.
Killing someone had fucked him up. He had never believed that a gun would make him tough. He felt fragile, true, but he thought that protecting people as best he could was the way to forget about that fragility, or to use it. Pulling that trigger was the worst thing he’d ever done. Watching Gale Thornton die was, until then, the worst thing he’d ever seen.
And then everything after that became unbearable. That was when the strange murders had happened. That was when the strangest of all had happened. That was when the fragile exterior that had held together for thirty years cracked.
David had never been a reader, and he’d never had much imagination, but there was a kid in school who loved King Arthur, and once David had seen a lean man on a horse in silver armor with a red tunic or something over it. He’d even had sort of floppy dark hair, and he’d been kissing the hand of a lady.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s Sir Lancelot.”
David filed that away. In the back of his mind he had been Sir Lancelot. Dashing. He knew how to be dashing, impressive with the ladies who liked his boyish smile, his police badge and whatever a gun at your side hinted at. In those last days he had been fucking his next door neighbor and feeling like a man, seeing himself as she saw him, manly, a muscular strength in his wiry arms, a passionate lover, inexhaustible with a gleam in his eyes.
And then he had lost his mind and been reduced to a gibbering nutjob in a psych ward. He still felt like one. He was still ashamed. If he’d said these things about anyone else, it would be insensitivity, but it was the way he felt deep inside. When he’d come out, he had been too embarrassed to see Claire anymore. He’d shut himself off, and when he’d gotten the chance to transfer to Glencastle, David Lawry had jumped at it.
David had never been a person of whimsy, but Glencastle, with its broad streets, Victorian houses, ice cream shops and old style downtown seemed to lend itself to one whimsy. In an old store he had been surprised to see a poster of the very picture of Lancelot he’d see as teen, and he’d bought it and made it be the first decoration in his new apartment.
Life as a detective in Glencastle involved more paper work and more looking for lost cars and cats than Lassador ever had, and he told himself he felt guilty, but the truth was he felt good. Back in the city there were people chasing down real crime, but from what he remembered they were always chasing down, never solving, never finding in time. When he told himself he should stop taking it easy, stop this calm breathing, stop getting off of work at a decent time and driving home to the apartment complex with the swimming pool and his little one bedroom apartment, he remembered Cody. He remembered his funeral. He remembered pulling that trigger.
How could it be that only a forty five minute drive could take him from Lassador, the ugliest fucking city in the world, to the peace and quiet of Glencastle, where once he was called out to walk the length of Mr. Koester’s property because he’d seen something moving around, only to find that it was a family of penitent possums?
One night, feeling the need for whimsy, he went to the show by himself, ordered a large bucket of popcorn, and watched the new superhero movie. Back in Lassador, back in that house, he was always so lonely. He was always aware of who and what was missing there, of his lack of companions. Dom came to visit. In fact, Dom visited him more here in Glencastle than he ever had in Lassador. And here, his coworkers were friendly, and David felt light and friendly, or at least lighter and friendlier than he had before, and here he didn’t mind his own company. It was nice to do things alone.
The morning after he watched the superhero movie and the explosions and fights were still playing in his head, he walked into work, whistling, and shot the breeze with Grayson and Mikelski. He had his own office here, and this building was new. The old one had been turned into a youth center. The sun was absolutely bright that day, and he saw someone come into the police station, and he was talking at the front desk to Marissa, and then he was approaching, yes, approaching David. He was handsome, looked like the sun, or like a surfer even though his face was sober, and the bright young man who carried summer with him walked into the office and said:
“Detective David Lawry?”
“This is. What can I do you for?”
“I just came from Lassador. I was talking to Captain Dick Karney, and he said I might want to come down and see you.”
Instantly came that feeling like the need to go to the bathroom, that feeling as if, despite his sunny looks and the sunny day, this raven had brought darkness.
“I just got in from California,” he was continuing. “I was deployed—”
This guy was deployed.
“And when I got back they told me my friend Blake Wilson was dead. But no one knew much about it? And so I’m here to learn about his death, and Captain Karney and Detective Tierney think you can help me.”
“Uh…. Alright. And, you are…?”
“Sunny.”
Of course.
“Sunny Kominsky.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an excellent portion! I am glad David and Sunny finally met. I look forward to reading more of what they say to each other. Great writing!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Have a good night and an excellent day
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
“We never found who killed him.”
“I know that,” Sunny said, taking the seat that was not offered him.
“How much do you know?”
“I know that he had no blood in him. I know that his throat was crushed.”
“You know there were others?”
“That’s what I heard. Other guys around the campus. College students. All crushed windpipes. All… bloodless.”
“People were calling them the vampire killings.”
“Oh, shit,” Sunny murmured. That his friend had died was bad enough, that his friend had been killed in a weird, sensational way, a way that had a name to it, was too fucking much.
“And,” David began, and then he stopped.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Then you should be telling me.”
Sunny looked at him. David wasn’t going to let some kid from California make him blink. No, but he was a soldier. They had both seen things.
David said, “Shut the door.”
Sunny nodded, stood up, closed the door and returned to his chair on the other side of the desk.
“There’s more,” David said. “When they were found, all of them your friend Blake two, they had puncture marks on their throat, as if they’d been bitten.”
“So did someone use a snake? I mean…” And then Sunny stopped because that didn’t seem very possible at all.
Despite the sun outside, the light seemed to have been snatched from the room, and David said, “I wish they hadn’t sent you down here.”
“I wish my friend hadn’t been killed.”
“That’s fair,” David said, realizing he had sounded insulting to Sunny and he said, “There’s one thing… There’s one thing…”
He almost said “There’s one thing” again, but stopped himself.
Sunny was waiting.
“The reason I wish they hadn’t sent you down here is because I was feeling sane again, you see. And there is one reason that these things would be called the Vampire Killings, one reason we hadn’t considered I mean.”
“Okay?”
“Because a vampire did them.”
“Are you fucking on acid?” Sunny demanded.
“I’m risking a lot telling you what I’m going to tell you,” David said. “I’m risking my good name, my sanity, so do you want to hear it or not?”
“I do,” Sunny said.
“I… I believe that a vampire did this shit because—fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. And this is the reason that bitch Sommers sent you to me. She fucking saw it too.”
“What?” Sunny demanded.
“The last of those folks killed before I… before I left Lassador, was a high school friend of mine. He was killed differently, Not a college student. He was killed in a hotel room. There was blood. He wasn’t bloodless. But there were the wounds, the throat wounds, the throat crushed. He was…. He was dead as fuck, morgue dead, put in a body bag dead and before the autopsy he disappeared.”
“Someone stole the body?”
“No!” David hissed. “You’re not listening.”
“I’m listening,” Sunny insisted. “I’m listening. I promise. Please… Tell me.”
“He disappeared. No one could find him. And then, one day, Sommers went out to a club and saw him, saw him fucking singing in a band.”
“Then…” Sunny began. “Then he…”
“What? Wasn’t dead? But I told you he was. We all knew. This isn’t like the eighteen hundreds when you’re wrong about shit like this and people get up and walk away. He was dead, with a broken neck. And then he fucking wasn’t.”
“You’re not fucking with me,” Sunny said, looking into David’s eyes.
David shook his head.
“You’re… not nuts.”
David shook his head still.
“Fuck,” Sunny Kominsky said, sitting back down.
“Fuck.”
There had been a space of a few minutes when Alexander Jacob Kominsky had sat in a chair in Detective David Lawry’s office, dumbfounded over the strange information he had just been given before he said, “Well… what now?”
What now, indeed? He had crossed a large section of the country and now sat in a police station in a pleasant but unremarkable town in what he thought was a remarkably unpleasant state, looking for news about what had happened to his slain friend only to hear from the mouth of what seemed a sane human being, someone who was not joking with him at all, that his friend had been killed by a vampire.
“What now?” David echoed.
“Well, what do we do now?”
David looked utterly amazed.
“Look…”
“Sunny.”
“Sunny. You know what I did? I lost my mind is what I did, and what I’ve done since is get my mind back and settle into a new job, and I suggest you do the same.”
“But did you ever… see him face to face? Go to the club he was at?”
“No!”
“Then how do you know?”
“What do you mean how do I know?”
Sunny shook his head.
“I’d have to see him face to face. I’d have to have this guy so close to me, nose to nose. I’d have to.”
“Maybe that’s a California thing.”
“Maybe,” Sunny shrugged.
“Look,” he said, “I gave up everything. I left home and crossed the country just so I could find out what happened to Blake, and if meeting some vampire or wanna be vampire or zombie or whatever can tell me, then I’m up for it. I’m gonna do it.”
“Okay,” David said after thinking. “Well, how are you going to do it?”
“What’s the name of the club? Do you remember?”
“The Blue Note. In Rawlston.”
“Do you know the name of his band?”
“I don’t.”
“Why don’t you do this—?”
“Am I the detective or are you?”
“You are, sir,” Sunny said in such a way that David wasn’t sure if he was being mocked, “but might I suggest that you just type in Dan Rawlinson, and maybe: The Blue Note? And it will tell you?”
It was so easy, but David hadn’t wanted it to be easy. He hadn’t wanted to know. But there Dan Rawlinson was, as if they had never found his dead body. He was hiding in plain sight, but hiding didn’t really define what had happened, for Daniel Rawlinson wasn’t hiding at all. He was very much living in Rawlston, doing what he had always done, lead singer of a rock and folk band, and they played twice a week at the Blue Note, once at the Lampier, and went on tour.
“Vampires going on tour,” David murmured.
“That’s what hearses are for,” Sunny said.
“I’m going up there,” Sunny said, standing up as if he were headed to Rawlston immediately.
“No,” David said.
Then he said when Sunny looked at him. “Let’s go together.”
“Alright,” Sunny said. “When?”
“When is good for you? “ David asked, hoping Sunny Kominsky wouldn’t give the answer he knew he would.
“Tonight.”
WHAT QILL HAPPEN? YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE. HAVE AN EXCELLENT WEEKEND
“I know that,” Sunny said, taking the seat that was not offered him.
“How much do you know?”
“I know that he had no blood in him. I know that his throat was crushed.”
“You know there were others?”
“That’s what I heard. Other guys around the campus. College students. All crushed windpipes. All… bloodless.”
“People were calling them the vampire killings.”
“Oh, shit,” Sunny murmured. That his friend had died was bad enough, that his friend had been killed in a weird, sensational way, a way that had a name to it, was too fucking much.
“And,” David began, and then he stopped.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Then you should be telling me.”
Sunny looked at him. David wasn’t going to let some kid from California make him blink. No, but he was a soldier. They had both seen things.
David said, “Shut the door.”
Sunny nodded, stood up, closed the door and returned to his chair on the other side of the desk.
“There’s more,” David said. “When they were found, all of them your friend Blake two, they had puncture marks on their throat, as if they’d been bitten.”
“So did someone use a snake? I mean…” And then Sunny stopped because that didn’t seem very possible at all.
Despite the sun outside, the light seemed to have been snatched from the room, and David said, “I wish they hadn’t sent you down here.”
“I wish my friend hadn’t been killed.”
“That’s fair,” David said, realizing he had sounded insulting to Sunny and he said, “There’s one thing… There’s one thing…”
He almost said “There’s one thing” again, but stopped himself.
Sunny was waiting.
“The reason I wish they hadn’t sent you down here is because I was feeling sane again, you see. And there is one reason that these things would be called the Vampire Killings, one reason we hadn’t considered I mean.”
“Okay?”
“Because a vampire did them.”
“Are you fucking on acid?” Sunny demanded.
“I’m risking a lot telling you what I’m going to tell you,” David said. “I’m risking my good name, my sanity, so do you want to hear it or not?”
“I do,” Sunny said.
“I… I believe that a vampire did this shit because—fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. And this is the reason that bitch Sommers sent you to me. She fucking saw it too.”
“What?” Sunny demanded.
“The last of those folks killed before I… before I left Lassador, was a high school friend of mine. He was killed differently, Not a college student. He was killed in a hotel room. There was blood. He wasn’t bloodless. But there were the wounds, the throat wounds, the throat crushed. He was…. He was dead as fuck, morgue dead, put in a body bag dead and before the autopsy he disappeared.”
“Someone stole the body?”
“No!” David hissed. “You’re not listening.”
“I’m listening,” Sunny insisted. “I’m listening. I promise. Please… Tell me.”
“He disappeared. No one could find him. And then, one day, Sommers went out to a club and saw him, saw him fucking singing in a band.”
“Then…” Sunny began. “Then he…”
“What? Wasn’t dead? But I told you he was. We all knew. This isn’t like the eighteen hundreds when you’re wrong about shit like this and people get up and walk away. He was dead, with a broken neck. And then he fucking wasn’t.”
“You’re not fucking with me,” Sunny said, looking into David’s eyes.
David shook his head.
“You’re… not nuts.”
David shook his head still.
“Fuck,” Sunny Kominsky said, sitting back down.
“Fuck.”
There had been a space of a few minutes when Alexander Jacob Kominsky had sat in a chair in Detective David Lawry’s office, dumbfounded over the strange information he had just been given before he said, “Well… what now?”
What now, indeed? He had crossed a large section of the country and now sat in a police station in a pleasant but unremarkable town in what he thought was a remarkably unpleasant state, looking for news about what had happened to his slain friend only to hear from the mouth of what seemed a sane human being, someone who was not joking with him at all, that his friend had been killed by a vampire.
“What now?” David echoed.
“Well, what do we do now?”
David looked utterly amazed.
“Look…”
“Sunny.”
“Sunny. You know what I did? I lost my mind is what I did, and what I’ve done since is get my mind back and settle into a new job, and I suggest you do the same.”
“But did you ever… see him face to face? Go to the club he was at?”
“No!”
“Then how do you know?”
“What do you mean how do I know?”
Sunny shook his head.
“I’d have to see him face to face. I’d have to have this guy so close to me, nose to nose. I’d have to.”
“Maybe that’s a California thing.”
“Maybe,” Sunny shrugged.
“Look,” he said, “I gave up everything. I left home and crossed the country just so I could find out what happened to Blake, and if meeting some vampire or wanna be vampire or zombie or whatever can tell me, then I’m up for it. I’m gonna do it.”
“Okay,” David said after thinking. “Well, how are you going to do it?”
“What’s the name of the club? Do you remember?”
“The Blue Note. In Rawlston.”
“Do you know the name of his band?”
“I don’t.”
“Why don’t you do this—?”
“Am I the detective or are you?”
“You are, sir,” Sunny said in such a way that David wasn’t sure if he was being mocked, “but might I suggest that you just type in Dan Rawlinson, and maybe: The Blue Note? And it will tell you?”
It was so easy, but David hadn’t wanted it to be easy. He hadn’t wanted to know. But there Dan Rawlinson was, as if they had never found his dead body. He was hiding in plain sight, but hiding didn’t really define what had happened, for Daniel Rawlinson wasn’t hiding at all. He was very much living in Rawlston, doing what he had always done, lead singer of a rock and folk band, and they played twice a week at the Blue Note, once at the Lampier, and went on tour.
“Vampires going on tour,” David murmured.
“That’s what hearses are for,” Sunny said.
“I’m going up there,” Sunny said, standing up as if he were headed to Rawlston immediately.
“No,” David said.
Then he said when Sunny looked at him. “Let’s go together.”
“Alright,” Sunny said. “When?”
“When is good for you? “ David asked, hoping Sunny Kominsky wouldn’t give the answer he knew he would.
“Tonight.”
WHAT QILL HAPPEN? YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE. HAVE AN EXCELLENT WEEKEND
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a well done portion! I am glad Sunny and David had an honest chat. I am very interested to see what happens when they go to the club. I am enjoying this story a lot. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
There will be more tonight, and I think you'll keep liking it. Thank you for reading.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WELCOME TO ANOTHER WEEK!
Chapter five
David felt strangely protective of this Sunny who had come across the country to find his friend, and who wasn’t remotely bothered by the mention of vampires. If vampires were at the bottom of his friend being killed, he was going to find them, and that was ridiculous, but it was also admirable in a fucked up way, and David wanted to be here for him
Also, even in his maddest moments, David had wondered if what he had seen was true. He believed it was, but he also knew that seeing Dan was the tip of the iceberg. It was the last straw in a long series of straws. It alone would not have sent him raving and into a psych ward. On his own he would never have had the courage to seek Dan Rawlinson out. With Sunny, in his capacity as a detective protecting a citizen, anything was possible.
Sunny Kominsky had taken a room in a motel by the highway, and when David swung by, the young man was already in the parking lot in flip flops, faded jeans and a fitted tee shirt. Despite how ready he was to go, there was nothing gung ho about him as he stepped into the car. He was all business, eagle eyed, eagle faced. He strapped on his seatbelt and nodded for David to drive.
The highway became Mitchell Street in town, but here it shot straight across the miles of farm fields, reservoirs and country houses until it became South Buren Avenue and was absorbed into Lassador. Even before they approached that, as David looked to his right and saw the cloverleaf of the expressway, he said, “You wanna go through town or avoid it?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever hated a town as much as I hate Lassador,” Sunny said, frankly.
“Expressway it is,” David said.
The route they took circumvented Lassador to the east, and the medians were so high it was hard to see over them, Behind them the sun became more and more golden, orange, as it began to set, and as David followed the road signs and they began to turn north, like a sky yolk, the bright light melted over the expressway and the gleaming hoods of speeding cars until they came off on Taylor Road, somewhere on the East Side of the town of Rawlston.
“Now this,” Sunny was saying, as sunset began in earnest, gilding the copper and tile roves of houses, the red brick facades of the shops that lined the street, “is something I could get used to.”
“There’s so much beauty around Lassador,” David said, “as long as you stay out of Lassador.”
As Sunny chuckled, David noted, “That wasn’t fair.”
“I come from a place like that too,” Sunny said.
“In California?”
“There’s plenty of ugly in California. It’s not huge like Lassador or anything. It’s just…”
“Depressed?”
“Depressed as fuck.”
“Whaddo you think it is?” David asked.
Sunny shook his head. “I don’t really know.”
Willmington College, red bricked and tree filled, was in the center of town, and three blocks from it, in an area full of students, was the line of bars and clubs and coffee shops and right before them, looking very harmless, was their moment of destiny.
“The Blue Note.”
The Blue Note was once a two story ordinary brick shop with an apartment over it, but its front had been given a rooved glass extension and through the glass Sunny and David saw people eating and drinking, some coming out to sit at the little tables and chairs on the sidewalk. There was a semi crowded parking lot beside The Blue Note, and David and Sunny parked there, walking toward the club.
The first thing they noticed was the music came from the radio, audible, but not overhwhelming, and a modest crowd had gathered.
“Where’s the band?” Sunny hissed.
“Chill out,” David tried to laugh. “They don’t start till around eight.”
“Isn’t it around eight now?”
“For real,” David said, but not harshly, “chill out.”
“Welcome,” a lanky forty something in a tee shirt with grey in his small beard, waved at them, “it’s seat yourself, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Well, there you go,” David said. As they moved toward a table in the center of the room, he added, “I feel overdressed.”
“You’re wearing your work clothes.”
“These are my only clothes.”
“Really?”
“It was this or joggers and a sweat shirt.”
“That’s sad, man.”
“It’s not like I’m wearing a tie and a blazer. We’ll sit right here.”
“We’re too close.”
“No, we’re close enough to see what you want to see.”
“And what you wanna see too.”
“That’s right.”
They pulled out chairs and when they sat, Sunny said, “Please untuck that shirt and undo two buttons.”
David nodded, and then Sunny leaned over and David said, “What are you doing?”
“Undoing your hair.”
“It’s fine. My hair its fine.”
“Youre hair is neat as fuck, and…. I’m going to un neat it. David or Dave?”
“It’s sort of whatever.”
“Now you look like Dave for sure. Davey—”
David Lawry lifted a finger.
“I have never been a Davey.”
“If we continue to know each other, I’m going to help you out fashionwise.”
“Hey, guys,” the tall man came to the table, and Sunny wondered briefly if his dad looked like that. Did this mean he had Daddy issues? He’d never been with an older guy, but ever since this man with the dark green eyes had waved at them while striding through what Sunny was pretty sure was his place, Sunny had been looking at him.
“Welcome to Blue Note,” the man said, smiling. “You’re looking new.”
“It’s definitely my first time here,” David—trying to be Dave—said. “And my friend is here from out of town.”
“Well that’s great,” Sunny felt the man’s broad hand on his back
“I’m Brad and this is me and my partner’s place. Two and the Band’ll be playing in a sec, and the Ravens later on. We hope you enjoy the show. Can I start you on some drinks.”
Sunny was conscious of being sad that the man’s hand was no longer on his back, and David ordered some type of beer and Sunny said he’d have the same.
“That’s great. I’ll be right back with those,” Brad said, “and bring you the food menu.”
Sunny watched Brad, admiring the way he looked walking away in a pair of jeans. He wasn’t old at all. Sunny imagined him to be forty.
“Earth to Sunny, Earth to Sunny,” David said.
“Oh,” Sunny shook his head.
“What distracted you?”
“Brad,” Sunny said frankly. “I just recently came out of the closet, but I’m totally gay. It’s weird how I didn’t realize it until just now.”
David blinked and then burst out laughing.
“What?”
David just kept laughing.
“I have no idea what’s so fucking funny,” Sunny said, pushing a hand through his hair.
“You don’t give a fuck,” David said. “You don’t give a fuck about anything. It’s great. You’re fucking great, Sunny.”
A very good looking guy in well fitted jeans—God Sunny was feeling gay tonight—came onto the stage and began talking. He was bronzy brown, flawless skin, that short tight beautiful black hair that reminded him of Maurice, and how, one night he’d offered to massage his scalp and run his hands through the soft wool of it. Lovely hazel eyes. The Black guy shouted: “TWO AND THE BAND!”
As he left the stage and the band came up, Sunny nearly forgot why he’d come. He watched the Black guy go through the crowd toward Brad, who had a drinks tray and kisse him quickly, and a spark went through Sunny.
My partner…. Not business partner…. Well, apparently business partner, but…
Brad returned with their drinks, and winked at Sunny, which he probably always did to customers, but the twinkle in his eye and glimmer of his earring, the way he’d kissed that other man, went through Sunny Kominsky like he was a guitar being strung and on stage a goodlooking man was strumming his guitar and singing:
So this is the way it should be
You said you would always meet me here
And I’m here
But you’re gone!
And whatever Sunny was thinking, as he turned to David he saw his new friend’s eyes were wide open, and his mouth was partially open as well.
As Brad returned with menus, Sunny whispered, “Is that him after all?”
“I’ll be back in a moment to check with you,” Brad was saying. “Can I interest you in any appetizers.”
David seemed momentarily out of it, and Sunny wanted to look at Brad, so he ordered jalapeno poppers, and when Brad was gone, David looked at Sunny and said: “The guy singing…”
“This is the way it could be
We could always be here
And in love
In love
In looooove!
This is the way it should be
You are the one I’m thinking of
Thinking of
Thinking offff—”
“Yeah,” David murmured, “That’s Dan Rawlinson.”
Sunny blinked at the chocolate haired, chocolate eyes, tallish handsome twenty something who looked like he’d make a good drinking buddy and get high with you on the beach, who could use a hair cut, and then he said:
“So that’s what a vampire looks like.”
MORE TOMORROW
Chapter five
David felt strangely protective of this Sunny who had come across the country to find his friend, and who wasn’t remotely bothered by the mention of vampires. If vampires were at the bottom of his friend being killed, he was going to find them, and that was ridiculous, but it was also admirable in a fucked up way, and David wanted to be here for him
Also, even in his maddest moments, David had wondered if what he had seen was true. He believed it was, but he also knew that seeing Dan was the tip of the iceberg. It was the last straw in a long series of straws. It alone would not have sent him raving and into a psych ward. On his own he would never have had the courage to seek Dan Rawlinson out. With Sunny, in his capacity as a detective protecting a citizen, anything was possible.
Sunny Kominsky had taken a room in a motel by the highway, and when David swung by, the young man was already in the parking lot in flip flops, faded jeans and a fitted tee shirt. Despite how ready he was to go, there was nothing gung ho about him as he stepped into the car. He was all business, eagle eyed, eagle faced. He strapped on his seatbelt and nodded for David to drive.
The highway became Mitchell Street in town, but here it shot straight across the miles of farm fields, reservoirs and country houses until it became South Buren Avenue and was absorbed into Lassador. Even before they approached that, as David looked to his right and saw the cloverleaf of the expressway, he said, “You wanna go through town or avoid it?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever hated a town as much as I hate Lassador,” Sunny said, frankly.
“Expressway it is,” David said.
The route they took circumvented Lassador to the east, and the medians were so high it was hard to see over them, Behind them the sun became more and more golden, orange, as it began to set, and as David followed the road signs and they began to turn north, like a sky yolk, the bright light melted over the expressway and the gleaming hoods of speeding cars until they came off on Taylor Road, somewhere on the East Side of the town of Rawlston.
“Now this,” Sunny was saying, as sunset began in earnest, gilding the copper and tile roves of houses, the red brick facades of the shops that lined the street, “is something I could get used to.”
“There’s so much beauty around Lassador,” David said, “as long as you stay out of Lassador.”
As Sunny chuckled, David noted, “That wasn’t fair.”
“I come from a place like that too,” Sunny said.
“In California?”
“There’s plenty of ugly in California. It’s not huge like Lassador or anything. It’s just…”
“Depressed?”
“Depressed as fuck.”
“Whaddo you think it is?” David asked.
Sunny shook his head. “I don’t really know.”
Willmington College, red bricked and tree filled, was in the center of town, and three blocks from it, in an area full of students, was the line of bars and clubs and coffee shops and right before them, looking very harmless, was their moment of destiny.
“The Blue Note.”
The Blue Note was once a two story ordinary brick shop with an apartment over it, but its front had been given a rooved glass extension and through the glass Sunny and David saw people eating and drinking, some coming out to sit at the little tables and chairs on the sidewalk. There was a semi crowded parking lot beside The Blue Note, and David and Sunny parked there, walking toward the club.
The first thing they noticed was the music came from the radio, audible, but not overhwhelming, and a modest crowd had gathered.
“Where’s the band?” Sunny hissed.
“Chill out,” David tried to laugh. “They don’t start till around eight.”
“Isn’t it around eight now?”
“For real,” David said, but not harshly, “chill out.”
“Welcome,” a lanky forty something in a tee shirt with grey in his small beard, waved at them, “it’s seat yourself, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Well, there you go,” David said. As they moved toward a table in the center of the room, he added, “I feel overdressed.”
“You’re wearing your work clothes.”
“These are my only clothes.”
“Really?”
“It was this or joggers and a sweat shirt.”
“That’s sad, man.”
“It’s not like I’m wearing a tie and a blazer. We’ll sit right here.”
“We’re too close.”
“No, we’re close enough to see what you want to see.”
“And what you wanna see too.”
“That’s right.”
They pulled out chairs and when they sat, Sunny said, “Please untuck that shirt and undo two buttons.”
David nodded, and then Sunny leaned over and David said, “What are you doing?”
“Undoing your hair.”
“It’s fine. My hair its fine.”
“Youre hair is neat as fuck, and…. I’m going to un neat it. David or Dave?”
“It’s sort of whatever.”
“Now you look like Dave for sure. Davey—”
David Lawry lifted a finger.
“I have never been a Davey.”
“If we continue to know each other, I’m going to help you out fashionwise.”
“Hey, guys,” the tall man came to the table, and Sunny wondered briefly if his dad looked like that. Did this mean he had Daddy issues? He’d never been with an older guy, but ever since this man with the dark green eyes had waved at them while striding through what Sunny was pretty sure was his place, Sunny had been looking at him.
“Welcome to Blue Note,” the man said, smiling. “You’re looking new.”
“It’s definitely my first time here,” David—trying to be Dave—said. “And my friend is here from out of town.”
“Well that’s great,” Sunny felt the man’s broad hand on his back
“I’m Brad and this is me and my partner’s place. Two and the Band’ll be playing in a sec, and the Ravens later on. We hope you enjoy the show. Can I start you on some drinks.”
Sunny was conscious of being sad that the man’s hand was no longer on his back, and David ordered some type of beer and Sunny said he’d have the same.
“That’s great. I’ll be right back with those,” Brad said, “and bring you the food menu.”
Sunny watched Brad, admiring the way he looked walking away in a pair of jeans. He wasn’t old at all. Sunny imagined him to be forty.
“Earth to Sunny, Earth to Sunny,” David said.
“Oh,” Sunny shook his head.
“What distracted you?”
“Brad,” Sunny said frankly. “I just recently came out of the closet, but I’m totally gay. It’s weird how I didn’t realize it until just now.”
David blinked and then burst out laughing.
“What?”
David just kept laughing.
“I have no idea what’s so fucking funny,” Sunny said, pushing a hand through his hair.
“You don’t give a fuck,” David said. “You don’t give a fuck about anything. It’s great. You’re fucking great, Sunny.”
A very good looking guy in well fitted jeans—God Sunny was feeling gay tonight—came onto the stage and began talking. He was bronzy brown, flawless skin, that short tight beautiful black hair that reminded him of Maurice, and how, one night he’d offered to massage his scalp and run his hands through the soft wool of it. Lovely hazel eyes. The Black guy shouted: “TWO AND THE BAND!”
As he left the stage and the band came up, Sunny nearly forgot why he’d come. He watched the Black guy go through the crowd toward Brad, who had a drinks tray and kisse him quickly, and a spark went through Sunny.
My partner…. Not business partner…. Well, apparently business partner, but…
Brad returned with their drinks, and winked at Sunny, which he probably always did to customers, but the twinkle in his eye and glimmer of his earring, the way he’d kissed that other man, went through Sunny Kominsky like he was a guitar being strung and on stage a goodlooking man was strumming his guitar and singing:
So this is the way it should be
You said you would always meet me here
And I’m here
But you’re gone!
And whatever Sunny was thinking, as he turned to David he saw his new friend’s eyes were wide open, and his mouth was partially open as well.
As Brad returned with menus, Sunny whispered, “Is that him after all?”
“I’ll be back in a moment to check with you,” Brad was saying. “Can I interest you in any appetizers.”
David seemed momentarily out of it, and Sunny wanted to look at Brad, so he ordered jalapeno poppers, and when Brad was gone, David looked at Sunny and said: “The guy singing…”
“This is the way it could be
We could always be here
And in love
In love
In looooove!
This is the way it should be
You are the one I’m thinking of
Thinking of
Thinking offff—”
“Yeah,” David murmured, “That’s Dan Rawlinson.”
Sunny blinked at the chocolate haired, chocolate eyes, tallish handsome twenty something who looked like he’d make a good drinking buddy and get high with you on the beach, who could use a hair cut, and then he said:
“So that’s what a vampire looks like.”
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Well David and Sunny are definitely getting to know each other better and they have found confirmation on Dan in person. That was great writing and a good portion. I look forward to reading more soon!
