Somewhere In Between

Graham Greene once said “a story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead”. In Glacier Bay, there are thirty thousand such stories. Here is but one of those stories. 

Tyler’s Dilemma: Questioning Everything 

A Glacier Bay Story

By: Jason Rimbaud

The parking lot was dark with only the faint light from the stars twinkling off the surface of the water. The water broke against the shore in gentle waves and there wasn’t a breath of air stirring the treetops. One could draw comparisons of an eerie fall night one would see in a horror movie. 

A lone car parked in a deserted lot next to a scenic location. A moonless night with just the faint glow of the city lights in the distance. Two people fogging up the windows in a red Jeep oblivious to their surroundings. There would be soft music playing on the radio. A perfect invitation for a mad killer to attack them. 

But that would only be in the movies. Glacier Bay had no mad killers. The rather small town of thirty thousand hadn’t had a murder in over ten years that wasn’t related to some kind of domestic disturbance. Any mad killer that found their way to this sleepy town would have been overcome by the vista and settle down to live a normal adjusted life in a seaside town. 

Though Glacier Bay could suck the life right out of you by the sheer normalcy of everyday living. It was a town of mostly laid back conservative christians that worried more about getting to church each Sunday and making sure their kids got a great education than anything else. On the surface, Glacier Bay was a utopia for anyone weary of big city life and all the problems that stem from millions of people living together. 

Yet it was quickly becoming quite cosmopolitan as more families moved to Glacier Bay to escape the claustrophobia of the big city. They preferred to commute the two hour drive to the office each day before retreating back to the safety of the mountains. 

Each morning lines of cars disappeared over the horizon leaving a town filled with kids, bored housewives, and retirees that could afford to live in the exclusive coastal properties. The wives gathered in restaurants after going to the gym with their thousand dollar strollers, yoga pants, and bottomless Mimosas. The kids all dressed the same as they tried to mimic big city fashion and spent their time doing Tik Tok challenges and drinking white claws on the weekend. If you were to ask any of them, they would claim to be bored most of the time. 

And that was exactly how Tyler Randolph Scott felt. Trapped by the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other side. In his seventeen years, thirteen of them had been spent in Glacier Bay. He felt cut off from the real world and all the stimuli that would save him from the brain numbing routine of small town life. 

That was the driving force that led him to this mostly empty parking lot on a Friday night. It was three days before the start of his senior year and he was sitting in his brand new Jeep Compass with his best friend, Devin Jenkins, staring hesitantly at the door to the rest stop bathroom some twenty yards away. 

“This is so fucked,” Tyler blurted after a few moments of staring at the closed door. He looked over at Devin and declared, “I’m not gonna do it.”

“You’re the one who lost the bet,” Devin said with a wicked grin. “Now it’s time to pay up.”

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do,” Tyler complained with a frown on his face.

“You go inside, pick an empty stall. Then you wait until someone comes in the next stall. It’s easy.”

“Oh really?” Tyler asked incredulously. “That’s your plan. Just wait in the stall until someone comes in. Then I just shove my dick in the hole.”

Devin nodded as he said, “Pretty much.”

“And what if the man that comes in shoves his dick through the hole instead?”

“I’m not going to tell you how to live your life,” Devin said as he shrugged. 

Tyler sat in silence for a moment. Why did he let Devin force him into these stupid bets? He blurted out, “This isn’t right.”

“Coming from the guy that made me shove a marker up my ass and parade around MIndy’s house on the Fourth of July.”

“That was just good ole clean fun,” Tyler said with a wave of his hand. “But you’re making me do something gay.”

“Shoving a marker up your ass is pretty gay,” Devin countered. “Plus, I had to do it in front of a house full of my friends. You should thank your ass I’m not making you do that in front of them.”

“Fine,” Tyler said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “But I think after this, we should lay off the bets for a while.”

“Agreed,” Devin said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. 

“Where do you think you’re going ?” Tyler demanded as he turned to look at the boy intently. 

“Inside with you,” Devin said casually. Like it was an everyday occurrence to watch his buddy get a blowjob in a bathroom rest stop.

“Bullshit,” Tyler said quickly, a look of panic on his face. “No way you’re going inside with me.”

“I need proof,” Devin said flatly. “No way I’m going to let you get out of this by only pretending you cleared your bet.”

“I’m not letting you watch me get a blowjob from some dude in a public restroom,” Tyler argued as he shook his head violently. “It’s not gonna happen.”

“What do you suggest then?” Devin asked as he crossed his arms stubbornly. There was no way he was going to let Tyler weasel out. Not after he had to have that marker in his ass. 

“I’ll take a video,” Tyler offered quickly. 

Devin thought about it for a moment and then nodded slowly. He said, “But once in the stall, I want a video of your face and without pausing, I want to see you shove your dick in the hole.”

“Fine,” Tyler said as he opened the door and took a deep breath before he walked across the parking and into the bathroom.