If I knew the way, I would take you home. Who: Gareth What: Sitting down with his guitar and reminiscing. Where: The front porch of the trailer When: Four o clock PM Notes: Warning, mild gore, tons of cursing, come on, it's Dusty and Gareth.
Gareth hadn't had a guitar in well over a year. He'd picked up the ability to play somewhere along the line, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen, when he and Dusty were still in school, when he was still trying his god damnedest to learn to read (to no avail), and he'd tried to keep one on him ever since. Life didn't usually work out that way however. Guitars were lost, like wallets and hotel keys -- the knick-knacks from life -- each time he and Dusty had to up and move. Sometimes they even had to up and run.
His favorite guitar had been a black Luna Guitar that he and Dusty had spied sitting in a filthy pawn shop window in their late teens. The -- then -- dark blonde youth had pointed at it through the pane of glass with one grubby finger and turned to Gareth with wide blue eyes. "Now that is a badass guitar."
The words had stuck with Gareth, and after a couple of weeks of saving, the nearly platinum haired boy had gone back to the pawn shop and offered the insanely high price of seventeen dollars. It was nineteen eighty or so -- Gareth remembered, because the radio in the dimly lit pawn shop had been playing "Refugee" By Tom Petty. He had always dug that song. It kind of reminded him of him and Dusty. A'course, they did have to live like refugees but... He'd purchased the guitar and gone back to Dusty with it, looking pleased. It had been his most prized guitar, before or since, and when he lost it in the shuffle, it was a devastating blow. He hadn't thought of guitars much over the last year or so however, after all, with hunting and running and taking as much money as they could grab, there hadn't been time for thought one way or another. Now though, they were settled down somewhere. Perhaps it was the time spent with Gideon that was making him think of his guitar, or perhaps it was simply a desire to get back to something familiar, to get back to something that reminded him of easier times. Either way, he'd awoken around two in the afternoon with the desire to play again.
It had taken him nearly an hour to find the guitar shop in Ann Arbor. Not being able to read was a bitch, but finally he'd asked the right person -- a lanky redhead with a strange almost southern drawl -- and been directed to a place called "Herb David Guitars". He'd approached the small red shop (christ, it just looked like a regular house) with some minor apprehension, but when he'd stepped inside, his jaw dropped.
The walls were lined with guitars and mandolins. There was a few instruments he didn't even recognize leaning in corners of the shop and he found himself staring, stunned. A young clerk finally approached him, asking what he was looking for, and through his haze Gareth managed to describe his old black Luna. The kid had looked sincerely apologetic, explaining that they didn't carry that particular model new, but Gareth was welcome to look at their used one. It had been like stepping back in time. The used model could have easily been his old one. Scuffed and dirty, worn frets and a scratch along the bottom -- of course there was no way it was his old one, but it was close enough for government work. Gareth had purchased it on the spot.
Now the blonde sat on the steps of his trailer, tuning it quietly. It sounded like pure gold to his ears. Melody and harmony in each string. Once they were properly in tune, he plucked out a few chords, humming. Playing guitar was like riding a bike or rollerskating. You could get out of practice, but the skill was always there -- the balance. Fingers resting against the strings lightly, Gareth tried to remember the notes to anything. It took him a few moments, but finally he was able to recall a Grateful Dead song. One of his favorites.
"If my words did glow, with the gold of sunshine..." He was smiling as his hands remembered each nuance for him. His mind drifted, even as he continued to play. The first time he'd heard this song had been when he was ten or so, Dusty eleven. They'd been...
They'd been sitting on a hill behind Dusty's house, the sun was setting in the horizon. Dusty had picked up an old transistor radio somewhere -- probably from the junk-lot or a neighbor's open window -- and it now hung from the branch of his oak tree, glinting red and orange in the twilight. The DJ had been playing everything from The Rolling Stones to George Harrison, and Gareth and Dusty were resting from a rousing game of "Dare you". The game had ended rather abruptly when Gareth had dared Dusty to climb onto the roof of the neighbor's trailer and stomp around, and old man Westmore had stormed outside in a fury of alsheimers and confusion, screaming about the japs coming down on his roof. It had been pretty damn funny, but also a little scary, and Gareth had called the game off.
They sat in the fading sunlight, breathing slowly and throwing rocks down into the ravine. It was a serene moment, peaceful, comfortable, and Gareth had realized in the dying day that he could never ask for a better best friend. As the realization came, the radio played the last harmonic part of song. A line that went... "If I knew the way, I would take you home...."
Gareth sings this last line as he finishes the song in present time, and it sings it with a surprisingly sweet tenor, a quiet and dedicated voice that's a little rough around the edges.
His fingers stumble along the frets again, seeking out G chord. It's an easy one, barring the use of his pinkie anyhow, which has never been dexterous enough to bend in the ways he wants it to. Now that the guitar is comfortable in his hands, he starting to remember all sorts of songs he learned over the years. The one he wants to play now is "Angel" by Jimi Hendrix. Dusty always hated that song.
He can remember the first time he thought for sure they'd reached the end of their friendship. They were in their early twenties and staying short-term in El Paso while on a hunt.
Dusty had taken up with some blonde girl they met at a bar. She was a short and sharp little thing, standing at barely five feet. She had a pixie face and bleached hair that looked angry, even though she normally kept it in a short pony-tail or a bob. Her eyes were a glassy blue, and she had somewhat of a puggish nose, though Gareth would be damned if he was going to tell Dusty that particular opinion. She waitressed at a greasy spoon, and had a god-damned ankh tattooed on her shoulder, beautiful and small, green and black. Gareth had liked the tattoo, her? Not so much. She had been the start of two weeks worth of headaches that the young blonde man would have liked to go without.
She put out, and she was fun. Two things Dusty liked in a girl. As far as Gareth could see, that was all there was to her. She prided herself on her smart comebacks and her attractive body. She would flaunt her small but perky breasts and flat belly whenever the three of them went out drinking, and Gareth could almost always see the burning desire in Dusty's eyes when he looked at her. She was a little loud, sometimes rude, and always roudy. She and Dusty had come home from their second date with matching black eyes and split lips -- she'd picked a fight with a biker to see how well Dusty could defend himself (or any pretty women in the vicinity)-- and Dusty had of course, passed with flying colors. She had hung off his strong neck and taller frame with a sort of haphazard lust. Gareth could remember to this day how her too-sweet and somehow shrill voice had cried out "My Pepper beat the shit out of them assholes!"... Gareth never had found out why she called him Pepper.
Gareth could remember how, a week into their hunt, Dusty started to grow dreamy-eyed, distant. When it came to the actual work of finding the vampire they were after, all was fine. His friend was a natural born killer. But any free time they had was spent either with -- what was her name? Rita? Sara? Cara. That was it, Cara -- or with Dusty thinking about her. Even if he wasn't saying anything, Gareth could see the ideas in his eyes. His mind was never with the blonde man, it was with Cara -- her weird and mischevious smile, her crooked front teeth, her pierced nose.
Gareth hadn't actually minded at first. Dusty was happy, for the time being, and when they hit the road again, Cara would become a distant memory. Their policy, since they'd started hunting at the age of nine, had been "No Girls". It had never changed, and if left up to Gareth, never would. However, seven days in to spending time with the little blonde handful from El Paso, Dusty started getting other ideas.
Gareth had never doubted their friendship, so when Dusty pulled them up to a lookout point he hadn't been worried a lick. It stood on the edge of a mountain -- one of the smaller ones -- but you could see all the lights of Southern Texas from where they were parked. The city shone like emeralds and rubies. It was one of the most beautiful things Gareth had ever seen. Dusty stopped the truck, and they sat in silence, staring. Eventually the slightly smaller man spoke, and in his voice had been a sort of reflective drawl that Gareth didn't trust.
"Reckon Arlington ain't never gonna look that pretty." And Gareth had nodded quietly. Arlington was a place of shit and sorrow. It was where hopes went to die. At least El Paso had lights. Something bright and uplifting. There had been more drawn out silence between them, and after a pause Dusty had said "I think I might stay here, with her."
Gareth would always remember that moment with perfect clarity. He'd had a cigarette lit in his hand and although the radio in the truck was off, someone a couple cars down had theirs on loud enough to over compensate. Jimi was telling everyone parked on this cluster of rocks jutting off the edge of the mountains that his angel had stayed with him just long enough to rescue him. Gareth loved the song, possibly because he knew Dusty hated it.
He hadn't known what to say to Dusty's announcement. He felt young, but too god damned exhausted. His hand had been trembling a little as he brought the cigarette to his lips. Dusty was loyal. Loyal to the end, and if Gareth asked him to stay, he probably would. But Dusty had seemed so happy with that little blonde bitch, Gareth didn't know if he could ever forgive himself if he took that from the scruffy man.
So they had sat in silence in the truck, Gareth alternately hot and cold as he wondered what life after Dusty would be like, and Dusty... probably wondering why Gareth wasn't putting up more of a fuss. It seemed like Jimi Hendrix played forever that night, telling the pair of men, men who were barely twenty one and twenty two, -- the best friends -- that he told his sweet angel to fly on through the sky.
Still strumming the song now, Gareth remembers that Cara -- the girl with the Ankh on her shoulder -- had made the decision for them. She'd found a new boyfriend about three days before they were supposed to leave -- and although Dusty had been angry enough to eat iron and shit nails -- Gareth sensed a sort of wary relief. At least she'd dumped him before he'd quit his life-time friendship and business partner.
Peering out at the cloudy and grey skies, Gareth's fingers continue on the frets, going from Jimi Hendrix to Dusty's stupid Black Dog song by Led Zeppelin. Although the blonde can't stand the racket that Dusty calls his favorite band, he's learned more than a few of their songs over the years. Once Dusty got a couple beers in him, he'd practically demand that Gareth play them for him. He loses patience with these quickly however, and moves on to other songs -- Hey You, by Pink Floyd, Highway in The Wind by Arlo Guthrie, When The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash. That song takes him back. And why wouldn't it? Two young men, born to be hunters, they find themselves drawn to death again and again -- in a way they were like men of God, handing out judgment when they saw fit. Gareth remembers their first kill, though it's something so awkward and clunky that he almost wishes he didn't.
His grandfather is standing behind them the whole time. The man is nearly sixty, but he stands as tall and healthy as though he were still in his thirties. His shock of black hair is very bright in the memory, and the way he carries his cross-bow. He's promised Gareth -- who is just turning eight -- that he'll get him a crossbow of his own once he gets the hang of hunting. It is night-time. Dusty is at his side and they're tracking a vampire. Grand-dad says that he's a bad vampire -- like all vampires -- and he's been killing Children out on the skirts of Arlington. Neither of them have any reason to disbelieve this. Gareth is holding a small and silver knife, and Dusty has an honest to goodness gun. Grand-dad has watched the other boy shoot with it in practice enough times to trust him with one. He's got a natural talent. Still, the other boy treats it as though it's constantly locked and loaded, about to go off -- and that's good. Too many kids get shot too easily these days.
Up ahead, out in the Arlington desert, there are footprints. Grand-dad nudges Gareth forward, insisting he practice his tracking, and Gareth kneels. Although it will never be mentioned -- or even outwardly acknowledged, Gareth's Granddad believes his blonde grandson may have a touch of supernatural to him. His ability to follow the tracks of their prey is almost frightening -- he's never seen anyone, child or adult, so capable of finding the path of a were. He never tells Gareth this, knowing such compliments are liable to go to a boy's head. Besides that, having supernatural in you was something to be ashamed of, and Zeke Baker would have no grandson of his believing that he was a monster. The road went both ways.
Gareth touched the track -- a boot print -- and glances up at Dusty and his granddad. "He's goin east, probably lookin' for somewhere to hide. Think he knows were followin'." It is muttered and as he rises to his feet, there's a sound from behind a small grove of palm trees. Gareth turns -- he sees that Dusty turns faster than he does, the other boy has reflexes like a god damn cat (and while that might have stirred jealous in any other child, Gareth feels only a sense of pride for his friend) -- and from behind the palm trees the vampire lunges.
Gareth is stunned. Dusty is right in the line of the vampire -- the monster could easily swoop him up and kill him -- the thought has no more crossed through young Gareth's mind before he hears two sounds at once -- a gunshot, and the hollow clang of his granddad's crossbow. These sounds surprise him, but its the vampire who looks more surprised, stumbling backwards, he's got a bullet hole in his throat and a silver arrow through his head. Of course, they'll have to burn him to be sure, but as the man collapses to the ground, Gareth is willing to bet he's dead.
The two boys cautiously approach the prone finger on the ground, its hands and feet are twitching, but other than that, it seems to be out. Peering through the Texas twilight, Gareth sees with a sort of stunned shock that the vampire is their teacher from second grade. Mr. Barbera. Both he and Dusty had hated him fiercely -- he liked to teach with the shades drawn and half the lights in the classroom on, he'd always called them out to read to the rest of the class from their copy books when he knew perfectly well that neither of them could read very much. He was a slender and young man, who had always seemed bitterly older than his age. Looking at the arrow going through his former teacher's head and the splatter of pink/grey-brain matter across the dry autumn grass, he thinks "Fuck. He won't be teaching shit this time tomorrow." and then turns away, vomiting.
Dusty on the other hand, has reared back, tensing one leg before swinging it forward, landing a swift kick against the former teacher's ribs. Gareth returns, wiping the corners of his mouth with his sleeve, and watches for a moment. Despite Dusty's kicks and softly muttered curses (such things like "take that you sonofawhore" and "Teach you to make me read infront'a everybody") Gareth can see that his friend is feeling something similar to him. This was someone they knew. This was-- "He was a monster." His granddad's voice is close, a hand lands on his shoulder. "He was a vampire, which means he killed people Gary." Gareth hates when his granddad calls him that, but he keeps his tongue still. "He was evil, they all are, no matter who, if you know 'em or not, they're monsters, they only want to kill." He lets these words sink in, and Gareth takes a step forward. Granddad is right, this man drank blood, he was a monster. In many ways.
Dusty has stopped kicking the unconscious man, and watching his friend pant, Gareth remembers the time the bigger kids -- sixth graders -- beat him and Dusty up, or at least tried to, and had managed to take their meager lunches. They'd gone to Mr. Barbera, bruised and scratched, and asked if they could go to Gareth's house to get lunches for themselves. He had looked at them incredulously and then actually barked a laugh. "Of course you can't leave school grounds. Go buy a lunch." And with that he had dismissed them. Despite their matching bruises. Despite the stunned and hurt look on Gareth's seven year old face.
Staring down at the body now, Gareth lets a snarl come to his features and he pulls his foot back, swinging wide, and lands a kick against Mr. Barbera's hip. "Fuck you you monster." His granddad was right. Supernaturals were evil. Inherently bad. That was all there was to it.
Gareth's fingers stilled now, though they remained on the fretboard as he thought about how long he's known Dusty. A god damned lifetime. He realized, with a sort of bittersweet beauty, that he was glad he didn't pull the trigger when the other man was changed. He inhaled deeply-- and began to cough. The coughing turned into a hacking, horrible wreckage for breath. It took him nearly a minute and a half to get the spasm under control, and when he did there was a coppery, slick feel in his mouth. Turning his head to the side, the blonde man spat out a mouthful of blood onto the wooden steps of the porch. It was dark red, almost brown, and that was concerning. There had been blood in his piss too, that morning. Damn it. If he didn't do something, he and Dusty were going to grow apart before he died. Already there was some space between them, and too many things about Gareth that Dusty didn't know... his choice in men, for example... or, more pressing still, the onslaught of cancer. "Shit. I can't tell him either'a those things." The blonde man muttered softly, looking out into the dreary Ann Arbor sky. His mind drifted, wondering if D would be able to go on without him. Probably, the scruffy man was a tough son of a bitch, but at the same time... he hadn't wanted to live after he'd been bitten, and Gareth knew him well. Sometimes he could see the dark and lingering depression in the sandy-haired man's eyes, that regret and hopelessness that Gareth himself often felt, but tried to hide. He thought again of the warm feathers he'd slept on, how he'd awaken to Dusty's other wing covering him, like a blanket, and how his chest had positively burned with affection for his friend. He had known for years that he couldn't go on without Dusty, but... These were too drab thoughts, they suited the grey sky too well, and he had no reason to be so down. Afterall, he had a new guitar, and he and Dusty were going to go and help their new friend out before the new moon. That was something, wasn't it? From inside the trailer came a cursing followed by banging around that signified only one thing, Dusty was awake. Suddenly the blonde was desperate to show the older man his new guitar. Rising to his feet, Gareth opened the trailer door and slipped inside, pushing away his macabre (and justified) concerns. Cancer be damned. He had music.